Official Smash Ultimate Discussion

[Guybrush20X6]

Stuff like this makes me wonder if we have seen the full roster.

I don't think so. Remember the lead up to Brawl where we were getting posters and stuff with all the veterans and we all feared Sheik had been cut because Twilight Princess?

 

[Guh-Huzzah!]

Base game: 58 fighters for $60 + the rest game and base ability to play it.
$1.03 per fighter + Super Smash Bros. 4 itself

The DLC prices:
$5 per fighter if you buy the All-In-One fighters bundle, no bonuses.
$34.93 total. More than half of the price of the base game just for 7 fighters vs 58 in the base game.

How is that a good value? It's a rip-off. And it's even worse that there's the P2W element which DLC fighters bring to the table; if one of them accidentally turns out OP due to poor balancing then it's potentially advantageous to purchase and play those characters. That's exactly what happened with Bayonetta. Although this was far from intentional on Nintendo's end, unintentional P2W is still P2W and I'm not going to support it. Plus, Cotton just admitted to wanting to purchase Bayonetta and Corrin to practice against them.. yet again, that's paying to get an advantage. Whether you have to earn that advantage or not, you wouldn't be able to have it at all without paying...

I don't know how people justify this... It's easily my biggest issue with DLC in the fighting genre as a whole. This practice causes outrage in games from other genres, why's it different here?

Practicing against fighters gives me a very slight advantage, And I'm not even really paying for an advantage. Just practicing for Bayo in Ultimate.
And 5 Dollars for a new fighter seems very fair to me. Sakurai made them a reasonable price for fans to buy if they want. and you get it cheaper altogether if you get the 3DS and Wii U bundle. And The fighters are 5 each in the bundle because they pay normally for 5 each...

 

[Guybrush20X6]

With Mario Kart 8 adding BotW DLC for free, I'm wondering if, after Smash's DLC gets started, the game will get free support in addition to paid DLC.

They kind of had that in 4 when the 3DS couldn't handle Pirate Ship and they added Duck Hunt for free but will they expand it?

For example, adding Octo-expansion styled Octolings as Inkling Echos for everyone who's got the online subscription.

 

[Krysco]

Had another random thought at the end of my shift that I thought would be worth sharing here to possibly start some discussion. If Banjo Kazooie ever gets into Smash, what sort of model would they have? A touched up version of their N64 model? Their Nuts & Bolts model? An original one? Seems at least somewhat worth discussing since Megaman shows that the most modern version of a character isn't always used.

Also, holy cow this thread is (or possibly by some miracle just was) desperate for info xD I'm still a good 200+ pages behind and there was some tournament Nintendo held in Japan and so many people were hoping for a character reveal. Didn't seem to happen since I still keep up to date by checking the official site. It's truly a wonder why they even bother to make blog posts about the characters when all it is is the 20~ second video of them that was posted right after E3 and then there's that Japan only Twitter thing.

There was also talk of viability oddly enough even though the demo build could mean jack all by launch (I particularly remember Kirby's uthrow getting nerfed between the E3 build and the launch of Sm4sh). I can see all being at least high tier. They all seem to have solid kits that would be difficult to make truly bad. They aren't like or who were only as good as they were in previous games due to a few overpowered tools rather than an overall well designed kit. I'd add to the first list but he was trash in Brawl and in Sm4sh he heavily relied on Spin Dash so if that gets nerfed, that should be enough to drop him out of high tier.

Anyways, anything interesting going on here in the present?

 

[Guh-Huzzah!]

https://bgr.com/2018/07/20/super-smash-bros-ultimate-demo-dlc/
Bill Trinen says some stuff in an interview.

 

[Radical Bones]

https://bgr.com/2018/07/20/super-smash-bros-ultimate-demo-dlc/

You really shouldn't just post links to external sites with no context.

 

[True Blue Warrior]

Someone from Three Houses will be DLC, 1000%

Except you can't really say that for sure, especially since Sakurai was already concerned with the amount of FE characters before Corrin was even added. If anything, Spring Man and Rex are more of a "sure thing" for DLC, given the success of ARMS and Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

 

[DraginHikari]

We can argue if characters are wanted or not but the fact is,

Once they're in Smash, they'll BE wanted.
Forever.

Everyone is Here.

That's kind of the interesting thing about Smash as a whole. Would anyone really give a damn about Pichu, Game and Watch, or Ice Climbers if they were never featured in Melee?

Legitimate question on Elma:

Isn't she not actually the main character in her game? Never played Xenoblade X but I heard there's an avatar in that game similar to Robin in Awakening. Is there any reason to believe Elma could go the way of Chrom and be shafted in favor of the Avatar character?

The big difference between Robin and X's player character is Robin is not an entirely blank slate. Robin has a specific personality, he does have specific traits, and does not deviate much from the decision from the player outside of his physical appearance and gender. The X player character could literally be removed from the story and switch over to Elma and the story would probably change very little. The X player character is entirely a blank slate which the player can fit themselves into and has no real default state to take advantage of.

 

[Guh-Huzzah!]

You really shouldn't just post links to external sites with no context.

Sorry xD I'm used to Discord where the little thingy will appear saying what it is.

 

[Wyoming]

That's kind of the interesting thing about Smash as a whole. Would anyone really give a damn about Pichu, Game and Watch, or Ice Climbers if they were never featured in Melee?

Definitely not Mr. Game & Watch - he is not a full character to begin with. Pichu and the Icies would have a niche fanbase, although the former would be dwarfed by recent and more popular 'mons. It would get discarded as a Pokeball Summon. Icies I could see people going for them as a retro pick and for moveset potential more than anything.

Ivysaur would have absolutely no support. People would ask for Bulbasaur instead.

And you could extend that to Roy. Without Smash he'd be a Fire Emblem character people wouldn't really know/care about due to Japan exclusivity and supposedly being a poor unit in his own game. He'd get dwarfed by other older FE characters like Lyndis and more recent ones.

Dr. Mario would have a niche fanbase - his games are well-known but he wouldn't have the same distinctiveness that Paper Mario has to be a somewhat major hitter in Smash speculation. People would discard him as an alt costume.

Otherwise there is ROB which nobody really talked about during the Brawl speculation days. Despite being an important piece in Nintendo history, him technically being a toy at first would make people discard his chances entirely. That's what happened, actually.

Sheik is debatable as she was sort of important in a very popular game. Doubt people would be asking for her as much as the other Zelda characters around Smash 4's beginning, however.

Those are all the characters in which Smash is what made them loved. Everyone else has some sort of popularity or recognizable enough to back them up to be in Smash. The likes of Falcon, Lucas, Ness, and Shulk became bigger due to Smash but they were at least main characters in cherished games/series, even if for a smaller quantity of people

 

[BlueMagician]

Had another random thought at the end of my shift that I thought would be worth sharing here to possibly start some discussion. If Banjo Kazooie ever gets into Smash, what sort of model would they have? A touched up version of their N64 model? Their Nuts & Bolts model? An original one? Seems at least somewhat worth discussing since Megaman shows that the most modern version of a character isn't always used.

I think the Mega Man treatment is more likely. It's whatever Sakurai thinks is most appropriate since he also required Pacman to be a certain design (thankfully one that I like) so I'm guessing he'd go for the design that's been on a Nintendo console.

 

[blackghost]

There was also talk of viability oddly enough even though the demo build could mean jack all by launch (I particularly remember Kirby's uthrow getting nerfed between the E3 build and the launch of Sm4sh). I can see all being at least high tier. They all seem to have solid kits that would be difficult to make truly bad. They aren't like or who were only as good as they were in previous games due to a few overpowered tools rather than an overall well designed kit. I'd add to the first list but he was trash in Brawl and in Sm4sh he heavily relied on Spin Dash so if that gets nerfed, that should be enough to drop him out of high tier.

Anyways, anything interesting going on here in the present?

only one i cant agree with is rosa. rosa tier placement depends on luma strength and other character's ability to dispatch luma.
unless there are some major changes high tier characters i'd expect are pikachu, cloud, link, bayo, shiek, and ryu. 5 of those 6 are just REALLY hard to make bad and link with all his buffs and new bombs is a scary character.

also whats with th e comaplints about DLC? Sound slike some people would rather the game not be supported and that makes NO sense. Dont give revisionist history, every dlc character was not OP or even decent . remember launch mewtwo? people begged for him to get buffed becuase he was so bad. lucas and roy never became popular. DLC complaints are aimed at two characters.
balancing dlc is difficult: smaller team and less playtesting and every interaction with charatcers in a game like smash is a massive endeavor. it is pretty easy even from a concept point as to why two dlc characters were good: cloud was a sword character with a disjoint and low recovery frame count. bayonetta was a combo fighter with basically everything. in comparison, lucas and roy are both underwhelming characters in their previous appearances and roy has a bad mechanic built into his kit. mewtwo was reworked to be a better character but he still needed buffs to be a good character in smash 4 but at least all his specials worked properly in smash 4 unlike in melee.
as for ryu i dont tihnk it was possible for them to know how well ryu would or wouldnt be. his launch had the most variety in responses: xero called him OP and broken (no surprise) and other players said he wasnt very good.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Definitely not Mr. Game & Watch - he is not a full character to begin with. Pichu and the Icies would have a niche fanbase, although the former would be dwarfed by recent and more popular 'mons. It would get discarded as a Pokeball Summon. Icies I could see people going for them as a retro pick and for moveset potential more than anything.

Ivysaur would have absolutely no support. People would ask for Bulbasaur instead.

And you could extend that to Roy. Without Smash he'd be a Fire Emblem character people wouldn't really know/care about due to Japan exclusivity and supposedly being a poor unit in his own game. He'd get dwarfed by other older FE characters like Lyndis and more recent ones.

Dr. Mario would have a niche fanbase - his games are well-known but he wouldn't have the same distinctiveness that Paper Mario has to be a somewhat major hitter in Smash speculation. People would discard him as an alt costume.

Otherwise there is ROB which nobody really talked about during the Brawl speculation days. Despite being an important piece in Nintendo history, him technically being a toy at first would make people discard his chances entirely. That's what happened, actually.

Sheik is debatable as she was sort of important in a very popular game. Doubt people would be asking for her as much as the other Zelda characters around Smash 4's beginning, however.

Those are all the characters in which Smash is what made them loved. Everyone else has some sort of popularity or recognizable enough to back them up to be in Smash. The likes of Falcon, Lucas, Ness, and Shulk became bigger due to Smash but they were at least main characters in cherished games/series, even if for a smaller quantity of people

You are right, except for Roy.

Fire Emblem 6, Roy's game, is hugely popular in Japan. It has revived the franchise, and paved the way for handheld Fire Emblem titles, and had a whole new system of combat and everything that has been a staple ever since. It's also the very first game that was created after the franchise's head director / creator left Intelligent Systems. Roy would have a decent Japanese fan base at the very least.

Plus, he's not really a terrible unit anyway. Just in mid game alone, especially if his level ups where bad (which they shouldn't be, because he's got the best growths in the game). Early game and especially end game, he's a great unit.

 

[Smashoperatingbuddy123]

You really shouldn't just post links to external sites with no context.

The link worked for me

It's about the possible demo version

 

[TMNTSSB4]

Had another random thought at the end of my shift that I thought would be worth sharing here to possibly start some discussion. If Banjo Kazooie ever gets into Smash, what sort of model would they have? A touched up version of their N64 model? Their Nuts & Bolts model? An original one? Seems at least somewhat worth discussing since Megaman shows that the most modern version of a character isn't always used.

Also, holy cow this thread is (or possibly by some miracle just was) desperate for info xD I'm still a good 200+ pages behind and there was some tournament Nintendo held in Japan and so many people were hoping for a character reveal. Didn't seem to happen since I still keep up to date by checking the official site. It's truly a wonder why they even bother to make blog posts about the characters when all it is is the 20~ second video of them that was posted right after E3 and then there's that Japan only Twitter thing.

There was also talk of viability oddly enough even though the demo build could mean jack all by launch (I particularly remember Kirby's uthrow getting nerfed between the E3 build and the launch of Sm4sh). I can see all being at least high tier. They all seem to have solid kits that would be difficult to make truly bad. They aren't like or who were only as good as they were in previous games due to a few overpowered tools rather than an overall well designed kit. I'd add to the first list but he was trash in Brawl and in Sm4sh he heavily relied on Spin Dash so if that gets nerfed, that should be enough to drop him out of high tier.

Anyways, anything interesting going on here in the present?

Sonic looks to still be good enough to stay at high tier, though Meta Knight and Lucario I’m not sure will be high tier (Pit/Dark Pit however...lower high tier to extremely upper mid tier)

 

[Garteam]

I'm not sure Bill's comment really confirms another Xenoblade character. I think its much more likely he forgot Shulk's name and misspoke by saying Xenoblade characters instead of character. Likewise, he could've been referring to the presence of multiple non-playable Xenoblade characters in the game (such as Dunban and Fiora). It just seems like a stretch that Bill Trinen would accidentally leak a character in one of Nintendo's most anticipated games.

Then again, it would be funny for a character to get leaked a week after Sakurai wrote an article about the hoops he went through so all characters returning wouldn't get leaked.

 

[papagenos]

I'm not sure Bill's comment really confirms another Xenoblade character. I think its much more likely he forgot Shulk's name and misspoke by saying Xenoblade characters instead of character. Likewise, he could've been referring to the presence of multiple non-playable Xenoblade characters in the game (such as Dunban and Fiora). It just seems like a stretch that Bill Trinen would accidentally leak a character in one of Nintendo's most anticipated games.

Then again, it would be funny for a character to get leaked a week after Sakurai wrote an article about the hoops he went through so all characters returning wouldn't get leaked.

I'm thinking its like 50/50 or maybe closer to 60/40: that he either 1. simply forgot shulks name in the moment OR 2. he almost said "elma" or "rex" caught himself, and stuttered out "xenoblade characters" which still is him saying it as a plural.

obviously its not a 100% confirmation but this is the case where someone who is very much so potentially "in the know" said something alluding to more character from the xenoblade series. if in bills head hes aware of characters from that series we havent seen, i think its worth at least noting that he may have slipped up here a bit. he is if nothing else a potentially real source of information so watching what he says carefully can get us info.

i think ya kind of have to put yourself in the shoes of someone who knows about other fighters and think about the sorts of slip ups that could happen if you were talking about the series, trying not to say any unreleased info, but having it in your head anyway. you'd have to very deliberately remember what info is public and what isnt and still talk in length about that "public" info, its a recipe to make a minor mistake that could leak some info.

again i think it could go either way, but its wroth looking at.

 

[Questionmark222]

Except you can't really say that for sure, especially since Sakurai was already concerned with the amount of FE characters before Corrin was even added.

This is exactly why I'm skeptical about Chrom's chances as an echo.

 

[Guh-Huzzah!]

I'm not sure Bill's comment really confirms another Xenoblade character. I think its much more likely he forgot Shulk's name and misspoke by saying Xenoblade characters instead of character. Likewise, he could've been referring to the presence of multiple non-playable Xenoblade characters in the game (such as Dunban and Fiora). It just seems like a stretch that Bill Trinen would accidentally leak a character in one of Nintendo's most anticipated games.

Then again, it would be funny for a character to get leaked a week after Sakurai wrote an article about the hoops he went through so all characters returning wouldn't get leaked.

Yeah i agree. probably just a mistake. I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Spartacus5]

Before ultimate:
Screw clones their taking away a roster spot for a legitimate character

After Echo fighters are revealed:
I can finally have an excuse for pretty much any character regardless of relevance to be a fighter PogChamp

no hate intended just thought it was kind of funny

 

[Guybrush20X6]

Hmmm... I'm wondering, do you think they'll reference any of Nintendo's mobile content in Smash Ultimate?

Out the gate, they missed a chance to have a Fire Emblem Pokeball/Assist trophy item with the gun-like device (can't remember how to spell it) that the avatar uses in Fire Emblem Heroes and I'd have thought Daisy would have been featured with the Remix 10 theme from Super Mario Run.

 

[ThatGuyWhoKnowsNothing]

..

There was also talk of viability oddly enough even though the demo build could mean jack all by launch (I particularly remember Kirby's uthrow getting nerfed between the E3 build and the launch of Sm4sh). I can see all being at least high tier. They all seem to have solid kits that would be difficult to make truly bad. They aren't like or who were only as good as they were in previous games due to a few overpowered tools rather than an overall well designed kit. I'd add to the first list but he was trash in Brawl and in Sm4sh he heavily relied on Spin Dash so if that gets nerfed, that should be enough to drop him out of high tier.

Anyways, anything interesting going on here in the present?

I recently decided to look at the new smash game more specifically as a sonic main instead of as a whole and came to some interesting conclusions, (I have zero first-hand info, I'm just going off what I've pieced together from seemingly reliable sources, Daubuz, SSB wiki, etc.) First off, I started out really scared, Upthrow, upair, and spring ride being nerfed ruin his K.O ability, however, he arguably benefits the most from cancelling dashes with smash attacks, and the games increased speed is helpful. also, homing attack is actually a move now so that's a plus. I think sonic is either going to stay in about the same spot or go up a little. In the end, I'm satisfied with Sonic. My main problem is that although sonic needed a few nerfs (and a few buffs) they weren't the nerfs he was given, except for spin dash. Upair is one of his only reliable kill moves, and he now doesn't have throws, the only reason to grab is to try and gimp with spring, but now spring has end lag, so it's not as safe

 

[Guybrush20X6]

Before ultimate:
Screw clones their taking away a roster spot for a legitimate character

After Echo fighters are revealed:
I can finally have an excuse for pretty much any character regardless of relevance to be a fighter PogChamp

no hate intended just thought it was kind of funny

Interesting what a little acknowledgement and marketing can do inn't?

 

[DraginHikari]

Before ultimate:
Screw clones their taking away a roster spot for a legitimate character

After Echo fighters are revealed:
I can finally have an excuse for pretty much any character regardless of relevance to be a fighter PogChamp

no hate intended just thought it was kind of funny

This the power of marketing.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

This is exactly why I'm skeptical about Chrom's chances as an echo.

Spoiler

 

[Pyra]

Spoiler

View attachment 153852

Smash Ultimate:
In which Chrom isn't even an echo, just an Ike skin.

 

[osby]

Before ultimate:
Screw clones their taking away a roster spot for a legitimate character

After Echo fighters are revealed:
I can finally have an excuse for pretty much any character regardless of relevance to be a fighter PogChamp

no hate intended just thought it was kind of funny

It only took fans 17 years to notice a few clones don't harm anyone.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

Smash Ultimate:
In which Chrom isn't even an echo, just an Ike skin.

Then Chrom fans cry even more realizing Lucina isn’t an alt

 

[ThatGuyWhoKnowsNothing]

Zinth

 

[osby]

Smash Ultimate:
In which Chrom isn't even an echo, just an Ike skin.

Nah, probably he still helps Robin and shows up with him when he wins.

 

[papagenos]

Zinth said something about wanting one more Yoshi anything, (I'm too lazy to find it and quote it) and right now I feel the same way about the sonic verse

i feel like if any third party series will see a lot of representation it'll be sonic, its stuck with smash for a while now definitely deserves it.

 

[Pyra]

Nah, probably he still helps Robin and shows up with him when he wins.

All I'm gonna say is that while it's incredibly likely that the unseen final smashes can be the same as before, that's an incredibly boring thing to speculate and so I choose to ignore that possibility.

If we all resolved to expect the likely there's no reason to talk about what-ifs.

 

[Opossum]

Hmmm... I'm wondering, do you think they'll reference any of Nintendo's mobile content in Smash Ultimate?

Out the gate, they missed a chance to have a Fire Emblem Pokeball/Assist trophy item with the gun-like device (can't remember how to spell it) that the avatar uses in Fire Emblem Heroes and I'd have thought Daisy would have been featured with the Remix 10 theme from Super Mario Run.

I'm sure Heroes at the very least will get something. Though Breidablik didn't pan out, there's still lots of potential content to pull from it, whether it's a stage, trophies of some of the game's original characters, or music. The game is hugely successful so I wouldn't be surprised to see something from it.

 

[Chandeelure]

Zinth said something about wanting one more Yoshi anything, (I'm too lazy to find it and quote it) and right now I feel the same way about the sonic verse

You tagged the wrong person lol.

You know nothing.

 

[ThatGuyWhoKnowsNothing]

You tagged the wrong person lol.

You know nothing.

My name is my name for a reason.
holy crap, that was bad, lemme see if I can fix it

 

[TMNTSSB4]

Hmmm... I'm wondering, do you think they'll reference any of Nintendo's mobile content in Smash Ultimate?

Out the gate, they missed a chance to have a Fire Emblem Pokeball/Assist trophy item with the gun-like device (can't remember how to spell it) that the avatar uses in Fire Emblem Heroes and I'd have thought Daisy would have been featured with the Remix 10 theme from Super Mario Run.

Holy **** I forgot about Super Mario Run being decent at some things...still not worth playing as much as FEH, but if they added this song in it would make any Mario stage (Rainbow Road specifically) more amazing

i feel like if any third party series will see a lot of representation it'll be sonic, its stuck with smash for a while now definitely deserves it.

That and Sonic is more of a Nintendo franchise than the other third parties (including Bayo, who’s atleast 2nd or 3rd)

 

[Garteam]

I'm thinking its like 50/50 or maybe closer to 60/40: that he either 1. simply forgot shulks name in the moment OR 2. he almost said "elma" or "rex" caught himself, and stuttered out "xenoblade characters" which still is him saying it as a plural.

obviously its not a 100% confirmation but this is the case where someone who is very much so potentially "in the know" said something alluding to more character from the xenoblade series. if in bills head hes aware of characters from that series we havent seen, i think its worth at least noting that he may have slipped up here a bit. he is if nothing else a potentially real source of information so watching what he says carefully can get us info.

i think ya kind of have to put yourself in the shoes of someone who knows about other fighters and think about the sorts of slip ups that could happen if you were talking about the series, trying not to say any unreleased info, but having it in your head anyway. you'd have to very deliberately remember what info is public and what isnt and still talk in length about that "public" info, its a recipe to make a minor mistake that could leak some info.

again i think it could go either way, but its wroth looking at.

The problem with this logic is, if there is another Xenoblade character and Bill caught himself before saying their name, why would he say "characters" instead of "Shulk" or "character"? If there is another Xenoblade character, then that quote is still a potential leak. If I was him and almost leaked Rex/Elma, I'd probably try to get as far away from the topic of Xenoblade for that answer.

Granted, this theory could be true that there is another Xenoblade character and Bill just screwed up, but Bill doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would do that. He's been doing PR and marketing for Nintendo since 1998 and he has basically no history of doing things like this during interviews. It would uncharacteristically incompetent for him to leak a brand new character.

 

[Idon]

People, use Occam's razor.

Is it more likely that:
A. Bill forgot Shulk's name and stuttered out "xenoblade characters" as a catch-all instead of saying "xenoblade character" which no one would ever say. Seriously, which sounds more natural, "Legend of Zelda characters" or "That LoZ guy."?
Or
B. Bill accidentally leaked Elma by saying we have multiple xenoblade characters in the game after saying singular protagonists like Robin and Cloud.

Yeesh people...

 

[ThatGuyWhoKnowsNothing]

if we don't get another Mario strikers, can we get some sort of smash soccer? You can still attack and kill, but you don't get a point unless you knock the ball into the other guy's blast zone? That opens a huge can of worms regarding modes, but whatever

People, use Occam's razor.

Is it more likely that:
A. Bill forgot Shulk's name and stuttered out "xenoblade characters" as a catch-all instead of saying "xenoblade character" which no one would ever say. Seriously, which sounds more natural, "Legend of Zelda characters" or "That LoZ guy."?
Or
B. Bill accidentally leaked Elma by saying we have multiple xenoblade characters in the game after saying singular protagonists like Robin and Cloud.

Yeesh people...

Oh, but that's not as fun

 

[papagenos]

The problem with this logic is, if there is another Xenoblade character and Bill caught himself before saying their name, why would he say "characters" instead of "Shulk" or "character"? If there is another Xenoblade character, then that quote is still a potential leak. If I was him and almost leaked Rex/Elma, I'd probably try to get as far away from the topic of Xenoblade for that answer.

Granted, this theory could be true that there is another Xenoblade character and Bill just screwed up, but Bill doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would do that. He's been doing PR and marketing for Nintendo since 1998 and he has basically no history of doing things like this during interviews. It would uncharacteristically incompetent for him to leak a brand new character.

yeah I mean thats sorta what I'm getting at is that he DID catch himself but ended up saying character"s". As in he didnt forget shulks name the reason for the stutter and accidentally saying characters is that he ALMOST was going to say "elma/rex" or something and even in catching himself he said "xenoblade characters" thinking (that works thats vague) but its pluralized so its actually still a slip up.

its an odd moment, again could go either way totally possible he just forgot shulks name and also accidentally pluralized character"s" but its worth looking at anyway as xenoblade getting more reps is pretty likely and bill having knowledge of characters is pretty likely too, so if anyone COULD potentially slip up its him.