Rate Their Chances - Smash Ultimate Edition! Day 672: Five Most Likely First and Third Parties for Smash 6, and Final Goodbyes

[GoodGrief741]

I feel that we will get a season 2, given that this will do well. I would say that another season will happen and be announced in March 2020.

Here is my timeline of reveals.

Reveal 1: March/April 2019
Reveal 2 (2 chars): E3
Reveal 3: EVO 2019
Reveal 4: Q4 2019, season 2 announcement

I think we’ll only get the five and that’s it.

 

[Kirby Dragons]

Despite the leak, I was still kept a widely open mind about characters who weren't Ken or Incineroar. Of course I'm disappointed now, but I got some of the disappointment out before the direct.

I automatically dislike Ken because he's an echo. But at least he's better than .

I have many problems with Incineroar.

• He's the fifth starter we've seen. 809 Pokémon, and Sakurai insists on just using the starters.
• There are many Pokémon more popular than him. There are Pokémon that aren't from Gen 7 who are more popular than him. There are Pokémon from Gen 7 who are more popular than him. Since Gen 7 wasn't a thing in 2015, it would've been much better to pick a tried and true favorite instead of gambling.
• He's not unique. Maybe he's the first character who's supposed to be a wrestler, but there are already lots of characters who mimic wrestling already. Decidueye has many ways to be unique. Why not go with him?

I always disliked Incineroar. I don't like his design or his personality. I would've easily taken no Pokémon over him.

I can't get too salty over Piranha Plant, since he does hold open the door for Bandana Waddle Dee. If they wanted a joke character, there are better choices, but at least it increases Mario's presence on the roster.

 

[Opossum]

Reaction Time

Box prevails, plus 103 stages, so I don't have to eat crow at least.
TIKI! :DD
Incineroar looks awesome. Ken's face doesn't suck. We got our Grass type. All is good in the neighborhood.
Spirits looks fun.
WRYS IS A SPIRIT I'M DYING
CHROM TAUNTS
WORLD OF LIGHT AND VOCAL THEME AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH


10/10

 

[Starbound]

Reaction Time

Box prevails, plus 103 stages, so I don't have to eat crow at least.
TIKI! :DD
Incineroar looks awesome. Ken's face doesn't suck. We got our Grass type. All is good in the neighborhood.
Spirits looks fun.
WRYS IS A SPIRIT I'M DYING
CHROM TAUNTS
WORLD OF LIGHT AND VOCAL THEME AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH


10/10

Stealing all of this for my score

Especially Wrys as a spirit

 

[KeyOh]

That just came off as a mess. It felt like there was a lot of padding to reach that 40 minute benchmark that surprised everyone. Too much time was spent on explaining what Spirits are when they can just be summed up as "Event matches+Stickers+Smash 4's customization options."
The announcements themselves were a complete roller coaster. I don't really have a problem with the last base roster characters aside from the fact that Incineroar's model looks kind of ugly to me.
The changes to online matches seem genuinely bad to me. Being able to set specific rules is nice but when I set certain rules I want to play with them, not whatever a stranger chose. Maybe it was just explained poorly, but I don't see it this matchmaking system working out well. Lobbies are great but that's only one factor of online play.
The Assist Trophy reel was probably the saddest part of the whole thing. Why wait so long to deconfirm popular characters like Isaac, Skull Kid, the Black Knight, and Shadow?
The DLC confirmation and Piranha Plant's reveal was confusing. I don't really feel confident in buying the season pass early if one of the first bits of downloadable content Sakurai shows us is a playable Piranha Plant. I understand that Sakurai loves his quirky choices, but if Piranha Plant wasn't available for free to early buyers I honestly don't think I would pick it up. I hope they clarify if the five characters are all that we'll see. (Also, why would you ever choose a basic Piranha Plant instead of Petey Piranha?)
That final trailer was fantastic though. World of Light doesn't seem incredibly interesting to me but its reveal was perfect.

Spoiler: Big Image

Whoever created the Grinch leak better come out and explain how they made it. Did somebody seriously make a fake leak and then pin it on some old French graphic designer?

 

[GoodGrief741]

Well, as the nominations guy, I guess I have to update the nominations list to reflect who is and isn’t disconfirmed.

Would list the disconfirmations but it’s basically everybody.

Concept: Only 4-6 newcomers for base roster (90 noms), DLC character pass (55 noms), Unique newcomer with low support (40 noms, Piranha Plant) and Box Theory (34 noms) are confirmed.

 

[Icedragonadam]

I think the nominations will need a clean slate for DLC predictions.

Anyways my thoughs:

Pretty disappointing overall.

-Incineroar is meh. Least favorite newcomer by far and with him we have 10 playable Pokemon which is too many IMO.
-Too much time spent on Spirits
-The sourness of the likes of Issac being disconfirmed like that.
- Meh Online again

+ The Story Mode is the main saving grace.
+ Confirmation of DLC

 

[YoshiandToad]

Okay here we goooo:

Playables
Ken:
Alright, Ken was pretty obvious but not undeserved. He is mr. original echo fighter after all(or is that Luigi?). Nothing really spectacular to say about him, he plays as you'd expect.

Inciniroar:
I...wasn't really impressed honestly. Incineroar looks kinda dull to play as, he's just a relatively generic wrestler but I like he can summon the rings to close line people. Outside of that I'm not massively invested.

Piranha Plant:
Remember that time people said Captain Toad shouldn't be playable because Toads are generic and he couldn't jump in his games? Piranha Plant is that but also cannot walk on top of that and literally isn't a character.
The generic argument is dead with this one even if Yoshi, R.O.B., Game and Watch, Villager and Inkling didn't already kill it. Bandana Waddle Dee, Toad, Birdo, Kamek and a whole heap of others haven't really any excuse to not get playable roles at this point.

Honestly shocked, but of the three new reveals he's the one I'm most interested in, just weirded out that THIS non jumping, generic species character(not really even a character) is fine whilst Captain gets glossed over as a background element and regular Toad has been a held counter for Peach...like the potted Piranha Plant is in 3D World. sdrawkcab si siht ,iarukaS.

Still, I like the Mario species as a whole, just weirded out Piranha Plant was chosen over more popular ones like Toad, Koopa Troopa and Boo other than Sakurai's weird obsessive desire to try and be unpredictable with one newcomer every game.

Prefer him to Geno still. Should have been Petey though. Guess he's too big.

Assists:
Shadow being deconfirmed was surprising, I do wonder why he was left this late? He's ended up being another Ashley situation.

Guile over Chun-Li? Weird choice.

LYN ISN'T ALONE AS FIRE EMBLEMS ONLY ASSIST. Tiki's a cool choice but I'm glad they went for Awakenings design.
Black Knight is neat too. I wonder if he can be KO'd? Could be fun to try with Ike...

ISAAC NOOOOO! He looks neat but disappointed he's not playable.

Fatal Frame Assist Trophy? I'm glad it's getting some love finally!

Springman...I'd of put him down as a prime candidate for DLC but now I'm not sure...shocking


Mii outfits:
Chibi Robo got a Mii outfit...better than nothing I guess!

Toad's back too as a Mii outfit. It's something.

Ribbon Girl to match Springman. Cute.

Ray getting one is a shock since the license was up or something, but I'll take it.

Rex seems like a hint to me for DLC. Hmm.

Misc:
I love Yoshi's new Final Smash. Straight out the Melee opening!

I'm not sold on Sprits Mode just yet. Seems a bit like the stickers in Brawl to me right now so I'm not entirely sure if I like.

 

[Quetzal77]

I really hope that for DLC they do at most one third party. There's simply too many Nintendo characters that fans actually want in the game (unlike Pirahna Plant) and this is marketed as THE Smash game. I hope they realize this and do everything they can to bring in highly requested characters even if they're ATs. And if the 5 DLC characters are already in development then they really need to do a season 2 of DLC, even if it's just characters without stages.

 

[Lord-Zero]

Direct “reaction”/rating of sorts

0/10

If there was any sort of hype in me, it died this morning. Only DLC could redeem this game for me. Sakurai blew his hype load way too early with both Ridley, Simon and K.Rool. Ending the base roster with the original Echo and yet another Fire-type Pokemon was terrible in my eyes. Piranha Plant does nothing for me. The only “positive” thing I saw was probably that TMS #FE was acknowledged in some degree with the Tsubasa “spirit” thing. Normal trophies being removed and basically turning them into Brawl Sticker 2.0 isn’t really too interesting.

 

[BlueMagician]

I , too, feel like Piranha Plant wasn't the best of ideas, maybe a slap in the face. Of all the things they could have spent their time developing, they spend it on an unrequested Mario character over anything people asked for. Now I understand they wanted something aside from fan requests, and something unexpected, but come on. And yeah, I know some people like the Plant but it's not something that makes a lot of people happy. And definitely not worthy of being the first DLC revealed.

The Direct in general was kind of a mess. It took me a while to understand what was actually in the game.
Spirits looks almost fine, it's basically event match and customs and trophies rolled into one with a bit of story on it. Only problem is the pseudo-gacha part, but it might be a big problem.

World of Light is probably the best new bit of info, I didn't need too much for a story mode. I know some people think story mode takes away too much dev time from the rest of the game, but the Smash team knows that people wanted it so I think it was the right move. And it looks cool.

Ken looks good and is more exciting than either of the original characters revealed. He's also faster than Ryu so that's scary.
I'm kinda meh about Incineroar though. It looks better in this game than it usually does.

The online mode looks bad, I hope they change it. If nothing else, I'd like to see people pressure the Smash team into making it better. They got so close to making custom lobbies and went one critical step in the wrong direction. I especially hate how closer players are prioritized and how your country flag is shown whether you like it or not (and I don't). At least Elite mode is fine.

The Mii costumes didn't look good on some of them, especially Lip.

The disconfirms suck. We don't even get newer characters for a while if ever because of when they decided on the DLC, so I can't even be hype for DLC.

Smash Ultimate has a lot of good stuff, even in this Direct, but they seriously didn't present it correctly. Instead, they brought attention to their bad ideas.




edit: spelling corrections. Also, I haven't been paying attention to Smash for a few months so I didn't have any leaks/fake leaks to keep in mind when watching or writing this

 

[RealPokeFan11]

Were you not around for Groose's RTC? This is a ****show in comparison.

Can we not have toxicity and drama please? I enjoy speculation for the sake of having fun and talking about Smash. If your character is getting wiped by the purge, just nominate them again or make a list of characters you want rated for DLC.

Reaction score coming soon.

 

[Erimir]

So Vergeben was right, box theory was right, and the Grinch was fake fakety fake. I always thought the fuzziness was a huge red flag. People were calling it convincing, but while it definitely required some work to place all the characters in position without any major mistakes... there's a reason why it was so fuzzy. But people seemed to think it was really convincing, so I questioned myself (but as I stated yesterday... I thought Vergeben was more believable).

Box theory I guess made sense. Given that they're doing DLC (although I'm a little unclear as to whether there will be 5 including Piranha Plant, or 6 total DLC characters), expecting more would be kind of a lot for launch. I was a little skeptical since I figured just Ken and Incineroar would be too little. But it turns out that we did get more than two character reveals. I was not at all expecting a Piranha Plant tho. Jesus.

As for how I feel about it...
Ken is whatever, but as the OG Echo Fighter, he has been expected ever since Echoes were revealed.
Ken satisfaction: 50%

Incineroar... I don't really care about new Pokemon in and of themselves, but he looks more interesting than, say, Lucario.
Incineroar satisfaction: 60%

Piranha Plant is the most WTF character reveal ever. I literally thought it was a joke at first, and that it was just an AT, and they were going to reveal the real character eventually, until it kept going and showing more moves. I... still don't know what to think. At least we're getting more DLC and I'm guessing they're saving some hype characters for it (so as to increase DLC sales among the non-hardcore).
Piranha Plant satisfaction: 30%
I can appreciate the appeal of just shocking everyone. But there are a lot of characters I'd rather have seen.

The other stuff wasn't that interesting. Spirits is cool enough I guess as a sort of event match mode, but custom equipment 2.0 is still meh for VS modes.

DLC x5 announcement... that was the best part. And I like being told how many there will be and the time frame for their releases. Looks like we can expect a new character about every 2-3 months?

Overall though... they ****ed up the order of character reveals. Ridley was a great character for E3. But they blew everything on the August Direct. K Rool and the Belmonts were way more hype than Incineroar and Ken. They should've saved one of them for this direct and put Incineroar at the beginning of the August Direct.

Anyway... It is true that RTC under Groose had more content (Groose would do introductions for characters) and much more timely calculations (generally within the next few hours of a day ending). I understand how much of a time commitment it is, and you don't see me volunteering, but it would probably be best to recruit some people to do calculations or something if you can. But you know, if nobody wants to do it, then people really can't complain. If you're going to make multiple posts complaining about it but you're not volunteering to help...

In my opinion after Piranha Plant we can not leave any stone unturned and should consider them, even if ATs might be unlikely.

While I'd say certainly I wouldn't exclude characters for being too unimportant, there's still no reason to think, say, Thwomp would be playable. Thwomps don't have any moving parts! They're just blocks. Piranha Plant was certainly not a character I'd ever have considered, but I would be able to admit that coming up with a moveset was very doable (even if it would still be weird...). And it still remains that there are tons of mooks that you can theoretically come up with movesets for (Goombas, Koopas, Moblins, Lizalfos, Poes, Shy Guys, Space Pirates, Kremlings, Cactuars, etc.) and there was no reason to suppose that any of them had more than a tiny chance.

I also think that after having made Piranha Plant, the chances of them making another mook playable are actually lower in most cases. I could see Cactuar or Bandana Waddle Dee, since there are some arguments there regarding playable status in other games. But another Mario mook? Pretty much no chance of that, IMO. Most series that haven't already done most important non-mook characters would also be unlikely. Putting a Kremling in while there's no Dixie would be more cruel than passing over Waluigi (IMO). The Mario series has gone pretty deep into the cast of proper name characters, and it is the largest video game series in the world, so if any series was going to get a mook, it was Mario. On the other hand, a Space Pirate could be a contender for Metroid because Samus, Dark Samus and Ridley do cover the most important plausible and recurring characters, so you're going to be picking either non-recurring (Other M Mother Brain, Sylux) or less important (Space Pirate). But more likely is that Metroid just doesn't get any more characters.

 

[NeonBurrito]

Coming back in here just to gather my final thoughts together:

• Incineroar, Ken, and Box Theory all being legit is very disappointing, but not exactly surprising. I really do believe that they should've saved any of the Ridley, K. Rool, or Belmonts trailer for later. Grinch leak being fake sucks, but in hindsight, was just too good to be true. I'll admit it, I got played like a sucker in terms of the Grinch leak.
• On the other hand, Piranha Plant is a hilarious addition and easily my favorite of the bunch.
• Genuinely shocked with characters like Springman and Rex being shot down this early. I didn't expect them to be in here, but they are, and deconfirmed. Shadow also surprised me as well; I considered him a near lock as a Sonic echo for either base game or DLC.
• Not very interested in the new Spirits mode. I really do wish we got a proper adventure mode rather than what seems to just be a glorified gauntlet of event matches. Extremely disappointed with the removal of trophies as well.
• Only five DLC characters as well is also pretty disappointing, considering how Smash 4 had seven. Don't think we'll be getting a 2nd ballot this time ether, considering the five DLC characters seem to be pre-determined.

All in all, I wasn't very impressed with what was shown in the direct today, but I'm still without a doubt picking the game up simply because everyone is here + the new and improved gameplay. Definitely going to give Piranha Plant a go though.

Although, I'm going to make a bold claim about what I think DLC is going to be:

Spoiler

Every single one of the five DLC characters is going to be a third party.

Nearly every single popular first party pick seems to either be an Assist Trophy (Skull Kid, Isaac, Springman) or made into an Mii Costume, with lots of emphasis on not being playable (Rex). Really, the only big first party pick left is Bandana Waddle Dee, and I can very easily see Sakurai passing over him due to how he might think that Kirby is represented fine enough, mainly due to Kirby being the main character in the story, plus his general avoidance of newer Kirby games.

So unless we do get another Pirahna Plant "WTF?!?" character, or another character used from promotion (Edelgard? Melmetal?), I really do think its solely third parties from here on out.

As for which third parties we could get, I do think there's a whole lot to choose from:

• Geno / Sora / Slime / Erdrick / Crono / Bravely Default character / new Final Fantasy character (Square Enix rep hinted at by Vergeben)
• Doomguy / Vault Boy / Dragonborn (Bethesda has talked to Nintendo about Smash)
• Rayman (Ubisoft is on board, Rabbid Peach is a spirit)
• Steve / Banjo & Kazooie / Master Chief (lots of recent Microsoft + Nintendo collaborations as of late)
• Monster Hunter / Dante / Leon Kennedy / Phoenix Wright (big Capcom picks)
• Lloyd Irving / Klonoa (big Namco picks)

While I do wish some more first party picks were used (still out here waiting for Karate Joe), I just don't think its happening. Very few Nintendo first parties left have the same buying power that third parties do, which I think is kind of unfortunate, but what I think doesn't really matter in the big scheme of things.

 

[Erimir]

Springman [AT]...I'd of put him down as a prime candidate for DLC but now I'm not sure...shocking

I have a theory about that...

Ribbon Girl [costume] to match Springman. Cute.

Which is that Ribbon Girl's chances just shot way up.

We have plenty of Mii Costumes for playable characters. This is the least disconfirming form a character can show up in, I think. So she's very much still in the running.

What reason is there to prefer Spring Man to Ribbon Girl? They're the two most prominent characters in ARMS as far as I can tell and they have similar abilities, so it's not like Ribbon Girl would make a worse fighter in any way. But Smash has a huge gender imbalance, and picking Ribbon Girl over Spring Man is an easy way to add more female representation without picking a "less worthy" character.

I wouldn't say that she's anything like guaranteed, but if ARMS is going to get a playable character, there's no reason to pick Spring Man when he's an AT when Ribbon Girl is right there...

 

[Maxilian0124]

Am i the only one that is not that surprised by Piranha Plant? i won't lie saying that i expected the character, but i was expection and out of the window type of character cause we have been getting WTF characters since Melee, so why would it be any different now?, Gehno or anyone should not be compared, as they would be a retro character not a WTF character (like Wii Fit Trainer)

 

[DerErlenkonig]

I'm left pretty disappointed.

Ken was always a given, no problems there. He's honestly way more interesting than I expected. Incineroar, however.... Listen, I don't have anything against the people who like him. Nobody deserves to be harrassed over their preferred fighters.

But... Goddamnit. I really do hate the thing. It's yet another Fire Starter, bipedal, looks like a damn furry, is built like a fighting type... The list goes on. I would truly rather have no pokemon at all. Incineroar is one of my honest to god least favorite Pokemon, let alone Starters. So disappointing to see. I have no idea why GameFreak has doubled down with this being the mascot of Gen 7 when Rowlet and Mimikyu are so much more popular. Grass will apparently always be the redheaded stepchild of the Starters and that just sucks.

To add to that, Shantae deconfirmed is rough. I really feel for the Isaac fans too. So many favorites decimated today... All to make room for a bloody generic Mario enemy. Which while hilarious, feels like it's in really poor taste in light of all the surrounding deconfirmations.

AND no Stage Builder! Left with a really sour taste. I'm definitely gonna buy, but this does stifle my excitement a bit.

 

[TheCJBrine]

Spirits don't disconfirm characters for DLC.

King K. Rool and Male Wii Fit Trainer are Spirits; this is no different than Mewtwo and Lucas supposedly being "disconfirmed" since they were just trophies in Smash 4 before they became DLC.

 

[DerErlenkonig]

Spirits don't disconfirm characters for DLC.

King K. Rool and Male Wii Fit Trainer are Spirits; this is no different than Mewtwo and Lucas supposedly being "disconfirmed" since they were just trophies in Smash 4 before they became DLC.

I hope you're right.

 

[zeonie888]

I thought it was good. Despite what has been shown I'm still hyped to play this game!

 

[Nemuresu]

Direct:
Frankly, it was okay. With all the Grinch fiasco plaguing every forum, it felt quite refreshing to see something different instead. The character reveals were good, damn good, however, once getting into Spirits, it became quite the struggle for me to care about it; I didn't expect any less from Assist Trophies, they were clearly going to make people angry, and that's what happened; Fighters Pass is honestly a relief to me, since everyone gets another chance to speculate from here to February 2020, Piranha Plant was just, something... I really don't know how to feel about it, one part of me wants to smile at how funny it is, and the other one wants to cringe at the idea of making a joke character a paid DLC, and the good thing is, that the Direct ended up in a high note with the new Adventure Mode, best part of all.
I'll give an 7/10. Not bad, but not impressive either.

 

[Troykv]

Direct:
Frankly, it was okay. With all the Grinch fiasco plaguing every forum, it felt quite refreshing to see something different instead. The character reveals were good, damn good, however, once getting into Spirits, it became quite the struggle for me to care about it; I didn't expect any less from Assist Trophies, they were clearly going to make people angry, and that's what happened; Fighters Pass is honestly a relief to me, since everyone gets another chance to speculate from here to February 2020, Piranha Plant was just, something... I really don't know how to feel about it, one part of me wants to smile at how funny it is, and the other one wants to cringe at the idea of making a joke character a paid DLC, and the good thing is, that the Direct ended up in a high note with the new Adventure Mode, best part of all.
I'll give an 7/10. Not bad, but not impressive either.

I find quite funny that the speculation will evolve into pretty much Third-Parties and some particular character in positive situations like Bandana Dee

Geno/Sora and Steve/Banjo will reign supreme.

 

[RealPokeFan11]

Spirits don't disconfirm characters for DLC.

King K. Rool and Male Wii Fit Trainer are Spirits; this is no different than Mewtwo and Lucas supposedly being "disconfirmed" since they were just trophies in Smash 4 before they became DLC.

I completely agree with this. I still have hope for characters such as Shantae who have been given the spirit treatment. I still feel she is a lock for DLC considering the spirit treatment is similar to trophies. Still feel bad for some of the hard AT disconfirmations though like Black Knight, Spring Man, and *especially* Isaac.

I feel GoodGrief741 should bring all of the noms back that weren't disconfirmed as Assist Trophies.

 

[Oracle_Summon]

Direct Score 0/10 and this isn't about the characters. The characters at least make it a 3/10 since some people actually got what they wanted.

Useless time talking about modes that the average user would have found out just by playing the game or gamers have really dumbed down over the years:

• Hey, did you know you can change the brightness on your screen?
• Hey, did you know you can change the language for characters?
• Hey, did you know you can look up the help menu for assistance?

Adventure mode is just battles, there is no traveling from place to place.

Source: https://mobile.twitter.com/aevanko/status/1058013060319784962?s=19

Getting rid of trophies gives no reason to play classic mode since you can unlock characters via World of Light.

World of Light is just a glorified Subspace Emissary/Smash Run mash up that lacks the features that made them interesting in the first place:

• There are no Video game worlds to transverse through.
• Stickers are back and replace both trophies and equipment.
• Custom Moves are gone.
• Cutscenes can just be viewed online instead of having to play the mode.

Edit: What is the point to replay World of Light after you release all the characters?
Challenges do not offer anything besides extra money or bragging rights as playing vs. mode will grant you coins anyways.

 

[VexTheHex]

Welp I found where some of the anger gathered. Anyways...

Ken - He's cool but nothing special. He took a cheap shot at Little Mac and got what was coming to him. But overall he makes sense but I have no connection to him.

Incineroar - While I liked Mimikyu and supported it, good lord does this cat have personality and flare. He looks incredible and looks fun to play. I know some people are loving the hate wagon, but I can assure you if we trade say Isabelle and Incineroar or even maybe Inklings or Simon and Incineroar you guys would be hating on them to. Being the last revealed is never a pleasant thing as Shulk, Olimar, and Wolf also suffered greatly from this. I think the count is inflated more cause of Pichu and PT's return than the fire tiger making his stand on the roster. He is the literal cutest heel I could imagine and also the closest to RAWK THE HAWK we'll ever have. Sorry you may not of gotten your picks but don't blame the character.

Piranha Plant - The most out there addition to date. It looks fun and interesting placing it above the one note Ken, but it's also such a bizarre and left field choice that leaves everyone a bit shook. It's a free DLC promotion though and looks well made, so I can't complain and welcome our plant overlords with open arms. (Would of taken Goomba though if I had to pick)

Spirits - Undecided. I like how they are like event modes, but I felt the talk on them drug on for quite some time and I wasn't overly invested in them at first. May have to watch it again.

New Story - It seems like an event mode board with some bosses along the way. I think it'll be fun for some time but probably not the adventure mode most were hoping for. The trailer was great though Shulk seeing them all dying didn't really change much or add to the story. I also was weirded out that some mascots were missing like Peach. But seeing Sonic reach for Pikachu, Duck desperately trying to fly off with Dog cowering to the ground, and Palutena trying to buy her angel boys time was touching. I just wish we saw more like Peach offering the death lasers tea and being spared or Incineroar body blocking for a horrified Olimar and Lucas for it to go through him and kill them all anyways. There was more potential than having Kirby make his obvious escape.

 

[Luigifan18]

Welp, the Direct was a total ****show.
I haven't been this disappointed in a while.
I just hope that Assist Trophies can become DLC Fighters. So many characters got shafted. Isaac, Waluigi, Shovel Knight, Spring Man, and Shadow in particular. Maybe Bomberman too.

Bomberman was definitely shafted.

 

[Kotor]

A piranha plant got in over Waluigi.... Not Petey Piranha (It's part of it's final smash but it doesn't transform into Petey) or any other standout piranha plants. A generic piranha plant on a pot got in over Waluigi...

 

[Nemuresu]

I find quite funny that the speculation will evolve into pretty much Third-Parties and some particular character in positive situations like Bandana Dee

Geno/Sora and Steve/Banjo will reign supreme.

Guests are pretty much the only characters with some kind of popularity left at this point. Nobody's going to bother explaining why Goomba should be in Smash even with Piranha Plant around.

 

[DragonKent17]

My excitement of Ultimate has complete go to absolute zero

I rate the direct 0/10

 

[TheCJBrine]

Guests are pretty much the only characters with some kind of popularity left at this point. Nobody's going to bother explaining why Goomba should be in Smash even with Piranha Plant around.

Well, Goomba is the most-iconic Mario mook-

*get's kicked out*

 

[AirMac1]

My reactions:
Ken:What a neat echo! I knew the leak was real!
Incineroar:I wasn’t that excited for Incineroar, until I found out about his sweet wrestling moves! And, as everyone knows, I’m a hardcore WWE fan!
Spirits:While I thought it was a mode, this could be even better!
Assists:Danget! Make Issac playable!
Mii costumes:Ohh Yeah!
Fighters Pass and Rex bonus:See above.
Piranha Plant:It ain’t Waluigi or Geno, but I love it anyway!
And I didn’t finish the video yet so bye!

 

[RealPokeFan11]

Before I start my rating, here's some fitting music because this direct was all over the place!!!

OVERALL DIRECT SCORE: 65%
This direct was a very mixed bag for many people, including me. I have been leaning more on the positive side with this direct. I will start with the characters

(Sadly, the Grinch was incorrect and Vergeben came on top after his toxic rants on Twitter and Reddit about people not treating him as gospel...)

WANNABE RYU
Satisfaction rating: 65%
My score would've been higher if I played Ryu a lot in Smash 4. (Which I didn't btw) He seems much better than him and looks like a fun fighter. (If only he wasn't so difficult to play!)

JOHN CENAROAR
Satisfaction rating: 85%
Though I would've preferred Decidueye, (and especially Ya Boi Xurkitree!) Incineroar was on my list for wanted characters. He seems like a ton of fun and brings a new defensive play style. He packs a punch and I love it when he taunts after he lands a good hit.

Wait... Who let Bob the Pirahna out of the house? And why is he here!?
Satisfaction rating: 55%
This was HILARIOUS when I first saw him as a fighter, but he was revealed at a bad time where people were grieving over their disconfirmed characters, and Spirits being disappointing to many. He's a generic Mario enemy who somehow got in over Waluigi and potentially Geno??? (He is likely for DLC tho.) Llort A. Ton almost got his wish in a way. He got a joke character in, and his Thwomp got in as an AT. I will be trying out Bob the Pirahna when he gets released, and he has a very tricky and interesting moveset.

SPIRITS
Satisfaction rating: 25%
DISCLAIMER: Spirits do not disconfirm characters. They are a replacement for trophies that offer power ups.
Honestly I was not interested in this mode. It feels way to gimmicky and crazy for me. It also made everyone's hype die down because it felt like a disconfirmation machine to many. I liked Smash Run a lot but this just feels like Event mode on steroids. It felt too much like the custom moves, equipment, and SMASH TOUR! Ugh... Spirits feel less exciting than trophies IMO. (I was super addicted to collecting them in Smash 4)

ONLINE
Satisfaction rating: 90%
They didn't change much about how the internet connection worked in Smash 4, but they found new ways to avoid the problem. They found a better matchmaking system, where you can battle with your own preferences! Matches will also search near your region rather than around the world to ensure a better connection. Sakurai also recommended a LAN network that you can buy for your Switch to reduce lag. Thank god For Fun and For Glory are gone...

DLC
Satisfaction rating: 45%
I like that DLC is coming back, but the DLC pass might be a little too expensive... this is just a personal preference of mine. I wanted it free but that was unrealistic. If there's 5 characters in a single pass, I hope they do it like Fortnite where they have another season of characters. 5 just doesn't feel like much to me. I also REALLY want the Smash Ballot to return.

WORLD OF LIGHT
Satisfaction rating: 100%
YES! STORY MODE IS FINALLY BACK! It looks amazing, and I like how Master Hand and Crazy Hand are part of an entire species of hands, with the big portal looking like Ho-Oh mixed with Star Dream and some Kid Icarus enemy. It's probably how characters will be unlocked, and the world map looks incredible with its art style. Can't wait to get the game release day and start playing immediately.

Also bosses are back! I wanna see the Hobo Bros turn them all into Waluigi and do a boss rush.

Here are some boss suggestions:
Koloktos (Zelda Skyward Sword)
Yellow Devil (Mega Man)
Metal Face (Xenoblade Chronicles)
Guzzlord (Pokémon)
Black Knight (Fire Emblem)
Dr. Eggman (Sonic)
Porky (Earthbound)
Giygas (Earthbound)
Ruined Dragon (Mario Odyssey)
Hades (Kid Icarus)
Bouldergeist (Mario Galaxy)
Giant Ridley Clone [The one from Pyrosphere] (Metroid)
Ultra Necrozma (Pokémon)
Dark Matter (Kirby)
Gruntilda (Banjo-Kazooie)
Duon
Master Hand
Crazy Hand
Master Core
Tabuu
Galeem (New main antagonist)

And the vocal version of the main theme song is ****ing beautiful.

Are we still doing noms? If so, Xurkitree x5
Still not disconfirmed yet, no matter if you count Spirits as disconfirmation or not.

 

[aarchak]

HOO BOY THE SALT

ANYWAYS,

My initial reactions (in order of seeing the direct)
Grinch is fake!
VERGEBOX IS REAL ****ING GODDAMMIT THAT'S WAYYYYY WORSE
Hey, Inicineroar actually looks cool. I might try him out.
I'm playing Ken over Ryu.
Honestly, I think I'm the only person in this fanbase that was onboard for Spirits mode from the start. I think it's cool to be able to collect and use these things for more than viewing, and it's a sizable single-player thing that I can keep doing, unlike with Smash 4.
I don't know how well the preferred rules is going to work. On one hand it'll match you up with players with similar rules to you, but on the other, we will never all agree on how to play competitively. Also, you may not get what you want and will have to play against an items player, and that sucks. I want to play my way, not some other guy's way.
Hoo boy, GSP. Instead of ELO, we're using some weird ranking system. There are a lot of points I have against this thing: First, how the hell is GSP calculated? It's not by a concrete score like in Smash 4, and wins and losses don't really serve as a good indicator. Second, it isn't intuitive, and it keeps changing based on the playerbase, which means I can't understand how good I really am. Third, there are 2 tiers: normal and elite. A lack of tiers makes matchmaking way harder to balance and makes it hard to measure skill levels. Fourth, PEOPLE CAN RAISE THEIR GSP BY PLAYING ITEM TIME MATCHES AND THAT'S ****ING STUPID. For Fun/For Glory was much better than the system we're getting now, and I don't think anyone at Nintendo gets how modern games work at all.
They're penalizing SDers and we're getting online matches based on proximity, so online battles will be better.
Good, we actually have lobbies.
Can't wait for someone to gloat that they got ZeRo or Nairo's Smash tag. That system is actually pretty cool.
Shadow's gone
Takamaru's gone
Isaac's gone
BK's gone
Spring Man's gone
GUILE THEME REMIX YEAAAA
All-Star's worse thanks to the multi-man-level knockback.
I'm sorry Dutch people but I laughed out loud when hearing Villager's Dutch name I'm a terrible person.
IF SAKURAI DOESN'T NERF BAYO, I NOW CAN MYSELF
Chibi-Robo's gone
Ray's gone
The Toy-Con costume is amazing.
REEEEEEEXXX WHYYYYYYYYY why did you do this Sakurai, he had so much potential!
Oh, he didn't make it in time. Oh well, I guess. (but this reaction will change soon)
HELL YEAH XC2 MUSIC BABY THIS ALMOST MAKES UP FOR THE LACK OF REX
RIP Zeke and Tora
Wait, is Piranha Plant an AT?
NO HE ISN'T HE'S A CHARACTER WHAT
Okay, seriously, why is ****ing PIRANHA PLANT a character over... anybody else? I know a lot of people are echoing this sentiment, but they have a point. Why not just put in Rex instead of making him a Mii Costume? Why not put in Spring Man, Isaac, Geno, ANYBODY instead of this thing? I know Sakurai loves his curveball characters, but Piranha Plant? SERIOUSLY?
Hoo boy, World of Light. It looks amazing, just like I wanted. For those who are still wondering, YES, this is how you unlock characters. We saw battles against only Marth and Isabelle here (no spirits attached), and I'm betting that's how you unlock characters. And EVERYONE IS DEAD, everybody.
THERE'S A VOCAL VERSION OF THE MAIN THEME I NEVER KNEW I WANTED THIS UNTIL NOW

In short, it was a very mixed bag. Current satisfaction: 46.4%

Also, for future DLC speculation, I'd like to show this from the offcial DLC website:

 

[RealPokeFan11]

HOO BOY THE SALT

ANYWAYS,

My initial reactions (in order of seeing the direct)
Grinch is fake!
VERGEBOX IS REAL ****ING GODDAMMIT THAT'S WAYYYYY WORSE
Hey, Inicineroar actually looks cool. I might try him out.
I'm playing Ken over Ryu.
Honestly, I think I'm the only person in this fanbase that was onboard for Spirits mode from the start. I think it's cool to be able to collect and use these things for more than viewing, and it's a sizable single-player thing that I can keep doing, unlike with Smash 4.
I don't know how well the preferred rules is going to work. On one hand it'll match you up with players with similar rules to you, but on the other, we will never all agree on how to play competitively. Also, you may not get what you want and will have to play against an items player, and that sucks. I want to play my way, not some other guy's way.
Hoo boy, GSP. Instead of ELO, we're using some weird ranking system. There are a lot of points I have against this thing: First, how the hell is GSP calculated? It's not by a concrete score like in Smash 4, and wins and losses don't really serve as a good indicator. Second, it isn't intuitive, and it keeps changing based on the playerbase, which means I can't understand how good I really am. Third, there are 2 tiers: normal and elite. A lack of tiers makes matchmaking way harder to balance and makes it hard to measure skill levels. Fourth, PEOPLE CAN RAISE THEIR GSP BY PLAYING ITEM TIME MATCHES AND THAT'S ****ING STUPID. For Fun/For Glory was much better than the system we're getting now, and I don't think anyone at Nintendo gets how modern games work at all.
They're penalizing SDers and we're getting online matches based on proximity, so online battles will be better.
Good, we actually have lobbies.
Can't wait for someone to gloat that they got ZeRo or Nairo's Smash tag. That system is actually pretty cool.
Shadow's gone
Takamaru's gone
Isaac's gone
BK's gone
Spring Man's gone
GUILE THEME REMIX YEAAAA
All-Star's worse thanks to the multi-man-level knockback.
I'm sorry Dutch people but I laughed out loud when hearing Villager's Dutch name I'm a terrible person.
IF SAKURAI DOESN'T NERF BAYO, I NOW CAN MYSELF
Chibi-Robo's gone
Ray's gone
The Toy-Con costume is amazing.
REEEEEEEXXX WHYYYYYYYYY why did you do this Sakurai, he had so much potential!
Oh, he didn't make it in time. Oh well, I guess. (but this reaction will change soon)
HELL YEAH XC2 MUSIC BABY THIS ALMOST MAKES UP FOR THE LACK OF REX
RIP Zeke and Tora
Wait, is Piranha Plant an AT?
NO HE ISN'T HE'S A CHARACTER WHAT
Okay, seriously, why is ****ing PIRANHA PLANT a character over... anybody else? I know a lot of people are echoing this sentiment, but they have a point. Why not just put in Rex instead of making him a Mii Costume? Why not put in Spring Man, Isaac, Geno, ANYBODY instead of this thing? I know Sakurai loves his curveball characters, but Piranha Plant? SERIOUSLY?
Hoo boy, World of Light. It looks amazing, just like I wanted. For those who are still wondering, YES, this is how you unlock characters. We saw battles against only Marth and Isabelle here (no spirits attached), and I'm betting that's how you unlock characters. And EVERYONE IS DEAD, everybody.
THERE'S A VOCAL VERSION OF THE MAIN THEME I NEVER KNEW I WANTED THIS UNTIL NOW

In short, it was a very mixed bag. Current satisfaction: 46.4%

Banjo hasn't been disconfirmed yet thankfully. He's one of the characters I'm expecting for the DLC pass.

 

[colder_than_ice]

Overall, I feel that this is an amazing roster. In addition to having every single veteran returning against all odds, we also got Ridley and King K. Rool who are arguably the two most popular requests. That being said, I do agree that Sakurai made a huge mistake revealing all the most wanted characters too early (same mistake he made in both Brawl and SSB4 actually). I have mixed feelings about Piranha plant. On one hand, it feels completely ridiculous that a generic enemy got in over huge fan favorites like Isaac. On the other hand , I almost feel like the character is so bad that it's ironically good. It has a completely unconventional body shape for a playable character and has a move pool that looks like nothing we've ever seen before. I'm also surprised by how much I like Incineroar, it just brings so much more personality than a lot of other possible Pokemon could have brought.

Spirit mode also looks like a lot of fun and I love all the creative ways on how they turned each spirit into a themed event match. I'm really hoping that we get an Azura spirit (I'm very disappointed that we didn't get an Azura AT). I'm also looking forward to World of Light which seems like a fun mix of an adventure mode and event matches. My one big complaint is them turning All Star mode into an 100-man smash clone. They somehow ruined it for everyone.

Satisfaction ratings:
Ken: 20%
Incineroar: 80%
Piranha Plant: 60%
Overall roster: 90%
Overall presentation: 80%

 

[Cetus]

Loved it. Mostly how Incineroar slaughtered the Grinch leak singlehandedly and his trailer was beautiful. ****in' rip Rex though ;-;

Satisfaction
Ken: 40%
Incineroar: 101%
Piranha Plant: 60%
Rex Costume: No
Cinematics: 100%
Hype Level: Hell yeah!

 

[Erureido]

Hi y'all! It's been a while since I last posted here, yeah?

I haven't posted here mainly because I started to feel burnt out from Smash speculation, which in turn lead to me forget posting in this thread. I'm still interested in Smash Ultimate, just not as enthusiastic in partaking in Smash speculation talk like I used to.

I thought now would be a fitting time to come back with the final Smash Ultimate Direct finished. I'm copy and pasting my thoughts on it that I already shared in two other threads:

Well, this was an interesting but solid Smash Ultimate Direct.

Not surprised with the Ken Echo and Incineroar as the new fighter reveal. Verge was pointing at them being playable, and they seemed more and more likely with each passing day.

I'm pretty happy for Ken! I've wanted him to be playable in Smash ever since Ryu was first leaked in Smash 4, mainly as an alternate costume of Ryu. With the reveal of Echo Fighters, I thought Ken would fit very well for that role, and here we go, he's finally in! Awesome! Not sure if I'll main him though since I still need to learn how to use Ryu properly, but it's pretty cool.

Incineroar is my least favorite of the Alola starters. I was rooting for Primarina since she's one of my favorite Pokemon and my favorite Alola starter, despite the fact her chances were looking pretty low compared to the other Alola starters. I wouldn't have minded Decidueye either since I like him too. Incineroar... well, I've warmed up to the Pokemon since S/M's release and started to like how expressive he is, but he just isn't an Alola Pokemon that I wanted. Still, I think he turned out pretty well in Smash. His model is on-point, and I like how we finally have a true wrestler in Smash with his inclusion. Congrats to the Incineorar fans that have been wanting him in Smash!

And it turns out Ken and Incineroar are the final newcomers prior to the game's launch. Damn. Looks like that box leak was right all along. Would've been nice to sneak in one more new fighter to reach the gold number of 75 prior to the game's launch, but oh well. It's still a pretty good roster.

It also meant the Grinch leak got completely deconfirmed. I was rather skeptical of that leak when it first popped up, and it looks like my skepticism turned out be right. Yeah, it just sounded like a too-good-to-be-true kind of leak.

Spirits seem to be an enhanced version of Stickers from Brawl. Not sure what to think about that right now, but in the context of the new Adventure mode, they might turn out to be more fun than I thought. Sucks that trophies aren't coming back, but I can understand why they're absent as Sakurai explained.

I like how you can customize the rules for online battles with random people instead of just friends. Looks like you can finally completely replicate the meta rules for online play! I'm still worried if lag will still be an issue, but it seems like Sakurai is aware about the issue by having the game making you face more local players online when choosing opponents. I still need to buy a wired LAN adapter, so I guess that's a potential Christmas gift to look forward to.

As for the Assist Trophies, Black Knight as a new AT is interesting. Nice that they brought his Heroes voice too. Same can be said for Adult Tiki. RIP Shadow, Isaac, and Spring Man though. Looks like Shadow is still locked to that AT role, Isaac was brought back only to be reconfirmed again, and it seems like we won't even be getting a new Arms rep for DLC with its mascot turned into an AT. Spring Man was one of my most wanted too, so his reconfirmation did sting a bit for me. Still, good to see we at least have Arms content in the game.

Oh hey, Yoshi'a new Final Smash is the stampede from Melee! I really like the reference!

New Mii Costumes are cool. I like Mii costumes, so I'm all in for their return.

DLC is confirmed! No surprise, but glad to see it's there. Nice to know 5 fighters are on the way as part of the Fighters pass. I hope Professor Layton is one of them! I also hope we'll get more DLC beyond those 5 fighters that are part of the upcoming pass (maybe another Fighters pass for 2020), but I'm prepared for the worst.

Piranha Plant is an actual newcomer? WOW, now THAT'S a shocker. Looks like he's the completely unexpected newcomer for this game. I honestly thought they were going to reveal Petey Piranha when the Piranha Plant showed up (I initially thought Piranha Plant would be an item), but what we got instead shocked me! It's going to be fun seeing all the reactions. I also like how its final Smash is a reference to Subspace Emissary with the way Petey Piranha comes into the battlefield and attacks with the cages.

Glad to know Piranha Plant isn't among the 5 fighters that will be part of the Fighter's Pass. That solidifies 5 DLC fighters to look forward to!

The new adventure mode looks pretty cool so far! I wonder who this new enemy will be. Is it Taboo again, or maybe a different form of him? I got Taboo vibes seeing that orb in the middle and the wings, though they looked more angelic than the cyber-butterfly wings of Taboo. Seems like Shulk's vision wasn't enough to help most of the fighters escape those beams of light, but Kirby managed to escape like a badass (gotta love Sakurai's bias coming through by having the character he created being the one to escape it and be our starting hero for this adventure)! I don't see it having as engaging of a story as Subspace Emissary, but it still looks promising. Nice to see that it'll even bring back some Subspace bosses like Galleom.

Fun Direct overall. Looking forward to picking up the game next month!

 

[UtopianPoyzin]

Geno (spirit? This one's tough, it's not sure if this is a spirit or player icon)

I didn't think Geno was shown off as a Spirit, was he? I'm not an avid Geno supporter, but I really don't think he's out yet... If I'm wrong, correct me. I did see the icon with his face, but does that mean he's out?

 

[TheCJBrine]

I didn't think Geno was shown off as a Spirit, was he? I'm not an avid Geno supporter, but I really don't think he's out yet... If I'm wrong, correct me. I did see the icon with his face, but does that mean he's out?

The icon isn't a Spirit, so no. To be fair, even if he does have a Spirit, King K. Rool also has a Spirit.

 

[aarchak]

I didn't think Geno was shown off as a Spirit, was he? I'm not an avid Geno supporter, but I really don't think he's out yet... If I'm wrong, correct me. I did see the icon with his face, but does that mean he's out?

He was shown off as a lobby player icon, we don't know if those are spirits or not.