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

[Golden Icarus]

Satisfaction

After the initial reveal, I was pretty happy just to be surprised. A Xenoblade newcomer was always a strong possibility, but Pyra/Mythra being independent from Rex was a pleasant surprise.

The presentation was great! And now that I have gotten a chance to play them I can safely say that they are both quite fun. They strike a good balance of being similar characters, while still feeling surprisingly distinct. I mostly played Pyra at first, as I really enjoyed her hard hitting playstyle. Then I remembered that there’s another entire character. Mythra’s speed makes you feel untouchable and her specials are both simple and unique. Pyra and Mythra’s contrast in speed and power really do make a huge difference. Even though they are clearly very similar, it honestly does feel like we’re getting two characters for the price of one, which is awesome.

Also, and I know this might be a controversial opinion, but I love the Monster Hunter costumes. The Rathalos armor might be my favorite swordfighter costume in the entire game and is a great way to show off Monster Hunter’s sick armor designs in Smash. I’m sure that the Hunter could have made for a cool fighter, but I’m really happy with the representation that Monster Hunter has. We got some music, multiple costumes and a Rathalos boss fight. That’s a lot of love for a third party series. The Arthur costume was an awesome surprise as well.

 

[AnEasterEgg]

Satisfaction: 95%

I was a bit disappointed there was no Disguised Pyra alt or Xenoblade Mii costumes, and the spirit selection could have been better, but that's all pretty minor stuff to me. Just bonuses. The character itself is from a franchise I wanted reps for, and has a fun and strong moveset, which is what really matters.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

It's literally been over 24 hours since the last post. I know someone will post another satisfaction rating because I said this, but it's clear discussion's slown the hell down and we should probably move on

 

[Deleted member]

I forgot to add my nominations.

Giving x10 for the following concept:
Ending/revamping Rate Their Chances x10

Well, if this concept cannot be taken into account, can I give my x10 votes for an Echo Fighters Pass concept instead?

 

[TCT~Phantom]

Day over.
Remaining FP2 predictions time.

Fortoday, we are doing what we did last time. Post your predictions of who is left and why.Write a paragraph each. Each character prediction that meets the writing requirements will earn 20 noms. 40 noms are on the line today. Post your predictions.

 

[fogbadge]

hmm tricky. my gut says the next fighter will be a less likely 3rd party fighter. by which i mean a character who though popular enough in their own right is often not considered because theyre not the biggest. someone perhaps around the same level as professor layton though not necessarily him. im not sure we'll see any more first parties but im not exactly expecting anything huge either. its a bit hard to judge after the character whose odds you were most optimistic about got left out with only half a reason as to why. but right now i feel like, not as *** 3rd party and maybe a second sonic character are our best bets.

fighter 10: a less likely 3rd party, someone layton or one of NB or capcom's less well known series

fighter 11: either a second sonic character like eggman or a character with fleeting nintendo appearances

nom grunty x20

 

[Commander_Alph]

Here's my prediction, still the same as last time but with specific placement.

Zhao Yun/Lu Bu (FP11, the surprise 3rd party)

Yep, while everyone still dangling around Hayabusa as the MVP in this prediction (no hard feelings) I come into these conclusion that the Dynasty Warriors series have an actual chance if not more than Ninja Gaiden to be represent the Koei-Tecmo company. Firstly, and mostly the obvious thing is that legacy can't bring you anywhere without both party agreeing and AFAIK, the only thing that Nintendo and Koei-Tecmo agree about is that the Warriors series is really profitable and after the success of Age of Calamity I could see Nintendo all these years negotiating just to pay tribute to the series and it's no surprise that even a series like Bayonetta got the upper hand because Nintendo is kindly involved with publishing the game on the Wii U (which is a smaller scale than their collaboration with KT and it's still works!) and we all know that we expecting Dante moreso than her to be our Hack n' Slash Rep first. And not only that, without the Dynasty Warriors series they couldn't agree with Bamco, SEGA, and even Square Enix to make a spin-off for series like One Piece, Gundam (both IP hold by Bandai), Dragon Quest and recently Persona 5. It's feels like everyone forgetting that Dynasty Warriors is also their flagship IP and in hindsight, very important to the company on building a relationship with other as the Musou formula is easily copy and pasted, not to mention that Dynasty Warriors is the first series to create the genre. And now Samurai Warriors 5 was shown on the recent Direct which already give everyone the attention. There's still some people who is a little bit iffy on the Warriors series triumph Koei-Tecmo other franchise and I gladly list them:

• Li Naotora, a character from Samurai Warriors appear as a guest character in DoA 5 Last Round
• along that is a costume pack consisting of various Samurai Warriors character in the series as a mashup
• Recent Warriors Orochi game have featured guest character from Koei Tecmo's other game (predominantly in Warriors Orochi 3 & 4)
• Additionally KT also made a crossover game featuring other KT character from their library of games which include Ninja Gaiden, DoA and Nioh in the style of the Musou games titled 'Warriors All-Stars'.

A Popular Third Party pick, Maybe Crash Bandicoot Idk (FP10, that one "obvious inclusion)

While I mostly talk about underdog character I can't deny it that there's still a room for 1 big franchise that resonate with everyone, I could go with Dante or Monster Hunter (if their Mii Costume didn't exist in Smash 4 or included in the base game just like Lloyd), so my bets goes to Crash Bandicoot since we gotta get passed E3 with a hype inclusion. I can't add much anything that the usual "he's an icon", "Activision has been really cooperative with Nintendo" and of course "perfectly filled the trifecta of Mario, Sonic and Crash, old console rivals". Not to mentioned there's an ongoing anniversary for the series which is a perfect time to drop him.

Noms: Disgaea rep x40

 

[chocolatejr9]

Fighters Pass 2 Predictions

Fighter 10: One more third party
I know this one is a bit vague, but to be honest, I can't really narrow it down. If it's a Western character, then it's Crash or nobody at this point. That's the simple part, but it gets more complicated when you realise that Nintendo is inherintly biased towards Japanese companies. They still have plenty of companies from over there that would fit Smash swimmingly, like Koei Tecmo, Level-5, or even Nippon Ichi. Heck, they could just as easily go to a company already repped in Smash and get another one, like Sega or Konami. There are just SO MANY OPTIONS at this point, and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Fighter 11: Euden (Dragalia Lost)
sigh Okay, before you get all antsy with me, PLEASE HEAR ME OUT ON THIS! Nintendo has made it very clear they want to get into the mobile market, hence games like FEH and MKT. Dragalia Lost is unique in that it's Nintendo's first original IP for mobile devices. The game itself is actually one of Nintendo's more successful mobile endeavors (I want to say second or third), and is actually pretty significant for the aforementioned "first original IP" honor. Yet despite all that AND the fact the game will be celebrating its 3rd Year Anniversary later this year, there is LITERALLY NO CONTENT IN SMASH WHATSOEVER. And it's not because Nintendo is against repping their mobile games: one of FEH's music tracks got a remix in base game. Nor is it due to issues with CyGames, Dragalia Lost's developer, as their music division has helped with remixes in Smash, most notably the Three Houses remixes. I genuinely believe people are sleeping on Euden here, and I don't often say that about potential Smash picks these days.

Nominations: Concept: Disgaea rep x40

 

[Lyncario]

Prediction time!

Prediction number 1: Ryu Hayabusa

You know the drill. Koei Tecmo and Nintendo have an amazing relationship, with Koei Tecmo having done spin-offs for the Fire Emblem and Zelda series, but they have none of their characters in Smash, or at least no yet. They have Ryu Hayabusa, a pretty iconic character who has known Nintendo apearances in the classic Ninja Gaiden trilogy, and now we know that the Ninja Gaiden Trilogy rumors are true and coming to the Switch, so pretty much everything is looking glad for him. And truth to be told, it is. Between the very good relationship that Koei Tecmo and Nintendo have, the fact that Ryu Hayabusa is a pretty legendary character who has been requested as one of the old Nes icons, while also now having more relevance thanks to his modern Trilogy being ported to the Switch, really things are better for Hayabusa than for any other characters at the moment. Last time, I said that there were 3 characters that I felt had better chances than any others, but one of them fell off in my opinion, and Ryu Hayabusa is still one of the likely in my opinion.

Prediction number 2: Adol Christin

And now, we arrive to the red swordman of Nihon Falcom, Adol Christin. So, what does he have going for him? Well, first of all, while it's not as good as with Koei Tecmo, Nintendo has a very good relationship with Nihon Falcom, with their recent Ys, but also multiples games from their Trials of the Sky series, not only that, but Ys is one of the oldest and most influencial jrpg series there are out there, being the second oldest still ongoing jrpg series out there, with only Dragon Quest being older, whole Megami Tensei and Final Fantasy are both younger by some months. There's also how Adol Christin could very well be the Terry of the pass, being niche in most of the world but popular in more specific areas, as Ys, Trials, and Falcom as a whole are popular in Japan and Korea, so it could very well happen for how influencial and historical Ys is, on top of it shilling for the Falcmo games on Switch. Adol is the other character I though as more likely than any others I still see as likely.

The one character I though as very likely but not anymore is Dante, due to the Capcom costumes coming back with Pyra and Mythra.

Now, will my predictions be wrong? Most likely, yes, but honestly I'm just doing this for fun and I don't care too much about being wrong anyway.

Nominations

Akira/Oficer Howard/Leigonis/Astral Chain MC x 40

 

[Kamen Minecraft]

My Predictions

Prediction 1 : A Tales Character

I believe that a Tales character is coming and will be one of the final fighters. Tales of has no content in Smash outside of Lloyd's Mii in Smash 4. Bandai Namco and Nintendo have a close relationship. Bamco even did work on Smash 4 and Ultimate. The only fighter in smash that is from Bandai Namco is Pac-Man. The new Tales game and Tales news also seem to be planned for a special announcement along side it. The most likely character to be the Tales rep is Lloyd Irving from Tales of Symphonia. However other Tales characters such as Yuri Lowell, Velvet Crowe, and even Cress Albane stand a good chance of being the Tales rep.

Prediction 2 : Doomslayer

Yeah I think the Doomslayer has a good chance of making into smash. Doomslayer is incredibly popular within the west and is even popular overseas even if he is not as popular as in the west. Doomslayer is an iconic character and his appearance in smash would sell massive amounts of passes. Now imagine that with Steve, Sephiroth, and the Tales character and most people couldn't say no to Fighter Pass 2. It also helps that Doom is relevant in gaming right now and Bethesda has worked with Nintendo before.

Doomslayer and a Tales Rep are my main predictions​

 

[BowserKing]

My predictions

10: a new Pokémon Rep. While it might be a bit late for the 25th anniversary day, there is always a possibility of a new Pokémon Rep, especially given that there are new games coming out. There are now more options of Pokémon to choose from. A Pokémon from Gen 8 is still possible, from the likes of Cinderace and Dragapult, to underdogs like Boltound and Frosmoth. But Gen 4 is getting a boost with remakes coming, so Pokémon including Garchomp and Glaceon has a higher chance of being playable. Decidueye is also getting a surprise boost, due to Pokémon Legends: Arceus coming next year. However my most wanted Pokémon will still be Lugia, and given that impossibilities have happened, another impossibility could be broken.

11: Shantae. Quite a bit of Spirits have been promoted to playable, and as rules are breaking, I think Shantae would make one of the best choices for a spot on the fighter’s pass. It also helps that she made her debut on Nintendo devices, starting with the Gameboy Colour. Also since the second Fighter’s pass is quite female dominant (Min-Min, Alex and recently Pyra and Mythra), Shantae would be a great choice for more female representation in Smash Bros. Also her appearance might make other indie characters get a higher chance in future Smash Bros games.

Noms: 5 for Garchomp

 

[Sari]

Fighters Pass 2 Prediction

Copying and pasting what I posted last time since not much has changed. For reference my top three most expected from last time was these two + Rex who we sort of got:

-----

Crash: One of the most popular Smash requests right now. Had a successful revival that even prompted other remakes of classics like Super Mario 3D All-Stars. Has also gotten a ton of attention in recent years which would make Crash fall just in time for FP2. Plus I can easily see Activision working with Nintendo since they have definitely been wanting to promote Crash a lot recently. Could easily be another character to bring outside attention to the pass like Steve did.

Ryu Hayabusa: Koei Tecmo has been super close with Nintendo for at least the past decade or so. They put Metroid content in the 3DS DoA game, made numerous Dynasty Warrior spin-offs with them (like FE Warriors and the upcoming Age of Calamity), helped with the various Smash trailers, and more. Hayabusa himself has a ton of legacy with Ninja Gaiden being one of the most memorable NES games without any content in Ultimate yet. If we get a Koei Tecmo rep I think they're definitely going for Hayabusa. He's one of those characters that just doesn't really have anything going against him and makes a ton of sense.

Honorable Mentions:

• Gen 8 Pokemon: Yeah I still have this looming suspicion that this is going to happen. Gen 8 getting zero content through Ultimate's lifespan outside of that measly spirit event feels so weird. The game has been super successful (and was obviously going to be a hit regardless of Dexit) that it's hard to see Nintendo not adding at least some additional Sword/Shield content into Ultimate.
• A Tales character: At this point it's really a matter of what form of Tales content we get since we're bound to see Lloyd appear in some form or another. Things aren't looking good for Lloyd right now but I'm willing to give him a fair amount of chance since he's definitely in one of the most unique positions ever in Smash speculation. Perhaps we could get Yuri and then the Lloyd costume to go along with him?
• A Sega character: Pretty much just Arle or Eggman but yeah I can see another Sega character happening. Arle benefits from the Puyo Puyo series becoming more popular with each year. Eggman benefits from just being super iconic in general. Either way, I can see Sega getting another fighter since SNK and them are the only FP1 companies without a character in FP2 yet.

Nominations:
Curly as Quote's alt/echo x20
Trevor Philips x20

 

[DaUsername]

Pythra satisfaction: 60%
Yeah, it could have been better.
While the new stage is pretty nice, as is the new music, (ignoring the fact that X got robbed again), the characters themselves, not so much. Mainly the fact that most of their movesets outside of the specials are pretty much the same. I mean, they play more differently than other clone type characters, but I guess I didn't know what I expected.

Noms: Senator Armstrong xThis post probably won't count so whatever.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

I'm gonna abstain, all I predicted with certainty was Dante and I'm pretty sure those Capcom costumes are a death knell. Put all my noms to Beatrice

 

[SharkLord]

I'm gonna be honest: The past couple months broke my predictions. Which is funny, because I had Rex (And Pyra, by extension) in mind. I suppose the dawning realization that we only have two fighters left took out the free-for-all mindset I had regarding speculation. Welp, there goes the first solid predictions I had in month.

Anyways, there's three categories I could see happening: Big third-party, small third-party, and first-party. It sorta depends on whether or not we get a two-month gap and CP10 in May, or a three-month gap and CP10 around when E3 should've been. I'll list off some predictions I have, and where they could fit.

• Lloyd - The biggest wildcard in my predictions, thanks to the Mii Costume. Tales is among the biggest JRPGs in Japan, Lloyd is a decently popular request and by far the most requested Tales character, and Bamco is easy to work with. Plus, it's the only third-party Mii to not have any sort of representation in the base game; Even Heihachi and Gil had the Namco Roulette. On the other hand, the returning Miis have been a pretty consistent pattern, which makes them a constant threat to Lloyd.
  Tales is rather niche in the West and could fit a May release as a smaller third-party, but with how big it is in Japan and with Lloyd's decent Smash support base, I could see him revealed at (Or around) E3 like Hero was. I just hope he comes sooner than later, so we know the answer to the Mii Costume.
• Estelle Bright - Surprise, surprise, the Ys man isn't predicting the Ys character. Falcom's an influential series and has started up some ties to Nintendo recently, making them a prime candidate for another Terry situation. However, something that must be noted is that Trails (Or Kiseki, as it's called in Japan) is arguably bigger than Ys nowadays, and receives more focus. From my experience, there's more of a fanbase surrounding it, and Falcom's sending out two games in a row, followed by just one Ys game, then repeating the pattern. It seems to me that Trails is their main series now, even is Ys has the legacy behind it.
  As for Estelle over Rean, Smash just defers to legacy. All the third-parties with cycling protagonists are usually older and more well-known, with Joker being the sole exception. Estelle always gets the most focus in the anniversary logos, too; She got the spotlight all to herself for the 10th anniversary, and the 15th anniversary just had Lloyd and Rean sitting around in the corners while she took center stage. It seems like the series still considers Estelle their main character.
• Sol Badguy - ArcSys has risen to become a prominent figure in the fighting game scene, and Sol's the clear frontrunner. Legacy, check; It started the subgenre of fast-paced anime fighters. Recency, check; It's risen to prominence in recent years with Xrd and Strive, while ArcSys' other main series, BlazBlue, falls to the side as it wraps up its plotline. Plus, we already got ArcSys content with Kunio-Kun Spirits... Except they're not "pure" ArcSys, just acquired from another company. I can't help but wonder if there's anything to come out of it, or if Nintendo really did just go to ArcSys for something as small as that rather than their flagships.
• Kazuma Kiryu - Yakuza's shot up recently, and I believe it's gotten big enough to suffice for an E3 reveal. Granted, it would be a bit of a Joker situation thanks to Kiryu's lack of presence on Nintendo systems, but it seems like we've gotten one of those in each wave; Snake for Brawl, Cloud for Smash 4, and Joker for Ultimate. Given that a second wave of DLC is uncharted territory for Smash, maybe we'll get a second one of those in Ultimate's lifecycle.
  "But wait! Didn't the director say Kiryu can't be in fighting games because he respects women?" Maybe, but he also had this interview. He's pretty open to the concept of Kiryu in Smash here, even if he doesn't think it's likely. I think Smash is exempt from this belief, and Kiryu's still viable.
• LoL rep - A bit of an outside shot, but it's worth keeping in mind. LoL is the most played game period, if I remember correctly, and its owner by extension, Tencent, is working with Nintendo to release Switches in China. There's not as much to write about here, but I think this is a possibility we should keep an eye on.
• Euden - Dragalia Lost is a decently large new Nintendo IP, and their first original mobile IP to boot. It still gets regular support, and big crossovers with stuff like Mega Man and Persona 5. And yet, it has absolutely nothing in Smash, not even a Spirit. Maybe it won't get a fighter, but I think we'll at least get a Spirit or a Mii Costume before the day is done.
• Ayumi Tachibana - Remember how I said Lloyd was my riskiest pick? Well, I think she's even riskier. She's mainly getting by because A: FDC is like the one first-party game that could fit the bill for an end-of-pass third-party promotion, and B: She was considered as far back as Smash 64. But screw it, there's a chance my admittedly arbitrary reasoning could go through and so I'm doing it anyways.

Pouring all my noms into Ryza (x40, I think). Do I get full noms for practically writing out an entire pass' worth of characters, or is this cheating?

 

[Perkilator]

I'm gonna hope for the best...

Bandana Dee
I still wanna believe that we'll have at least one more 1st party character. Given that the 1st parties we got were characters who missed their shot in the base game (and Spirits, for that matter), I think Bandana Dee is a good fit for the last of these kinds of characters.

Crash Bandicoot
He's simply an iconic character in general. To me, Smash Ultimate won't be complete without the rival to Mario and Sonic joining the battle alongside them.

Honorable mentions

• Sora
• Gen 8 Pokémon
• Euden
• Dr. Eggman

Noms:
[Rerate] Crash Bandicoot ×ALL

 

[Blankiturayman]

Predictions for the final two:
As per usual, there's a wide net, but I'm not changing the predictions much, still the same characters as last time... minus Phoenix, who I will get into later. Although funnily enough, last time I cut Rex out of the predictions, and then Pyra/Mythra happened so while not Rex himself there still was some XC2 representation which is the closest thing, plus it seemed it would've been him as most were guessing if they didn't have performance issues. What luck. I'm never 100% certain in a character getting in, but it's fun to leave guesses. Without further ado:

Rayman
Once again, nothing has changed for his chances, as the biggest thing pertaining Ubisoft in Smash was the costumes all the way back in FP1. So here he is still. One could say that the next character has to be a big showstopper, since it's likely it was to be timed with E3 of this year, and while that could be true, I don't find it to be necessarily the case. Despite this, even for a category such as that, Rayman being a character supported for a long time, who was pushed by Ubisoft for a long while, making it so he gets content in both 4 and Ultimate, with the content in 4 being the only Ubisoft content even, could fit during an E3 reveal. Even if not, the good relationship between Ubisoft and Nintendo could do well for his chances.

Reimu Hakurei
I've begun to think recently of this being the final reveal, and it actually doesn't feel that odd. As mentioned the last few times, Reimu's pretty big in Japan, as well as Touhou, and during the last few years the series has started to branch out a tad from being just on PC. ZUN, the main person behind the series, being as open as he is about fanworks also helps it grow even further. Of course the series made its way to Nintendo Switch thanks to that content. There's quite a few fangames being available in English, and while there's yet to be any official game with an official translation, there are many fanmade ones done already, in all sort of languages as well. To add a little, we finally got confirmation that AoCF would be coming to Switch recently, despite it being merely rumors before, so that's pretty nice.

Those are the two. How well this will go I dunno, as it could be any other character, could be neither, I'd feel lucky if one made it now, though there's just two chances regardless. Regarding Phoenix, sadly I think the chances for Capcom dropped significantly after the last Mii reveal, though I wouldn't call this a death kneel by any means. I think him or a Capcom character could surprise us still.

Regarding a few other characters that I think could make it, there's Crash and Hayabusa, and a FALCOM character. I still have an odd feeling that the company could get something with its niche-but-longstanding status. Estelle or Adol would be my guess. There's Rean too sure but he's being passed over in the new game, and both Adol and Estelle have the legacy factor for their respective series. I also think 1st parties are done but who knows. That said, this is dragging on a lot so I'll leave it here. It'll be fun to think back on this when the final characters are known.

Nominations: Estelle Bright x40

 

[Phoenix Douchebag]

Well, i would have made a Pyra satisfaction post, but i cannot buy the DLC for now, so i have to wait for my judgement.

As for predictions. Well i have some.

For one, i do not longer believe Crash is gonna be in Smash. He feels like a choice that is revealed in the middle of the Pass and not the end and would have been revealed at the Game Awards (since those watching the event would be familiar with him) at the latest, it feels too late for him at this point.

Smash announcements at the end ALWAYS tend to be low-key. Smash 4 ended base game with Shulk, DLC ended with Corrin and Bayo, Base Game ended with Ken and Inci, and FP1 ended with Byleth. None of these characters are low haning fruit by themselves, but are clearly not as requested and popular or earth-shattering reveals like those in the middle (Mega Man in 4 being the second reveal, K.Rool showing up in the August Direct, or Joker in FP1) so it's not a surprise they are saved for last. Smash never ends with a bang, but instead it does with a whimper. Even with E3 being a possible time to reveal a "big character", i still believe Crash would have been at worst the Third Character revealed, not the fifth (and he clearly will not be the sixth)

So, who do i think stands a chance?

For one, i find it sus that Lloyd is still missing, this can go either way. Either Lloyd is the next character reveal (Tales is big enough to be an E3 headliner, but small enough to be saved as the penultimate reveal) or his costume comes back with another character, these choices are big enough to be E3 material (then again, Roy and Palutena were E3 reveals as well) but clearly are low priority compared to Steve and Sephiroth, so they were saved for later in order.

Ryu Hayabusa: Koei Tecmo's signature character, was present in Nintendo systems for decades, and is recently getting a collection of his three more modern games, it shows that they still care for Hayabusa despite his absence in any new brand game for these last years, plus he is still a regular in DOA so he can easily represent both, like Terry does with FF and KoF. We haven't seen any content of Koei Tecmo in Smash aside from the Fatal Frame series (Nintendo has ownership of Fatal Frame's Yuri Kozukata, basically a reversal role from Geno) and seeing how many third parties are getting their fix, maybe Koei Tecmo would like to include their character. While talk of Ryu Hayabusa is not supper common, he is seen as a character like Simon, just someone with a good legacy and popular enough as both the character and his franchise are fondly remembered by gamers from 3rd and 6th generations of consoles. The only downside i can see is again, he is been absent for a while aside from DOA games and re-releases, plus they may want to include a Warriors character instead (which i doubt)

Lloyd Irving or Yuri Lowell: I consider Lloyd to be THE Namco rep should they get another character, but if i were to chose another one, Yuri is my safest bet. While Lloyd is agruably more recognizable (due to Tales of Symphonia being the best selling game) and much more requested in Smash circles, Yuri as a character is the most popular Tales character, ever. He is so beloved he has been BANNED from popularity polls, plus his game: Tales of Vesperia is on the Switch so he has some recency AND Nintendo exposure if you want to count that. Lastly, Yuri was the chosen as the representative of the Tales series in Project X Zone 1 and 2, meaning that he has become prominent and popular enough to be THE Tales representative in certain crossovers, which is something i can't say for the likes of say, Alucard over Simon (even with Sakurai considering Alucard for Smash and people gushing about MUH SYMPHONY, Simon has ALWAYS been the de-facto representative in Crossovers, from going to skateboarding with Snake and Frogger, to fighting Optimus Prime and Master Higgins, and so on) for this reason i do not dissmiss the possibility of Yuri making over Lloyd, although i think if Yuri is so damn beloved and popular, why wasn't he chosen as the Mii Costume back in 4, but whatever.

Arle Nadja: A character that is a SUPER iconic mascot of gaming!...................in Japan. For that reason alone, i could see her being saved for the penultimate reveal, plus despite being super mainstream in only one region of the world, she has gained worldwide presence since the 6th generation of gaming, and has become recently more popular to western players thanks to the likes of Puyo Puyo Tetris on Switch, so i think she's fine. There's really isnt' too much to say here, aside from maybe do not expect her as the last character reveal like some people did back in FP1.

Bandanna Dee: IF we do get another Nintendo character that is not a Pokémon. The 4th member of the Kirby quartet and one of the most requested characters for Smash since the Ballot days, plus his general popularity in Japan as a whole makes him a decent choice, if a little too close too Pyra and Mythra (a character that was talked about for base game that was requested and popular, especially in Japan) so this is more of a toss up. Whatever the case, Spirits are not an issue at this point either.

As for the last fighter, it will NOT be a major hype inducer, but likely someone more tame and not as requested or well known, or at least a character that will not turn heads around.

These are:

Adol Christin: An old ARPG hero who is unknown to most of the western world, but has historical value in the gaming landscape, being one of the earliest PC and ARPG games to be popular in Japan, and while it never managed to make it big outside, it has at least localized entries for the rest of the world to play, including recent release on the Switch, so i can see Adol being chosen. The only downside i see is him feeling too basic as a character, as in, he is a Vanilla Protag as they get, but i don't think that would stop Sakurai unless he would chose Estelle instead.

Gunvolt: a question that people bring is if we are ever gonna get an Indie in Smash's roster. Shovel Knight is an AT. Shantae is a Spirit, Sans is a Mii Costume so what does that left us with. Reimu's international presence is pretty much nonexistent, so i don't consider her a viable choice, and Quote suffers from basically being on Life Support by Ports and may suffer from Nicalis drama. I actually think under these circumstances, Gunvolt could rise as the Indie rep.
For one, he has actual international presence unlike Reimu, and while may not have the large legacy of Touhou, seeing how Smash puts more effort into adding characters that are recognizable (or at least accessible) to western audiences, this is a Key aspect. It's also of Japanese origin, so the negiotations will likely come easy than most Indies who tend to be American or from the West, and it should be noted that while Gunvolt is a Japanese character, he still appears in Indie crossovers of Western origin, such as Runbow, Blade Strangers and Indie Pogo, so he has much better presence in the Indie scene worldwide than Reimu in my eyes, Meme Culture notwithstanding. Plus unlike Quote, his game became an actual series, with even a Spin-Off and a 3 third game to be released next year. Should Gunvolt keep going like this, he could become a rising star that Nintendo may have some interest in the future, or even now since im predicting him to be THE last character reveal.

Admitedly his chances are small, which is why i see him as an underdog rep due to his series being of small sale numbers and i do understand a question you may arise: "If Undertale, agruably the largest indie game of the last 5 years, didn't get a playable fighter, then how the hell is Gunvolt gonna get anything more than a Stinky Spirit?" that's a good question that i honestly couldn't answer myself, so i understand the skepticism here. All i can say if Fatal Fury and KoF managed to get in Smash while the more recognizable and profitable Tekken got a measily Mii Costume, then anything is possible (not that it means anything is likely) Sometimes smaller franchises get in Smash over the large ones. Think it as an exception to the norm this time around. Plus Inti Creates have been around for years and Gunvolt has basically become their mascot at this point, shoving him in any way they can.

These are the ones i have in the back of my head, im sure none of these are guarantee so im not gonna be surprised if they don't appear, but it was worth a shot if only to give me something to think about.


.....so i can do A Forty Noms?

Well then:
Nominating Gunvolt X40

 

[Pillow]

Final 2 Predictions...
So basically, I feel like we're getting a SEGA rep in one of the last 2. I also feel like it's going to be a mix of a character leaning more towards cartoony with one leaning more towards gritty / serious. With that in mind, I basically came up with 2 potential duos of what I think the FP will end on.

Chosen Undead & Arle Nadja
I feel Dark Souls isn't talked about enough on this forums. This series is massive. It basically spawned its own genre with many games in recent years copying its style (Nioh, Remnant, Code Vein, etc.) His only real hurdle is his status as a faceless avatar character with no real personality, but we have Villager and Steve in this game so I doubt it'll be an issue.

Puyo Puyo used to be unknown in the west, but I feel like the status of this series has since changed with the Switch console. Puyo Puyo Tetris is not just big in Japan, but worldwide now. Arle is a great mascot character that would fit right in alongside the rest of the Smash roster.

Or

Crash Bandicoot & Kiryu Kazuma
I used to be more down on Crash's chances, but he's definitely stands out among the remaining picks. He's really the last significant cartoon platform mascot character not yet in the game. His series was recently revived in a big way. The biggest thing going against him is the fact that he's a Western character, but it's not like he'd be the first.

Yakuza like a dragon, in many ways, is a breakout game for the series much like Persona 5 was for Persona. The game has become a hit, not just in Japan but worldewide. Unlike Persona, Yakuza doesn't have a rotating cast each game - so Kiryu would still be the Yakuza pick for carrying the series for 7+ games before Like a Dragon. While the game is violent and gritty, it has just enough ridiculousness and cartoonishness that would lead to a very entertaining character in Smash that I could see Sakurai opting for. The no hitting women thing is a bad meme taken out of context.


Honorable Mentions
Ryu Hayabusa - I used to consider him my #1 most likely character. Nothing's really changed that would effect his chances at all, but my gut instinct now is telling me he's not coming. Though he could very easily take Chosen Undead's spot in my predictions, I feel like Dark Souls is currently the bigger more relevant franchise.

Master Chief - Not much to say. He's the ****ing Chief. If double dipping companies is allowed, and Nintendo wanted to end with an exciting character, he's the pick bar none. Could also see him instead of Chosen Undead.

Doomslayer - Similar to MC. He actually has both more relevancy and legacy, but his series was never as big as Halo was in its prime.

Reimu - Huge series...in Japan, but rather niche elsewhere. I could see her instead of Arle, but I think Arle's worldwide recognition as of late gives her the edge here.

2B - Popular character from a breakout game for her series. Wouldn't be surprised to see her still.




Nominations:
xAll FromSoft

 

[fogbadge]

hang on was it 40 noms today?

 

[chocolatejr9]

hang on was it 40 noms today?

If you right a paragraph for each, yeah.

 

[SharkLord]

hang on was it 40 noms today?

Eeyup. Writing a full paragraph for each character nets you 20 points; Since there's two, that's 40 total.

Therefore, I now have 140 noms at my disposal because I wrote about seven characters in a single post

 

[TCT~Phantom]

Well, FP3 seems to be on its last throws. This could be the end of it all. Unlike last time, I will avoid a FP3 section. If we do somehow get an FP3, I would note that Ring Fit, Officer Howard, Neku, and Master Chief are all characters that imo make a ton of sense for that.

So, what has changed from last time? Well, a bit. First, we got another First Party rep (kind of two) showing off a big switch title. I personally think that we are not going to get another first party. From what I can see, Pyra/Mytha, Byleth, and Min Min all are promoting a big switch game of sorts. I guess you could twist it and say Dee could rep Star Allies or Dixie could rep Tropical Freeze or even Waluigi could rep whatever, but personally I think that due to a combination of Spirit events and my lack of confidence in the previously mentioned characters, I think First parties are done. I do think there might be some potential to promote BDSP or Legends Arceus, which is to be brutally honest the only First Party right now I would say is relatively likely. I could be wrong and would love to be. I really want Officer Howard in. But right now, I think first parties are not in a great spot. We also got a ton of Capcom costumes, that put MH out of the running (and Arthur). In my opinion, I think it is safe to say that Capcom as a whole takes a huge hit from this. The costumes could easily have been held back for a Capcom Rep. I know some people will still be predicting Phoenix, Dante, or Chun Li, but personally I am no longer confident in them.

So, lets go through what I expect.

Crash Bandicoot: So, what has changed for the Wonder from Down Under? Honestly, not much. Outside of FP3 dimming in terms of possibilities, Crash is pretty much in the same state as last time we did this. Concert Leak really has done zitch to impact him, he’s still standing. Every reason he seems to make sense still is ringing true. He is a huge icon from the PS1 that is in the public eye again now. He is a popular character. Activision and Nintendo have a good relationship. Heck, they literally ported Crash 4 with a special build for the Switch. He honestly seems just like the safest overall pick right now. I personally am expecting a “big” hype announcement at E3. I think Crash will fill that role.

Adol: Honestly, this is a catch all Falcom slot. I will elaborate on Estelle and Rean in the honorable mentions, but for now lets talk about Ys. Ys' main advantage over Trails is that it has a bit more of a legacy to it. Trails does seem to be Falcom's baby right now and technically it has its roots earlier via Dragon Slayer, but the modern Trails franchise is really about 15 or so years old. Ys however has still been Ys all this time. Falcom honestly makes enough sense to get a rep for me. They have consistently been supporting Nintendo these past few years and honestly, a smaller third party like Falcom makes sense to end the pass on. I chose Ys over a Trails rep mainly because it has a bit more legacy, but honestly I could easily see Estelle being the choice as I will discuss below. Consider this a blanket Falcom slot, and Adol is just my guess.

Honorable Mentions

Hayabusa: I flip flopped hard on whether to put Hayabusa or a Falcom character as the final slot. I just personally feel that Falcom makes more sense as the end of the pass. I know Verge did say that Koei Tecmo talked to Nintendo, but for all we know it could have been for AoC spirits or Byleth's trailer. So far all we got for Arc Sys or Bethesda or Ubisoft were spirts and Miis, so I do not think relying on Verge alone is enough. That being said, Hayabusa makes way too much sense. An old school NES icon that is still relatively relevant? Makes sense to me. Hayabusa makes a ton of sense, and I would not be surprised if he is in. Koei Tecmo is super friendly to Nintendo, and as a result I could see it happening at some point. I just personally felt in my gut to not go double safe predictions.

Estelle Bright and Rean Schwarzer: The other Falcom reps of note. Both have their own things going for them. Trails is Falcom’s baby and its clearly the series they are pushing the hardest right now. It technically is in the same series as Dragon Slayer due to the Legend of Heroes moniker kind of, its weird. It has the history that Adol has. Estelle is the popular older face of the franchise with Trails in the Sky, while Rean is the new hotness in the Cold Steel series. Both make a ton of sense along the same logic as Adol. In the end, I went with Adol though just due to the fact that he shows of the legacy of Falcom better in my opinion. It is kind of like choosing Terry instead of Kyo for SNK. That being said, you could easily make the argument that it should be Estelle instead based on that due to how Trails is the bigger series. If you asked me Adol>=Estelle>Rean in terms of chance. I just went with Estelle on my gut.

Lloyd Irving: Lloyd survives the slaughter…again. Honestly, I am conflicted. On one hand, Lloyd seems to keep not dying and his Mii costume not being in yet might be a sign for hope. Or it could mean that it is coming later. Honestly, he is the last character left with a Mii costume for Sm4sh. He is a relatively popular pick and Namco still somehow only has Pac Man in this game. But I don’t know, the Mii costume has me spooked pretty bad. Tales is a big deal and tbh the only other Namco series I would consider are Soul Calibur and Dark Souls. I would love to be wrong, but I am not as confident as I used to be on Lloyd.

Arle: Yeah, I am not as confident in the Eggman anymore. He makes sense for another pass or for us to see him next game, but right now I am going Arle. Most of what I said on Puyo still stands. It is a series with a lot of history on the rise right now. Arle is the main character and its clear with PPT that she is still going to be in the franchise. Sega is super loyal to Nintendo, so it makes some sense to get another rep. Most of the Sega competition sans Eggman is weak imo.

Sol Badguy: ArcSys having Spirits in the game and nothing more is something to note. Mii costumes due to the deadline of negotiations we can assume from the Sans and Cuphead ones do not indicate much to me, sorry Bethesda and Ubisoft. But spirits is interesting. I know some people think that that might be a bad sign, but it clearly isn’t for Hayabusa. I could see him coming if we get anyone from Arc Sys. I know some people might push Ragna, but Blazblue is dead while GG is still alive and getting a new game this year.

Ahri: Full disclosure, I do not like league. MOBAs have never been my thing. But I can not deny how huge of a game it is. It makes sense for it to be added to Smash based on its size and worldwide popularity and is certainly something that is not really talked about outside of people who ironically do not like league and bring it up as a boogeyman candidate. Regardless, I think League has a decent shot of actually appearing, but not enough to make it onto my personal predictions. If I had to guess the character, there are a few directions you could go. A lot of people would probably say one of the original champions, but tbh any popular League rep would work. That being said, this time I went with Ahri since I think she is one of the popular ones.

Reimu: As I said last time, if we get an indie I would go with Reimu in the end. She has a lot of advantages most indies do not have. She has gone on a lot longer than many other indies and she is native to Japan. Both of those are huge legs up especially for an indie. Negotiating for her is easy, as ZUN is open to crossovers. Whether it happens or not is up in the air, but honestly she would make sense as a last choice.

Shilling for Legends/BDSP: Look, I am a pessimist for First Parties. Last time I said due to spirit events I thought most of the likely characters for first parties were dead. I am not confident at all in some of the popular first parties that get tossed around on here, like Bandana Dee, Dixie Kong, or Waluigi. However, if we do get anything for Pokemon, I could see us getting something to shill what is new. I know that some people would say SwSh, but the Spirit event right before the fighters pass spooked me on it, especially if this is all we are getting. If we do get post pass, maybe. But hey, shilling for Gen 4/Legends is not out of the question. There are three roads this could take, and tbh I will probably nominate at least two of these. First up, Garchomp. If you rep Gen 4 beyond Lucario, it is Garchomp. It is the next most popular by a lot and Game Freak knows that. But lets say you want to shill Legends in particular. A Legends Pokemon trailer seems appealing since you could easily do Cyndaquil, Dewott, and Decidueye. I would prefer Quilava and Oshawott but Oshawott is a pokeball. You could also do Solo decidueye. These could happen since we know Sakurai did consider Decidueye at one point and would likely know exactly what he would do for the character. It still is not likely, but it is worth entertaining.


Legends Trainer x 40

 

[Deleted member]

The Final 2

With Pyra and Mythra being the 2 for 1 Challenger Pack, that basically killed 1 of my predictions for Vol 2. I was legitimately thinking we would get a Challenger Pack that would come with 2 characters, but the characters I had in mind weren't them and was more in line with a character coming with an Echo Fighter rather than a transformation character. With 1 Challenger Pack down, we now have 2 left in the speculation spectrum.

I still believe 1 of the Challenger Packs will be a Koei-Tecmo owned IP, and I'm going to say that Challenger Pack is going to be CP10. Now, which Koei-Tecmo IP is it going to be exactly? A lot of people still predict it's going to be Hayabusa of Ninja Gaiden with the Master Collection being official, but I'm saying it's going to be Zhao Yun of Dynasty Warriors. I'll repost what I said previously since it's still relevant to the topic of today:

A great amount of arguments in favor of Ninja Gaiden in Smash can go the same way for Dynasty Warriors from Koei-Tecmo's partnerships with Nintendo to both being staple franchises of their company. In all honesty, I could say both franchises could be in Vol 2 if it wasn't for how unlikely it looks for a 3rd Party Publisher to get 2 characters in 1 Pass (though if Koei-Tecmo happens to be the 1 to get it, I have no complaints). While Dynasty Warriors doesn't have the certain lineage of being a classic title from the NES era like Ninja Gaiden, what it does have is its own legacy of the Musou genre and the certainty of there being more DW titles down the line in the future like DW9: Empires and beyond. Despite Dynasty Warriors not having many crossovers themselves, the Musou formula has proven itself to be successful under various other IPs, most notably Legend of Zelda and One Piece. In fact, Musou as a whole is a huge staple of Koei-Tecmo, and with Dynasty Warriors essentially being the series to start it all coupled with various other things, It'd be no wonder why Nintendo chose to add Dynasty Warriors to Smash. Most of the people that argue against the series being possible say it's because the games are based around real people, real events that took place, and a novel, but that doesn't change the fact that Dynasty Warriors has always been a video game franchise with Koei-Tecmo's spin on these things. It's not like there's some sort of legal bindings to any of that stuff either cause if there was there wouldn't be as much games based around that era of China. Plus, you have to think Dynasty Warriors' gameplay can be implemented into Smash and work especially if you made a concept of Impa's moveset based around Hyrule Warriors' version of her made up.

Of course, most people will probably wonder why Zhao Yun would be chosen over Lu Bu or a lot of other characters in the series, but it's really not all that hard to think why. He's the de-facto face of Dynasty Warriors as he's been Dynasty Warriors covers the most. The main reason he has always been the face of the series comes from the accolades of his real life and novel self with his most notable feat being in the Battle of Changban where he rescued Liu Bei's son amidst the mass numbers of Wei's forces. Plus, the Japanese audiences have him ranked very high among popularity polls even when he isn't #1, so put 2 and 2 together, Zhao Yun's the most likely candidate to rep Dynasty Warriors.

Now we have 1 last spot to end DLC and Ultimate as a whole. The main prediction I have for CP11 is the last character will be 1 who debuted after Ultimate, and there's only 2 characters who fit the bill in my head for that: a Gen 8 Pokemon and Zagreus. With a Gen 8 Pokemon, Sword and Shield was given a lot of promotion by Nintendo and TPC and has established itself as 1 of the top Switch titles of 2019. Sure, the 2nd and most recent Poke themed tourney to promote the latest news on Gen 4 sounds like a total killer for a Gen 8 Pokemon, but really, you could believe it to be just promotion rather than confirmation that we aren't getting another Pokemon. Which Gen 8 Pokemon they choose could have a tournament unrelated to the series like Cinderace with a fire themed tourney. With Zagreus, Hades was 1 of the most critically acclaimed titles of 2020 and is a switch exclusive. Consider the fact that Hades was revealed on the same event where Joker was revealed; the game came out on the same month VIA Epic Games as an Early Access title. It's possible Nintendo took interest in Hades as Supergiant are a fairly well known name in the Indie scene with their previous titles like Bastion and Transistor and decided to include Zagreus to Smash as they saw huge potential in the game. It's easier to believe a Gen 8 Pokemon is going to be CP11 because it's ****ing Nintendo and they have the easiest set of resources to make a Challenger Pack out of them, but damn I hope to God it's Zagreus with how unexpected it will be and how unexpected most of Ultimate's DLC has been for various reasons.

That's where I stand on the final 2 characters. While I'm confident in CP10 being Dynasty Warriors, CP11 is a bit harder to decide on between Pokemon and Hades, but the concept of a character debuting after Ultimate is where I'm the most confident in for that. I don't know if there's supposed to be some hard rule that you have to choose 2 and not 3, so if that's the case, Ima just say Zagreus over Pokemon out of hope.
----------------------
Noms:
Zagreus xAll My Noms

 

[Yiptap]

Alright, FP2 predictions time. I don't got as much to say as A LOT of other people here, but I still wanna post something. At least 4 paragraphs.
Here are the characters I find eligible for being one of the 2 final FP2 characters:

Frisk
Kicking it off with the indie character. I feel that Frisk is the most likely character. Shovel Knight is an assist trophy, and I don't know any character that can replace him, unlike Shadow with Silver. Shantae isn't entirely out of the question, but a gut feeling I have is that Pyra/Mythra are the final DLC spirit upgrades. Sans and Cuphead are DLC Mii costumes; enough said there. Reimu would mostly appeal to the Japanese audience, and that doesn't entirely debunk Reimu, but with all the fangames becoming canon, I just feel it would be too confusing (Feel free to prove me wrong). Hat Kid could work, but I feel they would include the "Pioneer" indie figures before her. And Phoenix Douchebag mentioned why Quote is probably not gonna be one of the indie DLC characters. So why Frisk? Well to start, Toby Fox and Sakurai have a good relationship, and that was established before Byleth's showcase: the deadline for a FP2 DLC character, as mentioned by Sakurai. And when Sans was revealed, there was no Undertale spirit event to follow, unlike Cuphead, another indie Mii Costume DLC fighter. Nintendo also promoted Undertale a lot when it was announced for the Switch. These pieces all line up, so I think Frisk is pretty likely.

Rayman
I barely have any evidence for Rayman. However, Sam Bot, a "Siri" for Ubisoft, mentioned Smash Ultimate DLC, and now it doesn't anymore. just read this Twitter Post before reading more of why Rayman could be a DLC fighter: https://twitter.com/raymanforsmash/status/1253147215243218944?lang=en
We could look at this two ways: the pessimist side and the optimist side. First is the pessimist side. Perhaps Ubisoft didn't want to deconfirm Rayman for the Rayman fans. That would be really annoying. But let's review the optimist side. Ubisoft probably opened their trap about the DLC, and Nintendo shut it closed by telling them to delete that. I know this is really feeble evidence, but it's something.

Phoenix Wright or Dante
Just because the Capcom Mii skins were released doesn't mean Phoenix, as well as Dante, are out of the running. Remember, the costumes were for Monster Hunter/Ghosts 'n' Goblins promotion. It would be too late to include the Mii costumes when it came out to late. As for evidence, I have nothing. I just feel that the Capcom leak for Ace Attorney is true; it just hasn't been announced yet. It would be perfect. Also, Dante just also feels likely, mostly a gut feeling.

Impa
This may seem like a weird choice for a first party pick, but hear me out. First, its Zelda's 35th anniversary. What perfect way to celebrate with Impa? Besides, with Steve, it's been established that certain characters can be added for special events (Once again, feel free to prove me wrong). And secondly, Impa is the frontrunner for a Zelda rep. Midna and Skull Kid are assist trophies, and I doubt they will add another version existing character from the roster. Impa has a treasure trove to work with for her moveset, I just think it's super likely for her to be added.

Noms: Meat Boy xMAX (I assume it's 20 noms)

If we're predicting for Henry Stickmin, then I'm expecting 0.44%

 

[DanganZilla5]

Predictions for the rest of the pass

So, I was technically right with Rex, or at least I got the general idea of a Xenoblade 2 character correct even if I thought it was going to happen at the end of the pass. However, Pythra's inclusion does not affect my other choices so I will just quote myself from last time (With a few changes).

Predictions for the rest of the pass:

Crash - I'm confident we will get at least one more big character and I think an easy prediction is Crash. He's got everything you would want in a Smash candidate. And the fact that the most recent game isn't currently on the Switch isn't a big deal. The N. Sane trilogy and CTR Nitro Fueled are on the Switch. Nintendo recognized Crash as a gaming icon twice and Crash has an audience in Japan. And before anyone cites Activision as an obstacle, I want you to take a look at this article where Activision initiated the exclusive Nintendo content in Skylanders. Plus we got another E3 left and Crash is one of those characters that would be perfect for a reveal there. Simply put, Crash has a lot of things going for him and the arguments against him are honestly weak. And that's what makes him a strong candidate.

Arle Nadja - I think it's safe to say that we won't get 4 big characters in one pass. It could happen, but I'm leaning on CP11 (Or CP9 if they want to switch the characters around so the big one gets revealed at E3 time) being smaller than the other third parties. And what's a franchise that has gained traction in the West and is owned by a company that is close to Nintendo? Puyo Puyo. I keep bringing up how they chose the original Puyo Puyo to be on the Switch online service rather than Kirby's Avalanche or Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine and it makes a lot of sense. Sega has been pushing the series and Nintendo has been supportive of it. Puyo Puyo Tetris has really helped introduce western audiences to Puyo Puyo and the series has remained popular in Japan for many years ever since the original came out. And it has a legacy, becoming one of the most popular puzzle series throughout the world. I also think that Arle is Sega's frontrunner. I don't think Kiryu is likely because of there being no plans to make any Yakuza games for the Switch and the "no beating up women" interview. As for Eggman, he is definitely the runner-up. But the reality is that people keep predicting characters who are similar to the previous character and that has not held up for this pass so far. Thus, Arle is one of my predictions.

Not much has changed. Crash 4 has been announced for the Switch though I figured that was happening anyway. Crash is still a good pick for E3, which historically has focused on western characters, and Arle fits as the "underwhelming" final pick. I've seen a lot of skepticism on Crash, but remember that Nintendo plans these passes out so while logically it would make sense to have Crash be closer to the front of the pass, it also makes sense for Nintendo to place Crash at E3 instead of a random general Direct in February or a Direct-mini.

Honorable Mentions:

• Ryu Hayabusa - His merits have been stated to death on this site so I won't go into a lecture but overall he has a lot of points going for him and few points going against him.
• Bill Rizer - I've been vouching for Contra recently and I think Bill Rizer has a decent chance honestly. I made a Bill Rizer essay (PM me or look through my post history if you want to see it), but yesterday I actually made a pretty good and concise list of things going for the mad dog.
  • Classic NES series
  • Is relevant and has the Contra Anniversary Collection on Switch to introduce modern audiences to the series.
  • Konami seems to be easy to work with if the enormous amount of Castlevania content is anything to go by and while they don't seem to be producing games themselves these days, rather they are starting to license them out to other companies, they are still around and have a good relationship with Nintendo. So their door is still open for Nintendo.
  • Contra has zero representation while Metal Gear and especially Castlevania have plentiful content so Bill Rizer is arguably next up in Konami's library to get a character.
  • Contra would actually fit in as an E3 reveal. It sounds unrealistic, but think about it. Contra is a shooter, which is a genre popular in the West, and it inspired future shooters. And while I don't see eye-to-eye with this idea, if you subscribe to the theory that the E3 pick will appeal to western audiences but still be smaller than Steve/Sephiroth, Contra would fit in then.
  • Contra would also fit in with being the last character. Contra is certainly recognizable and has a fanbase, but it's still more low-key than other third parties which would make it fit in with the "underwhelming" final choice.
  • And in general, DLC has been surprises and not many people are expecting Contra so yeah it would be surprising.
• Eggman - I was a bit hesitant on predicting Eggman since the fighters in this pass so far have been different from the rest. That was until Pythra showed up, who are first party spirit upgrades just like Min Min. So I'm not ready to count out Eggman yet just because he would be another third party villain. Sonic should get a second rep at this point and Eggman has the best odds out of the Sonic crew. I have a feeling that we might get another Sega rep this pass and if it isn't Arle, it will most likely be Eggman.
• Reimu - I have a funny feeling that she could be the last character. An official Touhou game is coming to the Switch which could mean interesting things for the future of the series and Touhou is super popular in Japan. I will agree that Touhou being obscure in foreign countries does hurt her chances quite a bit. But the fact that ZUN would be very easy to work with does give Reimu points in her favor and I've heard that Nintendo has advertised Touhou stuff at conventions so there is that connection.
• Bamco character - It's weird predicting where Lloyd stands. While I do think he is more likely than not to be coming back as a Mii costume, the fact that the costume has not come back yet is sus. Although it might just be a matter of priority. But this brings us to an interesting scenario where it's possible that Lloyd could be a playable character as a surprise, or come with another Bamco character. Agumon, Nightmare, and Chosen Undead in particular are other Bamco characters that have solid chances and could fit in with being the E3 pick and/or the last character. The fact that Bamco seems to be laying in the background while other third parties are getting in on all the fun is a bit worrying, but just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it can't happen.
• Nihon Falcom rep - Most likely Adol or a character from Trails. Other people have talked about this company better than I could, but basically they have the history, Nintendo connections, and recent surge in growth with more ports and localizations to warrant a spot on the roster. They could easily be the SNK of this pass.
• Euden - I honestly don't know much about Dragalia Lost, but it is in an interesting spot. Nintendo's mobile games barely have any representation and it's a market that Nintendo hasn't tried to appeal to yet in regards to Smash. And to my knowledge Dragalia Lost has zero content (Correct me if I'm wrong) so I do think this is one thing we should keep an eye out for.
• a Pokemon - This is likely because well, it's Pokemon. And with the Gen 4 remakes coming out around the same time as CP11, the one that is certainly going to be disappointing, it makes sense. They could go with a whole slew of Pokemon like Garchomp for Gen 4 and I've seen Decidueye brought up since he is a starter again in Legends Arceus. He happens to fit with Second Chance Theory and what's interesting, albeit a bit tin-foily hat, is that Pit currently has a glitch involving his arrows. In the past, characters have had glitches which involved a future DLC character. Though it's worth noting that there are some characters who had new bugs introduced and none of the DLC characters were based on their model. And of course, you have the entire Gen 8 cast.
• Sol Badguy - Arc System Works has a good relationship with Nintendo and the fact that they got a River City Ransom spirit event out of nowhere is a bit sus. I don't know much about Guilty Gear, but it seems to be decently popular and again, I do think we will see a Terry-tier pick in this pass.
• LoL rep - There is a League of Legends spinoff game on the Switch now and supposedly there are more games coming. If Nintendo wanted to cater to new audiences like in China who really like genres like MOBAs, a LoL rep would be a solid choice and a rep from the game would be a left field surprise. LoL has maintained its popularity and is a staple of the genre.
• Professor Layton - I'm surprised that people aren't bringing him up more often. Aside from Koei Tecmo, Level 5 is arguably the company that should get a character considering their close relationship with Nintendo throughout the years. Professor Layton is a beloved character, an icon of the DS era and a notable character within the visual novel genre.
• A Capcom character - I know this is highly debatable with the recent Capcom costume wave, but I think this could still happen. It's very well possible that Capcom might be getting a character, but they just asked that the MH and Arthur costumes be released earlier to coincide with the release of the new games in those series. Out of all the potential candidates, Phoenix and Dante are the top dogs with Phoenix having an edge with long-term popularity in the Nintendo realm and a strong history with Nintendo in general. Though Dante is no slouch either with DMC being the original hack-n-slash game and the series having mainstream appeal throughout its run.
• And a quick addition I just remembered. Dragonborn. Skyrim has popularity in Japan and has inspired games like BOTW. I made some big posts on Dragonborn in the past so I would recommend looking at his support thread for more details.

Ok maybe that was too many honorable mentions but that just goes to show how many viable candidates there are left even after all the deconfirms we've had. I could probably come up with more, but at that point I would just be mentioning every character who is in contention which I am already kind of doing right now.

Noms:
Bill Rizer x20
Excitebiker x20

 

[GoodGrief741]

Welp, it's time to do predictions again. Last time I did this my three characters were Ryu Hayabusa, Rex and Isaac. Since then, Rex was hard disconfirmed, I became convinced that Assist Trophies aren't getting promoted, and we got announcements for a new Mario Golf and a Ninja Gaiden collection... Safe to say they didn't age well.

Oh, and also Pyra & Mythra. They happened. As we all know, Smash starts out strong and ends weak. Brawl ended with Olimar, 4 ended with Bowser Jr. and Duck Hunt, 4's DLC with Bayonetta and Corrin, Ultimate with Ken and Incineroar, you know the drill. Everyone expected the characters to gradually become less "huge massive internet shattering crossover expanding hype". But Pythra were certainly unexpected, and I think they put the bar somewhat lower than it would have been if FP9 had been someone like Crash. With that in mind, I'm expecting low-key offerings for the two unfortunate souls that are FP10 and 11. And the likelihood that FP10 will be revealed at E3 adds an additional quirk as you'd expect that character to be an exciting announcement, at least to the crowd watching live. So what I'm expecting is less specific characters and more archetypes.

FP10 - The E3 reveal - A small third party, for the fans: This should be a character that can be acquired for relatively cheap, from a franchise that isn't a top-seller (think Bravely Default and King of Fighters instead of Final Fantasy or Mortal Kombat). But they should still be E3-worthy, hence why they'd be a fan-favorite. Basically, this is a character that would be a huge deal for Smash fans, but not so huge that it would be a waste to save them for so late in the pass. Can you picture Nintendo nabbing someone like Sora or Jill Valentine and waiting until the second to last chance to reveal them? No way! This isn't about budget by the way, I don't think there are budget constraints and if anything they probably define how many characters we get rather than the caliber thereof. I just used cost of licensing as shorthand to understand the kind of franchises I think make sense, because higher profile = high licensing cost (probably).
The character I'm picking to represent this archetype is Rayman, with other examples being Professor Layton, Phoenix, Lloyd (if I wasn't 100% certain he's going to be a Mii Costume), Shantae, etc.

FP11 - Revealed in a Nintendo Direct in the Fall - the ever-dreaded promotional pick: The legacy of Corrin and Byleth haunts us, doesn't it? I think it'll happen again. Truth be told, the last Nintendo Direct was explicitly for games for the first half of 2021, so there's still much we don't know about Nintendo's lineup - we might not even know about the game's existence. But Nintendo loves that synergy, and they know that everyone who would've bought the Pass will have done it by that point, so they might as well put the spotlight on a game. Anything shown-off in the February Direct, the Pokemon Direct, the E3 Direct, and any other Direct (like a Zelda Direct) that happens up to and including the one FP11 is released on is fair game. And yes, I am accounting for the possibility of an Isabelle-style "Smash-and-new-game" dual reveal.
The character I see as the face of this category is Ayumi Tachibana, with other possibilities being Octoling, a Pokemon character from the 2021/2022 games, and of course someone from BotW 2.

Alternatively, the picks could switch or even double down on ownership. We could see a highly popular Nintendo character come E3 (think Bandana Dee) or a promotion-oriented third party character for last (think Travis Neku Arthur the dude from Shin Megami Tensei V). And also I see reps for existing third party franchises as wild cards here. Depending on the picks - both picks, mind you - I could see one showing up anywhere.

I guess I should mention Hayabusa, since I predicted him before and he's still alive. He could still happen, I guess. I'm not that confident in him anymore but he's the only majorly speculated character who I can still look at and go "yeah, I could see why he'd be in, but also why he would be kept until this late in the game". I could see him as FP10 or as FP11 - for now. But if FP10 comes around and is (no shade here!) Kyo Kusanagi, I'll have a hard time expecting him as FP10.

And for the record, I do think other character that don't fit in either category could work. For example, I think Sol Badguy would make sense, and he is neither highly demanded nor is Strive going to release on the Switch. Those categories are rather what I'm expecting, while at the same time still allowing for a variety of potential candidates that make sense for the time frame.

...I hope that made sense to anyone else. But uh anyway my nominations go to Agent 47. And to think we haven't even begun the scheduled week.

 

[DrifloonEmpire]

Predictions for the rest of the pass

Gonna do a similar format to what I did on the previous one, rather than picking specific characters I'm gonna go over the two types of characters I think we will get.

For the most part, I think we will get what I predicted previously....but in the opposite order. My original prediction was Smaller 3rd party, then heavyhitter E3, then Rex/Xenoblade 2 rep. Well, with the sword girls we have our obligatory Xenoblade 2 rep, and just because we ended on a terrible promotional character last time doesn't quite mean that it will happen again.

FP10: E3 Heavyhitter - The penultimate reveal, someone definitely E3-worthy. Steve is speculated to have originally been an E3 reveal so someone Min Min levels as a sole reveal just isn't happening. And for 2019 we got a big character from each side of the ocean. So I'm going to stick with my initial predictions of Crash Bandicoot and Dragonborn. Two heavy-hitter western picks with plenty of Japanese popularity ala Steve. Crash and Dragonborn still have all of their strong sides while other characters are falling left and right. Dragonborn also benefits from Monster Hunter's departure as the two would have a lot of moveset and theming overlap, and those two years of Bethesda negotiations have had to resulted in more than just a Mii Costume. As a dark horse, I'll also go with Chosen Undead. A Japanese character popular on both sides of the ocean and a modern icon while still having almost 10 years under his belt, much like Dragonborn. Dark Souls is well-known enough in gaming circles that it definitely could be seen as an E3 headliner, and would also finally give another rep to Namco. If it's Dragonborn (because Dual Weilding was a major combat addition in Skyrim) or Chosen Undead (because he's another Namco character), Lloyd comes back in this Mii wave.

FP11: Smaller 3rd Party - Even if it wasn't in a pass format, we still got a small 3rd party like Bayonetta at the end of Smash 4 DLC, showing that they're willing to wait until late. Gonna still stick by my old predictions of Prince of All Cosmos, Phoenix Wright, and Arle Nadja. These three are smaller 3rd parties that are small enough to not be E3 headliners (unless Phoenix gets in Banjo-style from being a Smash community fan favorite) and would benefit a ton from the Smash exposure, but at the same time are popular and recognizable enough to sell on their own. The Prince is the kind of smaller Namco rep I can see them choosing (Reroll on Switch making sense from a Nintendo marketing end, quirky character Sakurai would love to try, they may want to thank Namco for their help in Smash by giving them the last character). A lot of people are saying that this could be Lloyd instead, but with his Mii costume's return being basically inevitable, along with the fact that we've already gotten two big JRPG picks this pass (it's not a good thing to overwhelmingly gear the pass towards one specific audience), so I don't see them going for a third. For this reason I really don't see a Falcom rep either (though I'm honestly surprised they haven't gotten a spirit event). There's also the fact that the Tales of Anniversary Celebration is this month, so Lloyd missed a big opportunity, Yes, the Scott Menville tweet is sus, but just because it happened with Pyra doesn't mean lightning will strike twice. Lloyd's costume will come back here if The Prince (or any other smaller Namco IP) is chosen. Phoenix Wright benefits a ton from the departure of Monster Hunter, and even if we got a brand new Capcom costume in the form of Arthur, Sakurai explicitly said that they were specifically chosen because the two series had new games coming out and Capcom wanted to promote them. Monster Hunter was Phoenix's biggest competition, and with plans for the Ace Attorney series anniversary this year, along with his fan demand, I can see Capcom considering him. Arle hasn't had any new evidence lately, but she fits the catagory perfectly, plus her popularity is slowly growing in the west. She could also bring Tetris content alongside her, and Nintendo loves promoting Tetris 99. Still, there's a chance this slot could go to a shill pick, I still think it will be a nice surprise, even if it's not an internet-breaking one.

On another note, Dragonborn makes a god for for FP11 as well. Skyrim's famous release date was 11/11/11, and FP11 is likely releasing around this November. That also happens to be Skyrim's tenth anniversary. Still, this is more of an "it would be cool" rather than solid evidence.

Finally, there's Dr. Eggman, who would honestly fit in either slot. I doubt Nintendo would limit themselves to only one "playable boss", and Sonic's long overdue for another rep. With the Sonic series celebrating a big anniversary this year, I can see Eggman jumping in to join the action! Well-known enough to be an E3 reveal but also low-key enough to be a final reveal!


Nominations:
[Rerate] Louie x40

Predictions:
Henry Stickman - 0.73%

 

[Golden Icarus]

Long and rambly post because I'm bad at shutting up.

For those who are not caught up with Golden Icarus lore, I recently made a fifty dollar bet with a friend of mine after Sephiroth that at least two of these four characters (Lloyd, Yuri, Crash, and Ryu Hayabusa) would be in Fighters Pass 2. Obviously, Pyra/Mythra is not one of those characters. That leaves two slots left for my predictions to still be correct. And honestly, my odds could be a lot worse. Even after Pyra/Mythra, these characters are still my top four predictions for all of the same reasons. Here's what I had to say about them last time:

Ryu Hayabusa: This is probably the character I’m most confident in. Out of all the companies without a character in Smash, Koei Tecmo really stands out. On top of being a mainstream Japanese developer, they have also made numerous deals with Nintendo as of late from Age of Calamity to offering multiple IPs for Ultimate. And if they were to get a character in Smash, it isn’t even a question as to who it would be. Much like Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden has been a rather consistent name in gaming ever since its heyday on the NES, with Hayabusa also functioning as KT's mascot by making appearances in plenty of games outside his own series. Sakurai is quite the gaming historian, and Hayabusa seems like a character he’d be eager to implement into Smash. His inclusion is only a matter of time, and I feel like the time is now.

Lloyd Irving (And Yuri): Despite Bandai Namco developing Ultimate, Pac-Man remains as the only character to represent the company. If FP2 is truly the end of Ultimate’s DLC, then I’d be pretty damn shocked to see Namco with 0 new characters to show for all their work on the game. It isn’t like Namco doesn’t have any big characters to offer. Tekken literally outsells Street Fighter, and Lloyd has been a huge request since Brawl. With Heihachi being added as a Mii costume, the door is wide open for Lloyd. We’ve had a strange lack of Tales content in Smash and while many people seem pretty spooked by all the Smash 4 Mii costumes being slowly doled out, I still have faith that there are bigger plans for Lloyd.

I actually have a sneaking suspicion that Lloyd has been in the works for quite a while. Not only do we have a semi-credible leak supporting this claim, but it makes sense given what we know. We know that Steve was being worked on long before his release. We also know that third parties prefer to have characters as DLC, as it’s more profitable. So if Lloyd was being planned since base game, it would make sense for him to be held back for DLC. It even kind of makes sense for him to have missed FP1. After all, FP1 already had its fair share of JRPG swordsman. Joker was released alongside a plethora of P5 announcements, Hero was released alongside DQ11S, and they probably wanted Byleth in while Three Houses was still fresh in our minds. Waiting to include Lloyd makes sense as his archetype was already being heavily represented in FP1.

I’ll also mention that Yuri feels very possible. He’s not as popular in the Smash community, but he is huge within the Tales fanbase. I could even see both of them as DLC. Vesperia and Symphonia are unique enough universes to have their own challenger packs. I even have a whole tinfoil hat theory on why exactly that might happen, but I won’t get into that here. This section has already gone on long enough.

Crash: Honestly, the main reason I think that Crash will happen is because he should happen. Tell you what, I don’t even care about Crash. I never owned a PlayStation until I was 20, and my first Crash game was N-Sane Trilogy. I played it for about an hour and haven’t gone back since. Not because I was busy, but because I was bored. His games really didn’t click with me, yet even I can admit that he absolutely deserves to be in Smash. There’s only a select few characters that can be viewed as ‘console mascots’ and Crash is one of the few to hold that title. Being the mascot of the PS1, the first console to truly give Nintendo a run for their money, is a massive feat. Now he’s out here getting a huge revival in the industry, while also having a bunch of his games ported to the Switch. The timing for Crash couldn't be much better and Nintendo should strike while the iron's hot.

These characters have been discussed to death already, so I don't feel much of a need to elaborate further. The main thing that has changed since I made that post is that...there are only two slots left. If I had to bet on only two characters, it would be Crash and Hayabusa.

I understand that this is a pretty popular prediction, but for good reason. Crash's popularity is insane and Nintendo has continued to push him over the past few years. It's hard to imagine a more perfect E3 reveal.

And Hayabusa just has everything. He's the mascot of a company that has continued to work well with Nintendo, he's been a gaming icon ever since the NES and now his Master Collection is about to come out...after being revealed in a Nintendo Direct no less. Also, with how much content Koei Tecmo has offered to Smash, it's kind of baffling that we still don't have any Mii costumes. It's almost like they're waiting to release them with a certain character. I will say that I'm a little nervous for him, but that's mostly because it's just taking so long for him to be added. He's pretty much been my top prediction ever since Banjo lol.

I know that many are expecting Ultimate to sort of "fizzle out." After Incineroar closing out the base roster and Byleth closing out FP1, many are understandably expecting a similar finale to this pass. However, Sakurai outright told us that ARMS and Xeno 2 were just shy of the base game, and...now we have Min Min and Pyra! While it is most certainly possible we'll get another character like that, I feel like our "shills" are probably out of the way for this fighters pass. I feel relatively confident that Nintendo has learned from Byleth and have chosen to end this pass strong. I really do believe that.

Naturally, I will still add Lloyd and Yuri to my honorable mentions. Pyra/Mythra didn't kill Lloyd like I somewhat expected them to. Still, I don't have quite the same level of confidence in Tales Of as I do in Crash and the 'busa.

Speaking of honorable mentions, let's take a looksie at those...

Honorable Mentions

Capcom: The whole company. If you want to talk about a developer with dozens of great characters and series that would be perfect for Smash, then look no further than Capcom. We haven’t had any new Capcom characters for Ultimate’s DLC, and it would be kind of strange to see such a massive company ignored for two passes in a row. I just have a hard time envisioning who we would get. Resident Evil seemed like a good frontrunner, but it just got a spirit event featuring all of its major characters. Chun-Li is a big name, but Street Fighter already has fairly adequate representation in Smash. Dante is a popular choice, but his series isn’t as big as people make it out to be and he has very little connection to Nintendo. Phoenix Wright has a lot of Nintendo history, but Ace Attorney is still a somewhat niche franchise. Monster Hunter is a successful series with lots of games and plenty of Nintendo history...but doesn’t really feature a memorable protagonist.

I could see any of these characters happening, but individually, none of them really stand out to me. I wanna say that either Chun-Li or Phoenix have the best shot, but I’m also biased as those are two of my most wanted.

Captain Toad: Call me crazy, but I ain’t counting him out. Going into Ultimate, my top 5 predictions were Inkling, Captain Toad, Isabelle, King K. Rool, and Ridley in that order. I still believe that if Sakurai were to include just one or two more characters to Ultimate, that Captain Toad likely would have been one of them. Ever since 3D World, the Captain has been consistently getting more and more attention. Treasure Tracker has been released three times, he had a unique role in Odyssey, Treasure Tracker is one of few games to have user icons on the Switch (alongside ARMS. Hmm...), he’s getting even more action in Bowser’s Fury, he's included in Nintendo's new theme park, the list goes on. Captain Toad is clearly here to stay. If we got another Nintendo character in this pass, he would be my bet.

Xenoblade: I'm not as confident as most people, but another Xenoblade character is definitely possible. It's just that releasing Rex this late in the game sounds really odd. I'm not saying he "missed the boat," but his appeal is only fading as time passes. I would love to see Elma, but a lot of things have to go right in order for her to happen. Still, Xenoblade has grown quite a lot since Shulk's inclusion, and Nintendo seems pretty enthusiastic about the series. At the very least, I would say it definitely deserves a second character. I'm just not sure if I'm really feeling it.

Rayman: One of those characters that seems like he'll happen eventually. Ubisoft is definitely one of the more noteworthy companies without a character in Smash. It's up there with Koei Tecmo as being a major company with a strong relationship with Nintendo. The problem is that there are always bigger fish to fry. Rayman has a lot going for him, but not enough to really stand out in the crowd. People barely agree that he stands out amongst other Ubisoft characters. Even in terms of Western platforming mascots, he's overshadowed by Crash. However, I don't think he's out of the running and I can't help but think that he might just come when we least expect it.

Master Chief: It seems as though Nintendo is only including one character per company in each fighters pass. However, there's little reason to believe that that's a "rule." For all we know, Nintendo might actually prefer to use the same company multiple times. After all, we've already gotten two Square and two Microsoft characters for DLC (albeit in separate passes). Who's to say? Anyways, Master Chief truly stands out to me. If Nintendo is gonna grab Banjo and Steve, they might as well go for Mr. Xbox himself and really break the internet. It's not like there's tremendous overlap between the Halo fanbase and the Minecraft fanbase. They both stand on their own as uniquely important franchises. There's still plenty of concerns with Chief though. Would Sakurai want a character so separated from Nintendo? Could he figure out a way for him to feasibly work in Smash? Would Microsoft be willing to offer up there own mascot for a decent price? I wanna say the answer to all of these questions is yes, but I'm not too sure.

Well, there's a couple of things I want to add here. Obviously I can cross out Xenoblade. Additionally, Capcom has taken a noticeable hit after the recent Mii reveal. I never really felt all that confident about another Capcom character. That company is filled to the brim with great options, but none that really stand out among the rest. Still, Dante, Phoenix, and Chun-Li do feel like decent possibilities...It is kinda sus that we currently have zero Street Fighter Mii costumes...If I had to put my faith in one Capcom character, it would probably be Chun-Li.

One character that I do want to add to this list is Decidueye. While I do feel like our first party picks are probably out of the way, this character does have an interesting situation worth talking about. Second Chance Theory is one that has been pretty prominent in this fighters pass. ARMS and Xeno 2 barely missed the base game, Steve had been in negotiations for years, and while this is a bit more out there, leakers have mentioned Sephiroth as being considered over Erdrick in FP1. We know for a fact that Sakurai almost added Decidueye instead of Incineroar, going as far as saying that he had some ideas for his playstyle. It would be strange for Sakurai to add another Sun/Moon rep, rather than something from Gen 8, but "generation representation" never seemed all that important in Smash, at least as far as I can tell. The truth is, Sword and Shield isn't really the hot new thing anymore, and suddenly Decidueye is actually more relevant than most of those Pokémon. With Legends coming out in 2022, it would seem odd for us to get a character to represent it. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if the Pokémon Company reached out to Sakurai directly with the intentions of having Legends coincide with Decidueye in Smash. Probably not, but maybe. Another interesting thing to note is that Sun/Moon didn't get a stage when Incineroar was added. Just something to think about.

I'll leave it there. I could expand on this and add some more mentions. Arle, Dragonborn, Adol, Reimu, Officer Howard, Bandana Dee, I could go on. If I mentioned every possible character we'd be here forever. I think that this is what I'm gonna settle on though:

With these as my biggest honorable mentions:

Spoiler

I'm probably wrong and am about to lose fifty bucks to my friend. Oh well! Either way, I'm really excited to see what is still in store for us! I really don't want this ride to end! I hope that everyone can appreciate the fact that we are undoubtedly in the golden age of Smash. Speculation has been an absolute blast and I can't wait to see how this game looks when its roster is complete. No matter who they add, Ultimate has already turned out to be everything I wanted and more.

Noms: Officer Howard x40

 

[Jomosensual]

Alright, time for more predictions. Gonna start off by saying that I'm dropping both Phoenix and Hayabusa as neither fit the 2 spots I think we have left. Also dropping League of Legends as well. Still think it's a possibility but for pass 2 it feels like there's not a great path outside of E3, and E3 has some more slam dunk candidates I'd be more willing to put my money on right now.

DLC 10 Crash Bandicoot - Yep, still going with him. We're likely not seeing any more reveals until E3. And with that, E3 always pretty big reveals. Not only that, usually they have characters who are also big in the west. Crash is obviously both and as far as I know at least and is an absolutely iconic character. He just feels like a big stage reveal. I don't think the fake leaks surrounding him mean anything. Honestly he's just such a safe yet obviously good pick that it's hard to say there's any reason to not take him if possible. The other big contender I have for this spot is Master Chief. I can't say I'm confident on us getting another Microsoft rep in this pass, but with Microsoft getting a character with every single E3 in the DLC I don't think you can write him off.

DLC 11 Decidueye - Yep, I'm back on my final slot going towards shilling stuff again. Why though? Pokemon Legends is going to be way late? Well, I think there's some good reasons to expect an exception here. First, it's because Pokemon. Pokemon gets a lot in Smash, just like Fire Emblem who got some of the last 2 fighters in DLC the last 2 rounds. There's also the fact that a grass starter has been a somewhat decent request to finish the type triangle. And on top of all of that, Deci would also fit with the idea that most, if not all the fighters in this pass fit the 2nd chance theory floating around, with it being considered along with Incineroar for the spot. With Deci being a starter in Legends, which is without a doubt getting pushed hard by Gamefreak and Nintendo and also being the most fitting final starter for the game, it feels likely that if we get a shill pick from it then Deci is the one. And on top of all of that, it would also have an archer moveset with is something that would be pretty unique. Just about all the fighters in the pass(Sephiroth is the only debatable one) have some sort of uniqueness to them. The more I think about this the more I like it.

Noms
Far Cry Rep x20
Bioshock Protagonist x20

 

[SpectreJordan]

It’s really hard to narrow it down to two specific characters. There’s a lot of possibilities & this game’s roster has been anything but predictable.

DLC 10: Western Appeal Pick - Pythra was definitely a pick to appeal to the Japanese audience, so I think it’s reasonable that the next one could appeal to the West. Especially since this is potentially Smash Ultimate’s final “E3”, or atleast it was planned to be. There’s a good chance they’re going to go big for that spot. Crash is the most obvious choice for this, but far from guaranteed. He’s been talked about so much that everyone knows what he has going for him, but also the big barrier to entry that is Activision.

Master Chief, Rayman, Dovahkiin & Lara Croft all have a shot too. Though, they have various things going against them. Like Microsoft & Square having a character in this pass already; though I do think that rule could be broken especially for MFing Master Chief & Lara Croft. While Ubisoft & Bethesda have received Mii costumes before getting a character which seems to be a death blow.

A character that appeals to the West doesn’t necessarily mean a Western made character. I feel a lot of Capcom characters, particularly Dante & Chun-Li, would be big in the West; but their chances might have just gotten blown up. Sonic characters would all be big picks over here too. Waluigi would be huge too, but at this point it seems like Assists are stuck in their purgatory.

DLC 11: Smaller but well liked Japanese 3rd party: I think the game will end on someone similar to Bayonetta. A character that isn’t huge but is generally well liked; there seems to be some revisionist history with Bayo, but I remember people generally liked her before she was the final spot & dominated the tourney scene.

There’s the safe options of Ryu Hayabusa or Lloyd Irving/Yuri Lowell. They’ve been discussed a lot already. Chosen Undead would be another good pick for this spot. Dark Soul’s been one of the most influential & beloved series of the past decade.

A double dip on Square with either 2B or Crono could maybe happen too, though it’s a bit unlikely. Kiryu or Axel Stone are possibilities as well since Sega seems very on board with Smash. There’s also Sol Badguy as well; Guilty Gear’s been rising in popularity recently & a Smash appearance could help make it even bigger. I have to imagine ArcSys would be as generous as SNK was too.

Alternatively, both characters are revealed at “E3”/Nintendo’s summer presentation & the spots are swapped. That would go along with this trend I noticed.

Spoiler: DLC Trend

I posted this in the General Speculation thread the other day. So far the DLC has been 3 Japanese characters followed by a Western character. It’s probably just a coincidence, but it’s interesting that it’s happened that way so far & we could be on track for it to happen again.

Nomination 3rd party company gets more than one fighter in the same pass x 40

 

[Lyncario]

but with all the fangames becoming canon, I just feel it would be too confusing (Feel free to prove me wrong).

Well, the Touhou fangames are not canon and never were, don't know where you got that one from.

 

[Pillow]

It's interesting to see that Decidueye has climbed back onto a few people's lists after the last Pokemon Presentation.

 

[Lionfranky]

The last 2 slots...

I think we may have double reveal like Hero-Banjo situation.

Master Chief: I have gut feeling that this pass has one more slot just because of him. There is still ongoing rumor of MCC port. Who knows whether Microsoft offered Steve and Chief at the same time? Would Nintendo really refuse the offer? Nintendo is looking at another potential fanbase to pull from. If there is another fighter pass on the line, yeah... Chief won't be in this pass. They will definitely save him for next pass. But if this is really the end of all, Nintendo may want to break tradition of ending on less hype and go with bang.

Agumon: Yes, his chance is hurt by returning Mii costume from Bamco. I still think Digimon as whole is slept on. It's one of most profitable franchises from Bamco. Anime reboot is still going strong. Despite this, licensing fee won't be that expensive.

Sol Badguy: I think he's a darkhorse pick, but even Nintendo should be wary of amount of sword fighter in this pass. Sure, Sol has different weapon from Sephiroth and Pyra/Mythra, but there is limit to how much they can tweak to make distinction.

Crash: While he is very likely, I think his chance tends to get overblown. How many times were people so sure that he would be in the next slot? Although there has been collaboration between Activision and Nintendo, you never know how different negotiation plays out. Activision may ask more than Nintendo is willing to shell out.

Ryu Hayabusa: With new Ninja Gaiden port, his chance looks brighter than ever. But I fear Sephiroth kinda dampers his chance. I think Sakurai still has say on whom to pick. He may not want to get another katana user. I think this is the factor that people forget.

Nom: 3rd party company gets more than one fighter in the same pass x 40

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Sol Badguy: I think he's a darkhorse pick, but even Nintendo should be wary of amount of sword fighter in this pass. Sure, Sol has different weapon from Sephiroth and Pyra/Mythra, but there is limit to how much they can tweak to make distinction.

You say this as if Sol has a sword and not a giant lighter. You also say this as if Nintendo cares about the people wanting Scrimblo Bimblo complaining at every character with a pointy metal stick

 

[Lionfranky]

You say this as if Sol has a sword and not a giant lighter. You also say this as if Nintendo cares about the people wanting Scrimblo Bimblo complaining at every character with a pointy metal stick

"I see. Too many swordmen are there?" - Sothis

The way they acknowledged Waluigi should be good indicator that they should know stigma toward sword character... well at least Fire Emblem characters. If they never cared, they would've never put that line.

 

[Commander_Alph]

"I see. Too many swordmen are there?" - Sothis

The way they acknowledged Waluigi should be good indicator that they should know stigma toward sword character... well at least Fire Emblem characters. If they never cared, they would've never put that line.

If they cared about that line then why did they add 3 more sword fighter after this? that line is basically along the lines of jabbing on the community of how spiteful they are kinda like how Sonic Boom is jabbing at SEGA for doing stupid things to the Sonic series which doesn't always mean they will change just by that one line alone.

 

[Wunderwaft]

So the final two predictions huh? Well, since I was so adamant on Xeno getting a fighter like two days before the reveal, I might as well try my luck again.


1-Ryu Hayabusa
This is the one character left that I'm confident is gonna make it. He's the star of Koei Tecmo what with him crossing in their games whenever he has the chance. He has a long legacy dating back to the NES era and he successfully made the jump to 3D with the exhilarating high action modern games, and even though his series was in hibernation for a while, it's back due to the remastered trilogy that has been announced recently. By all accounts, he's a video game icon.

So why him over every other icon? Well, two main reasons. The first is Vergeben hearing that Koei Tecmo has been in discussion with Nintendo in getting a fighter for Smash, Verge has been correct for the majority of Smash leaks yet it should be mentioned that we don't know if these discussions resulted in anything, still, this is better than nothing. The other point is that Koei Tecmo has a friendly relationship with Nintendo what with them developing their own games like Three Houses and Age of Calamity. Nintendo's cooperation with Koei Tecmo right now is better than ever.

With all these points considered, I'm confident that Ryu Hayabusa will make it to Smash as a playable fighter.



2- Waluigi
Well this is an off the wall prediction compared to Hayabusa now is it?
But yes I do believe Waluigi has a chance to be playable and I'm choosing him as my second prediction. For one, his popularity and the outrage over his deconfirmation has been acknowledged by Nintendo before, no other character besides Ridley back in Smash 4 received this special treatment. Since we're probably not gonna get a third pass, I can see Nintendo deciding to end their game's DLC on a fan favorite that has been the target of a lot of memes and discussion.


Honorable Mentions:
Falcom rep
This is one company that everyone should keep their eyes on. Falcom's long history in video games is notable and important enough for it to be put in consideration. The company has been supporting the Switch lately with ports of their games like Ys and Trails. Now as for which character would be picked that's a bit harder to decide on imo. Adol has the clear legacy advantage since he's been around since the 80s and Ys has been an important game for the ARPG genre. But in terms of modern Falcom their bigger franchise right now is Trails, and the two protagonists that could be chosen from it are Estelle and Rean. Estelle has the advantage in terms of legacy over Rean, but Rean has the advantage of coming from more successful games and well, having his games on the Switch to begin with.

I believe the three characters mentioend are close to each other in terms of likelihood and as such it's hard for me to stand behind one. If I have to choose a character though I'll go with Adol, but the other two are certainly not lagging behind. Adol > Rean >= Estelle is my ranking for their likelihood.


Sol Badguy
Arc System Works is a notable Japanese company from the fighting game side of things. They've been releasing wonderful anime fighting games that attracted huge crowds compared to other anime fighting games. They're also supporting the Switch with ports of their past titles. A couple of years back I would have said it's a 50/50 split between Sol and Ragna, but at this point Sol has more going for him than Ragna. Guilty Gear Strive is the newest Arc System Works game in development and the company isn't pulling any breaks with it's development, they're putting a lot in that basket for it to be successful. Since it's coming out this year it seems like an appropriate time to cross-over it's main face Sol in other games for the occasion.



As for nominations, uhhh put all of them to Beatrice from Umineko.

 

[Lionfranky]

If they cared about that line then why did they add 3 more sword fighter after this? that line is basically along the lines of jabbing on the community of how spiteful they are kinda like how Sonic Boom is jabbing at SEGA for doing stupid things to the Sonic series which doesn't always mean they will change just by that one line alone.

Well, I am talking about balancing and diversifying a single fighter pass, not cut out swordfighter entirely. If they want to put one more sword fighter, it should be after non-sword fighter. I mean FP1 did well in this regard. Joker's knife is pretty different from Hero's sword. Even then, Hero was accompanied by Banjo.

 

[Flyboy]

Fighter Pass 2 Predictions

Well, this is definitely a strange place we find ourselves in, huh? A few weeks ago I would've been confident on a Capcom rep. Now, well, anything can go. I was hoping to be a little more concrete with my predictions, but I think I'll have to slam down some vague umbrella terms along with a fw pie in the sky choices and see where things go. I do think we will get one first-party and one third-party. As for who those will be, well, I don't know. But I'll make some cases for some names.

Ayumi Tachibana
I know I'm the only person on the forum outside of maybe Rie to actually have played any of the Famicom Detective Club games, but I promise I'm ignoring the whole "But Sakurai said she was gonna be in Melee!" thing. I do think that a lot of Ultimate has been about reexamining old concepts and bringing them back, even including this pass with Arms, Xenoblade 2, etc. but I don't think that that means Ayumi is magically guaranteed to appear. I do, however, think that it's interesting that we've only really gotten Steve as a "cute" rep - Sakurai likes to have a balance between "cute" and "cool", and I'm sure one could argue that Pyra/Mythra are a bit of both, but traditionally Sakurai is using that to talk about moveset appeal, design appeal, and demographic appeal. Ayumi is one of the protagonists of the FDC games along with the nameless viewpoint character, and with the FDC remakes finally coming out, Nintendo seems to really be pushing them in marketing.I don't think marketing = Smash, and a spirit event is just as likely, but I do think she'd be a surprising and fun first-party choice that would represent a new genre and is super low-key influential. Seriously, I've said it over and over, but if you're an Ace Attorney fan do yourself a favor and play these games. They basically inspired them.

Anyway, Sakurai and Nintendo seem to have a few criteria when selecting a first party for DLC, including relevance, popularity, moveset potential, demographic appeal, and roster appeal. Ayumi is one of the candidates that satisfies a lot of those criteria by being a character who appeals to another demographic (VN fans, mystery fans), is relevant (the remakes), has an added benefit of being a retro character (not a requirement, just fun), and would have an incredibly unique moveset. She's not the only first-party on the table, though...

Octoling
If not Octoling I'd love Marina and Pearl... but anyway, with the announcement of Splatoon 3 I've realized that leaves Splatoon 2 in a very unusual position. It's comparable to Xenoblade 2, in fact. Smash has some Splatoon 2 content, mostly songs and spirits and some costumes, but no stage and plenty of room to include a new character. The Octolings are now officially just as important in the Splatoon series as the Inklings, giving us more popular mascots from what is now one of Nintendo's BIG series'. Seriously, Splatoon has blown up thanks to its fresh, cool style and genuinely fun gameplay. Octolings would be a "cute" rep, would have awesome moveset potential (we do not have a dual gun wielder in Smash), and has a whole game's worth of content to pull from with Splatoon 2 and the Octo Expansion. However, I'm less confident on them than I was before because I realized...we got Callie and Marie costumes this pass, and you'd think they'd want to save Splatoon costumes to go with a Splatoon rep if that's the case...but hey, who knows.

Other First Party Rep
With most of the big names, such as the Howard twins or Ring Fit Adventurer out of the running, it's hard to see who else could be in. Even Impa got smacked with the Spirits beam. However, there are always new Nintendo properties being released and you never know where they could pull from next. For all we know, the next character will be the stick man from Good Job. Or maybe I'll play the longest game and get the Stylist from Style Savvy somehow. Who knows?

Adol Christin
What can be said about Adol that hasn't already? Ys is one of the most influential ARPG series' out there that's still running. Falcom has been supporting the Switch, with Ys VIII being a pretty well-selling Switch game and Ys IX coming soon, to say nothing of the Trails games that have been hitting the Switch lately. Adol himself would stand out from the crowd because being a character from the 90s I could see them really leaning into his classic old school 90s anime art style - tell me you wouldn't want to play as a classic OVA-looking character in Smash. I think the comparisons between Adol and Terry are fairly valid, even if Terry's case was far stronger as SNK was a big Switch supporter from the start whereas Falcom is slightly less-so. Still, a character with history, games that are still made, a company on the upswing, a Switch supporter, with tons of amazing music to choose from? The potential is here. Plus my partner would be super happy as they played every Ys game over the last few months and I like seeing them happy. Hey, I never said I was free of bias.

Tales Of Series Rep
For the record, I don't think the Lloyd costume not returning means a Tales Of rep is suddenly super likely. I do think that the Lloyd costume will return with the next fighter, but I think that it's not Lloyd-or-bust. Once a pipe dream, I'd argue that Velvet actually has a shot now if they were looking for interesting characters to pick from the series. She is popular and modern and has a super interesting moveset. Lloyd still has a chance of course, he always has. The Heihachi and Gil Mii costumes are definitely a bit odd and may knock a Tales Of rep down the ladder a bit, but I think there's enough to choose from regarding the series that they can do multiple Bamco waves. Heck, maybe with the success of Min Min and Pyra/Mythra, Sakurai will decide to add Collette instead of Lloyd. Who knows? Either way, Tales Of still is in the running due to being one of the big RPG series' going right now. It'd be great to get as close to an RPG dream match in Smash as we can. There is, however, someone standing in Tales Of's way:

Don-Chan
The little drum that could! Yeah, I actually think Don-chan is more likely than Tales Of by a smidge. Taiko just had two RPGs released on Switch for the first time, the series is starting to hit big in the US again and has always hit big in Japan. Don-chan is a guest kart racer in Mario Kart Arcade GP! Along with his own track! The last character that happened to was Pac-Man, and now he's in Smash, so perhaps it's time for our cute little drum boy to make it in? Don't count him out.

Alucard
Okay, a bold pick here because Castlevania VERY OBVIOUSLY did not get shafted in ANY way in base. But I had a dream he got in, and you all know my dreams are prophetic.

Well, actually, it was a dream about specifically a Lego version of Alucard getting in, but same thing really. I'm thinking he's in.

Sora
The white whale. The last bastion. Sora is the character that's always in the conversation because he's someone that as a whole a huge amount of people in and out of Smash want to see make it. Disney is the problem, though. It's hard to make any kind of case for Sora when he's attached to a famously closed-off company that keeps mum about everything, but there's always gonna be that little voice in your head that says "Maybe...".

Other Third Parties: Sol Badguy, Ryu Hayabusa, Arle Nadja, Kazuma Kiryu, etc.
The struggle right now is that there are so many excellent third-party characters that could come out of nowhere at any time. If I were to go over all their chances you could probably find something for almost any of them, whether its rumors, leaks, popularity, interest, or because the company is working with Smash already. I don't mean to chicken out here, but it's seriously hard to pin this stuff down. We live in strange and murky times.

Honorable Mention: A Capcom Rep
This is something I'm much less confident in now that we have gotten Monster Hunter and Arthur Miis, but I do think the fact that Sakurai specifically said that we got the costumes for promotional reasons a bit suspect. Now, I don't think this means we're guaranteed a new fighter, and I'm also choosing to keep my expectations low for a Capcom rep so I don't burn myself. I do, however, think we may see some more Capcom content, such as spirits or Miis in the future. But man, Phoenix Wright would be so great to see...gah, I can't get ahead of myself. Long story short, despite the costumes Capcom still has a deep relationship with Nintendo so a new Capcom rep is still in the running despite Arthur and Monster Hunter costumes, but I will say it won't surprise me if we got no more Capcom in this pass.

In Conclusion:
Who knows?? We live in strange times. Any of these characters could make it or none of them can. I thought we had some decent information and basis to go off of but the more I type the more I realize things are just as strange and confusing as ever. It's all very exciting. Of course, I'd be happy to see characters added to this game forever. Perhaps that's not feasible, but I suppose we will see.

Nominations: Beatrice (Umineko) x40