Official Smash Ultimate Discussion

[osby]

guys I think my amiibo is broken, it's not even giving me the morgana spirit

Put him into an amiibo fight with seven other 50 level figure fighters and show him who's the boss.

 

[Lollipopped]

I mean, leaks aside, a Dragon Quest rep is still a pretty safe bet. I feel like there's a DQ game announced on a Nintendo system like every year lol.

 

[Luigi The President]

Hitagi was not the first to claim Granblue was getting a fighting game, nor did he ever say Erdrick would be in. He never confirmed any Squenix rep, actually; just that we'd get one...you know, like EVERYONE ELSE.

This 2chan leak is also based off of things we've known about for months.

There is no way a random 2chan leaker would know about the Squenix rep-which is months away, possibly even half a year-before our top insiders.

 

[Wademan94]

guys I think my amiibo is broken, it's not even giving me the morgana spirit

Maybe you need to get the batteries replaced on your NFC Reader?

 

[DaybreakHorizon]

The Definitive Case for Lloyd​

Hello everyone and welcome to the third post in a series of speculation posts written by your's truly. In this post I'll be arguing for Lloyd Irving, whom I believe to be the closest thing to a shoe-in for inclusion as a DLC fighter. This may sound ironic coming from one of most vocal detractors of the concept of shoe-ins, but I will legitimately be surprised if Lloyd isn't one of our DLC fighters. Let me tell you why:

Spoiler: Acknowledgements

• "But tehponycorn," you say, "this has already been done!" You would be correct, as Not-Neuro on Reddit (who I believe is our own VashTehStampede ) wrote a long post detailed potential points supporting Lloyd's inclusion. However, I'll be diving deeper into the argument of why Lloyd should be included more than "here's how cool of an inclusion he'd be."
• I'll acknowledge my own fan bias up front, as I highly regard Tales of the Abyss and enjoyed both the Tales of the Abyss and Symphonia anime series. That being said, I'll be leaving my bias at the door and, like my other two speculation posts, arguing more about "why I believe he's likely" instead of "why I want him."

Spoiler: Background - Why a Namco Character?

It's a well-known fact that Bandai Namco helped with the development of Super Smash Brothers for 3DS and Wii U (which will be referred to as Sm4sh for the rest of this essay), and that same team came back to help develop Smash Ultimate as well. This is amazing for relationships between Nintendo and Namco, and naturally lends itself towards facilitating the process of including Namco characters in Smash Bros. Sakurai echoes this sentiment in his "My First Conception is My Landmark" Famitsu Column, wherein he reflects on the inclusion of Pac-Man in Sm4sh:

Since I am creating the new Smash Bros. in cooperation with Bandai-Namco Games, it makes sense to include one of their characters, and Pac-Man is perhaps Namco’s most iconic character, so Pac-Man should join the fray.

So, it's established that since Nintendo is working alongside Bandai Namco, it's a logical step to include their characters in Smash Bros. Despite this, within the same column Sakurai says this:

Interviewer: Between Bandai and Namco, were there any other strong candidates for inclusion as a fighter?

Sakurai: There were none. We basically thought of all the characters at the start of development. We decided on characters we knew we could make. However, there were a few in consideration, such as Heihachi from “Tekken.

This may seem like a hard disconfirmation, but it's important to note the statement in the question "any other strong candidates." The interviewer is asking if compared to Pac-Man were there any other strong candidates. Any other IPs from Bandai Namco pale in comparison to the arcade legend that is Pac-Man. Sakurai even states this when he says that "Pac-Man is perhaps Namco’s most iconic character." He additionally says that there were other characters in consideration, such as Heihachi, showing that other characters were considered alongside Pac-Man, but ultimately Pac-Man was the one chosen. Now that Pac-Man is a character in Ultimate, the doors are open for other Namco DLC characters to be included. Now the question is:

Spoiler: Why Lloyd Irving?

I previously discussed what I believe to be the criteria for a third party's inclusion within my Square Enix Character Argument (which you should totally read if you're into current speculation or any Square Enix character in general):

While Sakurai has commented on third parties in the past, he's been quite vague, only saying that the characters must have some association with Nintendo, both companies must want them and Sakurai must have some artistic license, the character must carry history with them, and (more recently) implying that third parties must have worldwide popularity

Based off of this, I'm going to argue that a third party representative must be at least one of two things: historic and iconic

So, does the Tales of series fit these criteria?

The Tales franchise debuted in 1995 on the Super Nintendo, and has been between Nintendo and Playstation systems with a singular prominent appearance on the Xbox 360. Prominent gaming journalist Jeremy Parish called the Tales franchise "quite arguably Japan's third-biggest RPG series, right after Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest," which where the claim of it being one of the "Big Three" JRPG series originates from, and certainly the sheer size of the series speaks for itself. The series has spawned multiple spin-off games, CD dramas, anime and manga series, and even has its own fan conventions in both America and Japan. The conference in Japan is so big that it's called a "festival. It's two days long and attracts tens of thousands of fans (there were 22,000 in attendance in 2014). Did I mention that this festival has been held yearly for 11 years now? In my opinion it's more fitting to call the Tales of series a multimedia franchise instead of a simple video game series, but I digress. The series meets both of the two primary criteria for inclusion as it is both historic and iconic, even having a prominent relationship with Nintendo to boot, unlike Tekken or other Namco series. Faithful representation is incredibly easy given that the series plays like a conventional fighting game, and special attacks are attributed to directional inputs, similar to the well known neutral, side, up, and down specials, which is another pro for the series.

All that being said, we return to the main question: "Why Lloyd Irving?"

At a surface level, Lloyd doesn't seem likely as a Tales of representative at all. Tales of Symphonia isn't as relevant as more recent Tales of titles such as Zestiria or Berseria, nor is Lloyd the most popular character within the series, as he's lucky to place within the bottom half of the Top 10 in official fan polls (his most recent results are 11th in the 8th character poll in 2017 and 9th in the 7th character poll in 2014). Two characters, Yuri Lowell and Leon Magnus, are legitimately banned from the poll because they were too popular and kept winning. Yuri Lowell, the most popular Tales of character and the protagonist of Tales of Vesperia, also just so happens to have a remastered edition of his game coming out in less than a month from the time of writing, making him a natural pick for inclusion as the Tales of representative, right?

Wrong.

You see, the thing about Lloyd Irving is that he is THE Nintendo Tales of character, and Tales of Symphonia's impact on the series is large enough to make up for a lack of relevancy and popularity.

Tales of Symphonia is interesting because Nintendo stepped in to personally advertise it themselves alongside Bandai Namco. It was a prominent Nintendo Gamecube release, and stands as an outlier in a series predominantly on Playstation systems at the time. The game itself was popular enough to warrant a sequel which was another prominent Nintendo title, making the Tales of Symphonia games the closest related to Nintendo in the series.

In 2013 series' producer Hideo Baba stated that Tales of Symphonia was the most popular Tales of title in the West, specifically citing the support from Nintendo:

Another huge component was that we had a lot of support from Nintendo, so that allowed us to reach out to a broader audience that we weren't able to reach before.

In 2014, Tales of Symphonia was further called the most successful title in the series for the 6th generation of consoles by product manager Dennis Lee, beating out Tales of Rebirth, Tales of Legendia, and Tales of the Abyss for that position. Both of these interviews occurred after the releases of Tales of Vesperia and Tales of Destiny, where the two most popular characters in the series originate from.

Tales of Symphonia is significant because it did what Dragon Quest still has yet to do: break into the Western market. Prior to its release, the Tales of was largely unknown in the West, but Symphonia changed that. While the series is still largely based in Japan, Symphonia introduced the series to the Western market with a splash, thanks to Nintendo. From there, it's managed to establish a community prominent enough that Bandai Namco takes feedback from them for the series. Lloyd is perfect mix between the series' Western and Eastern popularity and has the most prominent association with Nintendo out of any character in the series, and that is what makes him the most likely pick.


"but tehponycorn," you say, "Sakurai chose Cloud instead of Bartz or Terra because he was more popular despite having no association with Nintendo!"

You would be correct in that there is no precedent for Sakurai taking solid relationships with Nintendo into account when choosing a representative for a long-running franchise like Final Fantasy or Tales of. However, it's important to figure out why Sakurai chose Cloud over another Final Fantasy character:

But on the other hand, if you think about who to add from Final Fantasy, it’s hard to come up with a choice that’s not Cloud. We could have used Terra or Bartz, protagonists in their own right, but I feel like there would be some people who wouldn’t know who those characters are.

Everyone knows who Cloud is compared to other Final Fantasy protagonists. Lloyd doesn't have this problem compared to Yuri Lowell or Leon Magnus, and i is more well known in the West than the former two due to Symphonia's success, and is well known enough in Japan to make up for a lack of popularity; he is arguably the most "globally recognized" character in the series given Symphonia's worldwide popularity.

Sakurai even acknowledges this within an interview with Nintendo Dream Magazine about Sm4sh's DLC, wherein he addresses the inclusion of Lloyd's Mii Costume:

Lloyd:

—The Tales series has 20 years of history, how did you decide on Lloyd for the costume?

Sakurai: I’m not sure if there was any other appropriate choice?

—For example, how about the protagonist of the first game, Cress? [TN: From Tales of Phantasia]

Sakurai: I really think it has to be Lloyd here (laughs). I could have gone down the route of choosing from the first entry in the series, but for old games it’s somewhat common for the editorial supervision from the original creator to make the process difficult.

While Sakurai, vague as always, doesn't elaborate on why Lloyd was the only "appropriate choice," the two characters mentioned, Lloyd and Cress, are the two characters in the Tales of series with the most prominent ties to Nintendo. Regardless, Lloyd is apparently the only choice for a Tales of representative, and that is incredibly significant. It's very well that the answer to the question: "Why Lloyd Irving?" could simply be "Because Sakurai said so."

I'm omitting the argument that Mii Costumes are concessions to fans of popular characters given the speculative nature of it (we will never truly know how well a character performed in the Ballot, but I will acknowledge the possibility that Lloyd's Mii Costume was added due to a successful turnout within the Smash Ballot. Characters such as Inklings, King K. Rool, and Chrom all made the jump from Mii Costume to playable in Ultimate, and it's a reasonable conclusion to believe that Lloyd could make the same jump. If we choose to believe the statements of insiders such such as Vergeben and BKupa666 's source this conclusion becomes more solid as the Ballot was taken into heavy consideration when deciding to include Simon and King K. Rool respectively.

I'll also acknowledge the common counterargument that Heihachi would be considered instead of Lloyd. Within the column mentioned in the "Background - Why a Namco Character" section (man I'm really milking this one) Sakurai mentions that Heihachi was considered, but ultimately dismissed and elaborates a bit as to why that happened:

That’s right. However, implementing Heihachi’s movement in Smash would be difficult…

Tekken is a 3D fighting game, further than that, another essential aspect of the game is its controls: different buttons control different limbs instead of having different buttons for light, regular, and heavy attacks like other fighting games. These factors among make it difficult to faithfully represent Tekken within Smash Bros, and therefore it isn't worth butchering the series core mechanics to incorporate it into Smash Bros. Faithful representation is an essential aspect of a character's inclusion in Smash Bros., and if Sakurai and co. can't be true to Tekken's gameplay, they simply won't include him.

Sakurai has revisited scrapped ideas before, such as the Miis, Villager, Pac-Man, and Ridley, all of whom he believed couldn't be faithfully represented within Smash Bros., but this isn't a matter of being a non-fighter or being too big; the dissonance between Tekken's gameplay and that of Smash Bros. is too large to viably come up with a compromise and still faithfully represent the series. Heihachi will likely remain an aspect of Pac-Man's Namco Roulette taunt, and will get a Mii Costume at best.

Spoiler: Closing

Lloyd Irving is, at the very least, the most likely character for inclusion from Bandai Namco. No other franchise of their's bar Tekken comes anywhere close to the impact and legacy of the Tales of series, and Tekken is far too difficult to viably include in Smash so it's a nonstarter. I will admit that KOS-MOS and maybe Agumon could be dark horse picks, but neither have the popularity or relevancy to match the Tales of franchise, especially in regards to Smash Brothers, where the only two well-requested characters from Namco are Lloyd and Heihachi. Hopefully through writing this you can understand just why I see Lloyd as being so likely, and why I would more be surprised if he isn't one of our DLC fighters instead of if he is.

Spoiler: Postscript

Wow this post took way too long to write. I started writing this almost immediately after finishing my last one on Monday (if you haven't read it yet, it's a lovely little essay about why we shouldn't be so quick to trust insiders using The Game Awards as an example), but I got sidetracked and experienced writers block up until now. To add insult to injury, my computer auto-updated Thursday night, deleting any progress I had (I foolishly hadn't saved anything) and forcing me to rewrite the entire essay. Fortunately, nothing of major substance was lost, but it was a large inconvenience.

I have an idea for one more speculation post, but I don't know if I'll actually get around to writing it. At worst I'll write a mini speculation post about it as I don't know if I have as many sources as I'd like for it and need to actually search for sources instead of having them on file from previous speculation like my last two posts (and parts of this one). If there are any topics you'd be interested in me discussing more in-depth I'd love to hear any suggestions or feedback in general you have for me. Believe it or not, I enjoy writing large essay-length arguments like this, and I find them particularly interesting to research and (relatively) easy to write, and if a topic interests me I'm more than willing to go in-depth in researching it and then report on what I find. Again, feel free to suggest topics and we'll see what happens from there.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this!

 

[Gentlepanda]

Maybe you need to get the batteries replaced on your NFC Reader?

for real tho I think I used this thing maybe three times in four years, 3DS amiibo functionality was kinda hit or miss

 

[beans]

It's more specifically that this heavily implies that Hitagi has a source within Cygames, meaning if the company was working with Nintendo on Smash, that'd be decently credible, I believe

Didnt he admit before that the Katalina deal was for another project before?
Wouldnt that make his Cygames source useless for Smash?

Hitagi was not the first to claim Granblue was getting a fighting game, nor did he ever say Erdrick would be in. He never confirmed any Squenix rep, actually; just that we'd get one...you know, like EVERYONE ELSE.

This 2chan leak is also based off of things we've known about for months.

There is no way a random 2chan leaker would know about the Squenix rep-which is months away, possibly even half a year-before our top insiders.

Wasnt him the one saying that DQ was the more likely from what he heard?

 

[Double K]

Hitagi was not the first to claim Granblue was getting a fighting game, nor did he ever say Erdrick would be in. He never confirmed any Squenix rep, actually; just that we'd get one...you know, like EVERYONE ELSE.

This 2chan leak is also based off of things we've known about for months.

There is no way a random 2chan leaker would know about the Squenix rep-which is months away, possibly even half a year-before our top insiders.

I mean, what about that one 4chan leaker who said a few weeks in advance that Joker was going to happen and the announcement would have been on the night of the VGAs?

 

[LetterO]

I don't think any insider knows anything about DLC, saying it now.

 

[Double K]

Didnt he admit before that the Katalina deal was for another project before?
Wouldnt that make his Cygames source useless for Smash?

I think he backed down on the Katalina part, but this at the same time could be written off as miscommunication. And with how vague he is trying to be with the info he doesn't have 100% locked in, it could be seen as "I got it wrong, Katalina is not in Smash. But Cygames and Nintendo are still working on something"

 

[Professor Pumpkaboo]

guys I think my amiibo is broken, it's not even giving me the morgana spirit

assuming thats a power button, I think you gotta turn it on first

 

[DaybreakHorizon]

DaybreakHorizon


Soooo, remember when I said that if there was going to be a BIG boon to Hitagi's credentials, it'd be either in March or December due to Granblue's bi-yearly conventions?


Yeah, they just announced the Arksys Granblue Fighting Game, which Hitagi called.

Well I'll be damned. It's real.

Broke: Joker for Smash Bros.
Woke: Joker for GRANBLUE FANTASY: VERSUS

 

[Double K]

Well I'll be damned. It's real.

Broke: Joker for Smash Bros.
Woke: Joker for GRANBLUE FANTASY: VERSUS

Wait, I forgot that the presence of Ryu and Joker in Smash means Hitagi was right

Granblue Characters are in Smash :^))))))))

 

[Opossum]

But how does that explain every damn Pokemon Spirit ingame?

...Because that's the Dreamworld Art, not the official Sugimori art. Like, come on, Shish lol.

There are clearly rights issues with using the Sugimori official art. Back in Brawl the Pokémon stickers used only the Brawl in-game models. Now the Pokémon spirits are using the alternative Dreamworld artwork. Given that Red and Leaf use their Ultimate renders, it only further solidifies that there's an issue with the regular official art.

 

[beans]

I think he backed down on the Katalina part, but this at the same time could be written off as miscommunication. And with how vague he is trying to be with the info he doesn't have 100% locked in, it could be seen as "I got it wrong, Katalina is not in Smash. But Cygames and Nintendo are still working on something"

Yes, but wouldnt that still make any claims of his envolving Cygames in Smash dubious?
If he misunderstood Katalina the first time I dont see any reason to put worth in his word relating to Smash until something happens from there.

 

[Deleted member]

...Because that's the Dreamworld Art, not the official Sugimori art. Like, come on, Shish lol.

There are clearly rights issues with using the Sugimori official art. Back in Brawl the Pokémon stickers used only the Brawl in-game models. Now the Pokémon spirits are using the alternative Dreamworld artwork. Given that Red and Leaf use their Ultimate renders, it only further solidifies that there's an issue with the regular official art.

Wait, that isn't his art? Is that why all of them look so damn off?

 

[Double K]

Yes, but wouldnt that still make any claims of his envolving Cygames in Smash dubious?
If he misunderstood Katalina the first time I dont see any reason to put worth in his word relating to Smash until something happens from there.

Leaks by their very nature are dubious. Things can change a lot in the development stage of somtehing within a week, let alone 3+ months, so something that was "almost certain" then could be completely debunked in a week

 

[Luigi The President]

The Definitive Case for Lloyd​

Hello everyone and welcome to the third post in a series of speculation posts written by your's truly. In this post I'll be arguing for Lloyd Irving, whom I believe to be the closest thing to a shoe-in for inclusion as a DLC fighter. This may sound ironic coming from one of most vocal detractors of the concept of shoe-ins, but I will legitimately be surprised if Lloyd isn't one of our DLC fighters. Let me tell you why:

Spoiler: Acknowledgements

• "But tehponycorn," you say, "this has already been done!" You would be correct, as Not-Neuro on Reddit (who I believe is our own VashTehStampede ) wrote a long post detailed potential points supporting Lloyd's inclusion. However, I'll be diving deeper into the argument of why Lloyd should be included more than "here's how cool of an inclusion he'd be."
• I'll acknowledge my own fan bias up front, as I highly regard Tales of the Abyss and enjoyed both the Tales of the Abyss and Symphonia anime series. That being said, I'll be leaving my bias at the door and, like my other two speculation posts, arguing more about "why I believe he's likely" instead of "why I want him."

Spoiler: Background - Why a Namco Character?

It's a well-known fact that Bandai Namco helped with the development of Super Smash Brothers for 3DS and Wii U (which will be referred to as Sm4sh for the rest of this essay), and that same team came back to help develop Smash Ultimate as well. This is amazing for relationships between Nintendo and Namco, and naturally lends itself towards facilitating the process of including Namco characters in Smash Bros. Sakurai echoes this sentiment in his "My First Conception is My Landmark" Famitsu Column, wherein he reflects on the inclusion of Pac-Man in Sm4sh:

So, it's established that since Nintendo is working alongside Bandai Namco, it's a logical step to include their characters in Smash Bros. Despite this, within the same column Sakurai says this:

This may seem like a hard disconfirmation, but it's important to note the statement in the question "any other strong candidates." The interviewer is asking if compared to Pac-Man were there any other strong candidates. Any other IPs from Bandai Namco pale in comparison to the arcade legend that is Pac-Man. Sakurai even states this when he says that "Pac-Man is perhaps Namco’s most iconic character." He additionally says that there were other characters in consideration, such as Heihachi, showing that other characters were considered alongside Pac-Man, but ultimately Pac-Man was the one chosen. Now that Pac-Man is a character in Ultimate, the doors are open for other Namco DLC characters to be included. Now the question is:

Spoiler: Why Lloyd Irving?

I previously discussed what I believe to be the criteria for a third party's inclusion within my Square Enix Character Argument (which you should totally read if you're into current speculation or any Square Enix character in general):


So, does the Tales of series fit these criteria?

The Tales franchise debuted in 1995 on the Super Nintendo, and has been between Nintendo and Playstation systems with a singular prominent appearance on the Xbox 360. Prominent gaming journalist Jeremy Parish called the Tales franchise "quite arguably Japan's third-biggest RPG series, right after Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest," which where the claim of it being one of the "Big Three" JRPG series originates from, and certainly the sheer size of the series speaks for itself. The series has spawned multiple spin-off games, CD dramas, anime and manga series, and even has its own fan conventions in both America and Japan. The conference in Japan is so big that it's called a "festival. It's two days long and attracts tens of thousands of fans (there were 22,000 in attendance in 2014). Did I mention that this festival has been held yearly for 11 years now? In my opinion it's more fitting to call the Tales of series a multimedia franchise instead of a simple video game series, but I digress. The series meets both of the two primary criteria for inclusion as it is both historic and iconic, even having a prominent relationship with Nintendo to boot, unlike Tekken or other Namco series. Faithful representation is incredibly easy given that the series plays like a conventional fighting game, and special attacks are attributed to directional inputs, similar to the well known neutral, side, up, and down specials, which is another pro for the series.

All that being said, we return to the main question: "Why Lloyd Irving?"

At a surface level, Lloyd doesn't seem likely as a Tales of representative at all. Tales of Symphonia isn't as relevant as more recent Tales of titles such as Zestiria or Berseria, nor is Lloyd the most popular character within the series, as he's lucky to place within the bottom half of the Top 10 in official fan polls (his most recent results are 11th in the 8th character poll in 2017 and 9th in the 7th character poll in 2014). Two characters, Yuri Lowell and Leon Magnus, are legitimately banned from the poll because they were too popular and kept winning. Yuri Lowell, the most popular Tales of character and the protagonist of Tales of Vesperia, also just so happens to have a remastered edition of his game coming out in less than a month from the time of writing, making him a natural pick for inclusion as the Tales of representative, right?

Wrong.

You see, the thing about Lloyd Irving is that he is THE Nintendo Tales of character, and Tales of Symphonia's impact on the series is large enough to make up for a lack of relevancy and popularity.

Tales of Symphonia is interesting because Nintendo stepped in to personally advertise it themselves alongside Bandai Namco. It was a prominent Nintendo Gamecube release, and stands as an outlier in a series predominantly on Playstation systems at the time. The game itself was popular enough to warrant a sequel which was another prominent Nintendo title, making the Tales of Symphonia games the closest related to Nintendo in the series.

In 2013 series' producer Hideo Baba stated that Tales of Symphonia was the most popular Tales of title in the West, specifically citing the support from Nintendo:


In 2014, Tales of Symphonia was further called the most successful title in the series for the 6th generation of consoles by product manager Dennis Lee, beating out Tales of Rebirth, Tales of Legendia, and Tales of the Abyss for that position. Both of these interviews occurred after the releases of Tales of Vesperia and Tales of Destiny, where the two most popular characters in the series originate from.

Tales of Symphonia is significant because it did what Dragon Quest still has yet to do: break into the Western market. Prior to its release, the Tales of was largely unknown in the West, but Symphonia changed that. While the series is still largely based in Japan, Symphonia introduced the series to the Western market with a splash, thanks to Nintendo. From there, it's managed to establish a community prominent enough that Bandai Namco takes feedback from them for the series. Lloyd is perfect mix between the series' Western and Eastern popularity and has the most prominent association with Nintendo out of any character in the series, and that is what makes him the most likely pick.


"but tehponycorn," you say, "Sakurai chose Cloud instead of Bartz or Terra because he was more popular despite having no association with Nintendo!"

You would be correct in that there is no precedent for Sakurai taking solid relationships with Nintendo into account when choosing a representative for a long-running franchise like Final Fantasy or Tales of. However, it's important to figure out why Sakurai chose Cloud over another Final Fantasy character:

Everyone knows who Cloud is compared to other Final Fantasy protagonists. Lloyd doesn't have this problem compared to Yuri Lowell or Leon Magnus, and i is more well known in the West than the former two due to Symphonia's success, and is well known enough in Japan to make up for a lack of popularity; he is arguably the most "globally recognized" character in the series given Symphonia's worldwide popularity.

Sakurai even acknowledges this within an interview with Nintendo Dream Magazine about Sm4sh's DLC, wherein he addresses the inclusion of Lloyd's Mii Costume:


While Sakurai, vague as always, doesn't elaborate on why Lloyd was the only "appropriate choice," the two characters mentioned, Lloyd and Cress, are the two characters in the Tales of series with the most prominent ties to Nintendo. Regardless, Lloyd is apparently the only choice for a Tales of representative, and that is incredibly significant. It's very well that the answer to the question: "Why Lloyd Irving?" could simply be "Because Sakurai said so."

I'm omitting the argument that Mii Costumes are concessions to fans of popular characters given the speculative nature of it (we will never truly know how well a character performed in the Ballot, but I will acknowledge the possibility that Lloyd's Mii Costume was added due to a successful turnout within the Smash Ballot. Characters such as Inklings, King K. Rool, and Chrom all made the jump from Mii Costume to playable in Ultimate, and it's a reasonable conclusion to believe that Lloyd could make the same jump. If we choose to believe the statements of insiders such such as Vergeben and BKupa666 's source this conclusion becomes more solid as the Ballot was taken into heavy consideration when deciding to include Simon and King K. Rool respectively.

I'll also acknowledge the common counterargument that Heihachi would be considered instead of Lloyd. Within the column mentioned in the "Background - Why a Namco Character" section (man I'm really milking this one) Sakurai mentions that Heihachi was considered, but ultimately dismissed and elaborates a bit as to why that happened:

Tekken is a 3D fighting game, further than that, another essential aspect of the game is its controls: different buttons control different limbs instead of having different buttons for light, regular, and heavy attacks like other fighting games. These factors among make it difficult to faithfully represent Tekken within Smash Bros, and therefore it isn't worth butchering the series core mechanics to incorporate it into Smash Bros. Faithful representation is an essential aspect of a character's inclusion in Smash Bros., and if Sakurai and co. can't be true to Tekken's gameplay, they simply won't include him.

Sakurai has revisited scrapped ideas before, such as the Miis, Villager, Pac-Man, and Ridley, all of whom he believed couldn't be faithfully represented within Smash Bros., but this isn't a matter of being a non-fighter or being too big; the dissonance between Tekken's gameplay and that of Smash Bros. is too large to viably come up with a compromise and still faithfully represent the series. Heihachi will likely remain an aspect of Pac-Man's Namco Roulette taunt, and will get a Mii Costume at best.

Spoiler: Closing

Lloyd Irving is, at the very least, the most likely character for inclusion from Bandai Namco. No other franchise of their's bar Tekken comes anywhere close to the impact and legacy of the Tales of series, and Tekken is far too difficult to viably include in Smash so it's a nonstarter. I will admit that KOS-MOS and maybe Agumon could be dark horse picks, but neither have the popularity or relevancy to match the Tales of franchise, especially in regards to Smash Brothers, where the only two well-requested characters from Namco are Lloyd and Heihachi. Hopefully through writing this you can understand just why I see Lloyd as being so likely, and why I would more be surprised if he isn't one of our DLC fighters instead of if he is.

Spoiler: Postscript

Wow this post took way too long to write. I started writing this almost immediately after finishing my last one on Monday (if you haven't read it yet, it's a lovely little essay about why we shouldn't be so quick to trust insiders using The Game Awards as an example), but I got sidetracked and experienced writers block up until now. To add insult to injury, my computer auto-updated Thursday night, deleting any progress I had (I foolishly hadn't saved anything) and forcing me to rewrite the entire essay. Fortunately, nothing of major substance was lost, but it was a large inconvenience.

I have an idea for one more speculation post, but I don't know if I'll actually get around to writing it. At worst I'll write a mini speculation post about it as I don't know if I have as many sources as I'd like for it and need to actually search for sources instead of having them on file from previous speculation like my last two posts (and parts of this one). If there are any topics you'd be interested in me discussing more in-depth I'd love to hear any suggestions or feedback in general you have for me. Believe it or not, I enjoy writing large essay-length arguments like this, and I find them particularly interesting to research and (relatively) easy to write, and if a topic interests me I'm more than willing to go in-depth in researching it and then report on what I find. Again, feel free to suggest topics and we'll see what happens from there.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this!

And mwah
And it's a mastapiece

Not even considering that whole "yuri vs lloyd" leak, I do think Lloyd is by far one of our most likely DLC reps, and this shows why perfectly. Awesome work TPC, absolutely loving your new essays.

I mean, what about that one 4chan leaker who said a few weeks in advance that Joker was going to happen and the announcement would have been on the night of the VGAs?

I mean...if you can find me this leak, because I don't recall it existing, I'd appreciate it.
There was a leak that said Joker was in...but nothing about his release date, and it went on to list 4 other candidates. Is that what you mean?
Because it's worth nothing there was a base game leak which got the rest of the roster correct and said Dante was in.

 

[DaybreakHorizon]

This is very interesting. Gives more a chance for Erdrick.

https://twitter.com/Persona_Central/status/1073939035968593922
https://personacentral.com/rumor-pe...plete-edition-2019-super-smash-ultimate-leak/

If Joker's stage is Mementos, this is worth keeping an eye on.

The reasons for Erdrick's inclusion make perfect sense, and it lines up with former insider statements about Erdrick and Luminary being heard together.

I wouldn't take it as gospel, but it's worth keeping in mind for the time being.

 

[LetterO]

Sakurai has revisited scrapped ideas before, such as the Miis, Villager, Pac-Man, and Ridley, all of whom he believed couldn't be faithfully represented within Smash Bros.

unexpected chorus kids pain

 

[Opossum]

Wait, that isn't his art? Is that why all of them look so damn off?

Honestly I think the reason those variant artworks were even made was due to those same issues they were having internally. There's likely limits on how the Sugimori art can be used that doesn't allow for promotional things like official tournaments or appearances in non-Pokémon games. The Badge Arcade and Pokémon World Championships also used the Dreamworld art.

It's likely one of those licensing quirks, like how certain stages are banned from major tournaments not for viability reasons, but because Nintendo wasn't given the streaming rights for certain songs, which is a separate license. The EarthBound stages and Midgar have this issue IIRC.

 

[DarthEnderX]

Pardners I better not see anyone genuinely believing that Erdrick leak

Is it okay if I believe we're getting Erdrick regardless of any leaks?

 

[BXBX]

I don't know if this is off-topic, but I was wondering if anyone knows whether the gamecube switch adaptors are still in production? I made the huge mistake of not preordering one, now I can't find it in-store. Yesterday the page on bestbuy gave an error, now it says its no longer available.

 

[Dyllybirdy]

The Definitive Case for Lloyd​

Hello everyone and welcome to the third post in a series of speculation posts written by your's truly. In this post I'll be arguing for Lloyd Irving, whom I believe to be the closest thing to a shoe-in for inclusion as a DLC fighter. This may sound ironic coming from one of most vocal detractors of the concept of shoe-ins, but I will legitimately be surprised if Lloyd isn't one of our DLC fighters. Let me tell you why:

Spoiler: Acknowledgements

• "But tehponycorn," you say, "this has already been done!" You would be correct, as Not-Neuro on Reddit (who I believe is our own VashTehStampede ) wrote a long post detailed potential points supporting Lloyd's inclusion. However, I'll be diving deeper into the argument of why Lloyd should be included more than "here's how cool of an inclusion he'd be."
• I'll acknowledge my own fan bias up front, as I highly regard Tales of the Abyss and enjoyed both the Tales of the Abyss and Symphonia anime series. That being said, I'll be leaving my bias at the door and, like my other two speculation posts, arguing more about "why I believe he's likely" instead of "why I want him."

Spoiler: Background - Why a Namco Character?

It's a well-known fact that Bandai Namco helped with the development of Super Smash Brothers for 3DS and Wii U (which will be referred to as Sm4sh for the rest of this essay), and that same team came back to help develop Smash Ultimate as well. This is amazing for relationships between Nintendo and Namco, and naturally lends itself towards facilitating the process of including Namco characters in Smash Bros. Sakurai echoes this sentiment in his "My First Conception is My Landmark" Famitsu Column, wherein he reflects on the inclusion of Pac-Man in Sm4sh:

So, it's established that since Nintendo is working alongside Bandai Namco, it's a logical step to include their characters in Smash Bros. Despite this, within the same column Sakurai says this:

This may seem like a hard disconfirmation, but it's important to note the statement in the question "any other strong candidates." The interviewer is asking if compared to Pac-Man were there any other strong candidates. Any other IPs from Bandai Namco pale in comparison to the arcade legend that is Pac-Man. Sakurai even states this when he says that "Pac-Man is perhaps Namco’s most iconic character." He additionally says that there were other characters in consideration, such as Heihachi, showing that other characters were considered alongside Pac-Man, but ultimately Pac-Man was the one chosen. Now that Pac-Man is a character in Ultimate, the doors are open for other Namco DLC characters to be included. Now the question is:

Spoiler: Why Lloyd Irving?

I previously discussed what I believe to be the criteria for a third party's inclusion within my Square Enix Character Argument (which you should totally read if you're into current speculation or any Square Enix character in general):


So, does the Tales of series fit these criteria?

The Tales franchise debuted in 1995 on the Super Nintendo, and has been between Nintendo and Playstation systems with a singular prominent appearance on the Xbox 360. Prominent gaming journalist Jeremy Parish called the Tales franchise "quite arguably Japan's third-biggest RPG series, right after Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest," which where the claim of it being one of the "Big Three" JRPG series originates from, and certainly the sheer size of the series speaks for itself. The series has spawned multiple spin-off games, CD dramas, anime and manga series, and even has its own fan conventions in both America and Japan. The conference in Japan is so big that it's called a "festival. It's two days long and attracts tens of thousands of fans (there were 22,000 in attendance in 2014). Did I mention that this festival has been held yearly for 11 years now? In my opinion it's more fitting to call the Tales of series a multimedia franchise instead of a simple video game series, but I digress. The series meets both of the two primary criteria for inclusion as it is both historic and iconic, even having a prominent relationship with Nintendo to boot, unlike Tekken or other Namco series. Faithful representation is incredibly easy given that the series plays like a conventional fighting game, and special attacks are attributed to directional inputs, similar to the well known neutral, side, up, and down specials, which is another pro for the series.

All that being said, we return to the main question: "Why Lloyd Irving?"

At a surface level, Lloyd doesn't seem likely as a Tales of representative at all. Tales of Symphonia isn't as relevant as more recent Tales of titles such as Zestiria or Berseria, nor is Lloyd the most popular character within the series, as he's lucky to place within the bottom half of the Top 10 in official fan polls (his most recent results are 11th in the 8th character poll in 2017 and 9th in the 7th character poll in 2014). Two characters, Yuri Lowell and Leon Magnus, are legitimately banned from the poll because they were too popular and kept winning. Yuri Lowell, the most popular Tales of character and the protagonist of Tales of Vesperia, also just so happens to have a remastered edition of his game coming out in less than a month from the time of writing, making him a natural pick for inclusion as the Tales of representative, right?

Wrong.

You see, the thing about Lloyd Irving is that he is THE Nintendo Tales of character, and Tales of Symphonia's impact on the series is large enough to make up for a lack of relevancy and popularity.

Tales of Symphonia is interesting because Nintendo stepped in to personally advertise it themselves alongside Bandai Namco. It was a prominent Nintendo Gamecube release, and stands as an outlier in a series predominantly on Playstation systems at the time. The game itself was popular enough to warrant a sequel which was another prominent Nintendo title, making the Tales of Symphonia games the closest related to Nintendo in the series.

In 2013 series' producer Hideo Baba stated that Tales of Symphonia was the most popular Tales of title in the West, specifically citing the support from Nintendo:


In 2014, Tales of Symphonia was further called the most successful title in the series for the 6th generation of consoles by product manager Dennis Lee, beating out Tales of Rebirth, Tales of Legendia, and Tales of the Abyss for that position. Both of these interviews occurred after the releases of Tales of Vesperia and Tales of Destiny, where the two most popular characters in the series originate from.

Tales of Symphonia is significant because it did what Dragon Quest still has yet to do: break into the Western market. Prior to its release, the Tales of was largely unknown in the West, but Symphonia changed that. While the series is still largely based in Japan, Symphonia introduced the series to the Western market with a splash, thanks to Nintendo. From there, it's managed to establish a community prominent enough that Bandai Namco takes feedback from them for the series. Lloyd is perfect mix between the series' Western and Eastern popularity and has the most prominent association with Nintendo out of any character in the series, and that is what makes him the most likely pick.


"but tehponycorn," you say, "Sakurai chose Cloud instead of Bartz or Terra because he was more popular despite having no association with Nintendo!"

You would be correct in that there is no precedent for Sakurai taking solid relationships with Nintendo into account when choosing a representative for a long-running franchise like Final Fantasy or Tales of. However, it's important to figure out why Sakurai chose Cloud over another Final Fantasy character:

Everyone knows who Cloud is compared to other Final Fantasy protagonists. Lloyd doesn't have this problem compared to Yuri Lowell or Leon Magnus, and i is more well known in the West than the former two due to Symphonia's success, and is well known enough in Japan to make up for a lack of popularity; he is arguably the most "globally recognized" character in the series given Symphonia's worldwide popularity.

Sakurai even acknowledges this within an interview with Nintendo Dream Magazine about Sm4sh's DLC, wherein he addresses the inclusion of Lloyd's Mii Costume:


While Sakurai, vague as always, doesn't elaborate on why Lloyd was the only "appropriate choice," the two characters mentioned, Lloyd and Cress, are the two characters in the Tales of series with the most prominent ties to Nintendo. Regardless, Lloyd is apparently the only choice for a Tales of representative, and that is incredibly significant. It's very well that the answer to the question: "Why Lloyd Irving?" could simply be "Because Sakurai said so."

I'm omitting the argument that Mii Costumes are concessions to fans of popular characters given the speculative nature of it (we will never truly know how well a character performed in the Ballot, but I will acknowledge the possibility that Lloyd's Mii Costume was added due to a successful turnout within the Smash Ballot. Characters such as Inklings, King K. Rool, and Chrom all made the jump from Mii Costume to playable in Ultimate, and it's a reasonable conclusion to believe that Lloyd could make the same jump. If we choose to believe the statements of insiders such such as Vergeben and BKupa666 's source this conclusion becomes more solid as the Ballot was taken into heavy consideration when deciding to include Simon and King K. Rool respectively.

I'll also acknowledge the common counterargument that Heihachi would be considered instead of Lloyd. Within the column mentioned in the "Background - Why a Namco Character" section (man I'm really milking this one) Sakurai mentions that Heihachi was considered, but ultimately dismissed and elaborates a bit as to why that happened:

Tekken is a 3D fighting game, further than that, another essential aspect of the game is its controls: different buttons control different limbs instead of having different buttons for light, regular, and heavy attacks like other fighting games. These factors among make it difficult to faithfully represent Tekken within Smash Bros, and therefore it isn't worth butchering the series core mechanics to incorporate it into Smash Bros. Faithful representation is an essential aspect of a character's inclusion in Smash Bros., and if Sakurai and co. can't be true to Tekken's gameplay, they simply won't include him.

Sakurai has revisited scrapped ideas before, such as the Miis, Villager, Pac-Man, and Ridley, all of whom he believed couldn't be faithfully represented within Smash Bros., but this isn't a matter of being a non-fighter or being too big; the dissonance between Tekken's gameplay and that of Smash Bros. is too large to viably come up with a compromise and still faithfully represent the series. Heihachi will likely remain an aspect of Pac-Man's Namco Roulette taunt, and will get a Mii Costume at best.

Spoiler: Closing

Lloyd Irving is, at the very least, the most likely character for inclusion from Bandai Namco. No other franchise of their's bar Tekken comes anywhere close to the impact and legacy of the Tales of series, and Tekken is far too difficult to viably include in Smash so it's a nonstarter. I will admit that KOS-MOS and maybe Agumon could be dark horse picks, but neither have the popularity or relevancy to match the Tales of franchise, especially in regards to Smash Brothers, where the only two well-requested characters from Namco are Lloyd and Heihachi. Hopefully through writing this you can understand just why I see Lloyd as being so likely, and why I would more be surprised if he isn't one of our DLC fighters instead of if he is.

Spoiler: Postscript

Wow this post took way too long to write. I started writing this almost immediately after finishing my last one on Monday (if you haven't read it yet, it's a lovely little essay about why we shouldn't be so quick to trust insiders using The Game Awards as an example), but I got sidetracked and experienced writers block up until now. To add insult to injury, my computer auto-updated Thursday night, deleting any progress I had (I foolishly hadn't saved anything) and forcing me to rewrite the entire essay. Fortunately, nothing of major substance was lost, but it was a large inconvenience.

I have an idea for one more speculation post, but I don't know if I'll actually get around to writing it. At worst I'll write a mini speculation post about it as I don't know if I have as many sources as I'd like for it and need to actually search for sources instead of having them on file from previous speculation like my last two posts (and parts of this one). If there are any topics you'd be interested in me discussing more in-depth I'd love to hear any suggestions or feedback in general you have for me. Believe it or not, I enjoy writing large essay-length arguments like this, and I find them particularly interesting to research and (relatively) easy to write, and if a topic interests me I'm more than willing to go in-depth in researching it and then report on what I find. Again, feel free to suggest topics and we'll see what happens from there.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this!

Happy to know you recuperated all of your lost progress on this! I love these posts.

 

[Captain Shwampy]

reminder that

Spoiler: DQ11 story spoiler

Erdrick

appears in DQ11 with a modern design ready to be used!

 

[DaybreakHorizon]

Vergeben has been leaking a granblue fighting game for a while now, this is just piggybacking.
As much as I want Erdrick, I don't think the DLC has been developed enough for THIS much info.

Yeah...uh...can I get a source with that statement?

If you ask me, if Final Fantasy was so tied down to the ****ing .JPEG department, there's absolutely no way Dragon Quest will come through with how entangled that franchise is with copyright holders and licensing.

I still can't believe the only two Final Fantasy spirits are THE SAME ****ING SMASH ULTIMATE RENDERS.
How hard is it to ****ing use this? Nomura is totally fine with art and such after what we seen with the lead-up for Smash Ultimate's release, so HOW is it THAT hard to use literally this JPEG I got from Google Images???

View attachment 183057

Actually, Dragon Quest's licensing isn't as convoluted as it may seem. Refer to my Square Enix character argument for how the licensing of Dragon Quest could be much easier to handle than one would think.

 

[Iridium]

reminder that

Spoiler: DQ11 story spoiler

Erdrick

appears in DQ11 with a modern design ready to be used!

I still want it.

 

[DarthEnderX]

reminder that

Spoiler: DQ11 story spoiler

Erdrick

appears in DQ11 with a modern design ready to be used!

Bah, looks like they de-Goku'd him by about 30%.

 

[Will]

reminder that

Spoiler: DQ11 story spoiler

Erdrick

appears in DQ11 with a modern design ready to be used!

you're talking about dragon quest on smashboards who else could you be talking about

 

[beans]

Leaks by their very nature are dubious. Things can change a lot in the development stage of somtehing within a week, let alone 3+ months, so something that was "almost certain" then could be completely debunked in a week

Still misses the point of my previous statement.

Why should we bother with anything relating to Smash envolving Cygames that comes from Hitagi?
He does have a source within Cygames, but that source isnt involved in Smash.
He already backed out one of his previous claim about it aswell, further implying that his Cygames source is of no use within Smash context.
Why should we bothe, if their claims have little going for it over than any 4chan leak out there?

 

[Luigi The President]

Is it okay if I believe we're getting Erdrick regardless of any leaks?

Sure man.

 

[Jovahexeon Joranvexeon]

Alright. So, Inkling mains.
I have one question:
"Why me?"

"Woomy"! That's why!
Seriously though. I was not expecting to become an inkling main of all things!

 

[Shyy_Guy595]

We've been thinking about this all wrong! What's a game that has come to every Nintenxo console and has been giving them endless support?

That's right. The only logical conclusion is that Sakurai finally acknowledges the rep that everyone's constantly overlooked for far too long...

 

[Untouch]

Yeah...uh...can I get a source with that statement?

Actually, Dragon Quest's licensing isn't as convoluted as it may seem. Refer to my Square Enix character argument for how the licensing of Dragon Quest could be much easier to handle than one would think.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/234547-super-smash-bros-ultimate/77182705?jumpto=113#113

 

[Jovahexeon Joranvexeon]

Pardners I better not see anyone genuinely believing that Erdrick leak

What leak?

 

[Luigi The President]

reminder that

Spoiler: DQ11 story spoiler

Erdrick

appears in DQ11 with a modern design ready to be used!

This painting's smug aura mocks me, Charlie

 

[DaybreakHorizon]

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/234547-super-smash-bros-ultimate/77182705?jumpto=113#113

Can you prove that he leaked it before Hitagi and didn't get it from him?

 

[Untouch]

Can you prove that he leaked it before Hitagi and didn't get it from him?

Oh I don't know who was first, I know they both mentioned it long before this 2ch post did.

 

[DaybreakHorizon]

I was looking on 5channel at the Persona Central leak and the people there are talking about us:
https://translate.googleusercontent...700242&usg=ALkJrhhwwwNqGz34XRBVR5fakX2WXuowTg

Hi 5channel.

Also Joker's stage being Mementos and not the Casino of Envy would be incredibly disappointing.

 

[Saetanigera]

*Shameless plug*
The Queen of Blades has an intensity the current cast lacks.
Saber or KOSMOS epitomize duty.
Shantae exemplifies cheer.
Li-ming would bring an incredible amount of sass.

*End shameless plug*