Official Smash Ultimate Discussion

[IanTheGamer]

Where can they possibly go from here? They can't just keep adding characters. Eventually, the roster will get too big. A reboot with a smaller roster may be the only way Smash can move forward. Also, the 20th Anniversary is not until next year.

The game is coming out in December, that's close enough to 2019, Sakurai will probably trim the fat and cut a lot ot characters

 

[RileyXY1]

The game is coming out in December, that's close enough to 2019, Sakurai will probably trim the fat and cut a lot ot characters

It's not 2019 yet. In order for this to be a real 20th Anniversary celebration the game would have to be delayed a year.

 

[Zinith]

Quick question

Since we know Xander Mobus is coming back as the announcer, is he your favorite announcer for Smash? Cause I kinda like Pat Cashman better

 

[IanTheGamer]

It's not 2019 yet. In order for this to be a real 20th Anniversary celebration the game would have to be delayed a year.

Dude, December is one month from 2019,

 

[PLATINUM7]

Any guesses as to what stage the Snipperclips music will be on?

 

[RileyXY1]

Dude, December is one month from 2019,

But, it's not 2019. It's still 2018.

 

[PeridotGX]

Any guesses as to what stage the Snipperclips music will be on?

If it's an old stage, maybe Living Room 3DS?

 

[Fenriraga]

Quick question

Since we know Xander Mobus is coming back as the announcer, is he your favorite announcer for Smash? Cause I kinda like Pat Cashman better

I like Xander best purely for the fact that he kinda gives each character an announcer call befitting to their character.
Bowser Jr's goofier announcer clip, characters like Ganondorf having him go a bit deeper, giving characters like Mega Man a bit more of a "triumphant" fanfare, I just think he emotes the best.

 

[Will]

Where can they possibly go from here? They can't just keep adding characters. Eventually, the roster will get too big. A reboot with a smaller roster may be the only way Smash can move forward. Also, the 20th Anniversary is not until next year.

I don't see how a roster could really be too big. I understand ~70 is large but a handful of games (albeit mostly anime based) have surprassed that number no problem. Does that mean nobody will be cut again in the future? No.

Tobal 2 was a Playstation game, had 200 characters. I don't believe any of them were clones of other characters. Definitely possible to exceed the limit we have now.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

Decided to check which past stages were left to see in Ultimate. Here are the fruits of my short labor

Spoiler: Alphabetical order

Big Battlefield
Brinstar Depths
Delfino Plaza
Dream Land (3DS)
Fountain of Dreams
Gamer
Golden Plains
Hanenbow
Icicle Mountain
Kongo Jungle
Mario Bros.
Miiverse
Mushroom Kingdom (64)
Mushroom Kingdom (Melee)
Mute City (Melee)
Mute City (3DS)
Pac-Maze
Paper Mario
Peach's Castle (64)
Pirate Ship
Planet Zebes
Poke Floats
Pyrosphere
Rainbow Cruise
Rainbow Road
Rumble Falls
Sector Z
Windy Hill Zone
Woolly World
Yoshi's Island (Melee)

Total: 30 missing stages

With that said, we can iron things out for a theoritical "maximum number" we can expect and predict a few things.

We can already lower it to 29 because there's no way Miiverse is coming back.

Sector Z and Planet Zebes are very similar to Corneria and Brinstar respectively, so I can see them not making the cut. 27.

I can only see one of the Mushroom Kingdom stages make it. 26.

I also think the stages that were in Smash Wii U except for Miiverse will come back since the game uses that game's assets anyway, so why waste those stages?

So that means Gamer, Jungle Hijinx, Kongo Jungle, Peach's Castle, Pirate Ship, Pyrosphere, Windy Hill Zone, Woolly World and Yoshi's Island have a high change of returning. That gives us 9 stages that are very likely to return.

Flat Zone and PictoChat were also confirmed, but those stages have mutliple versions and which one made it in is left very ambiguous, so I didn't write any of its versions in the list. My personal bet is that we're get Flat Zone X and a "new" PictoChat X which would have the same comcept as Flat Zone X.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Quick question

Since we know Xander Mobus is coming back as the announcer, is he your favorite announcer for Smash? Cause I kinda like Pat Cashman better

No real feelings one way or the other; I thought they all sounded good. I do hope the victory quote either gets changed back to "The winner is..." or at least delayed so that the name pops onscreen as he says it.

Any guesses as to what stage the Snipperclips music will be on?

It was giving me a very Pictochat vibe, but Living Room could be it too.

 

[Capybara Gaming]

he's never mentioned it outright as far as i know.

There is a Rhythm heaven emblem in smash bros wiiu that was found in datamining and its one of the few series to have smash run enemies but no character from that series. this combined with the gematsu leak only being wrong about "chrom" (someone sakurai HAS specifically mentioned almost making it in smash) and "chorus kids" from rhythm heaven, strongly suggests at one point in development they were planned.

The point is, Chrom has confirmation of consideration. Chorus Kids do not.

If you ask me, the Rhythm Heaven slot was more likely there as just that; a character from Rhythm Heaven (undecided on whom) similar to how Greninja was implemented.

 

[RileyXY1]

I don't see how a roster could really be too big. I understand ~70 is large but a handful of games (albeit mostly anime based) have surprassed that number no problem. Does that mean nobody will be cut again in the future? No.

Tobal 2 was a Playstation game, had 200 characters. I don't believe any of them were clones of other characters. Definitely possible to exceed the limit we have now.

Balance would go out the window with an incredibly large roster. There would just be too many characters for the competitive scene to handle.

 

[Crap-Zapper]

Who gives a **** if it's not in 2019?
They could just give us HD Melee and move on as a gift.

 

[Hinata]

Decided to check which past stages were left to see in Ultimate. Here are the fruits of my short labor

Spoiler: Alphabetical order

Big Battlefield
Brinstar Depths
Delfino Plaza
Dream Land (3DS)
Fountain of Dreams
Gamer
Golden Plains
Hanenbow
Icicle Mountain
Kongo Jungle
Mario Bros.
Miiverse
Mushroom Kingdom (64)
Mushroom Kingdom (Melee)
Mute City (Melee)
Mute City (3DS)
Pac-Maze
Paper Mario
Peach's Castle (64)
Pirate Ship
Planet Zebes
Poke Floats
Pyrosphere
Rainbow Cruise
Rainbow Road
Rumble Falls
Sector Z
Windy Hill Zone
Woolly World
Yoshi's Island (Melee)

Total: 30 missing stages

With that said, we can iron things out for a theoritical "maximum number" we can expect and predict a few things.

We can already lower it to 29 because there's no way Miiverse is coming back.

Sector Z and Planet Zebes are very similar to Corneria and Brinstar respectively, so I can see them not making the cut. 27.

I can only see one of the Mushroom Kingdom stages make it. 26.

I also think the stages that were in Smash Wii U except for Miiverse will come back since the game uses that game's assets anyway, so why waste those stages?

So that means Gamer, Jungle Hijinx, Kongo Jungle, Peach's Castle, Pirate Ship, Pyrosphere, Windy Hill Zone, Woolly World and Yoshi's Island have a high change of returning. That gives us 9 stages that are very likely to return.

Flat Zone and PictoChat were also confirmed, but those stages have mutliple versions and which one made it in is left very ambiguous, so I didn't write any of its versions in the list. My personal bet is that we're get Flat Zone X and a "new" PictoChat X which would have the same comcept as Flat Zone X.

Poke Floats! Poke Floats! Poke Floats!

 

[Will]

Balance would go out the window with an incredibly large roster. There would just be too many characters for the competitive scene to handle.

The competitive scene doesn't impact what Nintendo does, though. Well, I mean, it does, but not in that way.

 

[Zinith]

Decided to check which past stages were left to see in Ultimate. Here are the fruits of my short labor

Spoiler: Alphabetical order

Big Battlefield
Brinstar Depths
Delfino Plaza
Dream Land (3DS)
Fountain of Dreams
Gamer
Golden Plains
Hanenbow
Icicle Mountain
Kongo Jungle
Mario Bros.
Miiverse
Mushroom Kingdom (64)
Mushroom Kingdom (Melee)
Mute City (Melee)
Mute City (3DS)
Pac-Maze
Paper Mario
Peach's Castle (64)
Pirate Ship
Planet Zebes
Poke Floats
Pyrosphere
Rainbow Cruise
Rainbow Road
Rumble Falls
Sector Z
Windy Hill Zone
Woolly World
Yoshi's Island (Melee)

Total: 30 missing stages

With that said, we can iron things out for a theoritical "maximum number" we can expect and predict a few things.

We can already lower it to 29 because there's no way Miiverse is coming back.

Sector Z and Planet Zebes are very similar to Corneria and Brinstar respectively, so I can see them not making the cut. 27.

I can only see one of the Mushroom Kingdom stages make it. 26.

I also think the stages that were in Smash Wii U except for Miiverse will come back since the game uses that game's assets anyway, so why waste those stages?

So that means Gamer, Jungle Hijinx, Kongo Jungle, Peach's Castle, Pirate Ship, Pyrosphere, Windy Hill Zone, Woolly World and Yoshi's Island have a high change of returning. That gives us 9 stages that are very likely to return.

Flat Zone and PictoChat were also confirmed, but those stages have mutliple versions and which one made it in is left very ambiguous, so I didn't write any of its versions in the list. My personal bet is that we're get Flat Zone X and a "new" PictoChat X which would have the same comcept as Flat Zone X.

You think all of DK and Yoshi's stages will return this time?

Also, Hanenbow is beautiful, it's just a shame it's not coming back

 

[Will]

Poke Floats! Poke Floats! Poke Floats!

I have a theory they're holding Poke Floats back because they're doing a massive rehaul on it to update it with newer Pokemon from all generations.

 

[Noipoi]

Xander Mobus is the man!

BOWSER!





~JUNIOR~

 

[Pakky]

It is implied that Paula and Poo taught him those attacks (and Kumatora for Lucas). No one would be there to teach Ninten PK Flash and PK Starstorm because no one used those attacks in Mother 1.

PK fire, freeze , and thunder

All did, used by Ana. So, he'd be a semi-clone I assume.

 

[Murlough]

Balance would go out the window with an incredibly large roster. There would just be too many characters for the competitive scene to handle.

Hardly. Plenty of popular fighting games rarely get balanced patches post release.

Sakurai and the team could also break down patches based on sorting the characters by level of importance.

The main issue is making a bunch of unnecessary changes between games like the stupid nerfs Fox has recieved from 4 to Ultimate.

But no, they wouldn't be overwhelmed by 15 more characters. There are ways to make it more doable. Will they? Who knows. It can be done though.

EDIT: Or they could just not do balance patches....lmao.

 

[Will]

Sector Z and Planet Zebes are very similar to Corneria and Brinstar respectively, so I can see them not making the cut. 27.

I brought up a counter argument for that before.

Palutena's Temple to me is just 8-Player Skyworld.
Sector Z would just be 8-Player Corneria.
How about them apples?

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

I brought up a counter argument for that before.

That could counter Sector Z, but what about Zebes?

 

[Smashoperatingbuddy123]

Decided to check which past stages were left to see in Ultimate. Here are the fruits of my short labor

Spoiler: Alphabetical order

Big Battlefield
Brinstar Depths
Delfino Plaza
Dream Land (3DS)
Fountain of Dreams
Gamer
Golden Plains
Hanenbow
Icicle Mountain
Kongo Jungle
Mario Bros.
Miiverse
Mushroom Kingdom (64)
Mushroom Kingdom (Melee)
Mute City (Melee)
Mute City (3DS)
Pac-Maze
Paper Mario
Peach's Castle (64)
Pirate Ship
Planet Zebes
Poke Floats
Pyrosphere
Rainbow Cruise
Rainbow Road
Rumble Falls
Sector Z
Windy Hill Zone
Woolly World
Yoshi's Island (Melee)

Total: 30 missing stages

With that said, we can iron things out for a theoritical "maximum number" we can expect and predict a few things.

We can already lower it to 29 because there's no way Miiverse is coming back.

Sector Z and Planet Zebes are very similar to Corneria and Brinstar respectively, so I can see them not making the cut. 27.

I can only see one of the Mushroom Kingdom stages make it. 26.

I also think the stages that were in Smash Wii U except for Miiverse will come back since the game uses that game's assets anyway, so why waste those stages?

So that means Gamer, Jungle Hijinx, Kongo Jungle, Peach's Castle, Pirate Ship, Pyrosphere, Windy Hill Zone, Woolly World and Yoshi's Island have a high change of returning. That gives us 9 stages that are very likely to return.

Flat Zone and PictoChat were also confirmed, but those stages have mutliple versions and which one made it in is left very ambiguous, so I didn't write any of its versions in the list. My personal bet is that we're get Flat Zone X and a "new" PictoChat X which would have the same comcept as Flat Zone X.

Everyone keeps forgetting meta crystal (the metal Mario stage in 64)

 

[TMNTSSB4]

Where can they possibly go from here? They can't just keep adding characters. Eventually, the roster will get too big. A reboot with a smaller roster may be the only way Smash can move forward. Also, the 20th Anniversary is not until next year.

It is implied that Paula and Poo taught him those attacks (and Kumatora for Lucas). No one would be there to teach Ninten PK Flash and PK Starstorm because no one used those attacks in Mother 1.

The roster ain’t gonna get any bigger than a Lego game

 

[PeridotGX]

You think all of DK and Yoshi's stages will return this time?

Also, Hanenbow is beautiful, it's just a shame it's not coming back

Probably. Wolly World looks good as is and could be ported directly, and Yoshi's Island Melee is SMW based, which is a pretty big game.

 

[Capybara Gaming]

I'm really hoping that the Snipperclips music means we're getting a Snipperclips stage, but the fact it uses the generic music icon means it probably doesn't have it's own associated universe in-game. If I had to guess, it probably plays on the Pictochat stage.

That is, unless they're intentionally trying to hide the universe for a surprise, but if so, why reveal the music now?

 

[papagenos]

I don't see how a roster could really be too big. I understand ~70 is large but a handful of games (albeit mostly anime based) have surprassed that number no problem. Does that mean nobody will be cut again in the future? No.

Tobal 2 was a Playstation game, had 200 characters. I don't believe any of them were clones of other characters. Definitely possible to exceed the limit we have now.

you certainly can put that many characters in a game but with those anime games that exceed 70ish characters there is almost always very blatant balancing issues, not that i think sakurai is too concerned with the competitive scene and all that (though ultimate is shaping up to be more focused than before on recognizing those elements) I do think he cares enough to attempt to make every character playable and able to win, even if some characters may struggle more than others or have an up hill battle against certain characters. in some of those huge roster fighting games, made mostly to please fans of anime series by including as many characters as possible, usually some characters are just insanely better than others and theres no fix for it.

smash has had its balancing issues but it seems to generally strive to have some semblance of balance where it isnt impossible to win against or as certain characters, at least on the casual level... even in competitive smash 4 was better about it up until the final DLC...basically we need some more balancing patches on bayonetta/cloud but instead we are getting ultimate so i think the issues will be addressed in this game as things play out after release but again its not necessarily that smash IS balanced but the fact they try and balance it that may keep that roster number lower than just packing as many characters as they can into the game.

 

[Will]

That could counter Sector Z, but what about Zebes?

Well the fact this could easily hold 8 players, and every 64 stage can hold 8 players as the updated versions do not.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

Well the fact this could easily hold 8 players, and every 64 stage can hold 8 players as the updated versions do not.

Fair nough, I guess

 

[Omega Tyrant]

He didn't say "less" he said "not much." I don't see a reason for him to say that if the difference in the amount of newcomers is hardly significant.

After Smash 4's unveiling he said in an interview "new characters aren't the focus", "we can't just make a roster of 50 characters and call it a good game", "we're already at the upper limit of what's feasible", and "a change in direction may be needed". Yet Smash 4's newcomer count and overall roster jump in the base game ended up inline with Brawl's with minimal cuts...for a roster of around 50 characters (51 total, 49 if you discount Lucina/Dark Pit). And that was with Smash 4 being made for the Wii U and 3DS simultaneously and making the jump to HD.

Sakurai as is seems to like lowballing things in general (he did it for Smash 4 DLC too) and just likes to temper fan expectations, which tend to ride really high in Smash hype (which is especially going to be the case after you reveal every single veteran is coming back, including those that people thought we would never see in a Smash game again). Like I said earlier, while Smash Ultimate almost certainly does have less unique newcomers than what Brawl and Smash 4 had, his statement was probably more intended to temper wild expectations so fans don't get disappointed and backlash at the game when the final unique newcomer count is somewhere around 8-12 instead of the potentially 20+ they may have been thinking.

EDIT: Also "not too many" is very subjective itself and means different things to everyone. For the very pessimistic it can mean just a few, at face value it can just mean less than what we had previously, for the optimistic it can mean not 20+, so nobody can put a real value on how much it exactly means.

 

[Deleted member]

IIRC, Sakurai said in a column or something a long time ago that he was considering a full motorcyclist character but only didn't do it because he couldn't see how they'd jump in a way that visually made sense.

In Mach Rider's case, I suppose the Mach Bike could be made into some high-tech marvel of a vehicle.

Wouldn't be the first time something like that was implemented out of the blue in Smash.

 

[PLATINUM7]

I don't see how a roster could really be too big. I understand ~70 is large but a handful of games (albeit mostly anime based) have surprassed that number no problem. Does that mean nobody will be cut again in the future? No.

Tobal 2 was a Playstation game, had 200 characters. I don't believe any of them were clones of other characters. Definitely possible to exceed the limit we have now.

A lot of those characters were jokes.
Some of them were little totem carvings that just wobbled around.

 

[Strider_Bond00J]

Planet Zebes would be a pretty nice throwback stage. I'd also like it since it also shows Ridley's legacy as well, since he's been there in Smash Bros from the beginning - it's just that now we finally get to play as him.

 

[Radical Bones]

Heck yeah we go Snipperclips music in this game!!!!

I absolutely love that game. I wish there was a stage coming with it (I guess there's still a chance) but I'll be happy to hear the music and Smash!

Also, I love how much music we are getting on the blog. I can't wait for the stages and items section of the site to open up.

I wonder if we'll get a stages and an items trailer akin to the character reveal trailer where it literally just shows every item in the game, then every stage in the game.

 

[Will]

Planet Zebes would be a pretty nice throwback stage. I'd also like it since it also shows Ridley's legacy as well, since he's been there in Smash Bros from the beginning - it's just that now we finally get to play as him.

"When Ridley joins the battle, Kraid is in charge of patrolling the background!
Kraid: *indiscernible alien screeches*"

 

[Icedragonadam]

You know that that I think about it....

Spoiler

Zack Fair makes a lot of sense being an Echo Fighter of Cloud. Mainly because of the irony in that a big plot twist in VII is that Cloud pre character development is a literal Echo Fighter of Zack.

 

[ToddCam]

I have a theory they're holding Poke Floats back because they're doing a massive rehaul on it to update it with newer Pokemon from all generations.

That'd be cool, but I really want it to still start with a giant Squirtle, so I can play as Squirtle on said Squirtle.

 

[New_Dumal]

Honestly I have no idea where yall are getting 5 from, he said there's gonna be less, that could mean anything below 15 since that's what smash 4 had. This is supposed to be a brand new game I'd hope we'd get more than 5 newcomers

I think 10 total is a good number, not including echoes

So... you think that 10 is a good number and they showed two of them at E3 and there are more 8 to be showed in the next 6 months? Believe me, if Sakurai would add more 10 characters in this game, I'm sure he wouldn't feel in the need of giving a explanation. 10 characters would be the expected, if he pratically said "Sorry" about the number of newcomers is because there are not that much.

Also, E3 is big. If they had more 7~8 newcomers they would used the e3 hype over some of them.

 

[Omega Tyrant]

So... you think that 10 is a good number and they showed two of them at E3 and there are more 8 to be showed in the next 6 months? Believe me, if Sakurai would add more 10 characters in this game, I'm sure he wouldn't feel in the need of giving a explanation. 10 characters would be the expected, if he pratically said "Sorry" about the number of newcomers is because there are not that much.

Also, E3 is big. If they had more 7~8 newcomers they would used the e3 hype over some of them.

I don't know why people keep harping on "only 2 newcomers shown at E3", when they revealed every single veteran was back, including all those that weren't in Smash 4, some of which many people thought would never be in a Smash game again. That itself was a huge hype load about the game which was bigger than any other Smash's initial unveiling, showing a bunch of newcomers on top of that would be pretty overkill and deplete more hype content to spread out in the upcoming months. Every Smash game prior shown only a handful of the veterans that were in the game in their initial E3 unveiling and saved the rest to sprinkle along in reveals on the way to release to keep up hype, and none shown prior cut veterans coming back, which have nearly the same impact as a newcomer.

Also saying 10 newcomers was expected before the unveiling is certainly not the normal view. Maybe if you're a very pessimistic person in general, but the average Smash fan is certainly going to expect quite a bit more than 10 when Brawl had 18 and Smash 4 had 15 in the base game (17 if you want to count Lucina/Dark Pit).