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In a similar boat is, imo, Reimu. I know Touhou is big in Japan, with a strong online presence, but I just can't see Nintendo opting for a series that in the west is one, officially, very rarely actually gets localized and two, is quite obscure the moment you get off the internet.
Tbh I'm hopeful that a few official games (Antinomy of Common Flowers and Sunken Fossil World), plus ZUN's comments on wanting a Touhou character in Smash (though he'd like to feel like he's earned it), knowing Toby who knows Sakurai, and some of the cast being in things like Taiko no Tatsujin (a Namco game) alongside like Inklings and Kirby would help Reimu's chances a little.
All that said, she is still firmly in my long shot pipe dream category lol
Shantae can't even be considered an indie character at this point, because WayForward is well past the point of being an indie studio. They have multiple dev teams and over 100 employees at this point.
Shantae can't even be considered an indie character at this point, because WayForward is well past the point of being an indie studio. They have multiple dev teams and over 100 employees at this point.
Tbh I'm hopeful that a few official games (Antinomy of Common Flowers and Sunken Fossil World), plus ZUN's comments on wanting a Touhou character in Smash (though he'd like to feel like he's earned it), knowing Toby who knows Sakurai, and some of the cast being in things like Taiko no Tatsujin (a Namco game) alongside like Inklings and Kirby would help Reimu's chances a little.
All that said, she is still firmly in my long shot pipe dream category lol
Toby Fox somehow convincing Nintendo to go for Touhou content simultaneously sounds like a pipe dream and exactly like something Toby would do. If that happened I'd go "Ayo what the hell" and then immediately after decide "Yeah, checks out." Toby's just kinda built up his reputation a weirdo dev who can say or do something completely insanse and everyone would roll with it because that's just the kinda guy he is
Touhou talk reminds me, a while ago I was randomly looking at some Japanese Smash content, one of which was a short talking about why certain characters didn't get into Ultimate which had a decent amount of views (use the captions auto translate feature if you're curious what's being said) and a few articles from bigger sites talking about who could get in, Japanese equivalent of GameRant basically. Reimu I saw brought up a fair amount, and consistently the biggest point against her I saw people bring up was that she'd need to have a voice actress. If you're unaware, it's kind of a rule in Touhou that Reimu has no official VA to allow more freedom to fan works to depict her how they want. ZUN has approved stuff like LostWord which gives her an actress, but that's not an "official" part of the Touhou series. It's something I see occasionally brought up in the English fandom, but I saw way more complaints about it on the Japanese side, and I do think it'd be an issue if she got in, it'd be really weird if she didn't have any kind of actress but you can't just pick one.
In general looking at the comments on the video and scouring around I got the impression Touhou was a contentious series a lot of people didn't like or were annoyed by, basically the equivalent of like your classic annoying fandoms in the West, I saw a lot of comments about how the series is reliant on fan works and is too niche and its fans don't deserve it and things like that, which makes sense from what I see in the Western Touhou fandom.
Obviously this doesn't really mean much, it's the equivalent of judging the Western fandom based on one video with 400K views and random internet articles lol, but I thought it was interesting enough given people always talk about how the series is bigger in Japan. In general I think people treat Japanese fans way too differently sometimes, it's kinda weird. I'm reminded of looking at comments on Hero's reveal in Japanese and the live chat and seeing how many were "ugh another swordfighter" lol. I get the impression it's generally the same as the Western fandom, and that should really be expected, it only makes sense.
Shantae can't even be considered an indie character at this point, because WayForward is well past the point of being an indie studio. They have multiple dev teams and over 100 employees at this point.
This is a take I can agree with, and it's something I myself have thought on previous occasions. It feels kinda weird that Shantae is lumped in the indie category considering WayForward's portfolio and growth since the GBA days. I don't really see how she can be considered indie anymore, doesn't feel right to group WayForward with the likes of indie indies like Team Cherry who consists of three people.
I suppose we're at the point where we have to create better, more precise terminology for different types of indies.
Touhou talk reminds me, a while ago I was randomly looking at some Japanese Smash content, one of which was a short talking about why certain characters didn't get into Ultimate which had a decent amount of views (use the captions auto translate feature if you're curious what's being said) and a few articles from bigger sites talking about who could get in, Japanese equivalent of GameRant basically. Reimu I saw brought up a fair amount, and consistently the biggest point against her I saw people bring up was that she'd need to have a voice actress. If you're unaware, it's kind of a rule in Touhou that Reimu has no official VA to allow more freedom to fan works to depict her how they want. ZUN has approved stuff like LostWord which gives her an actress, but that's not an "official" part of the Touhou series. It's something I see occasionally brought up in the English fandom, but I saw way more complaints about it on the Japanese side, and I do think it'd be an issue if she got in, it'd be really weird if she didn't have any kind of actress but you can't just pick one.
In general looking at the comments on the video and scouring around I got the impression Touhou was a contentious series a lot of people didn't like or were annoyed by, basically the equivalent of like your classic annoying fandoms in the West, I saw a lot of comments about how the series is reliant on fan works and is too niche and its fans don't deserve it and things like that, which makes sense from what I see in the Western Touhou fandom.
Obviously this doesn't really mean much, it's the equivalent of judging the Western fandom based on one video with 400K views and random internet articles lol, but I thought it was interesting enough given people always talk about how the series is bigger in Japan. In general I think people treat Japanese fans way too differently sometimes, it's kinda weird. I'm reminded of looking at comments on Hero's reveal in Japanese and the live chat and seeing how many were "ugh another swordfighter" lol. I get the impression it's generally the same as the Western fandom, and that should really be expected, it only makes sense.
Eh, we ended up with Mega Man being a stoic, emotionless robot despite the fact that he does talk a fair bit in canon. Reimu being voiceless isn't much of a roadblock.
Though, the mention of fanworks just serves to highlight how weird Touhou is compared to any other series, speculation-wise. It's an indie, but it's also older than Smash itself. It's huge in Japan, but most of it is carried by fanworks like remixes or fan manga. It rarely gets official translations, but it's because fans just translate it themselves so ZUN doesn't bother. Hard to find another situation like it
Reimu I saw brought up a fair amount, and consistently the biggest point against her I saw people bring up was that she'd need to have a voice actress. If you're unaware, it's kind of a rule in Touhou that Reimu has no official VA to allow more freedom to fan works to depict her how they want. ZUN has approved stuff like LostWord which gives her an actress, but that's not an "official" part of the Touhou series. It's something I see occasionally brought up in the English fandom, but I saw way more complaints about it on the Japanese side, and I do think it'd be an issue if she got in, it'd be really weird if she didn't have any kind of actress but you can't just pick one.
Clearly we should just pull a page from Lost Word and give her multiple customizable voice options.
But yeah, that probably would be the biggest hurdle for her in ZUN's eyes, since Touhou definitely lives and breathes its doujin game series nature. Like I can't really think of another series that's like "hey as long as you credit me for the original characters and setting, you can make fangames and even sell them on console marketplaces, go nuts" lol
Gonna be real with you, "what if Toby asks for Touhou?" has big "what if Monolith asks for KOS-MOS?" energy.
What if Toby Fox asks for them to put Touhou in Smash? They'd probably tell him to sit down because they're busy talking with executives from Capcom, Square Enix, Microsoft and Disney while high ranking people from Ubisoft and Bethesda are put on hold...
Also imagine they put your character in Smash and then you ask Sakurai for another one you like.
This is a take I can agree with, and it's something I myself have thought on previous occasions. It feels kinda weird that Shantae is lumped in the indie category considering WayForward's portfolio and growth since the GBA days. I don't really see how she can be considered indie anymore, doesn't feel right to group WayForward with the likes of indie indies like Team Cherry who consists of three people.
I suppose we're at the point where we have to create better, more precise terminology for different types of indies.
For most of its history Wayforward just made, to be kind of blunt, shovelware for random publishers and used the money from that to make an original title once in a while. From what I can tell by 2016 they had 50 employees, which is a lot but not like loads. In the late 2010s their games started being more successful and they started taking some much more high profile jobs, and I think they expanded a lot since then and steadily hired more and more people. It feels kind of inappropriate to say Shantae is indie cause of that, but it's understandably difficult for people to the shake the perception and it's not like entirely underdeserved.
Though of course it pales in comparison to my favourite niche indie game, Dave the Diver.
Eh, we ended up with Mega Man being a stoic, emotionless robot despite the fact that he does talk a fair bit in canon. Reimu being voiceless isn't much of a roadblock.
Gonna be real with you, "what if Toby asks for Touhou?" has big "what if Monolith asks for KOS-MOS?" energy.
What if Toby Fox asks for them to put Touhou in Smash? They'd probably tell him to sit down because they're busy talking with executives from Capcom, Square Enix, Microsoft and Disney while high ranking people from Ubisoft and Bethesda are put on hold...
Also imagine they put your character in Smash and then you ask Sakurai for another one you like.
Yeah, if such a scenario happens I'll just laugh and go "Yeah, that makes sense," but I wouldn't seriously bank on it beyond joking around. Of course, there's still a bit of a human aspect in the negotiations beyond the corporate decision-making - Sora only happened because Sakurai bumped into a Disney exec at the right time, and if I remember correctly Nintendo prefers to have meetings face-to-face, so it's easier to meet with companies in the same general area. Toby getting ZUN and Sakurai in contact with each other doesn't sound like too much a jump from that.
But still, it's a very specific scenario that's at best a pipe dream, and just Sakurai and ZUN hitting it off won't guarantee Reimu as a fighter. Just because it could happen doesn't mean that's what will happen. If we get major Touhou content in Smash, it's most likely because Nintendo and/or Sakurai specifically select it than anything else
I do think Undertale has the best chance and I do love Undertale, but I personally struggle with speculating about a character from it because of how many different ways it could and could not be represented.
Zagreus or Melinoe would both be great picks that I think would fit right in, Same goes for Shantae
I honestly feel the weirdness around Reimu makes her more interesting and she would be another character I personally would love to see.
This is a take I can agree with, and it's something I myself have thought on previous occasions. It feels kinda weird that Shantae is lumped in the indie category considering WayForward's portfolio and growth since the GBA days. I don't really see how she can be considered indie anymore, doesn't feel right to group WayForward with the likes of indie indies like Team Cherry who consists of three people.
I suppose we're at the point where we have to create better, more precise terminology for different types of indies.
I would say Stardew Valley is up there honestly, the game has sold over 30 million copies. It's sold almost as many copies as Ultimate itself, and is big enough to get ackowledged by Harvest Moon's original main designer. It's just not the type of game that gets the same kind of discussion/engagement by nature. Even checking literally right now out of curiosity, it's currently the most played indie game on Steam as we speak lol
I wouldn't really expect it to get represented but it's definitely up there as one of the absolute biggest indie games. I think you could definitely argue it's surpassed Harvest Moon.
But yeah, that probably would be the biggest hurdle for her in ZUN's eyes, since Touhou definitely lives and breathes its doujin game series nature. Like I can't really think of another series that's like "hey as long as you credit me for the original characters and setting, you can make fangames and even sell them on console marketplaces, go nuts" lol
As far as I know, Five Nights at Freddy's comes the closest, as Scott Cawthon lets people make a whole bunch of fan games, just not for profit, and you also can't just make "x game, but better, and for free", though exceptions are made for FNaF Ultimate Custom Night since that game is free too.
There was also the Fazbear Fanverse Initiative, which was essentially a program that allowed you to sell FNaF fangames and merch based off them, but it went about as poorly as it could have.
Jonochrome released the One Night at Flumpty's collection along with One Night at Flumpty's 3, which fans absolutely loved.
He was then outed for...I forget what exactly, but it was bad. Like, Smash allegation tier bad. Last I heard he left the scene and went to go get therapy.
Phisnom publicly hated on Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach, and the general direction that the FNaF series is taking (kid friendly comedy over an actual horror experience), which caused enough of an uproar in the fandom for him to just say "screw this, I'm out" and cancel Five Nights at Freddy's +.
A game called Aftonbuilt was pitched for the Fazbear Fanverse, but due to extremely terrible communication and decision making, the devs ended up making a whole demo build of the game before finding out they weren't greenlit, and had to cancel the project.
Popgoes Evergreen and The Joy of Creation: Ignited Collection still haven't released, though they do at least seem to be slowly, but surely getting more finished, and look really good.
Well, this is interesting. Now we have a candidate on the person who may have pushed for Byleth in Smash Ultimate, as well as someone who may push for Alear in Smash 6.
Well, this is interesting. Now we have a candidate on the person who may have pushed for Byleth in Smash Ultimate, as well as someone who may push for Alear in Smash 6.
I mean the ones that'll push for that are Intelligent Systems themselves most likely since I assume (but I'm not certain) that they get some sort of input on that as a second-party developer lol
-Toby Fox originally composed Megalovania as the final boss theme for a fan made hack/mod of Earthbound
-Megalovnia was reused by Toby Fox as a character theme for Homestuck and updated with a background guitar riff to give it extra flavor
-Toby Fox reused Megalovania again and remixed it completely as one of the final boss themes of his own first video game, specifically for it's arguably now most famous character in a Bad Route
-Megalovania is remixed again in an official Nintendo crossover game as part of a small Undertale DLC pack, specifically one that has Earthbound characters in it and is one of the company's flagship franchises as well as one of the biggest and most famous fighting games of all time
-Megalovnia is played by a circus troupe for the Pope
I don't think any other video game song has had so much history and impact in such a short period of time.
He could play:
Arbiter [Halo]
Anderson [Mass Effect]
Chaos [Dissidia]
Decker [Fallout]
Vhailor [Planescape: Torment]
Keith mother****ing David [Saint's Row]
Truly the next Phil Spencer. He's gonna go on the Kinda Funny Games podcast wearing a Golden Sun t-shirt and everybody will go "omg he's a gamer just like me fr!"
A lot of people seem to use a prettier roster maker tho it does take time however setting that one up!
Because of that im currently working on a Folder (With smaller folders) Containg A LOT of Smash fit Pngs from diffrent sources! Im Asking you right now:
Do you want it accesible for your use? You can also later suggest a couple of extras thrown in! Right now only zelda and mario have extra pngs!
Might miss the Sega/Capcom talk with how long this post turned out to be, but anyway.
It's not hard to find a good balance between JP picks and Western picks, although two things to consider is that for one, the Versus Capcom series does have a more bigger audience in the West, being the biggest reason why Tatsunoko vs Capcom came over to the West in the first place was because of the high interest and demand from Western audiences.
The second thing is that when Capcom makes a Versus game for a specific audience, they do take into question the more popular characters to the audience they are marketing to. When they were doing Tatsunoko vs Capcom originally, they were choosing characters more familiar to Japanese audiences, but when they brought TvC to the West and were making Marvel vs Capcom 3, they chose characters more familiar to Western audiences. It's the reason why Date Masamune from Sengoku Basara and Fou-Lu from Breath of Fire 4, despite being very popular with the creators, were ultimately not chosen for Marvel vs Capcom 3 due to their lack of appeal in the West.
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That said, characters having more appeal and more people familiar with them should not be a full reason to exclude lesser known characters as choices. There should be a bit of a higher priority towards more popular characters, but seeing the reactions to crossover rosters through out, I think there's a bigger audience of people who are quite open and ready to be surprised by characters they don't know about than there are people who are hyperfocused on their favorites only. Do those people who are open to more unknown characters still prioritise their favorites? Yes, but they aren't against characters who still look really cool and have very cool looking movesets.
And besides the characters themselves and their movesets, there's also their interactions with the other characters from the other side. Which is one of the biggest appeals of the crossover game is how characters from one franchise interacts with another character from another franchise. And boy, do Sega and Capcom have a ton of them that would fit very well.
The biggest ones would be Megaman & Sonic the Hedgehog, Street Fighter & Virtua Fighter and Devil May Cry & Bayonetta. Those ones I see being the ones fans most want to see.
The next ones would be Resident Evil & House of the Dead and Final Fight & Streets of Rage. The former two being two of the notable kickstarters to the horror genre during the later 1990s and the latter two being the kickstarters to the Beat-em-up craze throughout the 1990s.
There's Phantasy Star Online and Monster Hunter, the latter being inspired by the former. But you also have Plasma Blade/Star Gladiator that would fit well alongside Phantasy Star's setting.
Golden Axe is one of the Beat-em-up/hack-and-slash kickstarters alongside Final Fight, but you have a ton of Capcom fantasy beat-em-ups/action platformer games that can fit side by side with Golden Axe, between Ghosts'n Goblins, Black Tiger, Magic Sword, Trojan, King of Dragons, etc.
There's Shinobi and Strider, which focus around a character going gung-ho against an entire world threatening organization. I think Joe Musashi would fit best with Strider since both of their final enemy consists of a "Master", with Strider Hiryu's being the Grandmaster Meio while Joe Musashi in Shinobi 3 fights against the Shadow Master.
There's Sakura Wars and Cyberbots, both Mecha-based games from Sega and Capcom respectively. Capcom's Armoured Warriors and Lost Planet also has Mechas as well.
Yakuza can pretty much fit with any modern time game like Ace Attorney(heck, Phoenix Wright apparently defended Majima at one point according to Project X Zone 2) or Dead Rising.
Although if you want a surprise kicker, one of Yakuza's spin-offs, Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan!, focuses around Miyamoto Musashi, who has two Capcom versions in both Onimusha and Sengoku Basara. Tokegawa Ieyesu also appears in Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan and Sengoku Basara and Soki from Onimusha Dawn of Dreams is supposedly his biological son(stuff says Ieyesu is Soki's biological father, but also says Hideyoshi is Soki's illegitimate father, sometimes adoptive father). The character Tenkai also appears in all three, although Tenkai in Onimusha and Sengoku Basara is a disguise for another character, for Samanosuke in Onimusha and Mitsuhide Akechi in Sengoku Basara.
Gunstar Heroes and Power Stone. What's a shoot-em-up and an arena fighter have in common? Power Stone has the fighters searching for the Power Stones that can grant wishes while Gunstar Heroes has the heroes searching for the Treasure Gems/Mystical Gems that are the source of an evil android's power, who is part of a legend that states, "Revive the God that sleeps on the moon, and he will guide the most righteous people to Utopia."
Regina from Dino Crisis can easily work as another agent working along Leon, as she does in Teppen, or another Agent from a Sega or Capcom game. But why simply do that when you can also have her to go up against elemental dinosaurs from Dinosaur King?
Alex Kidd and SonSon. Pretty simple.
Comix Zone and Viewtiful Joe, both having main characters fighting against bad guys in a form of entertainment(Comic Book for Comix Zone and Video for Viewtiful Joe) with in-game 4th wall breaks(The main villain of Comix Zone outright drawing bad guys and hazards to hurt the main character and for Viewtiful Joe, the characters sometimes talk to people outside of the movie and whatnot).
And even with games that don't really have any connection to each other, you have characters who could interact with other characters interestingly. NiGHTs and Morrigan. Both are a race that has an involvement with dreams, with NiGHTs being a exiled Nightmaren who lives in the dream world and Morrigan being a succubus sometimes portrayed with powers involving dreams. Vyse from Skies of Arcadia and Ruby Heart from MvC2. Both pirates with flying ships that both could be competing with the other. Capcom also has Zack & Wiki and Pirate Ship Higemaru for pirate characters, with Zack and Momotaru. There's Space Harrier and the Unknown Soldiers of Forgotten Worlds, as well as Michelle Heart and Kevin Walker from Legendary Wings.
And obviously, even if there's no connection at all, nothing wrong with bringing in other series like the Shining series, Breath of Fire, Bionic Commando, Super Monkey Ball, Quiz Nanairo Dreams, Panzer Dragoon, Red Earth, Dragon's Dogma, Mushiking, Altered Beast, Okami, Samba de Amigo, Capcom Adventure Quiz, Valkyria Chronicles, etc.
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In terms of Atlus IPs, Shin Megami Tensei and it's spin-offs can practically fit with any IP involving demons, like Devil May Cry(which it has crossovered with before), Bayonetta, Gargoyle's Quest, Darkstalkers, etc. Persona somewhat too, but it's less apocalyptic and more modern nature helps it fit more with other modern-based games like Yakuza, Rival Schools/Project Justice and Ace Attorney(Persona 5 would be a different game if Ren/Joker had Phoenix Wright at the beginning of P5).
Etrian Odyssey would be interesting to see and would be cool to see next to Dragon's Dogma for both having class-based systems.
Basically, if Sega and Capcom can make the characters great, their movesets fun and their interactions cool, more people overall would be pretty open to seeing characters they don't really know about. And the general appeal of those characters wouldn't stop them from being seen as cool picks compared to more "Western-appeal picks" or "Japanese-appeal picks". For the most part, they should try to at least get the obvious ones in, but still try to have a few surprise or fun picks in.
I've been thinking for some time about how to respond to the beginning of this post or dream1ng's post, and I think it'd be good for me to amend some of the stuff I said.
I think the gist of it is like.....if you asked someone to make a SEGA roster that balances both regions' appeal, it could totally be done. Provided they know their stuff, they could probably strike a good balance. Theoretically it's possible. But I think to me the big thing is.....it still feels weird for me to imagine how that approach would actually be taken were a game like this to officially happen, because we've no real precedent for how that would happen. As I've mentioned, we have so far never seen an official SEGA-adjacent thing that tries to reconcile both perspectives - the usual tradition has been stuff fully geared towards one crowd or another. The closest we've come is maybe PxZ2, but as I've mentioned, there wasn't much space for us to really see the full extent of that potential. So it still feels like this weird thing to think about, it still feels like a big question mark to see how it would actually be done. It's not a matter of "can it be done", because it can, it's moreso that we have no clue how an actual official dev team would handle this. That might seem like I'm splitting hairs but I do think that distinction can be important to make - a fan approach and an official approach can be very different - and I'm not even trying to gatekeep anyone's attempts by claiming they're "not accurate to how it would be done", these are moreso just.....musings. Stray thoughts I have sometimes. I'm moreso just.....curious to see how actual devs would handle this, considering how little precedent we really have - like, which characters do they prioritize? which characters would they consider on either side? Who would be "too Japanese" or "too western" to be considered? What concessions would have to be made? Again, I'm not trying to invalidate anyone who tries, I moreso just.....wonder. It's curiosity more than anything else.
It's funny you mention the Capcom vs. games' attempts in this regard, cause that was exactly what I was thinking about with the whole hypothetical of "JP devs trying to make a roster with international appeal". Like, that to me is the other big "reference point" I've been thinking about throughout this conversation in terms of that approach being taken and how it would be applied to SEGA. The things with them explicitly choosing/cutting characters based on worldwide appeal have been the go-to example in my head that have made me wonder how this would actually be done as opposed to my weeb-ass rosters. So good on you, because I've been thinking about that too.
On the last point, you mention how a character being fun and interesting could be able to overpower any regional blindspots, but I actually think that's precisely why the balanced approach can be so interesting. We think about it in terms of having characters that appeal to each region, but we can flip that to mean we also have characters less familiar to each region and that can serve as cool learning experiences. Like, think about it from the perspective of your average Western fan - you pick up the game, you recognize the likes of Sonic and Yakuza, and if you're older you'll probably know Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Jet Set Radio, etc......but who's Sakura? Oh, she looks kind of cool actually. What's this giant beetle thing popping out as one of my assists? I wanna know what that's from. This probably applies less to Japanese fans because I can't imagine they'd add anyone who leans too western, but that's the cool thing about this approach, and about crossovers in general, getting pulled in with the faces you know and then seeing all this other stuff you haven't heard of before.
This is gonna sound deranged, but I think a SEGA thing that could actually serve as a pretty good basis for a thing like this is actually.....the SEGA logo that plays before the Sonic movies. Like, the variety of the stuff shown and some of the deep cuts they make are actually kind of admirable, with a good mix of known faces and more obscure stuff. Like, it has a bunch of the well-known-in-the-West staples that fans can latch onto, but it also has plenty of room for the cool weird distinctly Japanese cuts that really add some flavor. Yes, you have Sonic, Monkey Ball, Jet Set Radio, NiGHTS, Streets of Rage.....but then also Sakura Wars, Dynamite Cop, Roommania, 7th Dragon, Guardian Heroes and the like. It feels like a really nice and well-rounded mix of stuff, and I think that might be the ideal approach for a game like this.
Thinking it over, I kind of want to try my hand at a "regionally-balanced" roster now. Seems like it'd be a fun exercise
So I was playing Robin just now, and I thought of a way to make the durability mechanic a bit more meaningful:
Once broken, Levin Sword becomes a more abusable throwing item that lasts for longer if Robin holds onto it. However, it doesn't start recharging until it disappears.
Thunder and Elthunder no longer drain resources. Arcthunder travels slowly, and lingers, starting combos on hit, while Thoron is...well it's Thoron. Once the Thunder tome breaks, you lose access to the entire special move.
The rest of Robin's existing special moves no longer drain resources, and are given a smash attack variant that does.
Smash side special is Meteor, a fire projectile that goes diagonally up, then down. The trajectory allows it to be used as an anti-air, and covers platforms quite well. It doesn't hit opponents below platforms however.
Smash up special is Arcwind, an explosion of wind magic similar to Hero's Woosh. It's a useful escape option, and it has some wind boxes attatched that allow Robin to mess with certain recoveries. EDIT: It does not go nearly as high as Elwind though.
Smash down special is Mire, which is basically just Nosferatu, but farther away. If you get opponents scared of Robin's projectiles, you might be able to catch them off guard with this.
The idea here is that each special move has a variant that is more niche in use, but is very useful within that niche, with using them will cause you to lose that special move as a trade-off. I don't know how balanced these moves specifically would be, but I think it's a very neat, if rough, concept.
Can you imagine trying to recover as fast as possible to avoid an edgeguard but you actually hit it too fast and now you just lost your stock to Smash attack misinput that doesn’t boost you as high?
I would say Stardew Valley is up there honestly, the game has sold over 30 million copies. It's sold almost as many copies as Ultimate itself, and is big enough to get ackowledged by Harvest Moon's original main designer. It's just not the type of game that gets the same kind of discussion/engagement by nature. Even checking literally right now out of curiosity, it's currently the most played indie game on Steam as we speak lol
I wouldn't really expect it to get represented but it's definitely up there as one of the absolute biggest indie games. I think you could definitely argue it's surpassed Harvest Moon.
Honestly, as much as I’d love Stardew Valley in Smash, and as much as I think it deserves to get into Smash personally, idk if it’ll get in because I’m not sure if Sakurai would think Stardew is suited for Smash. It’s a farming simulator with some combat here and there, and unlike Minecraft, Stardew could be ignored given its bit to the level of Minecraft Given the type of game Stardew is, I’m thinking Sakurai would skip it like he has done before with Famicom Detective Club, deeming a Smash appearance as something that fans of the IP wouldn’t want. Here’s hoping it gets into Fraymakers though.
Can you imagine trying to recover as fast as possible to avoid an edgeguard but you actually hit it too fast and now you just lost your stock to Smash attack misinput that doesn’t boost you as high?
It definitely wouldn't be for everyone, though neither is the original gimmick. Personally, I find the way Levin Sword works is already kind of unwieldy if you were actually trying to preserve uses, and Levin neutral air made it worse. I don't think smash specials would be all that bad in comparison.
Good point about Elwind vs. Arcwind though, up specials with special inputs have all gone farther than the not special one likely for this reason. You could flip it and make Elwind the smash special while Arcwind (now probably just called "Wind") takes up the resourceless spot, but I don't like this nearly as much since it removes the decision making behind amplifying the move; You're always going to use your recovery when you have to recover so the dynamic is the same, whereas the pressure breaker being resource limited made it a tempting option even with the potential cost of not being able to recover later. How about instead of the wind boxes, Arcwind doesn't put you into free fall, or remove your ability to use Elwind? This would make it a really powerful recovery option along with being a pressure breaker onstage, again at the cost of being unable to recover at all if overused. You could still die to this mechanic because you accidentally used Arcwind, but it wouldn't be a guarantee.
Honestly, as much as I’d love Stardew Valley in Smash, and as much as I think it deserves to get into Smash personally, idk if it’ll get in because I’m not sure if Sakurai would think Stardew is suited for Smash. It’s a farming simulator with some combat here and there, and unlike Minecraft, Stardew could be ignored given its bit to the level of Minecraft Given the type of game Stardew is, I’m thinking Sakurai would skip it like he has done before with Famicom Detective Club, deeming a Smash appearance as something that fans of the IP wouldn’t want. Here’s hoping it gets into Fraymakers though.
How about instead of the wind boxes, Arcwind doesn't put you into free fall, or remove your ability to use Elwind? This would make it a really powerful recovery option along with being a pressure breaker onstage, again at the cost of being unable to recover at all if overused. You could still die to this mechanic because you accidentally used Arcwind, but it wouldn't be a guarantee.
Not bad, it’s a similar consequence to using Hero’s MP too much.
What really needs to happen is to remove Levin N-Air, or give us an actual means of switching between swords on the fly. Or just give him the Levin Sword outright with a regenerating meter that reverts to Iron if you consume it all too fast.
I've been thinking for some time about how to respond to the beginning of this post or dream1ng's post, and I think it'd be good for me to amend some of the stuff I said.
I think the gist of it is like.....if you asked someone to make a SEGA roster that balances both regions' appeal, it could totally be done. Provided they know their stuff, they could probably strike a good balance. Theoretically it's possible. But I think to me the big thing is.....it still feels weird for me to imagine how that approach would actually be taken were a game like this to officially happen, because we've no real precedent for how that would happen. As I've mentioned, we have so far never seen an official SEGA-adjacent thing that tries to reconcile both perspectives - the usual tradition has been stuff fully geared towards one crowd or another. The closest we've come is maybe PxZ2, but as I've mentioned, there wasn't much space for us to really see the full extent of that potential. So it still feels like this weird thing to think about, it still feels like a big question mark to see how it would actually be done. It's not a matter of "can it be done", because it can, it's moreso that we have no clue how an actual official dev team would handle this. That might seem like I'm splitting hairs but I do think that distinction can be important to make - a fan approach and an official approach can be very different - and I'm not even trying to gatekeep anyone's attempts by claiming they're "not accurate to how it would be done", these are moreso just.....musings. Stray thoughts I have sometimes. I'm moreso just.....curious to see how actual devs would handle this, considering how little precedent we really have - like, which characters do they prioritize? which characters would they consider on either side? Who would be "too Japanese" or "too western" to be considered? What concessions would have to be made? Again, I'm not trying to invalidate anyone who tries, I moreso just.....wonder. It's curiosity more than anything else.
It's funny you mention the Capcom vs. games' attempts in this regard, cause that was exactly what I was thinking about with the whole hypothetical of "JP devs trying to make a roster with international appeal". Like, that to me is the other big "reference point" I've been thinking about throughout this conversation in terms of that approach being taken and how it would be applied to SEGA. The things with them explicitly choosing/cutting characters based on worldwide appeal have been the go-to example in my head that have made me wonder how this would actually be done as opposed to my weeb-ass rosters. So good on you, because I've been thinking about that too.
On the last point, you mention how a character being fun and interesting could be able to overpower any regional blindspots, but I actually think that's precisely why the balanced approach can be so interesting. We think about it in terms of having characters that appeal to each region, but we can flip that to mean we also have characters less familiar to each region and that can serve as cool learning experiences. Like, think about it from the perspective of your average Western fan - you pick up the game, you recognize the likes of Sonic and Yakuza, and if you're older you'll probably know Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Jet Set Radio, etc......but who's Sakura? Oh, she looks kind of cool actually. What's this giant beetle thing popping out as one of my assists? I wanna know what that's from. This probably applies less to Japanese fans because I can't imagine they'd add anyone who leans too western, but that's the cool thing about this approach, and about crossovers in general, getting pulled in with the faces you know and then seeing all this other stuff you haven't heard of before.
This is gonna sound deranged, but I think a SEGA thing that could actually serve as a pretty good basis for a thing like this is actually.....the SEGA logo that plays before the Sonic movies. Like, the variety of the stuff shown and some of the deep cuts they make are actually kind of admirable, with a good mix of known faces and more obscure stuff. Like, it has a bunch of the well-known-in-the-West staples that fans can latch onto, but it also has plenty of room for the cool weird distinctly Japanese cuts that really add some flavor. Yes, you have Sonic, Monkey Ball, Jet Set Radio, NiGHTS, Streets of Rage.....but then also Sakura Wars, Dynamite Cop, Roommania, 7th Dragon, Guardian Heroes and the like. It feels like a really nice and well-rounded mix of stuff, and I think that might be the ideal approach for a game like this.
Thinking it over, I kind of want to try my hand at a "regionally-balanced" roster now. Seems like it'd be a fun exercise
Probably will do better than me. Because man, making a roster is hard work, especially when you have a particular idea for what you want, but the roster picks you do for it don't feel as exciting as you imagined. And it's like, the more you try to make a roster, the more respect you have for the games with the good rosters with how they were able to find a good balance with their rosters. I can't imagine what goes in Sakurai's head when he has to do roster picks if the things that go through my head when trying to make my fan roster is anything to go by.
Not bad, it’s a similar consequence to using Hero’s MP too much.
What really needs to happen is to remove Levin N-Air, or give us an actual means of switching between swords on the fly. Or just give him the Levin Sword outright with a regenerating meter that reverts to Iron if you consume it all too fast.
Yeah, I feel like Robin and Brawl’s Pokemon Trainer fatigue system were two examples of the explicit references to the source material that makes the characters less fun to use. I appreciate what they were going for but I feel like if they want to incorporate mechanics from other games, they should be used to make the character more fun to play.
Drawback mechanics can work but you have to be very careful with them. Plus, it doesn’t even fully make sense for Robin alone to have the weapon break mechanic when that should be true of all Fire Emblem characters. Maybe it’s best to follow the lead of the main series and get rid of the weapon breaking altogether?
