Official Smash Ultimate Discussion

[Heartz♥]

Assuming the leak is legit, the reason why Incineroar doesn't appear to be in the base roster isn't the important thing here, so you don't necessarily have to believe papageno's E3 theory. But I suppose we're out of leads and the discussion is simmering down anyway.

 

[Nintrendo]

Yeah, I still find the whole idea pretty out there as well. But on your first point, Sakurai *did* manage to draft Greninja's moveset in a single night, so I don't think that part is necessarily impossible. Especially in B&K's case, when he has things to pull from.

And in greninjas case he only had concept art

 

[Mikeline]

Guys, someone on /v/ just realized that when Isabelle was revealed a space was weird on the website. It'she same spot that Isaac is in the banner leak.
Isaac was rumored to have been on the postponed direct because of the earthquake in japan.
Might be fake though.

 

[DraginHikari]

Insiders are just people who claim to have sources in the industries, they can really only be proven in hindsight. It should be all taken with a grain of salt in my view.

 

[Luigifan18]

As a counterpoint, and and certainly had much less than a year of development time, and they all turned out fine.

And that was with a supposedly smaller team since they were DLC.

Um... ... ...careful there.

 

[Diddy Kong]

As a counterpoint, and and certainly had much less than a year of development time, and they all turned out fine.

And that was with a supposedly smaller team since they were DLC.

Bayonetta and Cloud almost ruined the game.

But hey, if that's fine with you...?

 

[SushiRoll]

This is what I think every time I see "everyone is here"

 

[SuperSceptile15]

I don't have any opinions of PapaGenos for now. I'm just going to wait and see if the leak ends up being real or not.

 

[LetterO]

People on 4chan have brought up that the weird cut between Olimar and Little Mac that showed up after the Isabelle reveal is right where Isaac is in the banner. This may strengthen the "Isaac was supposed to be revealed in the September direct" theory.

 

[KMDP]

Quick rundown for anyone and everyone that wants the general history(Let me know if I miss anything):
-Leak surfaces, community, content creators, generally everyone goes crazy
-Grinch + Eric Bricard + Marina connections further the craziness, loads of people cling to it being real
-People call it fake as they thought the B+K art was just the Smashified artwork, quickly dismissed though
-Most Insiders and content creators either approach it neutrally or outright call it fake w/ little to no explanation
-Background inconsistencies discovered, more lean to it being fake
-Background inconsistencies discovered as excusable due to poor quality and blurriness actually being able to distort images, thus the real crowd comes back
-Discovered that the background has actually changed even slightly throughout iterations
-Marina comes out dismissing this and says they aren't working on Ultimate at all, claims Eric Bricard hasn't worked there since 2016, people lean back towards fake
-Surprise! Eric has another Linkedin, this time with his current job at a place called APV and has worked there for almost two years, team real comes back again
-People claim 50 year olds using SnapChat is unlikely
-Insiders generally go quiet, stick to neutrality, or continue to claim it's fake... yet again, with little evidence or reasoning
-People claim Insiders are being paid off by Nintendo to keep it hush hush, why? I have no clue
-Serebii was here briefly generally speaking nothing worth mentioning other than language policing in a post
-Is it a wristband? lantern? tube display? bracelet? everyone for some reason can't agree on one thing which is overall unimportant
-Somewhere in the mix PapaGenos says he has a credible and trusted source who has a source at Microsoft that said Banjo is in and he heard the other characters and Incineroar, confused why Incineroar isn't there
-People assume Incineroar is leak bait or that this leak is leak bait and is fake
-Billybo10k got a video flagged, but it was during upload, so it really means nothing
-APV took down a video that showed operations essentially, people freak out as result
-People learn that Vergeben is generally an ***hat and has gone nuts

No consensus reached yet, videos are being attacked, news sites are grammar nazis, insiders/content creators are all over the place with conflicting info, maybe you shouldn't have Linkedin anymore, 50 year olds do indeed use Snapchat, there's more than one printing press company in France, people can have a previous and current job, watching people investigate this leak is like watching a dog chase it's own tail and never get tired, The Grinch stole Christmas and is now stealing away the fun out of Smash speculation and it's turning into a stressful and irritating civil war between team real, team fake, insiders, and content creators.

"Insiders generally go quiet, stick to neutrality, or continue to claim it's fake... yet again, with little evidence or reasoning."

The thing about this is that, were this a court case, the insiders would have lost several times over. In a vacuum (by which I mean, if one ignores their track records), their word means little to nothing, and amounts to little more than hearsay (The same applies to people like papagenos, to be fair to the insiders).​

I thought about this after I logged off yesterday, and your comment jogged my memory.​

"People learn that Vergeben is generally an ***hat and has gone nuts"

Say what now? Would someone care to explain this to me?​

 

[DiamondJoyride]

Guys, someone on /v/ just realized that when Isabelle was revealed a space was weird on the website. It'she same spot that Isaac is in the banner leak.
Isaac was rumored to have been on the postponed direct because of the earthquake in japan.
Might be fake though.

I've never really bought that theory. If they planned to show Isaac, why didn't they just show him in the next direct and show Isabelle's in the one after?

 

[Z25]

While Geno's theory is a bit out there, we already know Sakurai has had banjo on his mind before due to him being big in polls and what not. A joint effort between the two companies to make a moveset(When Sakurai likely already had a good idea on how Banjo would play well before this) isn't too out there.

Also there is a massive team working on this game, it wouldn't be impossible for workers from each company to help move the game along because its a gold mine for everyone involved if the grinch leak is true.

 

[Cosmic77]

Guys, someone on /v/ just realized that when Isabelle was revealed a space was weird on the website. It'she same spot that Isaac is in the banner leak.
Isaac was rumored to have been on the postponed direct because of the earthquake in japan.
Might be fake though.

Why would the order the characters get revealed have any effect with their placement on the banner?

 

[CrunchyCHEEZIT]

People on 4chan have brought up that the weird cut between Olimar and Little Mac that showed up after the Isabelle reveal is right where Isaac is in the banner. This may strengthen the "Isaac was supposed to be revealed in the September direct" theory.

****** you ninja'd me.

anyway, here's the actual image being posted right after the September 13th direct, so it wasn't just edited right now.

can anyone find a way to confirm this?

 

[GoeGoe]

That leak art wise is easy. To me nothing seems weird for a faker to make except Issac. The pose choice and the specific grass growth is not something a faker would make, UNLESS he's a Golden Sun fan. Add to it the item they just found on that video (The psyinergy something plant).
I don't want to believe it, I am not completely but boy what surrounds it speaks volumes.

 

[Fenriraga]

Guys, someone on /v/ just realized that when Isabelle was revealed a space was weird on the website. It'she same spot that Isaac is in the banner leak.
Isaac was rumored to have been on the postponed direct because of the earthquake in japan.
Might be fake though.

The entire banner on the website was really jank after Isabelle got added. I'm pretty sure it was just an oversight.

 

[Mikeline]

I've never really bought that theory. If they planned to show Isaac, why didn't they just show him in the next direct and show Isabelle's in the one after?

They removed Isaac because he has earth powers. There was an earthquake.

 

[Ignoritus]

Alright, I know some people get upset at the whole "Isaac was delayed in the September direct" thing, but frankly, the evidence I'm seeing at this point is too much to avoid acknowledging.

Anyone remember this?

Spoiler: Banner

This was a small visual glitch found on the site right after the September direct. Turns out, this is where Isaac is positioned in the leaked banner.

I'm going to go so far as to hypothesize that Isaac was not the only character cut from the September direct. What if the September direct originally opened with a brief Smash segment (just a few minutes) that revealed Isaac as well as one echo, Ken or Shadow. Why would this make sense?

Because this explains the "box theory".

If Ken or Shadow were revealed in the September direct, it would explain why the alignment of the characters on the back accounts for Ken/Shadow. The image originally would have had only Isabelle photoshopped out, with Isaac being visible and the characters being aligned for Ken existing on the back. When the direct got delayed, they had to photoshop Isaac off of the box, but due to the rush job no one thought about Ken on the back. With these two characters + Isabelle the box would be filled perfectly with all characters revealed up to that point.

This also explains how they were so careless as to let the likely Golden Sun item leak in the Wendy's trailer, as the item may have been revealed in this segment or at the very least would be much less of a spoiler with Isaac revealed.

This also explains the weird hype vacuum of having two months with only Isabelle revealed as well as mitigating the strange pacing of character reveals, as if this had gone down there would only be 5 characters left to reveal instead of 7.


I know discussion of the whole Isaac and the earthquake thing is uncomfortable to some people. And trust me, I'm not a huge Golden Sun fan with any major stakes in this, so please don't think I'm trying to turn a tragedy to my advantage. I'm just seeing a lot of things suddenly line up if Isaac was removed from the September direct.

 

[Polan]

You can plan around extra work. It's not impossible that they hired extra people specifically to account for this. There's no way of us knowing for sure.

you can't just hire or move people around and plop them down to work in the game. they have to be brought up to speed with the project and that takes time. plus i feel that internet sleuths would have figured out if bamco was doing last minute hires for smash ultimate.

 

[CrunchyCHEEZIT]

Why would the order the characters get revealed have any effect with their placement on the banner?

its not the placement on the banner, its the fact that area where isabelle, olimar and little mac are directly coinciding with where Isaac was in the leaked banner, implying that Isaac was hastily cropped out.

 

[Idon]

How are we at 40 days until launch and still haven't had any new info since August?

 

[CosmicQuark]

As a counterpoint, and and certainly had much less than a year of development time, and they all turned out fine.

And that was with a supposedly smaller team since they were DLC.

I do think since balancing is the main issue, it's probably why many people complained about the character balance once DLC was introduced (I'm going by my history Cliff Notes, feel free to correct me)--that's what I feel like takes the years of development time, and the shorter DLC development time may have resulted from that (though, as a counter to the counterpoint, they did a fantastic job considering the limitations). Though, I'm not a game developer, I can only go by Sakurai's words when speculating.

 

[Pakky]

People on 4chan have brought up that the weird cut between Olimar and Little Mac that showed up after the Isabelle reveal is right where Isaac is in the banner. This may strengthen the "Isaac was supposed to be revealed in the September direct" theory.

Oh... oh ****. Wow, ummm whew.

 

[G Rank Zinogre]

Guys, someone on /v/ just realized that when Isabelle was revealed a space was weird on the website. It'she same spot that Isaac is in the banner leak.
Isaac was rumored to have been on the postponed direct because of the earthquake in japan.
Might be fake though.

I don't see this when I check the website. This is either fabricated or an error with the browser he's using.

EDIT: Disregard.

 

[SuperSceptile15]

Bayonetta and Cloud almost ruined the game.

Or maybe you could have just, I don't know, learned to practice and get better at the game instead of blaming other characters for your own shortcomings? Also, I saw the older comments you made earlier about the events of the final Smash 4 presentation, and boy were you quite salty.

 

[Fenriraga]

****** you ninja'd me.

anyway, here's the actual image being posted right after the September 13th direct, so it wasn't just edited right now.

can anyone find a way to confirm this?

I'd have to look back through my posts, because we all poked fun at how messed up the banner looked for some reason. Give me a bit.

Bayonetta and Cloud almost ruined the game.

But hey, if that's fine with you...?

That doesn't have anything to do with them being developed just fine within a shorter time span.

 

[Yoshisaurus Rex]

How are we at 40 days until launch and still haven't had any new info since August?
View attachment 172993

Well, we did get Isabelle in September tho.

 

[Twin Shot]

Few things

- Gamexplain/Nintendo channels may not be addressing the leak because this community can be quite disrespectful when sides are taken. The thought is not to address the issue and give trolls a voice. These people and others on “team fake” are genuine people and deserved to be treated as such. (Not saying anyone here has been like this, but I have seen it on Twitter and on YouTube - acting like that just amplifies why this community is seen as toxic)

- Jon also made a post about Isaac on Gamexplains channel about the Golden Sun reference in Sakurais picture a while back. This was just speculation, but Isaacs inclusion lines up with the Grinch leak and contrasts with the video disconfirming it outright. Possible that it is like PapaGenos said and they also have conflicting information/sources as well and are just going about it differently.

- Seems that IGN (Nintendo Voice Chat) seemed to be pretty confident in this leak, which shows that not all of the industry believes it’s fake.

 

[Mikeline]

I don't see this when I check the website. This is either fabricated or an error with the browser he's using.

Look at the date in the post. It was already fixed.

 

[CrunchyCHEEZIT]

I don't see this when I check the website. This is either fabricated or an error with the browser he's using.

look at the date of that post. it was made on september 13th, likely RIGHT after the direct when they updated the banner on the website with the isabelle version. it obviously was fixed by now but doesn't that seem fishy to you?

 

[CosmicQuark]

But that still doesn't mean you should automatically believe them less than a source who lacks the same track record. It's not fair to say, "You're being incredibly vague and not giving me the answer I want, therefore nothing you say should be taken seriously".

Base your opinions on what they've gotten right before, not what lines up with what you think is right.

I didn't say that at all. It's not one or the other. I'm talking specifically about the insiders. If they had given a reason that directly contradicted the banner, even though I want these characters in, I would be far more willing to believe them. Otherwise, they're asking me to suspend my critical thinking by saying "Because I said so."

 

[Deleted member]

Hmm, this is pretty interesting.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bpe7YzVDZyF/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=gfvb14cm5vef

 

[mjmannella]

I don't see this when I check the website. This is either fabricated or an error with the browser he's using.

EDIT: Disregard.

I believe that's because it got fixed now

 

[PsychoIncarnate]

People on 4chan have brought up that the weird cut between Olimar and Little Mac that showed up after the Isabelle reveal is right where Isaac is in the banner. This may strengthen the "Isaac was supposed to be revealed in the September direct" theory.

I find this very interesting.

It looks like someone hasily, and sloppily, took a part from a different banner and used it to cover something up

But honestly it could have also just been and issue with the source images for those characters

I've had problems like that with projects

 

[Guh-Huzzah!]

Saw “Mr. Grinch” graffitied onto a bathroom door.
Bathroom door for smash confirmed!
It’s the secret message these grinch leak left for us, a hint at one new fighter.

 

[Taco Cruise]

This new development with the missing Issac causing an inconsistency with the banner at some point makes near perfect sense - Sakurai himself even said the direct plan had to change, I am positive this was because of Issac using earthquake. All of these pieces are indeed coming together, but it doesn't necessarily confirm Grinch leak - it does however strengthen an argument as to Issac being in for absolute sure. If I was an Issac fan I'd be boarding the hype train right about now because the evidence is overwhelming at this point.

 

[SebasSancy]

To believe that Sakurai put in Banjo at E3, you have to believe:
A) That Sakurai was able to craft a moveset, design a model, program said character and balance it in less then a fourth of the time it takes to make a character (sakurai stated it takes over a year).
B) That he sidelined a character that was likely much farther along and could've been finished in that timr instead of pushing it off to DLC.
C) Managed to not delay the game despite the Sonic example doing just that.

I'm sorry PapaGenos, but I don't buy that. If Banjo is in the base game he likely was done much earlier then E3, assuming that he was done in four months flies in the face of what we know about Smash's development.

Sakurai wanted Banjo for so long now, maybe all this time he already had a moveset in mind

 

[StarLight42]

I'm going to make a somewhat bold claim and say that I don't think Incineroar was in the roster at any point. Absolutely nothing suggests this besides word of mouth with shaky sources. We've no visual evidence of him being there. If the Grinch leak, and thus, the 4chan leak from September 28th are to be believed, he was not there at any point. Finally, and this is merely my gut feeling, but I don't think Sakurai had him or any other new Pokémon on the mind seeing as he was tasked with also fully recreating three Pokémon. And, as Pokémon has the largest amount of unique fighters in the series (Eight unique, one clone/semi-clone), I think it stands to reason that he might not be interested in adding another.

If Decidueye gets revealed it will be legendary

 

[shinhed-echi]

While the idea sounds about right for me. Here's the thing.

Megaman: his moveset represents the weapons that he uses in the main series plus a move from MvC.

Pac-Man: moves based on Namco’s arcade games, Pac-Man and Pac-Land.

Ryu: takes from his moveset in the Street Fighter games.

Cloud: moveset that can be upgraded with a Limit mechanic.

Bayonetta: moves taken straight from the games.

Belmonts: moves that use the Vampire Killer and many weapons from the Castlevania games.

Sonic: Besides the bouncer... He turns into a ball for most of his moves.


Overall: i find Sonic’s moveset more basic than the ones from the other Third Party characters.

Well, I feel Sakurai wanted to go for a more classic playstyle. Which is why not only does most of his moveset can be attributed to the classics (although severely missed opportunity for missing that Nair Insta-Shield) but he chose Sonic the Fighters as opposed to Sonic Battle for some other moves.

It's odd that they'd skip for his Adventure moves (such as bounce, flare kick) or his Advance moves.
So yeah, I'm going to guess he was a rushed character, and since Sakurai is very strongheaded about changing characters' movesets from one game to the other (see Ganondorf and how long that took), I'm guessing that's just not in the cards for him.

 

[Kirbunny431]

It's really not hard to understand. So many of the insiders come off as condescending and elitist. Papa comes off as the exact opposite, a down to Earth dude who's just trying his best to get to the bottom of this, all the while being completely honest.

So many of the insiders refuse to talk about why the leak is fake beyond "it's missing some characters". That isn't very helpful.

If an insider took the opposite side as Papa and doesn't come off as a jerk and explains their thought process, I doubt they'd be harassed themselves.

This x10000. Insiders' approach to this leak has been "It's fake because I know something you don't." When asked for proof, they just say, "Well you'll just have to trust me~~~~ :^)" and that's an incredibly unpleasant way to go about it.

PapaGenos, who I hadn't even heard about before last week, seems to be making an actual effort to determine the circumstances around this leak. He goes to great lengths to share as much information as possible and seemingly does so entirely in good faith. People are so much more receptive to that than the "Well, I know more than you and you're an idiot if you don't listen to me," attitude that so many insiders have taken. Artsy Omni is the only big name I've seen who has taken the time to analyze the images and offer insight.

Let's say a relatively popular community member made a video and said, "This leak is kinda fishy, here are my reasons why: The background is inconsistent, we don't know if the printing company has contracts with Nintendo and/or Illumination, Eric is fifty and likely doesn't care about Smash, etc. Therefore, I don't believe it." In that case, I think people would feel more inclined to consider that person's side. Contrast that with what actually happened, in which every insider said "Fake, next," then made halfhearted attempts to justify themselves only after everyone justly told them their responses weren't good enough.