Official Smash Ultimate Discussion

[Shadowwolflink]

I've been thinking about Geno and how people keep saying things like "I'd rather have [other character] as the second Square Enix rep", but what if Sakurai and SE don't see Geno as a second rep for for the company, considering he would be under the Mario franchise?

 

[MoonlitIllusion]

It's only fair to talk about Snake's nerfed butt too.

he's literally a soldier, in order for snake to truly be realistic he needs his bubble butt back

 

[DarkFalcon]

I've been thinking about Geno and how people keep saying things like "I'd rather have [other character] as the second Square Enix rep", but what if Sakurai and SE don't see Geno as a second rep for for the company, considering he would be under the Mario franchise?

SE owns Geno. Even if he's from a Mario game he's still 3rd party. They'll consider him 3rd party.

 

[praline]

I've been thinking about Geno and how people keep saying things like "I'd rather have [other character] as the second Square Enix rep", but what if Sakurai and SE don't see Geno as a second rep for for the company, considering he would be under the Mario franchise?

I don’t think Geno would be under the Mario franchise. I’m pretty sure he’d have his own symbol and victory jingle.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

That's fair, there's nothing wrong with still enjoying the character but it's worth acknowledging the unrealistic beauty standards that come with it and the effects that can have. And I wouldn't be annoyed by overtly sexualised female characters if the same were true for male characters but it's really not, put classic lara next to nathan drake and the difference is clear as day. It's just so obvious that these characters are designed for a male audience and by a male audience, I just wish the industry was more equal in that regard.

Wait. Are you implying Nathan isn't super handsome?

Like, I get it female characters are often more blatant in sexualization but the majority of characters male and female are designed on the ideal standards of beauty because we as people (and this stings to say) don't care about unattractive people in fiction.

 

[DraginHikari]

I've been thinking about Geno and how people keep saying things like "I'd rather have [other character] as the second Square Enix rep", but what if Sakurai and SE don't see Geno as a second rep for for the company, considering he would be under the Mario franchise?

What makes 3rd party characters complicated is the licensing costs and contracts with using said character being considered a Mario character wouldn't change that much.

 

[MoonlitIllusion]

I don’t think Geno would be under the Mario franchise. I’m pretty sure he’d have his own symbol and victory jingle.

But he's only ever been in mario games, having anything else would be weird, and what would they even call his franchise when his game is literally called "super mario rpg"

Sidenote, can nintendo not just buy back the rights to geno if they really wanted to use him? I don't know how these things work obviously but it's not like square is using him so it can't be too hard

 

[Over9000BPM]

Wait. Are you implying Nathan isn't super handsome?

Like, I get it female characters are often more blatant in sexualization but the majority of characters male and female are designed on the ideal standards of beauty because we as people (and this stings to say) don't care about unattractive people in fiction.

I think the issue is that the “ideal” male physique would cause less issues for the owner than the “ideal” female physique. But fictional characters don’t have to worry about that, unless the writer is sadistic like that lol.

 

[Shadowwolflink]

SE owns Geno. Even if he's from a Mario game he's still 3rd party. They'll consider him 3rd party.

I know he's owned by Square Enix, but I'm wondering if they would consider him a representative for their company. Like, they could say "you can use Geno (since Sakurai has been fairly vocal about wanting to use him), but we want to have another character to help advertise our brand.

 

[RandomAce]

I've been thinking about Geno and how people keep saying things like "I'd rather have [other character] as the second Square Enix rep", but what if Sakurai and SE don't see Geno as a second rep for for the company, considering he would be under the Mario franchise?

I guess it’s a possibility since he is always associated with Mario and is only connected to SE for their rights. But I guess in terms of rights, Geno is your second SE Rep. Otherwise, his Emblem, any fun references, maybe even his jingle, etc. will all most likely be grouped with the other Mario characters.

——————————————
Off topic, but this is reminding me of a video I watched about why Sora isn’t going to make it into Smash, but the guy’s arguement throughout the whole video was that Sora can’t make it because third parties can only have 2 characters per company and that since the second one would go to Geno, Sora has no chance. That was one of the most stupidest arguements I’ve seen since it just seems like another arbitrary fan rule.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

This is an excellent analysis and maining the character there isn't really much that I disagree with.

I've long held that the airdodge system is a boon for ROB. Part of it is that it gives him some much needed horizontal aerial mobility, but his recovery is also probably the one it damages the least. His kit is also effective at sniping opponents who find themselves offstage. Other mechanical changes are also helpful - such as the return of glide tossing in the E3 build.

Other than that I've never felt his grab range was that good (I can link YT videos to exercise this point if necessary) and I think the burial effect of down throw is potentially being dangerously underrated. Provided they can't mash out near instantly, there is a LOT that can be done from it. I've spent some time labbing with Pitfalls just to see:

Down Throw -> Up Smash: this doesn't kill earlier than Beep Boop necessarily, but it does so more consistently - recall that Up Smash has a grounded hitbox to knock opponents into the main explosion, which unburies the opponent and ensures they take full knockback (in Smash 4). Assuming equal damage values it is also a higher damage output than Beep Boop. Uncharged Up Smash will kill Dedede at 125% from the centre of Battlefield in training mode - making down throw an effective kill throw on what I understand to be the character with the highest vertical survivability in the game at <120%. That's insane. For comparison, Mewtwos up throw doesn't kill in the same scenario until 174%.

Otherwise, the generous autocancel windows on ROBs N-Air and the good base knockback allows it to unbury opponents at relatively lower percents and combo into other things. The two most notable I've seen true combo are these:

1) N-Air -> SH F-Air (which leads to a potential jablock)
2) N-Air -> U-Tilt -> U-Air

Obviously these are labbed within Smash 4 but it's a good barometer for the sorts of things we could be seeing in Ultimate. This said, even if we get nothing more than Down Throw -> U-Smash, I still believe that's a noticeable buff overall.

- - - - -

The tl;dr is that I feel he is perhaps being overlooked somewhat in the build up to release (I've seen people suggest him as a bottom 10 character on the early impressions thread) but he is set to benefit from the mechanical changes as well as improvements that could give him the single strongest punish game off of a grab, and nerfs to several of the characters who are responsible for him struggling previously (notably Cloud and Bayonetta). As a long suffering ROB main in Smash 4 I'm very excited.

What insane people would be ranking characters who have never been played publicly? R.O.B. isn't in the demo; it makes no sense for him to be bottom 10 already especially given that he doesn't have a negative history (he's not a bad character in either Brawl or 4, just not a top character either). It's even worse because R.O.B. managed to be at least somewhat above average in Brawl and 4 despite the focus of both metas ending up being unfavorable to him which to me suggests his kit has a lot more inherent upside than downside versus past results.

Dthrow to usmash is not a terrible argument, and yeah, that's about Ness bthrow kill ranges which would be fantastic since that's absolute top of the line kill throw potential, but grounding is pretty easy to mash out of in 4 and somehow I imagine something is going to work out just wrong for that to kill so easily. Definitely you're right that this is something to look out for and something very much worth a very early test when the game launches; I agree that this is the sort of thing that can make a top tier if it works out.

Correction on that, ROB has the absolute worst grab reach in the game (the hitboxes don't even cover his entire arms), and it makes getting grabs really difficult without the aid of Gyro.

But otherwise yes I am optimistic about ROB in Ultimate, mainly as the air dodge revamp brings other characters' disadvantage state down closer to his (while making his nair a much more valuable tool relatively in disadvantage), and for making ROB's edgeguarding potentially really scary (while ROB didn't rely on air dodge much anyway for recovery and thus doesn't care as much about its tremendous nerf).

Good call on the fact check; I had been relying on intuition and never realized R.O.B.'s standing grab was actually pretty small. That being said, I'm seeing basically two sources here that paint very different stories. There's this video which is defining grab range as the difference between the furthest point of your character's bump collision and the furthest point of the grabbox:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOXQJKrx_wQ

That suggests R.O.B. is the single worst in the game.

Then we have this source:

https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/3xxw0z/ranking_of_all_characters_grab_ranges_in_smash_4/

This measures the difference between the furthest point of the character's hurtbox and the grab range. Due to R.O.B.'s body shape that has most of his "front" body not really hittable since it's mostly air, this produces a VERY different result for him putting him at rank 30 out of 53 (they excluded Miis and this was from before Corrin and Bayonetta were introduced, though I don't think R.O.B. got a grab range nerf in those last few patches?). It's still a good fact check since he's below average either way, but it seems like depending on your measurement methodology he's either slightly below average or the worst in the game which is a pretty significant difference. In practice the hurtbox is probably more meaningful than the bump collision so I feel like "slightly below average" is probably closer to accurate than worst in the game? I dunno; it would be a really good topic to do a deep dive into if I still was trying to really get better at Smash 4.

Neither source considered running grabs at all either (or pivot grabs) which is also pretty significant since frequently R.O.B. will rely on his running grab for those mid-range situations. I honestly wasn't able to find any data on these grabs at all; it was very disappointing, but I'm 100% confident it's not an identical ranking to standing grabs. It was actually extremely surprising to me that seemingly no one over the years has ever measured that, but if I'm wrong and just didn't find it, definitely let me know.

Definitely I should put some work into doing some more proper analysis of Ultimate when it comes out. The results of my search for this data to look into your claims were mostly just disappointing in how sparse data really was, but this stuff really does matter a lot.

 

[MoonlitIllusion]

Wait. Are you implying Nathan isn't super handsome?

Like, I get it female characters are often more blatant in sexualization but the majority of characters male and female are designed on the ideal standards of beauty because we as people (and this stings to say) don't care about unattractive people in fiction.

Nathan is attractive but he's definitely not sexualised, he has a completely normal body and a completely practical outfit unlike classic lara croft had

 

[Will]

I know he's owned by Square Enix, but I'm wondering if they would consider him a representative for their company. Like, they could say "you can use Geno (since Sakurai has been fairly vocal about wanting to use him), but we want to have another character to help advertise our brand.

I'm unsure if that's how that works. Like, I think Richter came along because of the opportunity rather than Konami's persuasion.

Sakurai's like "Wait I have the ability to go anywhere in the Castlevania brand?"
Konami's like "Yeah"
Then Sakurai goes "**** we based Simon off of Richter, let me use him too."
and then Konami gives a thumbs up and goes back to swimming in its pool of gachapon money. i would've preferred trevor but oh well maybe as a DLC skin or something

 

[Impa4Smash]

The splash screen for Geno’s Mii Costume still makes me curious when no one else, like K Rool got one.

What if Sakurai couldn’t get SE to play ball with Geno as a fighter, and the Mii Costume was made such a big deal of because that’s all he’ll get

Or, even more likely, I’m completely over analazying a irrelevant splash screen

 

[Momotsuki]

I've seen people discredit Verge because "Ridley was a safe guess." Not only are there much stronger points against him that these people could be using, Ridley was anything but a safe guess. He was explicitly deconfirmed by Mr. Sakurai himself in spite of the fan demand that was known to exist. Ridley would have been an incredibly bold guess if Verge was simply taking stabs in the dark, and would have been FOOLISH if he was simply guessing and hoped to be right. I'm not saying Verge is 100% right, just that Ridley was not at all a safe guess and that is not a valid point against him.

 

[Chrono.]

https://twitter.com/BandaiNamcoUK/status/636821428625670144
View attachment 159904

Should've asked the US Bandai guy cause he would've memed on you.

 

[Dixie Kong]

It would be fun to have the cartoon versions of the DK, Kirby, Pokémon, Castlevania, Mario, and Sonic characters as alts.
Just think of cartoon Dixie!

 

[MoonlitIllusion]

I've seen people discredit Verge because "Ridley was a safe guess." Not only are there much stronger points against him, Ridley was anything but a safe guess. He was explicitly deconfirmed by Mr. Sakurai himself in spite of the fan demand that was known to exist. Ridley would have been an incredibly bold guess if Verge was simply taking stabs in the dark. I'm not saying Verge is 100% right, just that Ridley was not at all safe guess and that is not a valid point against him.

Ridley was being hinted at by others so it wasn't completely out of left field, but the fact that he got both him and simon right when practically no one else was talking about simon makes me think he's legit. Although verg apparently has some bad sources so I wouldn't take everything he says as gospel

 

[Pakky]

Ya'know the being a 'safe' guess is thing is funny.

 

[Impa4Smash]

I've seen people discredit Verge because "Ridley was a safe guess." Not only are there much stronger points against him, Ridley was anything but a safe guess. He was explicitly deconfirmed by Mr. Sakurai himself in spite of the fan demand that was known to exist. Ridley would have been an incredibly bold guess if Verge was simply taking stabs in the dark. I'm not saying Verge is 100% right, just that Ridley was not at all safe guess and that is not a valid point against him.

It’s hard to deny Verge knew something since he got Snake, Wolf, Ice Climbers, Ridley, and Simon right.

But we have yet to see any of his leaks after his first one, like Isabelle, Gen 7 Rep who is probably Incenorar, etc. And also still no Minecraft either

So I’m still skeptical but he at least had some info

 

[Momotsuki]

It would be fun to have the cartoon versions of the DK, Kirby, Pokémon, Castlevania, Mario, and Sonic characters as alts.
Just think of cartoon Dixie!

I'd pay 120$ for the game if Anime Dedede was in it, not gonna lie.

 

[Noipoi]

Wait. Are you implying Nathan isn't super handsome?

Like, I get it female characters are often more blatant in sexualization but the majority of characters male and female are designed on the ideal standards of beauty because we as people (and this stings to say) don't care about unattractive people in fiction.

Good thing i'm not fictional, because i'm ugly as sin!

 

[KMDP]

Oh yeah, I’d forgotten what a pain that was! Just illustrating that I’m mainly bothered by the sudden change that doesn’t seem precedented, because I’ve looked and Zamus look smaller in Ultimate than she does in Zero Mission, Other M, Samus Returns and every other Smash game.

To be honest, Sheik as she looks now is how she should have looked from the start, in my opinion. It's not like it's immediately obvious she's female unless you're really looking, but I digress.

That's fair, there's nothing wrong with still enjoying the character but it's worth acknowledging the unrealistic beauty standards that come with it and the effects that can have. And I wouldn't be annoyed by overtly sexualised female characters if the same were true for male characters but it's really not, put classic lara next to nathan drake and the difference is clear as day. It's just so obvious that these characters are designed for a male audience and by a male audience, I just wish the industry was more equal in that regard.

I will admit I don't like the new design for Lara compared to the older one, but it's more than just me being a perv. Original Lara is what I'm used to, it's what I know. New Lara doesn't look like Lara Croft to me.

However, I don't really have much right to complain because I don't really play Tomb Raider games (I've only played bits and pieces of them, and they don't gel well with me on a playstyle level).

Anyway, about "unrealistic beauty standards"... I'll let Swamp take it.

Wait. Are you implying Nathan isn't super handsome?

Like, I get it female characters are often more blatant in sexualization but the majority of characters male and female are designed on the ideal standards of beauty because we as people (and this stings to say) don't care about unattractive people in fiction.

It's all about escapism and power fantasies. Unless the writer is going for something very specific, then it's better to have the character be attractive.

Is the fact that "unattractive" Men can get by in Hollywood while the same can't be said of Women a problem? Yes, no question. But you shouldn't take down the successful (in this case, attractive people) to raise up the unsuccessful (in this case, the unattractive).

Besides, I can't really say much more about a real woman's opinion of characters like Samus and Lara, because I am Male; and I cannot speak for a female's frame of mind

This discussion reminds me of that one old Penny Arcade comic about the Dragon's Crown sorceress, which was the epitome of false equivalency. I'll leave it to people to look up because it's not exactly safe for work. Let's just say that what they showed for the "Male Equivalent" to the Sorceress is not the equivalent at all (as in the Sorceress is made to appeal to guys, while what they showed was... probably not appealing to women).

 

[Impa4Smash]

It would be fun to have the cartoon versions of the DK, Kirby, Pokémon, Castlevania, Mario, and Sonic characters as alts.
Just think of cartoon Dixie!

Cartoon Dixie is nightmare fuel

 

[praline]

But he's only ever been in mario games, having anything else would be weird, and what would they even call his franchise when his game is literally called "super mario rpg"

You just answered your own question.

 

[Noipoi]

I'd pay 120$ for the game if Anime Dedede was in it, not gonna lie.

Only if he has the voice.
That voice is worth a thousand dollars.

 

[Momotsuki]

There's no reason Geno cannot simply rep the Super Mario series while still being a third party character.

 

[Chrono.]

Not only has Verg had bad sources in the past, but he's also been caught editing his own rumors to make himself look legit (just one time so far, but still.)

That said, I went from completely disregarding him to giving him some benefit of the doubt. :v

 

[Shadowwolflink]

I guess it’s a possibility since he is always associated with Mario and is only connected to SE for their rights. But I guess in terms of rights, Geno is your second SE Rep. Otherwise, his Emblem, any fun references, maybe even his jingle, etc. will all most likely be grouped with the other Mario characters.

——————————————
Off topic, but this is reminding me of a video I watched about why Sora isn’t going to make it into Smash, but the guy’s arguement throughout the whole video was that Sora can’t make it because third parties can only have 2 characters per company and that since the second one would go to Geno, Sora has no chance. That was one of the most stupidest arguements I’ve seen since it just seems like another arbitrary fan rule.

I haven't seen this video, but I'll say now that it's a stupid argument, especially considering Konami now has 3 characters.

 

[RandomAce]

I haven't seen this video, but I'll say now that it's a stupid argument, especially considering Konami now has 3 characters.

Well he did say that Richter is an echo, and doesn’t really count since he isn’t really seperate and all.

But still... it’s dumb.

 

[MoonlitIllusion]

You just answered your own question.

but that's still a "super mario" game...

 

[DarkFalcon]

Reminder that Ridley was not a safe pick and people laughed at the idea even more after Sakurai came out and said what the detractors were saying.

This is a lesson that Sakurai can always change his mind. He changed his mind on Ridley in like a year lol.

 

[DraginHikari]

But he's only ever been in mario games, having anything else would be weird, and what would they even call his franchise when his game is literally called "super mario rpg"

Sidenote, can nintendo not just buy back the rights to geno if they really wanted to use him? I don't know how these things work obviously but it's not like square is using him so it can't be too hard

It's possible, but it would involved SE being willing to sell the rights and Nintendo wanting to pay for those rights. I get the feeling that Nintendo doesn't care enough to bother.

I'm unsure if that's how that works. Like, I think Richter came along because of the opportunity rather than Konami's persuasion.

Sakurai's like "Wait I have the ability to go anywhere in the Castlevania brand?"
Konami's like "Yeah"
Then Sakurai goes "**** we based Simon off of Richter, let me use him too."
and then Konami gives a thumbs up and goes back to swimming in its pool of gachapon money. i would've preferred trevor but oh well maybe as a DLC skin or something

Probably one of the advantage of Konami being so... weird these days is that once you get their approval to do something they don't really make very many other demands and just let people go nuts with what they're given.

 

[MoonlitIllusion]

It's possible, but it would involved SE being willing to sell the rights and Nintendo wanting to pay for those rights. I get the feeling that Nintendo doesn't care enough to bother.



Probably one of the advantage of Konami being so... weird these days is that once you get their approval to do something they don't really make very many other demands and just let people go nuts with what they're given.

I mean they'd be paying to use him in smash regardless, and it's not like square is using him. It'd obviously be more costly but it'd be worth it in the long run, besides it's not like nintendo doesn't have a bajillion dollars to spare

 

[Dukeofdeath5]

Reminder that Ridley was not a safe pick and people laughed at the idea even more after Sakurai came out and said what the detractors were saying.

This is a lesson that Sakurai can always change his mind. He changed his mind on Ridley in like a year lol.

See I don't believe Sakurai actually changed his mind. I believe if Sakurai made the game without taking the feedback of the Samsh community into account Ridley would still be a boss and King K. Rool would be nowhere to be seen. I simply believe that Sakurai has decided to pull out all stops on the fan fair in this game despite his personal opinion

 

[Iridium]

All of us would die if Bubsy somehow got in. We would do a cage fight.

 

[Deleted member]

All of us would die if Bubsy somehow got in. We would do a cage fight.

If Bubsy gets in, he needs to have 20 different animations for when he dies in Stamina mode.

 

[Darkraid]

Does anyone know why there are 2 Super Mario icons in the music section of the game? What if the 2nd icon is for Super Mario RPG?

 

[Iridium]

If Bubsy gets in, he needs to have 20 different animations for when he dies in Stamina mode.

And we also would get a "special" 3D aesthetic option for viewing pleasure (if you know what I mean)!

 

[Deleted member]

Does anyone know why there are 2 Super Mario icons in the music section of the game? What if the 2nd icon is for Super Mario RPG?

The 2nd icon is likely Mario Kart, sense Mario Kart music is separate in Brawl and Smash 4.