Official Smash Ultimate Discussion

[SonicMario]

Interesting thing to note about Geno: There were 6 DLC Packs for Mii Costumes. Geno was the only character for DLC Pack 5: https://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_Mii_Outfits

I'm not sure why this was done, but he also was the only Mii costume to get a title card:

So yeah, Geno has a bit of special treatment by Sakurai and the Smash Developers. There is a reason why people think he's likely in this time around (If Square gave them the right to make these costumes, what's the problem for letting them work on an original character?)

Additionally, if the inclusion of these Mii costumes and their potential sales point to anything (so far, Chrom, K. Rool, and Inkling are in, while Ashley, Knuckles, and Zero are Assist trophies), then the following Characters could still be considered as potentials for Smash Ultimate:

Isabelle
Heihachi (Bamco)
Akira/Jacky (Sega)
Black Knight
Lloyd (Bamco)
Viridi
Monster Hunter (Capcom)
Geno (Square)
Gil (Bamco)
Majora's Mask

With the rest of costumed characters being deconfirmed (either being Assist Trophies, part of a Final Smash or move (Toad), etc).

So going over each:

Isabelle: If Vergeben is correct, she is in

Heihachi and Lloyd: Being Bamco characters and Smash now being a Bamco created game, these costumes may have been added because of this reason (to see if there is any interest in a Bamco character for the game). Either could happen, just don't know IF they'll happen. Could be either AT's or Characters.

Akira/Jacky: Sega reps. To me, Virtua Fighter just seems like a lesser Tekken/Street Fighter in terms of competition so I'm not sure if they'd ever be considered. At most maybe an AT.

Black Knight: As per the screenshots posted before, his absence in the background (if its him) may hint at his inclusion if Sakurai wanted to eliminate redundancy. Echo fighter for Ike is possible.

Viridi: I could see her happening, but I'm not sure how much priority Sakurai would put for her over Medusa, who'd fit better as an Echo fighter (but perhaps he makes her one with different proportions?). However I can see both happening over someone like Hades. She could be a very cool AT however, while Medusa takes the role of Echo fighter.

Monster Hunter: It being conspicuously absent from Rathalos's trailer and likely the difficuly in making a balanced moveset (You'd have 14 different weapon types to choose from) possibly means its not in the base roster at least. I don't see him/her being an AT, since Rathalos is in, but perhaps a DLC character in the future since Monster Hunter is more popular than ever before.

Geno: Explained earlier. I have reasons to believe he is in the game.

Gil: I actually see this being the surprise/wtf/retro character. It, however, is yet another 3rd party character owned by Bamco. Like Lloyd and Heihachi, I'm just not sure what their reasoning was for including this Mii costume, only that its possible Bamco wanted the Smash 4 team to gauge who fans might have liked out of the 3 while they worked on Ultimate post-2015.

Majora's Mask: This is a tricky one. The mask is not a character, but primarily owned by Skull Kid. However, due to Skull Kid's "hints" (possible removal as an AT/Replaced with the Moon, item that performs his exact same function as an AT, Young Link's final smash being hidden, remixed MM music in Ultimate, Termina returning, etc) and common acceptance as a possible character for Ultimate, I'll say that its possible he is a character.

So out of all of this, if I had to guess, based solely on Mii Costumes:

Unique Newcomers:
Geno
Skull Kid
Heihachi/Lloyd/Gil

Echo Fighters:
Medusa
Isabelle
Black Knight

AT's:
Viridi
Akira/Jacky
Heihachi/Lloyd/Gil (Whomever does not get a newcomer promotion, perhaps none receive one)


I want to make it clear that aside from these characters, everyone else from the Mii costume list is represented so far in Smash Ultimate in some way, new or old! Be it an assist trophy (Ashley, Zero, etc), actual newcomers (K. Rool, Inkling, Chrom, etc), final smash assets (Proto-man, Mega Man .exe,

And just to make clear: This has nothing to do with characters not on this list. Ridley was not a mii costume. Dark Samus was not a Mii costume, Daisy was not a Mii costume. Isaac, a pokemon, Banjo, Bandana Dee, Albert Einstein, and George Washington all still have the ability to get into Smash.

In all seriousness though, this just may point at who we could expect outside of other obvious characters.

Any thoughts?

You forgot Tails. Sure, he's in the background of Green Hill Zone still. But that is a stage that's pretty old by now. And you listed Viridi amongst your potentials despite her presence already been shown in the background of Reset Bomb Forest in a screenshot.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

Bandana Dee is very popular among casual fans so I'm not really sure what your point is.

Personally I put his chances down to roughly a coin flip.

Among the casual fans that I know, literally none of them understand the appeal of Bandanna Waddle Dee. Even one of my friends who LOVES Star Allies and Return to Dream Land asked me, “Why?” after playing.

 

[DaybreakHorizon]

Wasn't there a leak or two supposedly saying we would get a Nindies direct? or is that highly unlikely? I can't remember... I know i read it sometime paaaaages ago. DaybreakHorizon should know.

To be completely honest with everyone I'm horribly behind on both the count and my archives. I remember a "leak" like that, but I'd need time to pull it up. I know I said I wouldn't do it, but I might have to end the count aspect of the project and focus on archival. I might also have to end Sessions here because I'm only going to get busier. I will bring up supposed leaks when requested, however, and will report on "leaks" of interest when they pop up.

My apologies everyone.

 

[Deleted member]

...
What an odd choice of message to leave on.

Im still getting a farewell thread ready

 

[XenoWarriorX]

Preeeeeeeeeeach. Been saying this for awhile now. This site will never learn, and for every member that does, 4 more will appear that haven't learned.

Also, for anyone saying they think sakurai was just pulling the community's legs by telling us not to expect many characters, please stop. Literally the quickest way to disappoint yourself. You are the poster that says "I cant believe this is it" and "really underwhelming roster, can't believe sakurai let us down" on release date.

Sakurai has 0 reason to lie to you. If he even felt the need to tell you not to look out for a ton of newcomers, it's because he felt he needed to throw out some preemptive damage control. Please take him at face value for your own sake. Way better to be surprised with what you end up getting than to feel like what you got sucks. Keep those expectations in check.

Well, that's why i'm expecting my main choices as assist trophies. I'm hoping they are, but at this point, i wouldn't be surprised if they get in as AT.

*shrug* i'll just be happy with assist trophies.

 

[Deleted member]

Bayonetta has Sex Pistols the Demon, not Star Platinum.

Don't you mean "Six Bullets?"

 

[Deleted member]

Don't count echoes in that number though. 16 of those characters are unique and original. Only 4 of Ultimate's characters so far are unique. We could get 10 unique characters overall and it still be "signficantly less" than Smash 4's new characters.

Even if we got 20 Echoes on top of that, they aren't original or exactly new, but it could be feasibly easier to make those 20 characters than it would be to make another 6 unique characters.


This is why I have a feeling Sakurai is kind of messing with us. Yes, I don't expect to get "too many more fighters" in terms of newcomers (maybe 4-6 more), but I almost half expect there to be another 10-12 Echoes tucked away here. They apparently do not take nearly as long to make, and in order to compensate for a lower number of unique newcomers this time around, Sakurai may add more of these to make everyone happier.

I didn't think of it that way. If that's true, that'd be pretty cool. I think to not over-hype myself, though, I'm going to continue to treat the echoes introduced as part of the numbers. With them literally sharing the number with their doppleganger, though...you're more than likely right.

 

[Shroob]

Preeeeeeeeeeach. Been saying this for awhile now. This site will never learn, and for every member that does, 4 more will appear that haven't learned.

Also, for anyone saying they think sakurai was just pulling the community's legs by telling us not to expect many characters, please stop. Literally the quickest way to disappoint yourself. You are the poster that says "I cant believe this is it" and "really underwhelming roster, can't believe sakurai let us down" on release date.

Sakurai has 0 reason to lie to you. If he even felt the need to tell you not to look out for a ton of newcomers, it's because he felt he needed to throw out some preemptive damage control. Please take him at face value for your own sake. Way better to be surprised with what you end up getting than to feel like what you got sucks. Keep those expectations in check.

I mean, we're already at 8 newcomers, and if Vergeben is right, then that's another 3.

I count Echoes as newcomers, so 11 newcomers would be a lot to me, just saying.

 

[Thirdkoopa]

Also, I get that Bandanna Waddle Dee is requested a lot, but let's be reasonable here: Kirby, as a collective whole, is popular in Japan

Not that anyone has any proof for this, but you can pick any prominent Kirby character and most people will probably be pretty happy. Contrary to popular belief, I definitely think Kirby could have 6 characters. It probably won't, if ever, but it's worth discussing.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

Random thought, Lucina and Dark Pit were particularly quick to make because they already had voices models lined up to be alt cosutmes.

I'm thinking this time around, they made a big ol' list of Echos and have the models planned in advance, with them seeing how far they can push their luck.

I'm betting that if Hilda isn't an echo, she will have been planned at some point, hence no costume on Zelda.

 

[StormC]

Among the casual fans that I know, literally none of them understand the appeal of Bandanna Waddle Dee. Even one of my friends who LOVES Star Allies and Return to Dream Land asked me, “Why?” after playing.

I mean, sure it's all anecdotal, but Bandana Dee is a pretty popular character on websites like Tumblr, which has far less of the "diehard Smash obsessive who knows what the hell a design document is" type of fans. Plus Kirby is just very popular in general among more casual Nintendo fans.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

To be completely honest with everyone I'm horribly behind on both the count and my archives. I remember a "leak" like that, but I'd need time to pull it up. I know I said I wouldn't do it, but I might have to end the count aspect of the project and focus on archival. I might also have to end Sessions here because I'm only going to get busier. I will bring up supposed leaks when requested, however, and will report on "leaks" of interest when they pop up.

My apologies everyone.

At the very least, I would like to see leaks that have BOTH Elma AND Bandana Dee as playables. That should narrow down the selection I think.

(Every time I see a leak with Elma as an AT I die a little inside )

 

[Will]

Don't you mean "Six Bullets?"

Damn copyright owners. Always doing these Filthy Acts at a Reasonable Price to keep these names.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

Im still getting a farewell thread ready

Ah, that makes more sense, fair enough.

I wonder how 3rd party echos went.

Probably something like:

"You want more amiibo money, right?"

 

[Pakky]

Bayonetta has Sex Pistols the Demon, not Star Platinum.

I beg to differ

How long can you last in the Witch Time?

 

[Johnknight1]

Dude exit polls exist for a reason. The Pushdustin one had him at 7th or something behind a bunch of other already confirmed characters and in a recent expectancy poll he came in a 2nd. I am not making these things up lol. The truth is he was popular in the ballot, he is popular worldwide as evident from his inclusions in basically every kirby game post 2012.

We
Have Not
Seen
The SMASH BALLOT

All we know is Bayonetta got a lot of votes and won the vote at least early, and Ridley, Dark Samus and Chrom (and likely the Belmonts and K. Rool too) got a lot of votes.

That's it. None of these pollings or data samplings are the Smash Ballots.

According to Sakurai, the six Melee clones altogether didn't equal the work of one unique newcomer, and while the Echoes can have adjusted animations, they still don't appear to be as different gameplay-wise as the Melee clones were. Based on that quote regarding the Melee clones, for a rough estimate I think Echoes require somewhere around the 5-15% range of the work of a unique newcomer, with the likes of Dark Pit and Richter being in the lower end while the likes of Dark Samus are in the higher end.

^^^ This is a very good and simple analysis of this.

 

[vaanrose]

That was roughly the estimate I had in my head before I asked. How long would you say it took for Dark Pit? The model is pretty much exact. Lucina's model is obviously different, but everything else seems pretty much the same. This stuff is interesting to me so I like to get insight from people who know how it works.

Dark Pit may be the exact same model as regular Pit. Maybe, I'd have to look at it closer. But none of the other echoes are built off of the original models, not even Dark Samus. It's actually easier and faster to just start from scratch than it is trying to take a pre-existing asset and adjust it into something else.

Model work is both really, really fast, and really, really slow. You can get 75% of the way there in a day, it's why you don't need to build off an existing asset. Then that last 25% can take weeks. It goes back to what I was saying about the process taking longer now because everything is HD. That last 25% is really technical, making sure all your triangles are placed exactly where they need to be, that all the detail work is readable from various distances, etc. It's by far the slowest part of the process and why so much hobbyist 3D work doesn't even bother.

For a game like Smash, it's probably a lot faster than your standard video game because the characters aren't really meant to be seen up close, but they obviously still get some love from that distance.

 

[Deleted member]

Damn copyright owners. Always doing these Filthy Acts at a Reasonable Price to keep these names.

Can't wait for Stone Ocean, where Jolyne names her stand Stone Ocean so she can be free of this "Stone Ocean."

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

I mean, sure it's all anecdotal, but Bandana Dee is a pretty popular character on websites like Tumblr, which has far less of the "diehard Smash obsessive who knows what the hell a design document is" type of fans. Plus Kirby is just very popular in general among more casual Nintendo fans.

Perhaps, but your point was that he’s “popular among the casual base”. My counter to that was that there are casuals who don’t care for the character, or a handful of others for that matter.

In certain areas BWD might be a big pick, but there are still plenty of casual or hardcore players alike who don’t get the appeal. It isn’t so cut and dry.

 

[vaanrose]

"You want more amiibo money, right?"

I enjoy imagining Sakurai implementing an echo just because he wants an Amiibo made of them.

 

[Deleted member]

Perhaps, but your point was that he’s “popular among the casual base”. My counter to that was that there are casuals who don’t care for the character, or a handful of others for that matter.

In certain areas BWD might be a big pick, but there are still plenty of casual or hardcore players alike who don’t get the appeal. It isn’t so cut and dry.

if (casualPlayer == true)
likeWaddleDee = true;

C'mon, it's simple logic.

 

[Will]

Can't wait for Stone Ocean, where Jolyne names her stand Stone Ocean so she can be free of this "Stone Ocean."

I can't wait for everyone's favorite Stone Ocean fight: Flaccid Pancake.

 

[StormC]

Perhaps, but your point was that he’s “popular among the casual base”. My counter to that was that there are casuals who don’t care for the character, or a handful of others for that matter.

In certain areas BWD might be a big pick, but there are still plenty of casual or hardcore players alike who don’t get the appeal. It isn’t so cut and dry.

Saying he's "popular among casual fans" doesn't mean "literally every casual fan want him in Smash." Of course there are casuals that don't care about him, or hardcore fans. I'm not sure what it means to point that out.
K. Rool and Ridley sure as hell had lots of fans - hardcore and casual - against them, but

 

[Guybrush20X6]

I enjoy imagining Sakurai implementing an echo just because he wants an Amiibo made of them.

A good 20% of why I want Gardevoir in Smash, after Pokken turned out to be a bust on that front.

 

[Deleted member]

I can't wait for everyone's favorite Stone Ocean fight: Flaccid Pancake.

At least they gave us Maiden Heaven, which is easily the best censored name.

 

[Wyoming]

Hey wait a minute I just realized I'll be able to play Jump Up Super Star on Mushroomy Kingdom

 

[CatRaccoonBL]

I think the problem with a lot of arguments I've been seeing against BWD is that they apply to a lot of characters and yet for some reason are only applying to Bandana Waddle Dee.

Like people are saying, "Bandana Waddle Dee popularity is just an echo chamber" and then immediately follow up with "Geno and Isaac are way more popular."

Like you have no proof either and Geno and Isaac also have a lot against their potential popularity. Like how Geno was in one game way back during the 1990s. And Isaac is a JRPG character. JRPGs are niche franchises by nature. That's not to say they aren't popular. But just like Bandana Waddle Dee they have potential things that might hamper their popularity. If you are going to throw up Bandana Waddle Dee's ways of showing he is popular, you have to throw up everyone elses as well.

 

[Will]

At least they gave us Maiden Heaven, which is easily the best censored name.

You'd wish they could be more creative with these dub names.

Crazed Diamond? Nah, Shining Diamond.
Kill A Queen? Nah, DEADLY Queen and its QUALITY face.

I think the change that makes the least amount of sense is Nut King Call. It's not even close to Nat King Cole in the first place, so why change it Viz?

 

[SquashiniKun]

At least they gave us Maiden Heaven, which is easily the best censored name.

You guys forgot about Filthy Acts At A Reasonable Price? Shame on you both!

EDIT: 'd

 

[Guybrush20X6]

Ah trademark law, putting dubbing back to the 90's.

 

[Thirdkoopa]

A good 20% of why I want Gardevoir in Smash, after Pokken turned out to be a bust on that front.

I think the whole "Toys to Game" thing kinda died out quickly so I don't think that was just a Pokken thing.

Saying he's "popular among casual fans" doesn't mean "literally every casual fans like him in Smash." Of course there are casuals that don't care about him, or hardcore fans. I'm not sure what it means to point that out.

People act like it's that, which was part of my point I was bringing up months ago when I said "he's the least interesting option of the Kirby characters". You could easily add in another character before hand. It reminds me of how people were dismissive over Rosalina but said that Toad's probably getting in and... well...

I don't think I need to talk about how that ended

(I don't even think being dismissive of Dee is a good idea; just that it's interesting to discuss other options)

I enjoy imagining Sakurai implementing an echo just because he wants an Amiibo made of them.

Now we know the real reason Corrin got in!

 

[DarkFalcon]

Dark Pit may be the exact same model as regular Pit. Maybe, I'd have to look at it closer. But none of the other echoes are built off of the original models, not even Dark Samus. It's actually easier and faster to just start from scratch than it is trying to take a pre-existing asset and adjust it into something else.

Model work is both really, really fast, and really, really slow. You can get 75% of the way there in a day, it's why you don't need to build off an existing asset. Then that last 25% can take weeks. It goes back to what I was saying about the process taking longer now because everything is HD. That last 25% is really technical, making sure all your triangles are placed exactly where they need to be, that all the detail work is readable from various distances, etc. It's by far the slowest part of the process and why so much hobbyist 3D work doesn't even bother.

For a game like Smash, it's probably a lot faster than your standard video game because the characters aren't really meant to be seen up close, but they obviously still get some love from that distance.

Fascinating stuff. Going back to something you mentioned earlier to someone else. So it's not only entirely possible, but also likely a lot of the models we've seen will constantly be getting touched up until release? How is that balanced with working on models for new fighters?

 

[PLATINUM7]

You guys forgot about Filthy Acts At A Reasonable Price? Shame on you both!

Damn copyright owners. Always doing these Filthy Acts at a Reasonable Price to keep these names.

No, you just missed a post.

 

[Will]

You guys forgot about Filthy Acts At A Reasonable Price? Shame on you both!

I'm sorry for the loss of your eyesight.

Damn copyright owners. Always doing these Filthy Acts at a Reasonable Price to keep these names.

 

[Deleted member]

You guys forgot about Filthy Acts At A Reasonable Price? Shame on you both!

Nah, that was mentioned earlier, and Filthy Acts At A Reasonable Price technically isn't the censored name. I'm pretty sure that all instances of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap are changed to D4C, and it's just Valentine's GHA (also named Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap) that becomes Filthy Acts. Granted, some instances where he says it are changed (like to "Time to perform some filthy acts for a fair and reasonable price") but the stand is just D4C.

 

[Johnknight1]

Also you have way too much confidence in your own intuition, you keep bringing up how you have been "doing smash speculation for nearly two decades" or whatever and look, I don't give a damn lol. You made a claim that Bandanna Dee wouldn't drum up hype the way other characters have and because of that he won't be included in the game. I keep bringing up reasons why the character is popular and your response every time is basically "oh he may be popular in _______ but the MASSES don't care about him". Again, what masses? If he's popular basically all over the internet and is a popular character from a popular series, IN WHAT WAY IS HE NOT POPULAR? Just because your OWN twitter echo chamber doesn't include a lot of people who want the character doesn't mean he is not heavily requested.

I don't trust my intuition, I trust past precedent and what I am seeing outside of my little bubble.

Bandanna Dee has a bit of the problem of just not looking like an exciting option or sticking out from other Kirby characters, whereas like Ridley stands out immediately. K. Rool stands out immediately. Everything about Simon (with that old school walk too haha) and Richter (with that early 90's feel and touch) stands out in a way that appeals to people not as intimate with the Kirby series or the character can appreciate.

It's very hard to translate that into Smash; it's part of why K. Rool kind of took so long, despite standout out so damn much. Some people thought he would be too similar to Bowser! Some people thought Mega Man would be too similar to Samus. People have a lot of such opinions outside of our bubble, and many just flat don't care about a lot of characters you me and other people posting here care about. That's just a fact of life and speculation.

Yes twitter has a much broader audience than sites like this one, but you realize that every social media site is designed to create a bubble around its users of people and ideas which they like and agree with. I'm done debating this unless you can actually give some solid reasons as to why he is not popular as other characters.

You are bringing up data samplings and polls from specific communities trying to connect that he is a broadly popular character with overarching huge audiences. I am mentioning Twitter and how big Twitter personalities in the Smash scenes hype up characters like Geno, K. Rool, Ridley, etc far far far far far more loudly than I've ever heard Bandanna Dee support.

And my argument wasn't that Bandanna Dee isn't popular, it is that he isn't that popular with mass audiences. Kirby games sell decently, not amazingly. They do not garner much media attention because they are seen as simple and mostly very same-y from one to the next by mass audiences (I don't agree with that but perception > reality when it comes to opinions). Kirby also suffers from never growing as a series; it's mostly stayed the same size, whereas say Fire Emblem has grown exponentially and Mario and Pokémon have remained juggernauts while Zelda has recently somewhat regained that juggernaut status.

So far I'm not seeing "proof" Bandanna Dee hype exists beyond the echo chambers of text and image boards and Reddit. These specific sites cater to very specific fanbases. Tens of millions of people play Smash games every year, and how many talk about what characters they want in Smash for over 10,000 words a year on the internet on image or message boards? Not even 10,000 people.

We are a super small subculture. You don't have to agree with me, but you do need to accept that what is "accepted" as a viewpoint here in regards to what the masses want/feel/think oftentimes is not accurate. At least stop and step back and think upon that when analyzing a character.

For example... it took Geno like... 10 years of constant support to even begin to break that bubble.

 

[Nazyrus]

Guess not, but if all the hints are taken into account, I think it'd make sense if Skull Kid was revealed next.

Oh for sure, i really wouldn't be able to cope if he isn't the next one confirmed…

 

[Murlough]

K calm down I’m just going off of polls. Who do you think should be in? Then we’ll discuss but I’m not going to debate with you if you have to insult characters.

I was nothing but calm and said “just my opinion.” -.-

What more do you want?

But they are. I'm sorry but you not knowing a lot of incredibly popular characters is 100% your fault and nobody's else. The fact that there's a large userbase that has been following Smash releases since forever while you're pretty much new to them says more about you than anything people are asking. You can complain as much as you want, but these characters have been highly requested for years, you being fairly young doesn't change any of that.

*sighs*

I specifically asked for their appeal to be explained to me, because I’m not stupid contrary to yalls belief’ and you just wanna act like I’mbeing an Asshole.

Maybe.....just MAYBE you could do me the service of explaining to me why the characters are cool like I asked instead of jumping down my throat for having a different opinion than you.

But of course you won’t because you gotta get those dank likes from other people who can’t read.

 

[BlondeLombax]

To be completely honest with everyone I'm horribly behind on both the count and my archives. I remember a "leak" like that, but I'd need time to pull it up. I know I said I wouldn't do it, but I might have to end the count aspect of the project and focus on archival. I might also have to end Sessions here because I'm only going to get busier. I will bring up supposed leaks when requested, however, and will report on "leaks" of interest when they pop up.

My apologies everyone.

Don't worry about it, we all have different things to change for the sake of bettering ourselves. And if someone demands a session for whatever stupid reason that they prefer them over archival, I have the perfect cannon fodder for you right here.

 

[GunBlaze]

Hey wait a minute I just realized I'll be able to play Jump Up Super Star on Mushroomy Kingdom

N64 MK, nonetheless!