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

[RealPokeFan11]

Leakbait
Chance: 45%
Want: 50%

Here we are. The character that everyone and their mom expects to be in Smash thanks to leakers. However, I'm still not certain he will make it. As correct as Vergeben was during the base game, he's been awful during the DLC period, and even butchered an entire Nintendo Direct leak he made. He also claimed that Minecraft was going to be represented with a boss for base game, an entire day after the bosses were datamined by pirates. Ouch. And about the datamining, the file is called "Brave". We don't have any proof that this file is Erdrick, outside of theories and some Japanese translation and meaning. Erdrick was what those theories led to. It could definitely be Erdrick, but we don't have enough proof to determine the character in that slot. Attach this theory to what flew out of Veggie's mouth, and you have a recipe for major leakbait. To be honest, the character who I think has the highest chances is Banjo. Leaks aside, DQ is a legendary series that has won many awards, and made 11 games. Definitely one of the most popular RPG's of all time, along with Pokémon and Final Fantasy. Erdrick is owned by Square Enix, and y'all know how stingy they were with FF. And there's also a ton of competition. There are so many protagonists in DQ, and I feels kind of strange they would pick Erdrick over their most recent protagonist, or any other protagonist from the series. He seemed like a bland inclusion, but the amount of moveset potential he has, made my want score go from 20%, back to 50%. The reason it's not any higher, is because I'd prefer Slime to be the DQ rep to make it. He's much more iconic, and he would be a very interesting addition.

Edit: Note that tomorrow is Amy Rose and not Crash. I just checked the schedule.

Edit #2: Y'all are SERIOUSLY overrating his chances. Jesus Christ!

Amy: 2.42%

Heavy Weapons Guy x5

 

[Cosmic77]

Erdrick

Chance: 33%

I'm not willing to give Erdrick anything higher. The only reason we're even talking about this guy is because of Verge. While his calls have been mostly flawless, I'm not sure about him and DLC. Completely missing PP and Joker but predicting Steve and Erdrick (SE character) almost a full year before their supposed reveal has left me wondering. And that's not even including the entire Nintendo Direct that he was wrong about.

And "Brave" could be a number of different things. It might not even reflect the character at all. Do we need to have a repeat of Joker and "Jane"?

Want: 20%
I mean, I have nothing against the guy personally. It's just that he doesn't really fall into a category I'd label as exciting. Joker was cool because no one thought Persona would ever get in Smash. Steve is extremely iconic, so at least he'd appeal to a ton of people. Erdrick doesn't fit into either of those, and he's never even been a popular request.

I dunno. Just not the choice I'd go with for DLC.

 

[Sari]

Some songs to get into the Erdrick/Dragon Quest mood:

Spoiler

Erdrick

Chance: 80%

Pros:

• Has been constantly supported by various leakers, most notably Vergeben who leaked Ultimate's base roster.
• "Brave" can translate into hero which is the name of Erdrick's class. This ties back to the brave codename without being a big stretch.
• Dragon Quest is really big in Japan: the series sells millions of units there and Famitsu readers rated DQ III (which features Erdrick) as the 2nd best game of all time only behind Persona 5.
• Sakurai himself is a big fan of Dragon Quest and DQ III is his favorite entry in the series. If Erdrick were added it wouldn't be the first time Sakurai added a character from a game he adored.
• Dragon Quest XI got its own individual segment in the February Direct instead of just being shown as one of the headline games. This really makes me think they are trying to push the series more towards Western audiences and Erdrick's inclusion would help with that greatly.

Cons:

• Has lots of general Square Enix competition.
• Has competition with some DQ characters like Slime, Eight, and Luminary. Slime in particular is arguably more recognizable than Erdrick worldwide.
• Prior to appearing in Smash leaks, Erdrick was pretty obscure outside of Japan.

Aside from those con points Erdrick has just about everything going for him. Of course the chance score isn't as high as it could be since I'm still slightly cautious on leaks after you know what.

Want: 85%
I'll admit I have not played DQ III yet though I have played VII and am currently playing VIII. I love the DQ series and I think the series deserves a character at this point. My personal pick would be Eight though Erdrick would be just as good (if not better) in representing the series.

Amy Rose chance prediction: 0.81% (not happening with Tails, Robotnik, Shadow, and Knuckles MIA)

Nominations:
Terry Bogard x5

After that, I would leave that up to you guys on one thing. Should we do a rerate schedule after E3? On one hand, we would have a very different idea of DLC, and it would be curious to see how some characters have changed. On the other hand, it does push the noms list back a bit. Personally, I would love to do a two week rerate period, rating a couple of popular choices or interesting ones. Feedback on this is welcome.

I think a rerate schedule would be great as it'd help reignite this thread a bit since we'd be talking about lots of talked about characters.

 

[Namasura]

Erdrick

Chance 80%

To me, Dragon Quest is the next logical step after Final Fantasy for Square Enix. These are the two series Squenix often uses when describing their company, these are the two series with the most crossovers. Dragon Quest also has the advantage of having a long, and direct, relationship with Nintendo and being a series dear to Sakurai. I do not think the lack of popularity in the west will matter, especially since it is often exaggerated how 'unknown' Dragon Quest is.

On Squenix not being willing to play nice... If Smash existed in a vacuum my chances for DQ would be lower since Cloud is barebones. But Square Enix has been allowing so many new crossovers with basically every single one of their series lately that I think the problem with Cloud was that he was base game, a problem any SE DLC would lack.

The big competitor for Erdrick is Slime. No other DQ Hero has as much staying power as Erdrick had, it has been decades and Erdrick is still the go-to character when Japanese media references Dragon Quest or RPGs in general, even Luminary can't compete,, his game is the latest, but it itself was full of references to DQ3 and Erdrick, the last 3 Dragon Quest games have an Erdrick inspired outfit and the last 4 have had music from DQ3 in them not counting 'staple' themes like the save menu song.

Want 100%

I am fine with a solo Erdrick (female alt though, please!) but ideally I would also like an alt for Solo and the other DQ heroes, a Bowser Jr. deal. Still, I really like DQ3, I really like Erdrick. DQ5 is my favorite story, but I legit think DQ3 is my favorite game, its just too good for something stuck on what, 500 KB? I played this game in the 2000s, when I was playing games with 2 to 5GB on them, and for a whole month, nothing felt as fun as this small, tiny NES era game. The jump from DQ1 to 2 is a bit sloppy but noticeable, the jump to 3 is amazing. The villages feel more lively, with their own things going on beyond the plot-points, yet it all also connects to your journey, with the text even changing according to a day/night cycle (and innovation lacking even in the western RPGs at the time) the pacing has you rarely grinding, the world has more context to it and feels so open for you to explore. DQ1 dialogue felt stiff, DQ2 was a bit softer, and DQ3 fully open its wings and soar (pun with Ramia intended), there is more comedy beyond NPC one-liners, there is more tragedy beyond NPC one-liners, yet the whole thing still has that adventurous light-hearted tone so common to JRPGs, but first seen in full form here. And oh the adventure, Ultima II had a real-world map like DQ3, but lacking the graphical details and flavor text, it felt hallow, a flaw not shared by DQ3, which not only has the flavor to truly make you feel like you went from Italy to Egypt to the Americas and Japan, but being such a good game, the gameplay itself helps the adventure, you feel the vastness of Siberia while you are trying to find a rare but useful item through endless forests, and when you move to the Americas you feel anxiety as you cross the ocean and reach a continent without a single place to heal or save your game at first sight. Miyamoto, once, when talking about DQ, praised the changes DQ3 and DQ4 brought, comparing them to fine wine, and yeah, I agree, I really, really agree.

Onto Erdrick him/herself, I see a lot of people have problems with him/her being a blank slate avatar type character. It seems to be thought common to this community, a common criticism to characters like Monster Hunter as well. This to me is weird, since, you know, this is also the community that should be very familiar with Link, Mario, Samus, and countless other Nintendo and Third Party characters that are either still the mute archetype to this day or have been such for the first 10/15 years of their existence. Were they personality-less until they first spoke? No. The personality of these characters is shared with their game world, how they interact gameplay wise, their journey and the personality of their game itself. It's for these reasons that I will always feel more about the Courier from Fallout New Vegas than the fully voiced MC from Fallout 4. Erdrick is an adventurous but not too serious character, just like Dragon Quest, and there is no need for them to be more ultra complex. I don't know how to explain, first time I played I got the basics of her backstory, father went out to fight a monster and never returned, the kingdom expected her to grow into an adventurer and go finish her dad's job. Bang, serious stuff, tense mood, I made a party and set out, then I am checking the bag and try to use a coin, this causes my hero to flip it up in the air just for it to fall right on the priestess' face. A small interaction and funny flavor text, but it is SO DIFFERENT from everything you have in the 80s! I did not live that era, being born in the 90s, but I did play other RPGs from that era, and Erdrick comes off as such a chill protagonist in comparison even to any other RPG from the 80s, even the protagonists of DQ1 and DQ2. And this show in her design as well, which would become the standard for future DQ heroes, dropping the armor and the stiff looks, more of a sleek/lightweight adventurer and being a much-welcomed return to weapons + magic after DQ2 had made the hero into simple warriors, they take DQ away from the era of covers with the Hero facing monster and instead brings about the era of rallying parties or looking towards the horizon. Something about all of the official artwork of Erdrick just screams adventure.

Anyway, yeah, Erdrick cool, DQ3 great, me want them in Smash.

Noms:
5x Spyro

 

[Deleted member]

Chance: 110%; Literally got EVERYTHING going for him.
1. He's popular in Japan
2. He's been leaked.
3. The creator likes the game
4. He has good moveset potential
5. He's a popular request
6. He's iconic.
As much as I personally don't want him, he's getting in. I bet all the money in my Pikachu bank! My whole $0.01, all of it. I he's not getting in this game, I'll give my brother that.


Want: 0%; I never played the games, and generally not a fan of RPGs. Plus, that spot could've been for someone else I like more.

Predictions: 0%; I say this because it's very likely we won't get another sonic character, and even if we did, Knuckles, Tails, or Dr. Eggman would be next

Nominations: Dwight Fairfield x5

EDIT: I really need to look over my grammar. on EVVERYTHING (a.k.a. I fixed a grammar mistake, changed EVVERYTHING to EVERYTHING)

 

[chocolatejr9]

A bit off-topic, but TCT~Phantom , is your icon a reference to the DuckTales reboot? Because if it is, I approve. Am I even allowed to be off-topic on this thread?

 

[Cosmic77]

Just a reminder, Sakurai is not responsible for choosing the DLC this time.

I've already seen four users mention something along the lines of, "Sakurai would want a DQ character because he likes it".

 

[GoodGrief741]

Just a reminder, Sakurai is not responsible for choosing the DLC this time.

I've already seen four users mention something along the lines of, "Sakurai would want a DQ character because he likes it".

At the same time, Sakurai does have final say, and if Persona is any indication, he's not being subtle about it.

Teeb147 You're doing it right, but remember you can predict and nominate if you want to.

 

[Teeb147]

Just a reminder, Sakurai is not responsible for choosing the DLC this time.

I've already seen four users mention something along the lines of, "Sakurai would want a DQ character because he likes it".

It's debated because of the intreview with atlus where they said that the collaboration had to do with sakurai liking persona 5.

 

[NomadLuminary]

Hope's and dreams.

 

[MasterOfKnees]

Erdrick:

Chance: 50% - I do think he's the likeliest DLC character at this point, but I'm still not comfortable giving anyone more than a 50/50 chance. There's been a lot of uncertainty about the Square rep from day one, so we'll see, but obviously he's still the frontrunner.

Want: 50% - Could be neat, but only if they choose the retro design, I love that while I straight up dislike the modern design. I have no opinion of Dragon Quest one way or another, but I do see the potential for a character that at least has a lot of personality.

 

[Deleted member]

The Ultimate Dragon Quester

Chance: 70%

https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Best_selling_Square-Enix_games

Even with the lack of good international appeal, Dragon Quest still manages to be 1 of SE's biggest franchises. Dragon Quest III is the highest selling Dragon Quest game currently, so I don't think Erdrick is out of the picture. From what I've seen, he's basically the Cloud of DQ, and I'm not really expecting any other DQ protagonist going in before him.

Want: 59%

Of all of SE's possible Fighters, Erdrick's a character that I'd like to see in Smash and seems more interesting to me than every other pick aside from another, which is why he isn't the kind of character I would feel lukewarm about. However, As I mentioned on a different thread, the other 41% is my worry on if the content he brings to Smash is as lacking as Final Fantasy content given SquareEnix's licensing on their games, music, and artwork are scattered all over the place. Hopefully with Nintendo choosing the DLC, this would mean they've also paid to get that stuff in the game, but if they didn't, I'll give my not-so-glad thoughts on it if we rate his overall inclusion to Smash much like we did with Joker.

 

[Nemuresu]

Hero
Chance: 80%-I remained impartial with leaks, but as far as Square characters are concerned, I have to make an exception. You can say whatever about Vergeben and Tansut, but they haven't given me any reasons to distrust them as a whole, if they claim Erdrick's in, I'll keep it in mind.
Want: 50%-Pretty neutral about Dragon Quest. No positive or negative feelings about the series. I understand why Sakurai and Nintendo would include this guy and I'm okay with it.

Nominations: Morrigan x5

 

[Jomosensual]

Eridrick

Chance 100- I have no reason to think he's not in the game. He's the Ken of DLC. Literally every leak has him on it and all the credible people are saying he's in. Next character

Want 40 - Never even heard of Dragon Quest before Smash speculation other than knowing a little about Slimes for some reason. Just bumping the want score up a little bit because I'd rather have him get confirmed now so we can move on to talking about literally anyone else, because the Edrick and Steve vs. Banjo debated passed the point of tiresome about a month and a half ago


Noms
Ellie x5

 

[chocolatejr9]

View attachment 225873

Hope's and dreams.

Wait, which one's which?

 

[Ornl]

Erdrick
Prev RTC ≈ 29%
Chance : 100% - Want : abstain

History
• Dragon Quest series already has sold 76 million units. Dragon Quest IX is the best selling third party game at Nintendo, and the 12th position of the best-selling games in Japan. DQ VII 16th. DQ III 23rd. DQ VIII 25th. Dragon Quest is top1 of third-party sales in Japan on NES, SNES, GB (Tetris being sold with the console as 1st party), and NDS. The series is behind Monster Hunter on Wii, then behind Monster Hunter and Yo-kai Watch on 3DS.
• Dragon Quest is a series that have almost 40 games, and is considered to be part of the Nintendo family. Most games in the series (including Monsters) are on Nintendo support. The series is even entitled to a specific logo version when the game is released by Nintendo, which is not done with any other outside license. Slime inspired the same enemy in Zelda 3 and subsequent opuses. He also appeared in three Mario games : Itadaki Street DS, Mario Sports Mix and Fortune Street, and in Miitopia.
• The animated series Captain N (1989) brings together a lot of video game universes. Among them, there are elements from Castlevania, Donkey Kong, Final Fantasy, Kid Icarus, Mario, Megaman, Metroid, Punch Out!!, Zelda, Dragon Quest, Faxanadu, Gradius, Tetris, and Wizards & Warriors.

Famitsū
• The Japanese video game magazine Famitsū assigns scores to video games. Dragon Quest IX and IX received a perfect score. Dragon Quest II and VIII received anear-perfect score of 39/40.
• Famitsū included a developper column where Sakurai publish bi-weekly column since 2003. Regarding back on his past columns in 2016, he mentioned Final Fantasy 77 times, Dragon Quest 71, Metal Gear 46, Monster Hunter 42, Zelda 41, Mario 40, Pokémon 34, Street Fighter 32, Gradius 30 and Mother 29.
• In 2016, in the most memorable games on each console, Final Fantasy appears 17 times, Mario 15, Dragon Quest 12, Pokémon 9 and Megami Tensei 9. In 2017, according to the Famitsū readers, Dragon Quest III is in 2sd position of the favorite game of all time and the top 20 RPG of all time after Persona 5.

Reggie announcement
Unlike Sora and Geno, and like Joker and Piranha Plant, Erdrick and Crono certainly haven't massively votes in the ballot. So they would be : "Who never saw it coming, new to the series, just like Joker from Persona 5 : it's emblematic of the approach that Mr. Sakurai and the team are taking with the DLC".

Rumors
• On December 30th, 2018, Vergeben made a post following up that the Square Enix newcomer is most likely a Dragon Quest character, namely Erdrick, Luminary or Slime. On April 25th, Vergeben said that Erdrick is definitely part of the Fighter’s Pass. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/234547-super-smash-bros-ultimate/77661676?jumpto=72#72
• On January 3rd, 2019, information quickly spread in regards to the first few DLC characters for Ultimate, as, information regarding their movesets was found in the game data. Three characters were listed, under codenames: Piranha Plant, under "packun", Joker, under "jack", and an unknown third character under the name "brave". While it is unconfirmed who or what "Brave" is referring to, speculation regarding who it is includes the Hero from Dragon Quest as his Japanese default name and class in most games of the series is 勇者 (Yūsha), that means "Hero" and directly translates to "Brave" in English.
• On February 4th, the general director of the Kirby series, Shinya Kumazaki, made a post on Instagram showcasing a number of photos of Kirby next to Erdrick's shield. The post reads: "The brave's shield. そして伝説がはじまった！ (And thus, the legend started!)". However, the post has since been edited to state that "This picture has no meaning", and Kumazaki's profile was updated to read "Photo are unrelated to work". Kumazaki isn't directly involved in the Super Smash Bros. series, only being listed as an Original Game Supervisor for Ultimate.

 

[NomadLuminary]

Wait, which one's which?

Left is Luminary and the Right is Erdrick

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Erdrick
Chance: 60%. I can't go higher on it because a lot of the leaks are too sketchy to me. There's too many things that raise an eyebrow for me to take it that seriously as some kind of fact. I absolutely think he's possible, but his days of being super likely are long past to me. Verge has a horrible track record after the base game, especially related to Smash. I'm skeptical if he really knows anything. Coupled with the immense amount of leakbait going around, and I don't want to take him as indefinite. Tansut is an odd case; we really don't know if he actually knew about Cloud beforehand, as it seems to be the case. He claims that, but we can't even find the thread last I checked. Even then, that's literally the next day, so it could've been a bold prediction. He got one other thing right, though I forget the exact details of that. The problem is when he asked about if it was really Erdrick or not, his source was "sure, why not". This immediately kills it for me as a strong rumor. They either say yes or no. If they're a "if you want to believe that", then it should be treated as a grain of salt, imo.

I also don't take Brave to mean anything specific at this point. Jane, Arsene, Jack, and Packun Flower are not all very consistent with each other. We don't even know if Jane would've been the same character who became Kasumi. The datamine feels too lacking in any useful information now. The stats don't help either, as we know stats change before the final version sometimes. So it doesn't tell us much of anything. And even if they were the same, stats are a lot more variable and difficult to place on an existing model to get the results that it's really supposed to be. So they aren't strong data for us to use. If we get proper information via another datamine, things could change for me. But so far, I don't feel him nearly as likely as I once thought.

Lastly, I don't think Erdrick is likely to be the face either if they go the Hero Class, due to being an easy business risk. He won't sell very well at all outside of Japan. This is a problem as it's a worldwide-selling game. They need sales worldwide, not just from one region, to make enough bank back from the cost used to license. It has to be "worth it". He absolutely will be an alt if it's a Hero Class, but I highly doubt he'd be the first costume due to this. Trying to sell a virtual unknown to other regions is already an inherent risk by design. It's even more of a risk if you have to spend a ton of money to use this character. Using the other two Heroes to help sell it worldwide better makes a lot of sense, and would do wonders for DQ as a whole. Slime would sell rather well too due to its iconic nature, being the mascot and Pikachu of the series, respectively.

Want: 30%. I like the idea of the Hero Class moreso. Erdrick I barely know a bit of due to the name mentioned in DW/DQ1 and 2 mainly. I did a little research due to this. However, I honestly prefer the DQ1 specific character. This is the one I grew up with. He's also vastly recognized worldwide too. That's a very clear and well known design. The most notable factor relating to this is when they put up a poll for Japan to vote in, where it was "who do you expect the most". Erdrick himself didn't show up there. The Hero Class did. They're expecting a generic class, and it makes sense too. That's more what would be recognized worldwide and has a very strong chance of selling the most. I'd imagine they'd use Luminary or Eight as the main face, with Erdrick as one of the notable alts, if they went this route.

The other factor is Slime. This is honestly my favorite DQ character overall. He can do a significant amount of stuff, and also represents one of the 4 core things in RPG's; Monster Encounters. These are really important to the genre as a whole, as it helps build character as well your general stats. It's extremely important to a big part of the gameplay, a robust battle system. Even as simple as DQ1 was, it still had a very neat battle system that worked quite well. The other 4 core things are "The Hero"(whether a class or role, or both), the Story, and The Stats/Leveling Up. There's really no way to properly represent The Story as a mechanic in Smash for a playable RPG character. Stats/Leveling Up is definitely doable, but can be argued as difficult to pull off with good balance. That leaves the other two core mechanics. "The Hero", which isn't just simply a class alone, but moreso what a hero can do. They aren't just the protagonist, but the original class introduced is not unlike the Red Mage from Final Fantasy. They can do a bit of everything. They're an all-arounder. Sometimes they also can heal. They have attack spells, healing spells, utility spells, defense spells, tons of equipment choices, average but serviceable stat gains, and sometimes the easy ability to escape encounters as more than just a quick option on the menu. The other one I feel is important is Monster Encounters. They're notorious for making the game work as a whole. They're the challenge. They're why your hero/characters become strong. They provide tons of unique abilities, including those can be seen as unfair when done to a player character. They're quite versatile and unique.

Nominations: Brian x 10(I have the right amount now, right? I should have 10 total. 5 from today, 5 extra noms otherwise. Let me know if this is incorrect and I will fix it. )

 

[chocolatejr9]

Left is Luminary and the Right is Erdrick

Actually, I ment which one's the hope and which one's the dream, but thanks for clarifying that.

 

[CureParfait]

Erdrick

Chance- 1%
The only that is going for Erdrick right now is leakers backing him up, which is something that shouldn't be hold much stock in. Given how Square Enix was with Cloud I think chances for Square Enix characters in general regarding DLC looks bleak already. Since it seems like music is important part of the DLC, it doesn't look good for Erdrick at all given how stubborn the Dragon Quest composer is regarding to his music. Plus if there is a Dragon Quest rep it is most likely going to be Slime. I also think the codename brave is too ambiguous to say it is definitely Erdrick, given there is a possibility brave is only refering to the character's personality or they pull an irony where brave is actually a coward.

Want- 0%
From what I've seen from Erdrick he doesn't seem to have anything interesting potential wise. I would rather play characters who has a potential to be interesting or unique. There are tons of Square Enix characters I rather see over Erdrick. Also I am not really interested in Dragon Quest neither.

 

[NomadLuminary]

Actually, I ment which one's the hope and which one's the dream, but thanks for clarifying that.

Oh the hope is Erdrick. Luminary is the dream. Hes my name after all Haha.

 

[3DSNinja]

The Charcter with the most overrated chances ever
Chance:0%: I am 100% positive Erdrick will not be revealed. First, yeah he has been leaked, but honestly all we have learned from this DLC cycle is to not trust leakers. Second, yeah Brave is the Japanese name of the DQ3 Hero, but that is WAY TOO OBVIOUS compared to Jack and Doyle. Third, Slime would make way more sense to reveal because he is more well known. And fourth, DQ has many other heroes, most prominently Luminary that could be the character. I am certain Square is leakbaiting us. It’s probably Geno because no one sees it coming.
Want:0%: And good riddance. I don’t really like Dragon Quest, and honestly it would hurt me inside if instead of Geno or Terra, or Sora or Lara Croft or ANY OTHER SQUARE CHARACTER, we got Erdrick, who would just be Robin 2.0. Give me a unique character. Still better then the promotional **** that would be a 3 Houses character, but not by much.
Nominations
Specter Knight x3 Blaze x2

 

[shinhed-echi]

Erdrick:
Chance 90%
This basically boils to both feeling, judgement, a bit of personal bias, and the added factor of the probability that things can go in unexpected ways.

But to me, Sora was basically deconfirmed when the list of 7 leaked. Then Geno was spirited away. (I do believe spirits and especially ATs deconfirm characters).
Then Sora got deconfirmed again recently, and while people might say “But NDA!” I have to question this because KH is getting absolutely no content that I know of on Switch. People who say otherwise is out of pure optimism.
DQ on the other hand is on a freaking toll this year. Games up and down and all around, manga, movie, heck even DQ12 just got announced.
And most of these (barring the movie) all have some sort of connection to Erdrick.

So in my head, it makes absolute sense. This IS the time to make DQ shine brighter, especially on the west.
However, my 10% skepticism is composed of 5% Sephiroth, and 5% No character.

Want 150%
Why the extra 50%? Because I need Erdrick or a DQ rep (or a CT rep) badly.
I’m kind of losing interest in Smash lately, sadly. And DQ is my current favorite VC franchise. If Erdrick or any DQ character gets into smash, I will solo main him/her! And my interest in this game will skyrocket once more. Not to mention this means more exposure to DQ, and people will get interested in the series.

It’s not like it’s a controversial game series or anything, heck, if you like Pokémon mechanics you are pretty much set on liking DQ! Don’t like the main games, well there’s monster catching sub series too!
Want more action rpg experience? There’s the Heroes sub series!
See, the world of DQ is HUGE, but we only get like 40% of the games that come out in Japan, so more exposure to this grand series, will motivate Square Enix to bring more of them to the west.

Plus, Nintendo has been home to DQ since it’s early beginnings. If there are only a handful of game series from 3rd parties that could pass as 1st party due to loyalty to a console, DQ fits that bill to a tee.

Nominate: Mike Jones (StarTropics) x5
If he’s already done,
then Kunio (Kunio-Kun / River City Ransom) x5

 

[jamesster445]

Erdrick

Chance- 75%
Want- 35%

Where there's smoke there's fire. Let's just hope that Erdrick brings the heat. Unfortunately much like Final Fantasy, Square is gonna drop the ball with content aren't they?

Nominations- Tora and Poppi x5

 

[The DanMan051]

The only reason we're even talking about this guy is because of Verge.

Tansut, the guy who teased Cloud for Smash 4, all but explicitly said Erdrick was coming months ago.
So this is... pretty false.

Just a reminder, Sakurai is not responsible for choosing the DLC this time.

I've already seen four users mention something along the lines of, "Sakurai would want a DQ character because he likes it".

Nintendo selected characters and he picked the finalists, while being at the forefront of negotiations (as we know with Atlus and Joker).
He loved Perona 5 and its UI even influenced Ultimate's.
DQIII is one of his favorite games, with Erdrick being a Japanese gaming icon and also able to promote the series in the West.

While "Sakurai would want it" is banal reasoning on it's own, saying his personal preferences aren't an influencing factor is also demonstrably false.

Anyways, for the actual rating:

Erdrick-- 90%
I personally never go over 90% with any leak unless it has substantial visual evidence, so you may as well read this as 100%. With everything that has gone on, I'd be shocked if Erdrick (with a Luminary alt) doesn't show up.

Want-- 65%
Never tried DQ, but can't deny the series' influence, legacy, and steady relevance. If he did get in I'd really want a Luminary alt because I prefer his design.

 

[Troykv]

Glad to be of service chief. I hope everything's OK now.

As for rerates, I agree with Ultomato that it's better to wait until what we get. For all we know we get just Erdrick and we're in the same place as we are now.

Now for this week's calcs:

Spoiler: this week's calcs

Metal Sonic
3.34% Chance, 37.62% Want
Winner of predictions was waddledeeonredyoshi with 2.05%

Tetromino
3.72% Chance, 31.35% Want
Winner of predictions was 3DSNinja with 3.00%

Nathan Drake
0.19% Chance, 42.27% Want
Winner of predictions was Sid-cada by virtue of being the lowest prediction, with 0.13%
Nate has the dubious honor of being dubbed the least likely third-party, beating Nero Claudius' record of 0.7%. Somehow even the Tetris block managed to score higher.

Palico
8.18% Chance, 16.88% Want
Winner of predictions was Sari by virtue of being the highest prediction, with 4.62%

Impa
4.60% Chance, 27.32% Want
Winner of predictions was GoodGrief741 with 4.73%

Below is the list of everyone with extra noms.

3DSNinja 5 extra noms
@Artix 10 extra noms
@Awakining 5 extra noms
Verde Coeden Scalesworth 5 extra noms
DaUsername 45 extra noms
@Delzethin 5 extra noms
FancySmash 20 extra noms
GoodGrief741 25 extra noms
@PokéfreakofBACON 5 extra noms
Sari 90 extra noms
@shocktarts17 5 extra noms
Sid-cada 5 extra noms
@Smashing Ramen 5 extra noms
Troykv 20 extra noms
waddledeeonredyoshi 5 extra noms

Oh right, I forgot to use the nominations last time xD.

Well technically... I ended up in a dilemma between trying to vote for Micaiah or continue the Crash Bandicoot bandwagon xD

 

[NomadLuminary]

Tansut, the guy who teased Cloud for Smash 4, all but explicitly said Erdrick was coming months ago.
So this is... pretty false.


Nintendo selected characters and he picked the finalists, while being at the forefront of negotiations (as we know with Atlus and Joker).
He loved Perona 5 and its UI even influenced Ultimate's.
DQIII is one of his favorite games, with Erdrick being a Japanese gaming icon and also able to promote the series in the West.

While "Sakurai would want it" is banal reasoning on it's own, saying his personal preferences aren't an influencing factor is also demonstrably false.

Anyways, for the actual rating:

Erdrick-- 90%
I personally never go over 90% with any leak unless it has substantial visual evidence, so you may as well read this as 100%. With everything that has gone on, I'd be shocked if Erdrick (with a Luminary alt) doesn't show up.

Want-- 65%
Never tried DQ, but can't deny the series' influence, legacy, and steady relevance. If he did get in I'd really want a Luminary alt because I prefer his design.

The dream boi. The dream.

 

[FancySmash]

A rather brave leak

Chance: 75%
This is probably the most confident I've been in a while. From numerous sources claiming he's a top contender, to Dragon Quest being a large part of Nintendo's history, and even being quite popular in Japan, things are going rather well for Erdrick. So what are his faults? Well, some claim Dragon Quest isn't as well known in the west, though I think that's a rather minuscule problem. I suppose there's competition in the Square field, mainly from Sora, fellow DQ characters like Slime, and maybe Chrono. Then there's Square's stinginess with Final Fantasy content, would they really be willing to put in Dragon Quest when they were reluctant for Final Fantasy? There are doubts to be sure, but I think at the very least some DQ character is a possibility.

Want: 65%
I'd normally 50-50 on a series I haven't had any experience with, but I've fortunately had some exposure with Dragon Quest thanks to Fortune Street. Whilst not necessarily the same thing, it gives me a little more exposure to it to decide that I'd like to know a little more, and Smash is the perfect place to see more of the series.

Predictions: Amy Rose
Ouch, uh, I can honestly say, if Eggman, Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow ever get in, Amy is the next character I'd go with for the Sonic series. 0.23%

Nominations: Captain Rainbow x5

 

[andree123]

Erdrick
Chance - 100%
This is one of the most unexpected choices we ever get and he was popular pretty much with Dragon Quest Fans, I don't play the Dragon Quest series at all so I don't think that much about him but other than Tansut and Verg leaking him which makes him 100% in the fighters pass.
Want - 20%
I don't like how Nintendo and Sakurai decided it would be a good idea to bring Erdrick into smash instead of Slime (because Sakurai wants to take photos of his humanoid figures to rotoscope it into 3D animation and it hurt characters who don't have limbs at all) or a final fantasy rep (this could had improved FF representation in smash), it is like officially bringing Spongebob into a anime with some western reps in it who are popular in Japan, if Nintendo wasn't involved with the selection we could had Sakurai's favorite games all being represented and it would had been the greatest collection of 3rd parties.

Nominations- Sylux x5

 

[GoodGrief741]

it is like officially bringing Spongebob into a anime with some western reps in it who are popular in Japan, if Nintendo wasn't involved with the selection we could had Sakurai's favorite games all being represented and it would had been the greatest collection of 3rd parties.

I'm sorry, could you explain this part? Because either I'm not getting it or it doesn't make any sense.

 

[Namasura]

Azor Ahai

Wow, good one. This works on so many levels, I mean, at this point Erdrick might as well be the pick that was promised but also because one of the possible AA is the Dragon Queen, so on that DQ - DQ similarity...

Spoiler: Soft GOT spoilers?

- Venerated, beloved and respected in the East.
- Has had a life long plan to cross into the West.
- Goes there seeking something they have a reasonable case for, with their success, with their legacy
- The common folk of the West doesn't love them like in the east, they act with suspicion and repulse
- They may have overreacted a bit towards such a situation

 

[Deleted member]

I'll make an exception from my retirement from RTC and show some of my support for my most wanted here.

Z-Sword Gohan

Chance: 80%

This is a character that probably without the datamine or the "leakers" backing him up, would be quite overlooked by the speculation scene which while sad is attributed to the poor management of the franchise in the west. But even then, its a franchise that has the potential to grow in the west as they got 2 entries reaching 1+ million units (VIII and IX) and XI selling decently with the Switch version coming soon.

That aside there are a lot of things going for it, the franchise along its creator has deep ties with Nintendo, you can play most of the mainline games on a 3DS (Japanese one can play them all), its a pretty healthy franchise with a lot of releases and spinoffs coming frequently, there's a popular artist linked to the series, music is great despite the composer being an ass and both Horii and SE being frequent collaborators with Nintendo.

Major issues with them would be probably other DQ picks like other heroes, Sephiroth or other FF picks plus while the SE part is kind of greedy we have yet to see how the Enix part handles it but they are no strangers with Nintendo collabs.

Want 100%

Both Erdrick and Femdrick are by far my most wanted character by far for a number of reasons. Its from one of my favorite series, they represent the adventure aspect of DQ quite well due to the hero demonstrating a little bit of everything (which is something Slime can't really do aside from showing a narrow aspect from it), male and female alts and that the hero class abilities giving a great amount of abilities that can set them apart from other characters in the game.

Only thing that could make the deal with Erdrick better would be multiple heroes as their alts which would make them increase my wanted levels over 9000.

P.S. Slime is not a bad pick, but feels kinda limited regarding showing the world of DQ.

Noms: Morrigan x 5

 

[Ultomato]

Goku from Fire Emblem

Chance: 75%
He is most likely brave. Even if he isn't, he's been floating around in the leak-scene longer than that. Dragon Quest is slowly being pushed more and with the whole original music in dq11 switch thing, I dare say that a dq rep is a lock. Only thing is it might still be Luminary.

Want: abstain
I care litteraly none about this.

Nom: Rundas x5

 

[DaUsername]

A new Zelda game that isn't a Link's Awakening remake
Chance: 60%
I won't deny that he's likely, but I just don't trust leaks as much as you guys do. (Seriously, why so many 100%s? I'd understand 99% but 100% is pushing it.) Anyway, his inclusion would definitely make a lot of sense. The DQ franchise is pretty big in Japan and throwing him into Smash could be an attempt to make the west acknowledge the series' existence. There is still a chance we could get a different SE character or even none at all.
Want: 10%
I've never been interested in DQ and from all I've seen this guy is just another dude with a sword. It would be better than having another FF character, though.

Crash prediction: 40%
Amy prediction: 1.5% (I'm not sure who we're rating next.)
Noms: SE rep x5

 

[RealPokeFan11]

(I'm not sure who we're rating next.)

Amy is next.

 

[waddledeeonredyoshi]

Leaker's last leg
Chance: 30%
I was actually gonna mention the infamous leakers here but it would be too messy and the day would already be over by the time I'd be done so I'm just looking at Erdrick on his own, and personally I'm not seeing it. Tho I have to say, my gut says codename Brave is a certain Duo.

I feel these DLC characters will have to appeal to both the east and west, not just one of them, and while Japan would probably go crazy over him, the same can't be said for the west who'd be mostly confused or completely in the neutral with him. Slime or Sora would attract bigger audiences imo. Also, movesets matter. And I wouldn't know how Sakurai would give Erdrick a moveset not hugely inspired by Robin. He also once joked about the amount of sword wielders in the game, so it would seem quite ironic to me if he Erdrick was added anyway.

Want: 2%
I don't have anything against DQ but Erdrick seems so generic he might as well be a FE character to me.

Not only that, but if Erdrick isn't in, Vergeben will officially lose all credibility for the rest of this game's DLC cycle, which I'd be all for considering how much I dislike leak culture.

Amy: 1.74%
Bandana Dee x8
Qbby x2

 

[Sid-cada]

Erdrick

Chance - 60% - It's hard to say, as this basically goes down to how much you believe that the leak is real or fake. While I have some trust in it, I don't believe in it completely. Dragon Quest is the most iconic RPG in Japan, and decently well known elsewhere. Even then, though, it's hard to say that he ends up being recognizable among the global population. Square has also been known to be kinda stingy in the past. I say that if he isn't in E3 his chances are probably droping heavily, but otherwise I'm keeping an eye on him.

Want - 40% - Slime I feel is a bit better as a character. I'd just feel disappointed if he were to get in, as Slime can offer such an interesting move set compared to Erdrick that he feels like a bad choice in comparison. I recognize that Dragon Quest is fairly important and deserves a character, but not getting Slime would sour the deal.

Predictions

Amaterasu - 4.35% - I have no idea...

Nominations

Cadence X5

 

[RealPokeFan11]

Amaterasu - 4.35% - I have no idea...

Tomorrow is Amy Rose, not Amaterasu...

 

[Calamitas]

The current heavily rumored character that no one ever seems to shut up about

Chance: 30%
I'm not buying it. Even though "leaker" after "leaker" keeps bringing him up, it just feels to me like a lot of those are piggy-backing of others, and nothing really seems all too believable. Not even him being "Brave" sounds plausible to me.

Wants: 5%
Again, not buying it him. I think we already have more than enough third-party characters, plus I have absolutely no attachment or interest in Dragon Quest. His moveset would need to be really good to convince me to get the Fighter's Pass. The only reason why I'm not giving him a 0% want is because I'm not fundamentally opposed to him.

 

[Depressed Gengar]

Edrick chance: 50%
Eh, he's got "leaks" going for him and the series does have a lot of popularity in Japan. The only thing that puts any sort of damper on his parade is the fact that a Dragon Quest character of any kind would likely just gather little to no hype from the West.

Want: 45%
Eeeeeeeeeeeh.
Erdrick at least wouldn't be some irrelevant nobody in terms of gaming, but I still have no interest in him, and he doesn't sound all that exciting. He's easily among the last decent third party picks outside of secondary characters from third party series already in Smash though.