Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[Nabbitfan730]

Bit of tangent but funny that with the controversy going on with DMC Netflix anime and the producer/director behind it. The guy is basically the Anti-Sakurai where most people don't want to touch their favorite franchises.

Honestly, Adi Shankar should a suitable candidate of co-director/ successor for future Smash Bros. games going forward

Imagine his direction take on Subspace Emissary 2. Would be cool to see.

 

[SharkLord]

Bit of tangent but funny that with the controversy going on with DMC Netflix anime and the producer/director behind it. The guy is basically the Anti-Sakurai where you don't want to touch your favorite franchises.

Honestly, Adi Shankar should a suitable candidate of co-director/ successor for future Smash Bros. games going forward

Imagine his direction take on Subspace Emissary 2. Would be cool to see.

Not gonna lie I really don't care for Adi Shankar turning Subspace Emissary into a vulgar, hamfisted Iraq War allegory where most of the cast is essentially in-name only

 

[dream1ng]

There's been leaks on Reddit as well. Ken, Incineroar and Piranha Plant were leaked by an angry playtester. Nobody noticed until all of them were confirmed, lol.

Byleth and Steve were both leaked on Reddit 15 minutes before their reveals, too.

Tbf Ken and Incineroar were already part of real leaks that got a lot of attention, namely the Ken picture leak and Vergeben eventually claiming Incineroar.

And let's be real who was going to believe the Piranha Plant leak prior to the reveal. It's Piranha Plant

 

[Dukefire]

Tbf Ken and Incineroar were already part of real leaks that got a lot of attention, namely the Ken picture leak and Vergeben eventually claiming Incineroar.

And let's be real who was going to believe the Piranha Plant leak prior to the reveal. It's Piranha Plant

Yet, Sakurai did made it a good reveal despite being a simple mario enemy

Hi, Guys! Hi, Steve.

 

[Zerp]

I could see myself enjoying to read about President Wario's horrific invasion of the Subspace Dimension for oil... as a fanfiction and not like, the actual game's story. As much as I think Subspace Emissary's story is awful that kind of direction would 100% be a massive downgrade from it lol. Thankfully though I really doubt modern Nintendo would ever be okay with releasing a story getting their characters so utterly wrong, especially as part of a major system seller of all things. They tend to care heavily for brand integrity, there's no way we'd get something like that unless the future drastically changes things lol.

And let's be real who was going to believe the Piranha Plant leak prior to the reveal. It's Piranha Plant

Yeah and that leak like had literally 0 evidence backing it up. There was no leaked screenshot, no gameplay footage, just some random person on 4chan saying something like "The last three characters are Ken, Incineroar and believe it or not, Piranha Plant" within a sea of people saying the exact same thing about other random characters constantly. You'd have to be insane to trust it lol

 

[DarthEnderX]

Considering we just got Amiibo announced for the Sages of Tears of the Kingdom and for Street Fighter, Nintendo still sees value in continuing Amiibo.

I can see newcomers still getting Amiibos. But I don't see them going back and redoing the old ones.

I think we're more likely to get Rock Howard at this point because SNK is trying to push Garou 2.

A much simpler way to do that would be to give Terry his CotW alt.

Bit of tangent but funny that with the controversy going on with DMC Netflix anime and the producer/director behind it. The guy is basically the Anti-Sakurai where you don't want to touch your favorite franchises.

I think Netflix Castlevania is great. But DMC sounds like a real ****show if you're an actual DMC fan.

 

[PersonAngelo53]

Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai only has a "vague idea" what Danganronpa creator's new tactical RPG is all about as he has such "high expectations" he's been avoiding all information

Are you excited about The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy? Sakurai sure is, just don't ask him what it's about

www.gamesradar.com

Probably overthinking but could this mean anything for smash? Like maybe something from Danganronpa or this new game coming to the next smash? Seems like Sakurai is interested in this game at least.

 

[dream1ng]

Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai only has a "vague idea" what Danganronpa creator's new tactical RPG is all about as he has such "high expectations" he's been avoiding all information

Are you excited about The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy? Sakurai sure is, just don't ask him what it's about

www.gamesradar.com

Probably overthinking but could this mean anything for smash? Like maybe something from Danganronpa or this new game coming to the next smash? Seems like Sakurai is interested in this game at least.

You are overthinking it

 

[Noipoi]

Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai only has a "vague idea" what Danganronpa creator's new tactical RPG is all about as he has such "high expectations" he's been avoiding all information

Are you excited about The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy? Sakurai sure is, just don't ask him what it's about

www.gamesradar.com

Probably overthinking but could this mean anything for smash? Like maybe something from Danganronpa or this new game coming to the next smash? Seems like Sakurai is interested in this game at least.

I can’t believe the first reveal for Smash 6 will be Byakuya Togami

 

[Hadokeyblade]

Bit of tangent but funny that with the controversy going on with DMC Netflix anime and the producer/director behind it. The guy is basically the Anti-Sakurai where you don't want to touch your favorite franchises.

Honestly, Adi Shankar should a suitable candidate of co-director/ successor for future Smash Bros. games going forward

Imagine his direction take on Subspace Emissary 2. Would be cool to see.

I can't tell if your joking or not tbh.

 

[Dukefire]

I will say this, Smash Bros discussions is always continuous. However, until we receive confirmation that another Smash Bros title being made, rumors are more likely being a fake or a false truth.

I'm just not ready for another Smash Bros sequel discussion right now.

 

[Opossum]

I think Netflix Castlevania is great. But DMC sounds like a real ****show if you're an actual DMC fan.

One thing that's notable is that he didn't actually write the Netflix Castlevania saga. He was the showrunner and executive producer, but notably not credited as a writer. He was all three for Devil May Cry, and while I haven't seen the DMC show myself, apparently that difference is...incredibly apparent, based on what I've read.

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

One thing that's notable is that he didn't actually write the Netflix Castlevania saga. He was the showrunner and executive producer, but notably not credited as a writer. He was all three for Devil May Cry, and while I haven't seen the DMC show myself, apparently that difference is...incredibly apparent, based on what I've read.

I have friends that are huge DMC fans that saw the announcement of a Season 2 getting greenlit and were like "Wow, that piece of **** got a second season? Hopefully this time they get actual writers" so I'd say the difference is palpable lmao

 

[HyperSomari64]

Is Falcom's Crazy Kong eligible for Smash??

Yeah is a bootleg conversion kit of Nichibutsu's Crazy Climber; but for a time, it was officially licensed by Nintendo. So there's a connection.

 

[PersonAngelo53]

You are overthinking it

Lol alright

 

[GoldenYuiitusin]

Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai only has a "vague idea" what Danganronpa creator's new tactical RPG is all about as he has such "high expectations" he's been avoiding all information

Are you excited about The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy? Sakurai sure is, just don't ask him what it's about

www.gamesradar.com

Probably overthinking but could this mean anything for smash? Like maybe something from Danganronpa or this new game coming to the next smash? Seems like Sakurai is interested in this game at least.

Sakurai has been a fan of Kodaka's work judging by this statement seven years ago.

While it does open up the possibility for series Kodaka has been part of to get representation, bear in mind it isn't a free pass given this acknowledgement was around 2018 and that didn't translate into say, Danganronpa getting anything in Ultimate.

Granted, the franchise having absolutely no Nintendo presence could have played a role at the time and now we at least have Decadence on Switch to consider, but still.

 

[Captain Shwampy]

Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai only has a "vague idea" what Danganronpa creator's new tactical RPG is all about as he has such "high expectations" he's been avoiding all information

Are you excited about The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy? Sakurai sure is, just don't ask him what it's about

www.gamesradar.com

Probably overthinking but could this mean anything for smash? Like maybe something from Danganronpa or this new game coming to the next smash? Seems like Sakurai is interested in this game at least.

He said puyo puyo is one of the best multiplayers games too. Means nothing.

 

[Kirbeh]

For those who play Kodaka's games, would any of you recommend Raincode?

It looked interesting enough but Danganronpa is one of the few games I've walked away from actually disliking as opposed to simply deciding it's just not my cup of tea.

 

[Thegameandwatch]

Yet, Sakurai did made it a good reveal despite being a simple mario enemy

Especially for one that wasn’t playable in any of the Mario games at the time outside of the capture mechanic in Odyssey.

My opinion is that a standard Mario enemy would have joined eventually after the main Mario stuff is done but nobody expected Plant.

 

[dezeray112]

Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai only has a "vague idea" what Danganronpa creator's new tactical RPG is all about as he has such "high expectations" he's been avoiding all information

Are you excited about The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy? Sakurai sure is, just don't ask him what it's about

www.gamesradar.com

Probably overthinking but could this mean anything for smash? Like maybe something from Danganronpa or this new game coming to the next smash? Seems like Sakurai is interested in this game at least.

I'd assume it might not mean much.

But I have been paying attention to the one hundred line: last defense academy from Kodaka's Tookyo Games which does look interesting.

As for Danganronpa, the franchise hasn't had a new entry for quite a while ever since Kodaka's departure. However, I could understand its popularity at its time.

If there were any character that I can think of as a potential Smash representation, I'd opt for Monokuma.

 

[Dukefire]

Especially for one that wasn’t playable in any of the Mario games at the time outside of the capture mechanic in Odyssey.

My opinion is that a standard Mario enemy would have joined eventually after the main Mario stuff is done but nobody expected Plant.

No one did. Though, a few or some did had their eye on it. Just not as much compared to other characters during Ultimate's cycle.

Ironically, thank Petey Piranha to make the plant possible since Brawl.

 

[GoldenYuiitusin]

All I know is that this was prophetic.

As was that one Tweet where someone dreamt they won a Smash Wii U tournament with a Piranha Plant.

 

[Dukefire]

All I know is that this was prophetic.

As was that one Tweet where someone dreamt they won a Smash Wii U tournament with a Piranha Plant.

I guess some dreams do come true like a prophecy, but in later time. Just like Anakin was the chosen one to bring balance to the force, but that prophecy wasn't fulfilled until in Part VI A New Hope.

I just wonder which character(s) will be next?

 

[Kirby Dragons]

Would you rather have Vault Boy, Dragonborn, or Doom Slayer playable?

I think I already know the popular answer, but I'll ask.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Would you rather have Vault Boy, Dragonborn, or Doom Slayer playable?

I think I already know the popular answer, but I'll ask.

Vault Boy is probably the only one that I'm not super interested in and I don't really have a preference between the other two.

I guess as a character Doom Slayer is the most interesting by virtue of being the only one that's not an avatar or in-universe mascot so we'll go with him.

 

[DarthEnderX]

Would you rather have Vault Boy, Dragonborn, or Doom Slayer playable?

Doom Slayer > Vault Boy > Dragonborn

 

[KillerCage]

For those who play Kodaka's games, would any of you recommend Raincode?

It looked interesting enough but Danganronpa is one of the few games I've walked away from actually disliking as opposed to simply deciding it's just not my cup of tea.

I have beaten Rain Code last year and I enjoyed enough to put it my top 5 games of 2024. Before I can recommend the game, I must ask what about Danganronpa did you dislike. I do know Shinigami (the mascot of Rain Code) does have Monokuma's energy to a lesser extent, but she should not be enough to dissuade you from the game.

 

[TheLamerGamer]

Would you rather have Vault Boy, Dragonborn, or Doom Slayer playable?

I think I already know the popular answer, but I'll ask.

If we were to have a playable fallout character I would much rather have a generic "Vault Dweller", or whatever than the in-universe mascot. He works as a costume, but not more than that really. (Although now that I've said that I can really easily picture him doing all the slapstick animations from the perk screens...).

 

[Gengar84]

If we were to have a playable fallout character I would much rather have a generic "Vault Dweller", or whatever than the in-universe mascot. He works as a costume, but not more than that really. (Although now that I've said that I can really easily picture him doing all the slapstick animations from the perk screens...).

I don’t think she’s eligible but I’d love Lucy from the Fallout show. She was a really fun character.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

I don’t think she’s eligible but I’d love Lucy from the Fallout show. She was a really fun character.

I mean, she probably is, but realistically she's a terrible choice. It'd be like making Alice our Resident Evil character. Sure the money shotgun would be fun, but choosing to represent the video game series with a character that was never in them is a big yikes.

You could argue that Lucy is better since she's the protagonist as an "actual" character, but that doesn't really fix the issue in my eyes, and even ignoring that there's still a bunch of important characters you could add instead. I'm not super well versed into Fallout so the only one I can name is Dogmeat, who's likely a terrible pick, but I know there are others that would work very well, enough to say that picking a TV show character over them is a bad idea.

 

[Gengar84]

I mean, she probably is, but realistically she's a terrible choice. It'd be like making Alice our Resident Evil character. Sure the money shotgun would be fun, but choosing to represent the video game series with a character that was never in them is a big yikes.

You could argue that Lucy is better since she's the protagonist as an "actual" character, but that doesn't really fix the issue in my eyes, and even ignoring that there's still a bunch of important characters you could add instead. I'm not super well versed into Fallout so the only one I can name is Dogmeat, who's likely a terrible pick, but I know there are others that would work very well, enough to say that picking a TV show character over them is a bad idea.

You’re probably right but my only experience with Fallout is the streaming show so that’s who I went with. Not saying it’s a good idea, just what I’d personally be happy to see.

How about this idea then?: The character is the Vault Dweller avatar but Lucy is one of the alts with her own voice? That could be a cool compromise.

 

[GoldenYuiitusin]

As much as I doubt we'll get anything more than the Vault Boy Mii Costume for Fallout in Smash, the hypothetical fighter would have to be someone in the T-45 armor. Excluding Vault Boy, that power armor is the most iconic thing from the franchise.

 

[Fa7oFuru]

Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai only has a "vague idea" what Danganronpa creator's new tactical RPG is all about as he has such "high expectations" he's been avoiding all information

Are you excited about The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy? Sakurai sure is, just don't ask him what it's about

www.gamesradar.com

Probably overthinking but could this mean anything for smash? Like maybe something from Danganronpa or this new game coming to the next smash? Seems like Sakurai is interested in this game at least.

I wouldn't mind Monokuma or any of the protagonists from the trilogy being added to the next Smash but Sakurai is a fan of a lot of games. Pretty sure he made his liking of Nier;Automata very apparent in a column of his yet 2B wasn't playable in Ultimate let alone a named reference to DrakenNier. Sakurai is a connoisseur of Video Games, it's kind of silly to say his vocal endorsement of games directly mean anything without further substantive evidence

 

[TheLamerGamer]

As much as I doubt we'll get anything more than the Vault Boy Mii Costume for Fallout in Smash, the hypothetical fighter would have to be someone in the T-45 armor. Excluding Vault Boy, that power armor is the most iconic thing from the franchise.

I could definitely see that happening. Especially with power armour becoming available much earlier in 4 than in previous entries. Either way it definitely feels unlikely yeah.

Also, on an entirely unrelated point I recently played the first famicom detective club game and... as much as I would love for it to get music and stuff in smash, I can't really see how Ayumi could work as a fighter? Unless she is very different in the other games, so far she has just done detective work off-screen and that is it. If anything the protagonist would honestly make more sense to me after this.

 

[Fa7oFuru]

generally to add onto my previous post I think it's much too early to confidently speculate on which characters will be added to the next Smash since we know... nothing about it. We can comfortably speculate it's being worked on but we don't even know that for sure let alone when development started. It's all in good fun to let our imagination run since we have no specifics to limit our ideas but we can never say for sure. Only in hindsight would things like Sakurai praising Kodaka or Sakurai liking Persona 5 make sense in the context of Smash.

Still, I'm more interested in how many veterans will be cut and what direction the next Smash takes than anything right now. I don't get the feeling we'll see too many cuts like some may suggest but a good ~20-24 I could see. I do think Sakurai knows the expansive cast is Smash's main draw but there's gotta be some fine line between revamping old characters to make up for cuts and cutting very little with no revamps to old movesets

 

[PeridotGX]

As much as I doubt we'll get anything more than the Vault Boy Mii Costume for Fallout in Smash, the hypothetical fighter would have to be someone in the T-45 armor. Excluding Vault Boy, that power armor is the most iconic thing from the franchise.

For whatever it's worth, Fortnite added the T-60 before anything else.

I don't know enough about Fallout to say much more than this but I thought it was worth pointing out.

 

[Louie G.]

generally to add onto my previous post I think it's much too early to confidently speculate on which characters will be added to the next Smash since we know... nothing about it. We can comfortably speculate it's being worked on but we don't even know that for sure let alone when development started. It's all in good fun to let our imagination run since we have no specifics to limit our ideas but we can never say for sure. Only in hindsight would things like Sakurai praising Kodaka or Sakurai liking Persona 5 make sense in the context of Smash.

I think there are some constants that we can bank on, like the inclusion of Inkling or Isabelle in Smash Ultimate was gonna make sense whether it released in 2018 or 2028. Similarly the continued growth of Splatoon and Animal Crossing makes more characters from these series similarly practical to speculate on now, because that's showing no signs of slowing down and given their relative significance they have some catching up to do. Tom Nook, KK Slider, Squid Sisters etc are characters who will be Nintendo icons for realistically as long as these series continue to move units. Not to mention someone new from Mario, and so forth.

The major variables are gonna be those more time sensitive picks though, your Pokemon / Fire Emblem / Xenoblade etc. It feels shaky to put too much stock in Meowscarada or Alear or whoever when we don't know if their time in the sun will last long enough for whenever this next Smash drops. Alear I'd argue is already well outside that window, but I digress. These are the ones most susceptible to being affected.

Third parties are a bit tough just because a lot of people speak in blanket terms about them when there's a pretty clear distinction between practical "base game" third parties and practical "DLC" third parties. Sometimes it's unclear what people are referring to. Sakurai saying good things about a game is hardly much to work with though, since he's praised dozens and dozens of games in his Famitsu column that can only retroactively be attributed to Smash if the situation arises.

 

[GoldenYuiitusin]

For whatever it's worth, Fortnite added the T-60 before anything else.
View attachment 401512
I don't know enough about Fallout to say much more than this but I thought it was worth pointing out.

I don't Fallout either. I've just read that the T-45 is what apparently is the iconic one and the T-60 is seen as "forgettable" since it just looks nearly identical to the T-45.

 

[Kirbeh]

I have beaten Rain Code last year and I enjoyed enough to put it my top 5 games of 2024. Before I can recommend the game, I must ask what about Danganronpa did you dislike. I do know Shinigami (the mascot of Rain Code) does have Monokuma's energy to a lesser extent, but she should not be enough to dissuade you from the game.

The premise and writing. And the tone too to an extent. I can enjoy things being goofy and over the top but I felt like it often clashed with premise. I also felt like there wasn't enough time to get to know some characters, with only a few being likable imo. And since it's (for the most part) a visual novel, it kind of lives or dies by its characters and writing.

I will say that I haven't tried any other games in the series so maybe those improve the writing or offer new gameplay elements to supplement things but the first left a pretty poor impression.

I will say that I do dislike Monokuma, but a character with a similar personality isn't necessarily a bad thing in my eyes. For Monokuma it's a combination of factors, with better writing I may have enjoyed them more.

 

[Thegameandwatch]

Meowscarada

If Smash 6 is really coming in 2027-9 then it’s already too late in my opinion for Meowscarada or even Gen 9 in general unless it’s late generation pick such as Ogrepon.

It’s probably Gen 10 or even 11 unless they break cycle of picking an early development Pokemon.