So what if the development of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo NX followed a new direction, something different from the five previous installments? A 'reimagining' of sorts? Keep the core concept, 'let's have the most iconic Nintendo characters join the fray and brawl together!', but with radical tweaks in its core gameplay formula? Now this is simply a random theory that comes out of nowhere, but allow me to elaborate.
The basic setting remains the same: from 2 to 4 (8?) fighters duking it out on 2D platforms/stages, with classic Nintendo items making their way into the battles and aforementioned stages having various gimmicks. Following the example of the most quick-paced, action-packed fighting games out there (Street Fighter, Tekken etc.) Sora Ltd. would focus on giving the characters a moveset and a mobility fit for fast, powerful combo channelings that lead the fighters into extreme yet pleasing-looking battles. As I look at games like J-Stars, I believe Bandai Namco know a big sweet deal about these kinda games; wouldn't it translate well to Smash Bros.? So anyway, it wouldn't just be a matter of dealing U-airs and jabs and D-tilts and grabs and recovering to the stages' ledges anymore. It would be infinitely more complex but still as easy to pick up as 'old' SSB games were.
And to go along with the somewhat different gameplay, how about a new aesthetic look for the software? (Think of how Brawl's textures look pretty dark while SSB4 is looking all bright and colorful). In my head it would adopt a style similar to that of Super Mario Strikers Charged for Wii.
The roster would be radically shrinked down in number - getting rids of any clones and semi-clones, mostly focusing on having each character be as unique as possible, so the roster could as well be 25 characters (I mean this is the same size as Melee's roster and nobody would complain about it as long as the software is still as high quality-wise as the other games in the franchise). On the other hand, they would spend development time on making more stages, items, trophies, additional game modes and inserting more music tracks into the game's data.
That's not all, though! Now this is probably gonna depend on whether Sakurai is still leading the development of the new game, but if he's not, Bandai Namco MAY pick up the pieces and bring back a true Adventure mode (which SSB4 absurdly lacked tbh).
The 'Ultimate' Super Smash Bros. experience? My English level is currently too weak for me to be able to give you more accurate descriptions about all of this, my apologies.
However, what are your thoughts about a possible change in the gameplay formula of our beloved SSB?