Official Smash Ultimate Discussion

[PsychoIncarnate]

The box theory is more believable because it leaves a spot for the assumed character Ken. If it wasn't for that it'd be a lot easier to dismiss

 

[Zinith]

Don't mind the Melee Fox displayed as my main, I'm testing something out...

 

[Nethermoosen]

The 108 could very well be a typo, but honestly it makes too much sense to me. It leaves a blanck spot for the DLC button as Smash For had, and on the website there is place for exactly 5 more stages
View attachment 164614
It might very well be a typo, but it woukd be the greatest coincidence in Smash speculation history TBH. If it was 113 or 133 that would have been clearly a typo, a finger slipped on the keyboards, but this is really strange and supspect to say the least.
And it surely helps the speculation going, which is always a positive.

About that DLC button, not that it makes too much difference. We have the tabs at the top of the stage window already. It’ll be separated by tabs. We already have a normal one. We would definitely get a DLC equivalent tab. No button necessary.

 

[Icedragonadam]

Even then. 3 and 8 are not that close on a keyboard to make an accidental typo. I think they got the stage number for this article and a much later one with the overall stage total around release mixed up here.

 

[Blade of Evil's Bane]

You’d think if they were aware that it was actually new information, they would have made a bigger deal about it for sales.

Right or just mentionning it in the article itself but as far as i know, the 108 stages thing was treated as general info on the game. This seems a bit off...

But again i don't know this magazine at all, they could be dropping new info casually like that without making a big deal out of it.

Edit: It could be just a cultural thing, in the west, papers and magazines tend to make a big deal out of anything 'new' just to sell more copies...

 

[Noipoi]

Don't mind the Melee Fox displayed as my main, I'm testing something out...

You're testing out how to be a top tier competitive melee player?

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Don't mind the Melee Fox displayed as my main, I'm testing something out...

Is it being a traitor?

 

[Flynn__]

I don't think you know how many people check that everything is alright before printing a magazine, but such a typo is not that easy to make. It's not like writing fihgter instead of fighter, it's very hard to check the magazine and not see such a mistake, more so seeing how big the number appears.

 

[Arcanir]

Do I have to repeat myself?

You guys do know that Box theory and 108 stages don't have to contradict each other right?

This, you can have new stages without new characters, examples like Pictochat and Hanenbow do exists. We've also have had franchises get representation through non-character means like Bomberman as an AT, so the possibility is there that those stages are not tied to newcomers and we have things like a Minecraft stage without a character to go along with it.

 

[Zinith]

You're testing out how to be a top tier competitive melee player?

Is it being a traitor?

I'm trying to see if my theory on one of this site's trophies is true...

 

[Deleted member]

> Nintendo releases Smash Ultimate Special Edition box art
> people make Box Theory because of two last open areas
> mostly everyone believes it as fact
> CoroCoro leaks official stage count to be 108
> faith has been restored

 

[Murlough]

I don’t even see why anyone makes these out to be more than they are. Correct me if I’m wrong but realistically, and traditionally, not every character has been on the box. The “Everyone is here!” might mean something. It easily could also just be the tag line for the game as opposed to the box.

I have no reason to assume we only have two characters left here.

Stages aren’t 1:1 with characters. Far from it actually. I don’t see why adding 5 stages destroys the already shaky box theory. I also don’t see why 5 stages is a big deal in the first place. We already have over one hundred. Realistically, 5 more should have no effect.

I have no reason to assume the 5 more stages means anything character wise. Both “theories” could be correct as far as I know. They don’t seem to contradict each other.

I gotta be missing something here. This whole discussion is either going way over my head or their (I’n so tired I don’t remember which there I’m spose to use )has been some serious straw grasping going on recently.

 

[Nonno Umby]

About that DLC button, not that it makes too much difference. We have the tabs at the top of the stage window already. It’ll be separated by tabs. We already have a normal one. We would definitely get a DLC equivalent tab. No button necessary.
View attachment 164615

I know, but Smash For had both in fact:

I couldn't find a better picture online, but notice that arrown on the bottom? There is one also on the base game stage select screen that brings you to the extra section. Considering that this is the latest SSS designed by Sakurai & co I feel their philosophy in design wouldn't be that different (also proved by the "Games and More" in Ultimate's main menu).

Never use the website's layout as an excuse for x = y.

My layout looks completely different than yours due to my monitor's size. It adjusts to fit your native screen resolution.

You are right, I just checked it on my PC and it's completely glitched. My bad, I tought that design was for all versions sincce it looks crisp.

 

[Shroob]

I don’t even see why anyone makes these out to be more than they are. Correct me if I’m wrong but realistically, and traditionally, not every character has been on the box. The “Everyone is here!” might mean something. It easily could also just be the tag line for the game as opposed to the box.

I have no reason to assume we only have two characters left here.

Stages aren’t 1:1 with characters. Far from it actually. I don’t see why adding 5 stages destroys the already shaky box theory. I also don’t see why 5 stages is a big deal in the first place. We already have over one hundred. Realistically, 5 more should have no effect.

I have no reason to assume the 5 more stages means anything character wise. Both “theories” could be correct as far as I know. They don’t seem to contradict each other.

I gotta be missing something here. This whole discussion is either going way over my head or their has been some serious straw grasping going on recently.

For the box, it's due to both sides holding, at the current max due to the box size, 36 characters per side.

Counting Miis and Pkmn trainer as 1, which the box does since we see Mii Fighters take up a space, that leaves two empty spots on the box.

We can tell that the side of the box we can't see is there's 35 characters on it, since we have the other 34 accounted for on the other side. Toss in Isabelle and bam.

70/72 spots on the box filled.


One side 'has' to be an Echo, which is why everyone jumps to Ken.

 

[Jedisupersonic]

I don’t even see why anyone makes these out to be more than they are. Correct me if I’m wrong but realistically, and traditionally, not every character has been on the box. The “Everyone is here!” might mean something. It easily could also just be the tag line for the game as opposed to the box.

I have no reason to assume we only have two characters left here.

Stages aren’t 1:1 with characters. Far from it actually. I don’t see why adding 5 stages destroys the already shaky box theory. I also don’t see why 5 stages is a big deal in the first place. We already have over one hundred. Realistically, 5 more should have no effect.

I have no reason to assume the 5 more stages means anything character wise. Both “theories” could be correct as far as I know. They don’t seem to contradict each other.

I gotta be missing something here. This whole discussion is either going way over my head or their has been some serious straw grasping going on recently.

Straw grasping is the favorite tactic of most Geno, Isaac and especially of late Shantae fans.

Not to say anything about the former 2’s potential chances but from how rabid their bases have been lately you’d think they were as supported as Ridley was.

 

[Zinith]

Now I put 64 Pikachu on there just to see if I get the trophy

 

[Murlough]

For the box, it's due to both sides holding, at the current max due to the box size, 36 characters per side.

Counting Miis and Pkmn trainer as 1, which the box does since we see Mii Fighters take up a space, that leaves two empty spots on the box.

We can tell that the side of the box we can't see is there's 35 characters on it, since we have the other 34 accounted for on the other side. Toss in Isabelle and bam.

70/72 spots on the box filled.


One side 'has' to be an Echo, which is why everyone jumps to Ken.

Yeah I followed that much. I don’t understand the part where everyone is convinced that the box will 100% have all the characters on it. Has any game ever done that? Why is this box special?

Yeah its Smash Ultimate but its still just another Smash game. Why are we treating sone box as if its gospel? I don’t get it lmao. Maybe its true and I’m blind to reality but as far as I can tell there isn’t a reason to assume the box confirms only two more characters. There could easily just be characters not included on the box. xD

 

[Nonno Umby]

I don’t even see why anyone makes these out to be more than they are. Correct me if I’m wrong but realistically, and traditionally, not every character has been on the box. The “Everyone is here!” might mean something. It easily could also just be the tag line for the game as opposed to the box.

I have no reason to assume we only have two characters left here.

Stages aren’t 1:1 with characters. Far from it actually. I don’t see why adding 5 stages destroys the already shaky box theory. I also don’t see why 5 stages is a big deal in the first place. We already have over one hundred. Realistically, 5 more should have no effect.

I have no reason to assume the 5 more stages means anything character wise. Both “theories” could be correct as far as I know. They don’t seem to contradict each other.

I gotta be missing something here. This whole discussion is either going way over my head or their (I’n so tired I don’t remember which there I’m spose to use )has been some serious straw grasping going on recently.

The biggest thing about 5 more stages is that it means that we could see fighters from new series rather than just the ones already present in Smash, because since Brawl every series with a fighter also had a stage, with the only exception being R.O.B. who being an real life item doesn't really appear in his games. Also even Melee would have had a Fire Emblem stage if it wasn't rushed.
If there are more stages left that means than not everything is lost for Rhythm Heaven or Isaac fans.

 

[Shroob]

Yeah I followed that much. I don’t understand the part where everyone is convinced that the box will 100% have all the characters on it. Has any game ever done that? Why is this box special?

Yeah its Smash Ultimate but its still just another Smash game. Why are we treating sone box as if its gospel? I don’t get it lmao. Maybe its true and I’m blind to reality but as far as I can tell there isn’t a reason to assume the box confirms only two more characters. There could easily just be characters not included on the box. xD

Mostly because it'd be really odd to have every character up to #69 and whatever Echo has to be on the other side and to just 'stop'.

Like, if there are other characters after #69, why wouldn't they be on the box if 1-69 are?

 

[Calane]

I'm sure this doesn't matter, but I've always thought the stage select screen in Ultimate looked incomplete. I don't understand why they'd just leave a big empty space on the bottom row like that. I feel that if there's not anymore stages to be revealed, then they probably would have designed the select screen a little differently so that it didn't look so...annoyingly unfinished.

Basically, I've always been under the impression that all the stages haven't been revealed yet. If that's really how the stage select screen's going to look, then it's going to bother the heck out of me every time I see it.

 

[Murlough]

Mostly because it'd be really odd to have every character up to #69 and whatever Echo has to be on the other side and to just 'stop'.

Like, if there are other characters after #69, why wouldn't they be on the box if 1-69 are?

I dunno. Why’d they do a similar thing with Smash 4’s case? Is that not essentially the same thing?

 

[Deleted member]

I don’t even see why anyone makes these out to be more than they are. Correct me if I’m wrong but realistically, and traditionally, not every character has been on the box. The “Everyone is here!” might mean something. It easily could also just be the tag line for the game as opposed to the box.

I have no reason to assume we only have two characters left here.

Stages aren’t 1:1 with characters. Far from it actually. I don’t see why adding 5 stages destroys the already shaky box theory. I also don’t see why 5 stages is a big deal in the first place. We already have over one hundred. Realistically, 5 more should have no effect.

I have no reason to assume the 5 more stages means anything character wise. Both “theories” could be correct as far as I know. They don’t seem to contradict each other.

I gotta be missing something here. This whole discussion is either going way over my head or their (I’n so tired I don’t remember which there I’m spose to use )has been some serious straw grasping going on recently.

The thing is that if we were to get more old stages back, we would've already known by now. Not to mention, the stage list is listed chronologically (N64-Ultimate). If we were to get PokeFloats or Mute City from Melee back, Sakurai would've told us back in the August Direct when he "revealed all the stages". Why would he bring it up out of nowhere in some last Smash Direct or announcement that "Oh hey! I forgot to tell you guys back when I revealed all the stages that we have PokeFloats back!"?

That huge of a gap is too much of a gap even for Sakurai, and if one of the most prolific Japanese magazines says it's 108 - which has leaked many stuff in the past, then you gotta be hard-pressed, no?

 

[CosmicQuark]

I don’t even see why anyone makes these out to be more than they are. Correct me if I’m wrong but realistically, and traditionally, not every character has been on the box. The “Everyone is here!” might mean something. It easily could also just be the tag line for the game as opposed to the box.

I have no reason to assume we only have two characters left here.

Stages aren’t 1:1 with characters. Far from it actually. I don’t see why adding 5 stages destroys the already shaky box theory. I also don’t see why 5 stages is a big deal in the first place. We already have over one hundred. Realistically, 5 more should have no effect.

I have no reason to assume the 5 more stages means anything character wise. Both “theories” could be correct as far as I know. They don’t seem to contradict each other.

I gotta be missing something here. This whole discussion is either going way over my head or their has been some serious straw grasping going on recently.

This discussion is going way over my head AND there has been some serious straw grasping--those don't seem to contradict, at least for me.

It's fun speculating, even if CoroCoro comes out and says it was a misprint. The Direct kinda bummed me out, but it's been fun speculating again. In terms of Box theory, I was skeptical because of the discontinuities and never gave it any credence. And this CoroCoro information, if true, doesn't necessarily mean we'll be getting any more characters beyond what Verge has said. Even if that's the case, I would be happy we're getting more than four new stages if this is true. Four just seems too inadequate for a new game, especially if they were all revealed 5 months before release.

EDIT:

The thing is that if we were to get more old stages back, we would've already known by now. Not to mention, the stage list is listed chronologically (N64-Ultimate). If we were to get PokeFloats or Mute City from Melee back, Sakurai would've told us back in the August Direct when he "revealed all the stages". Why would he bring it up out of nowhere in some last Smash Direct or announcement that "Oh hey! I forgot to tell you guys back when I revealed all the stages that we have PokeFloats back!"?

That huge of a gap is too much of a gap even for Sakurai, and if one of the most prolific Japanese magazines says it's 108 - which has leaked many stuff in the past, then you gotta be hard-pressed, no?

Fountain of Dreams being revealed in the August Direct signaled to me that we aren't getting any more returning stages for the base game. Why end with Pokefloats if you can end with Fountain of Dreams? (besides Pokefloats being objectively everyone's favorite stage)

 

[Shroob]

I dunno. Why’d they do a similar thing with Smash 4’s case? Is that not essentially the same thing?

No?



Like, imagine if Geno got revealed as character 70.


Why would they leave him out when literally every other character were on the box.


From a design standpoint, that makes zero sense if your goal is to showcase the entire roster on the box.

 

[Nethermoosen]

I don't think you know how many people check that everything is alright before printing a magazine, but such a typo is not that easy to make. It's not like writing fihgter instead of fighter, it's very hard to check the magazine and not see such a mistake, more so seeing how big the number appears.

Unless
1. Big Chief CoroCoro thinks he has the right number, but actually does not. And he says “Naw, fam guy, that is supposed to be 108.”
2. That’s all I got. Lol

Yeah I followed that much. I don’t understand the part where everyone is convinced that the box will 100% have all the characters on it. Has any game ever done that? Why is this box special?

Yeah its Smash Ultimate but its still just another Smash game. Why are we treating sone box as if its gospel? I don’t get it lmao. Maybe its true and I’m blind to reality but as far as I can tell there isn’t a reason to assume the box confirms only two more characters. There could easily just be characters not included on the box. xD

No, it’s just a theory. You don’t need to look for an infallible reason to believe it because there isn’t one.
It’s just something official that suggests an echo, suggests being incomplete and also may suggest a final number.
Until something else comes along to confirm whether or not these implications are true, those of us who are interested will probably continue to discuss it while we are on the lookout for confirmations.

 

[Zinith]

Okay, bare with me on the mains. I'm still a Yoshi main throughout. I just want to see if my theory is right...

 

[ZephyrZ]

Of course no previous Smash game has had every character on the box art, since every Smash game before had secret unlockables.

Every character in Ultimate is going to be announced before the game is launched, and with that many characters on the box already, it looks like they're definitely planning on including all of them.

 

[Shroob]

Okay, bare with me on the mains. I'm still a Yoshi main throughout. I just want to see if my theory is right...

Everytime Zinith changes his main, a Yoshi is used as a free superjump down a pit.

 

[Nethermoosen]

Mostly because it'd be really odd to have every character up to #69 and whatever Echo has to be on the other side and to just 'stop'.

Like, if there are other characters after #69, why wouldn't they be on the box if 1-69 are?

Plus this makes it pretty clear they will eventually include all characters on their boxes.

 

[Bunny8093]

About that DLC button, not that it makes too much difference. We have the tabs at the top of the stage window already. It’ll be separated by tabs. We already have a normal one. We would definitely get a DLC equivalent tab. No button necessary.
View attachment 164615

At first glance yes that's what the tabs will be for, however I feel like the "normal tab" thing is only there to show that your about to select the stage in it's "normal" form. Press a button and it will change to omega and battlefield modes respectively. Then again I could be wrong entirely. Is there any footage of this part of the game to back me up here?

Also first post on here since Smash Wii U and 3DS speculation. It's been awhile.

 

[Delzethin]

Two different leaks, each potentially contradicting each other...

This is going to be a wild couple of weeks. Or potentially longer, if we don't get any more info until November.

 

[Zinith]

Everytime Zinith changes his main, a Yoshi is used as a free superjump down a pit.

I'm actually doing this for someone else. Believe me, I wouldn't try to do this otherwise...

 

[Nonno Umby]

No?



Like, imagine if Geno got revealed as character 70.


Why would they leave him out when literally every other character were on the box.


From a design standpoint, that makes zero sense if your goal is to showcase the entire roster on the box.

You keep avoiding the fact that the box and its sides can easely be edited in order to add more characters. If there are 4/6 more characters they surely would not leave all those blanck spaces on a placeholder.

And this isn't baseless speculation, a member who worked in that industry leaved a message about how that box probably means little to nothing:

My very fist job in my life was actually making those mock-ups for several products. If you're interested, I can explain a bit on how (usually) works.

When you need a visual design for a product, be it a toy, a balm bottle, a keychain of whatever you first tell the graphic designer to do the first draft (my job). This is also the case for many boxes, especially for special editions. After the work is done, your supervisor check it and give the feedback: maybe is too dark for the target audience, maybe the colors are off, maybe you idea sucks, and so on.
Now keep in mind that at this moment the image is still a photoshopped image, not a 3D render (most of the time; I'm talking about my personal experience), and in rare cases those photoshopped images end to be the actual "official" one. Like this one (look at the toilet paper), as opposed to this one. See the difference?
Once the supervisor gives the ok, the process proceed. Remember this part for later.
Then, in the case of a product box, it goes straight to a specific department that make the actual box. I said specific because they are responsible for basically everything regarding the actual box: the colors (if you're familiar with RGB vs CMYK you know what I mean), font dimension (very important if the wording need to be translated), all the box sides, and all those fine prints you see on every box. In this stage the intern can actually make some changes, especially true if you consider that most companies always have some kind of "template" regarding their products. Just grab any box near you and you'll see with your own eyes: the prints, the warnings, the logos, the alignment. There are actual people who specifically work on those, in order to have a good looking AND functional product.
After all that, it usually got double-checked and finally released to the public (and to the physical manufactor). Remember, this process takes place AFTER the actual product is done (or at least should be).

Before proceeding, keep in mind that I worked in a small company and not in a huge multinational, and basically never in a NDA environment. So from now take everything with a grain of salt.

Now, from my personal experience, on this "box theory" I can tell you this. The Smash Bros Special Edition Box is real, like an actual physical box that has been sent to Amazon, along with a specific serial number (and tons of paperwork) in order to be and actual buyable product. Remember that the ESBR already have the final version of the game with all the characters in it, its basically already finished.
But that box is a placeholder. "Hurr-dur, of course its a placeholder, Isabelle is not on it!". And that's the point.
Remember the supervisor stage? In this particular case, the team already know the full rooster but they get specifically instructed about what characters are going to be revealed to the public, so its up to the supervisor to tell "put all the characters up to the 67°, we are going to send this before the planned 5th september direct" or something like that to the poor intern, so he (and later the box department) have to create a desing with those instructions in place.
If you consider that the Steelbox was already announced back in august (look at the date), I think its pretty safe to assume that whoever created that box was specifically instructed on how many characters he was supposed to show. So the empty slots are there for a reason, they are not random.

Its interesting to note the discrepancy in the Palutena-Corrin segment, from my point of view it could really be a slip up of an echo fighter there (Ken/Medusa/Ms. Pacman/Zack...), I mean, it wouldn't be the first time Nintendo screw up like this. But regarding the supposed single remaining slot, I'm pretty confident its a placeholder. As in, the entire grid might change, shrunk, moved, some characters may be on the back and so on.
That said, don't expect 5-6 more unique anyways, Sakurai specifically told us the opposite. There are probably 2 more left, 3 if you want to be optimistic.

Hope it helped.

TL;DR: 90% placeholder, 10% true.

 

[Murlough]

The thing is that if we were to get more old stages back, we would've already known by now. Not to mention, the stage list is listed chronologically (N64-Ultimate). If we were to get PokeFloats or Mute City from Melee back, Sakurai would've told us back in the August Direct when he "revealed all the stages". Why would he bring it up out of nowhere in some last Smash Direct or announcement that "Oh hey! I forgot to tell you guys back when I revealed all the stages that we have PokeFloats back!"?

That huge of a gap is too much of a gap even for Sakurai, and if one of the most prolific Japanese magazines says it's 108 - which has leaked many stuff in the past, then you gotta be hard-pressed, no?

I agree. I’d say us getting 5 more stages is probably the case. I don’t understand why that has anything to do with the box theory though.

No?



Like, imagine if Geno got revealed as character 70.


Why would they leave him out when literally every other character were on the box.


From a design standpoint, that makes zero sense if your goal is to showcase the entire roster on the box.

Why is that different though? “Why did Smash 4’s case include several newcomers but not the rest?”

Maybe they aren’t trying to show the entire roster on the box? DLC is gonna come too most likely. Sooner or later the box is gonna have an incomplete list of characters anyway. I’ve got no reason to assume it won’t be sooner.

I feel like I’m being difficult but I really don’t get it.

 

[Nethermoosen]

Everytime Zinith changes his main, a Yoshi is used as a free superjump down a pit.

Or throws yet another unborn child.

 

[Zinith]

Or throws yet another unborn child.

I'VE NOT ADANDONED YOSHI FOR CHRISTS SAKE!!! I don't even like playing as the characters displayed. This is for science, and I'll revert back to Yoshi very soon...

 

[Shroob]

I agree. I’d say us getting 5 more stages is probably the case. I don’t understand why that has anything to do with the box theory though.

Why is that different though? “Why did Smash 4’s case include several cgaracters but not the rest?”

Maybe they aren’t trying to show the entire roster on the box? DLC is gonna come too most likely. Sooner or later the box is gonna have an incomplete list of characters anyway. I’ve got no reason to assume it won’t be sooner.

I feel like I’m being difficult but I really don’t get it.

Because the entire roster is going to be shown before launch.


It makes zero sense from a design standpoint to have every character except like, 2-3. We aren't going to have anyone secret by the time the game comes out, so 'hidden characters' isn't an excuse like 4 was.

 

[vaanrose]

I'VE NOT ADANDONED YOSHI FOR CHRISTS SAKE!!! I don't even like playing as the characters displayed. This is for science, and I'll revert back to Yoshi very soon...

Admit it, you're just extremely optimistic Yoshi will be Top Tier in Ultimate.

 

[Zinith]

Admit it, you're just extremely optimistic Yoshi will be Top Tier in Ultimate.

I am, but what I'm doing has NOTHING to do with that...

 

[Murlough]

Because the entire roster is going to be shown before launch.


It makes zero sense from a design standpoint to have every character except like, 2-3. We aren't going to have anyone secret by the time the game comes out, so 'hidden characters' isn't an excuse like 4 was.

It also doesn’t make much sense from a marketing standpoint to have two characters to show off for the next 3 months of wait time after showing off multiple in the first Direct, yet here we seem to be.

We also have Singleplayer and 5 more stages apparently but even Sakurai knows that people come for the characters first and foremost.