Chief
2% Chance
Chief is in a weird predicament right now. He is kind of deconfirmed, he missed the boat at E3, and he would be a double dip which right now at least seems to be off the table. So why am I even entertaining the idea?
Vergeben. The fact that Verge doubled down at least to me makes me think there is a slim chance that somehow despite the decomfirmations and missing E3, Chief might maybe just finish the fight. Essentially, it is how much you trust Verg on his word.
Now in terms of what Verg leaked, Metroid and a mediocre Zelda anniversary line up. I know some people might bring up the champions thing, but even before E3 came out I said that was just Verg ****ing with people and not in the same boat as Chief. As for the DK game, there are enough rumblings around and other leakers that make me believe whether Verg is saying it or not, a new DK is probably on the horizon. So the question is, how much faith do you put in Verg?
As you can see, I do not put that much faith in him after all this. Part of why Verg was holding on for so long was that his track record was great. But now it isn’t. Maybe he will be right at the end of the day, but right now I am not confident.
You have other misc stuff that could make sense for Chief, but honestly I feel like its ride or die for leaks like Verg or King Zell, while everything else seems against Chief.
The one thing I will say before I end is that Chief, more than anyone character, has been someone the community has jumped through hoops to justify. Conventions like no double dips or interviews being a bad sign seem to be ignored by the community for Chief in particular. I know the idea of Chief in smash is tantalizing, but at the same time I think some of yall have been overconfident in him.
100% Want
I would love Chief in Smash. Legit, the idea of putting HALO in smash is super cool because it fully cements Smash as gaming’s greatest celebration. The “Nintendo All Stars” era of smash has long been dead, but this would be the nail in the coffin. Seeing Microsoft’s golden boy alongside Mario, Link, and Pikachu would fully cement this new era of smash speculation. And I am all for it.
Halo itself deserves its place in smash. It is a legendary series. There is a reason it was the game that sold the Xbox brand. Honestly, the idea of a first person shooter rep alone interests me. The idea of it being Master Chief is even more interesting.
Crash
30% Chance
This might just be me being an optimist, but I am not counting Crash out yet. Crash makes enough sense to put in, the problem right now is that E3 was his best bet. Granted, I am not as pessimistic as I was say, right after Kazuya.
Originally, I was going to not touch on this as much, but the amount of misinformation I have seen going around about the TFB situation and saying Crash is dead forced me to put even more of a focus on it.
I saw some people talk about the TFB situation, and flat out it does not matter in the slightest. Since his revival, Crash has had 4 different developers work on his series. He does not have a stable set of developers. So even in a worst case scenario, Crash seems fine. But the worst case scenario right now is not with Crash, its with Call of Duty. It is pretty well known that COD Vanguard…is in a bad state right now. Simply put, you have the least experienced COD Team which has made many of the weaker games according to reviews working on new hardware, it’s a recipe for disaster. TFB having to work on COD for a bit makes sense for two reasons. First, this is clearly an all hands on deck situation considering how many Activision studios are doing COD support right now. Activision is clearly trying to save Vanguard and also perhaps seek out a replacement for Sledgehammer. TFB, being coding wizards, make a ton of sense to put to the task. They put Reignited, N Sane, and Crash 4 on the switch, they know how to code quite well. I think the TFB situation is one big nothing burger no matter what.
Some people have brought up Liam Robertson saying Crash is dying, but that is just dumb for two reasons. First off, Liam has changed his story multiple times. First he teased that he would be releasing the video soon about how Crash was dead. Then he kept it patreon locked. Than he backpedeled hard after all the Wumpa League rumors began to circulate. Given his last big activision leaks were in 2016 with Skylanders ending, I would trust more active Activision sources, such as Canadian Guy, who have been in contact with multiple Crash devs and have contradicted Liam. Furthermore, if there is someone’s word who I would take over Liam’s about Crash, its ACTIVISIONS. Activision still labels Crash a core franchise. They talked favorably about Crash 4 overpreforming (even before the next gen and switch ports based on the timeframe of the investor report) their expectations. They cleary have something planned for Crash’s 25th anniversary. If I had to choose between someone who has backpedaled multiple times about the fate of Crash or the words of people that we know are in the know and ****ing ACTIVISION, I would take the latter’s word.
Essentially, people are looking for something to go full doomer over about Crash, when to be honest there just isn’t enough to even say. This is one of those circumstances where misinformation and rampant speculation just make a narrative that people want to believe. No one loves Activision. They are certainly no angels. But right now, there is not enough evidence to say that Activision is
Also on a further note, I saw someone bring up some wonky email stuff about Activision. If you look at their investor report, it would not make sense to go full COD. They said COD underperformed, while Crash and Tony Hawk overpreformed and helped offset their losses on COD. Most likely, its some intern who made an oopsie.
Now with that out of the way, lets go take a look at your regularly scheduled programing.
Part of the reason I am not counting Crash out yet is just the brutal fact that the third parties this pass were all very big choices. Tekken is arguably the biggest fighting game that is not Street Fighter. Final Fantasy is the biggest JRPG series that is not Pokemon. And Minecraft is Minecraft. The scope of each of these gives me that spark of hope that perhaps, there is room for one more “big” third party. It also helps that this is Smash Ultimate, where I could genuinely see them try to go out on a higher note. Combine that with the fact that Kazuya seems to appeal to Japanese fans a bit more than Western fans (for now, trust me give it two weeks after his presentation everyone will say he was a GOAT choice like Terry) and I think that you can squint and say that maybe one last big ish character can come.
I will say this, if we get a “big” character last, Crash honestly still is one of the better choices to bet on. Dante is dead, Doomslayer looks dead, Monster Hunter is dead, most “big” third parties just are not as much in play as they were when we last evaluated Crash. While I personally was wrong about some things with Mii Costumes, I still feel that the field of big candidates is a lot smaller than people are giving credit for.
Crash is in a good spot as a western rep because of how popular he is in Japan. While not an S Tier request there like he is in the west, Crash is very popular and has been for a while. In the Smash 2 polls, Crash was one of the most brought up third parties. The only other one on the top five that is not in smash is Doreamon, and that is because he is not a video game character. Everyone else in some way, shape, or form is in Smash. Crash also is very popular in Japan still in speculation. Based on my conversations with those more in tuned to Japanese speculation, Crash is really the only Western rep taken seriously right now. There are some passing mentions of Chief, but Crash is the only western rep that has significant traction there. I do not think I have to state that Crash is popular in the West. Crash has had a slow moving coup over speculation over the lifespan of ultimate, going from a dark horse that was quickly gaining support at the beginning of this games life span, to one of the most omnipresent forces in speculation. Simply put, if you want a crowd pleaser, Crash fits the bill.
It also helps that the timing for crash also lines up reasonably well. Even if you want to go full doomer about Crash as a franchise, which as I illustrated up there is dumb, Crash would have been selected in 2019. In 2019, Crash just had a huge revival, CTR did amazingly, and Crash 4 was on the way next year. Crash in 2019 was just in a perfect spot to be considered, given how in the public eye he was at the time.
Basically, the situation for Crash is still the same. The timing lines up well enough, hes still uber popular, and he has a noted presence on the switch and Nintendo history. The only change is that Crash was not our E3 reveal, Kazuya was. Big characters can be revealed in just a direct, Little Mac, K Rool, and especially Cloud show that. Without that E3 reveal, Crash is no longer the undisputed front runner right now, but I would still say if we get one more bombshell, which to be honest is not impossible given that all three of the third parties this pass were big, I think Crash would be it.
Also if you really wanted to be a *******, Crash would still be the smallest IP of the bunch at the time of the pass selection.
100% Want
Duh.
Look, yall know I am one of the original Crash for Smash stans. I have been pushing Crash since the ballot days. I love the Crash games on the PS1. I love CTR. The revivals have been great. I could talk more, but honestly I have talked in depth on this multiple times in the past. Look at any of my past ratings and how much Crash as a series means to me. Legit, i think it is obvious how happy Crash would make me. The idea of Sony's mascot making it into Smash is perfect, but also Crash just...fits so well into smash. Keep an eye on Crash for smash, I would bet on him being one of the biggest requests in Smash 6
Also there is the small caveat of opening the door to the idea of Spyro in smash. Which would be my true never ever want.
Nominating Concept: Tetris Stage x 20
Day over. Rate Phoenix Wright and Amaterasu in Chance and Want, Predict Arle and Concept: Phantasy Star Newcomer.
Sounds a bit arbitrary, but it'd be a little weird if the last two characters were big fighting game characters but weren't revealed together. Sakurai also mentioned that the final character will take awhile, which implies that they are complex. This fits Phoenix perfectly, but not Chunners. The porting of Street Fighter's gameplay style over to Smash is already a thing thanks to Ryu, so with him, combined with Min Min, a lot of work on Chun-Li would've already been done. Granted, we could get a Game Awards reveal, but I'm not banking on it, Chunners is out. Meanwhile Monster Hunter and Dante, big Capcom characters previously poised for good positions, are Mii Costumes, and early 2019 speculation darling Resident Evil has long rotted via a spirit event.
BlueEyedGrimmbat
with 17.50%
Ridrool64
with 8.73%
waddledeeonredyoshi
with 13.86%
3BitSaurus
5
Artix
15
Awakining
5
BowserKing
5
Dan Quixote
10
DaUsername
212
Delzethin
5
Inue Houji
74
Mr. MR
75
NintenRob
5
Nemuresu
10
Ninjaed
20
Perkilator
15
SKX31
55
TCT~Phantom
105
Troykv
15
Wunderwaft
5
