Official Smash Ultimate Discussion

[osby]

So I heard Corrin's got a new Victory theme...
Does anyone have a link to it?

It's really low quality, but: https://twitter.com/NairoMK/status/1058532399074684928

 

[Kuon]

Cloud is still weeb for every version of the game. I can confirm this, heck since E3 we know that.

I don't think Cloud is weeb. When I think of "weeb" characters (as bad as that term is), I think of incredibly niche anime-like characters that aren't well known around the world like Cloud is. He's too popular worldwide to be considered "weeb"

 

[osby]

Yep. And I thought it was pretty funny when people on gamefaqs were trying to argue against her being playable in the game. They clearly don't know how Sakurai thinks

They clearly think their opinions should be prioritized over everything else because they are extremely entitled and don't know how real life works... do you mean something like that?

 

[Nekoo]

I don't think Cloud is weeb. When I think of "weeb" characters (as bad as that term is), I think of incredibly niche anime-like characters that aren't well known around the world like Cloud is. He's too popular worldwide to be considered "weeb"

I mean that he talk Japanese because for whatever reason the letter J and A and P are censored lmao

 

[Flyboy]

So here's the thing, while I think boycotting Smash Bros Ultimate for this reason isn't logical, I also think they somewhat have a point.
Most Nintendo games have generically light-skinned protagonists. This is because Japan is mostly homogenous and most Japanese people are light-skinned. So of course there are few black characters in Smash Ultimate. Having said that, Nintendo has made strides in improving this recently, with players being able to change their player character's skintone in Splatoon and Pokemon games. But there still hasn't been a major Nintendo character who is not light-skinned.

If Nintendo were an American company I'd say this was pretty uncool, but being Japanese, it's a different culture and it isn't really fair to judge them in the same way. Somewhat related, I would recommend people check out this YouTube video.

At the same time, having Elma, a dark-skinned woman, would be pretty sick as hell and do wonders to alleviate that. I like that Doc Louis is in the game in a somewhat major role (being in the training dojo). I saw another interesting video from a critical theorist talking about how a lot of Nintendo's prominent brown- and black-skinned characters as of late are interesting but also play to some unfortunate cultural stereotypes and while I don't really as a white male have a way to say yay or nay to these points I do understand said points. I love Splatoon and just picked up Splatoon 2. Marina is cool, and lots of people like them and the Octolings, myself included, but it's also worth discussing as people who love games. Media isn't created in a vacuum after all, and as a mass media scholar stuff like this is super interesting for me.

My friend and I actually feel like, theoretically, if they were to add some black characters to Smash they have plenty who would be both fun to use and are important to their series - Urbosa is highly requested, I LOVE Doc Louis and he's my favorite Punch Out rep idea, Elma of course, Off The Hook as a duo fighter could be really unusual and fun, and Twintelle is a popular ARMS character and with Spring Man and Ribbon Girl out of the running she's the next likely choice. I don't see any of those as (loud, long sigh) "token" representation, just a way to have some more diversity in a huge roster that'd make the game stand out even more.

Just a thought.

 

[Deathcarter]

i dont understand how people are writing elma off when sakurai confirmed the timeline for decisions about the roster and dlc to be made in 2015.
xenoblade x came out in 2015. meaning he had plenty of time to play it, decide on a moveset and develop her. her priority would be shifted down because of them choosing to bring everyone back and she'd easily be behind the big time newcomers like Ridley and Isabelle and inkling.

One of the arguments WAY backon this forum was the timeline issue for rex to get in. and thats been confirmed now. also hate to break it to some people but elma moveset would be easily distinguishable from shulk's. rex im not as sure. the dlc i don't expect to be even close to any existing character in smash.

Why wouldn't they just replace Elma with the more recent Rex if DLC development just started since, you know, she's a 1st Party? I feel like any potential 1st party if we were to get one would have to be a bigger name than Rex if Sakurai would pass up on him and at this point the only potentially bigger names left either a Three Houses/Gen 8 rep or an Octoling semi-clone.

 

[Deleted member]

I don’t see a mobile game character joining, more so knowing that the sequel is PS4-exclusive.

Characters like Crash Bandicoot, Sora or even Steve are more likely not just for the sales it could bring, but also because they had a presence on Nintendo consoles (Crash with the GBA games and the ports on Gamecube, Wii, DS and Switch; Sora with the GBA, DS and 3DS games and Minecraft on Wii U, New 3DS and Switch), and are also popular on Japan for DLC picks (mostly Crash and Sora, Steve supported with the Banjo demand).

Katina (correct me if i said the name wrong), has games exclusive on Japan, so the sales won’t be as high, but she also lacks titles on Nintendo consoles, and isn’t even demanded a lot in Japan.

 

[osby]

I don't think Cloud is weeb. When I think of "weeb" characters (as bad as that term is), I think of incredibly niche anime-like characters that aren't well known around the world like Cloud is. He's too popular worldwide to be considered "weeb"

"Weeb" is a word you use for Western people obsessed with Japanese pop culture. Calling Japanese things "weeb" has no meaning to begin with.

 

[KirbyWorshipper2465]

I see your'e a Ryu Hayabusa fan, I too am a huge fan. Just curious do you think he has a chance of making it into Smash Bros Ultimate. Given the high partnership with Koei Tecmo that Nintendo has had lately. And if they did partner in Smash Bros and put Ryu Hayabusa in. It could open the door for the fan requested Linkle to be in a future Smash game. Also the Ninja Gaiden game is a SNES classic, it would be great to see Ryu Hayabusa, Simon Belmont and Samus altogether. Just wanted to see your thoughts on the matter.

NES, rather. The SNES trilogy collection is a slight downgrade. Just wanted to point that out.

 

[Opossum]

If this place is gonna turn into a Maga cesspit I guess it's my cue to leave.

 

[Kuon]

They clearly think their opinions should be prioritized over everything else because they are extremely entitled and don't know how real life works... do you mean something like that?

Yep. They want only their favorite characters to get in and every other character shouldn't be in the game because it's not who they like or want. I'm so glad Sakurai and Nintendo have the final say on what characters get in the game and that we as the fans don't

 

[JacobLeBeauOFFICIAL]

Oh come on, it can't be that bad-
*reads that they're boycotting Smash because it doesn't have any dark skinned people playable, even though Inklings have alts with dark skin*
Oh.

Don't just stand there, RUN

 

[KingofKoopas]

At the same time, having Elma, a dark-skinned woman, would be pretty sick as hell and do wonders to alleviate that. I like that Doc Louis is in the game in a somewhat major role (being in the training dojo). I saw another interesting video from a critical theorist talking about how a lot of Nintendo's prominent brown- and black-skinned characters as of late are interesting but also play to some unfortunate cultural stereotypes and while I don't really as a white male have a way to say yay or nay to these points I do understand said points. I love Splatoon and just picked up Splatoon 2. Marina is cool, and lots of people like them and the Octolings, myself included, but it's also worth discussing as people who love games. Media isn't created in a vacuum after all, and as a mass media scholar stuff like this is super interesting for me.

My friend and I actually feel like, theoretically, if they were to add some black characters to Smash they have plenty who would be both fun to use and are important to their series - Urbosa is highly requested, I LOVE Doc Louis and he's my favorite Punch Out rep idea, Elma of course, Off The Hook as a duo fighter could be really unusual and fun, and Twintelle is a popular ARMS character and with Spring Man and Ribbon Girl out of the running she's the next likely choice. I don't see any of those as (loud, long sigh) "token" representation, just a way to have some more diversity in a huge roster that'd make the game stand out even more.

Just a thought.

Elma would be ****ing awesome, and probably is the DLC. But i can tell you by experience... It will NEVER be enough.

 

[khfan93]

At the same time, having Elma, a dark-skinned woman, would be pretty sick as hell and do wonders to alleviate that. I like that Doc Louis is in the game in a somewhat major role (being in the training dojo). I saw another interesting video from a critical theorist talking about how a lot of Nintendo's prominent brown- and black-skinned characters as of late are interesting but also play to some unfortunate cultural stereotypes and while I don't really as a white male have a way to say yay or nay to these points I do understand said points. I love Splatoon and just picked up Splatoon 2. Marina is cool, and lots of people like them and the Octolings, myself included, but it's also worth discussing as people who love games. Media isn't created in a vacuum after all, and as a mass media scholar stuff like this is super interesting for me.

My friend and I actually feel like, theoretically, if they were to add some black characters to Smash they have plenty who would be both fun to use and are important to their series - Urbosa is highly requested, I LOVE Doc Louis and he's my favorite Punch Out rep idea, Elma of course, Off The Hook as a duo fighter could be really unusual and fun, and Twintelle is a popular ARMS character and with Spring Man and Ribbon Girl out of the running she's the next likely choice. I don't see any of those as (loud, long sigh) "token" representation, just a way to have some more diversity in a huge roster that'd make the game stand out even more.

Just a thought.

Oooh, I haven't played Xenoblade Chronicles X or ARMS and had no idea about Elma and Twintelle. Those are inclusions that I have heard a lot of people asking for too (Elma especially)!

 

[Kuon]

I mean that he talk Japanese because for whatever reason the letter J and A and P are censored lmao

J, A, and P are censored? What do you mean?

 

[WaxPython]

If this place is gonna turn into a Maga cesspit I guess it's my cue to leave.

Nah we're just against boycotting the game for ludicrous reasons.

Are you in favour of the smash boycott?

 

[Flamingbird]

We just need our boy Il Piantissimo

 

[A.G.L.]

NES, rather. The SNES trilogy collection is a slight downgrade. Just wanted to point that out.

A sorry yes you are correct I knew it was NES not sure why I put SNES. Thank you for catching me on that though.

 

[Kuon]

"Weeb" is a word you use for Western people obsessed with Japanese pop culture. Calling Japanese things "weeb" has no meaning to begin with.

That is very true.

 

[KingofKoopas]

If this place is gonna turn into a Maga cesspit I guess it's my cue to leave.

Maga aint got nothing to do with it... But if youre gonna be like that then... Orange Man Bad

 

[Flyboy]

Not sure if this was posted yet (apologies if it has been,) but someone got footage of every palette swap.

Wario's still suck.

No Damus SA-X skin but those colors are still mega neat and I love the little icons at the bottom for ease of remembering what color is what.

 

[JCDied4U]

Why wouldn't they just replace Elma with the more recent Rex if DLC development just started since, you know, she's a 1st Party? I feel like any potential 1st party if we were to get one would have to be a bigger name than Rex if Sakurai would pass up on him and at this point the only potentially bigger names left either a Three Houses/Gen 8 rep or an Octoling semi-clone.

There's a theory that dlc was decided back in 2015. At least that's kind of what it sounded like Sakurai said and why we may get Elma over Rex.

 

[Tree Gelbman]

I mean that he talk Japanese because for whatever reason the letter J and A and P are censored lmao

It used to be a major racial slur against the Japanese back in the World War era. Only reason I can think of?

As for the lack of black playable characters? What are you gonna do? A majority of gaming is Eastern based and they don't exactly get out of their bubble with heroes and heroines.

Even here in Western gaming, a majority of inspiration comes from what the Eastern companies do and we very seldom get a PoC hero/heroine.

It's not like Sakurai has an ample supply of black video game icons to choose from.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

I mean that he talk Japanese because for whatever reason the letter J and A and P are censored lmao

I mean that was a slur used to degrade the Japanese that originated during WWII so there's your explanation.

 

[Deleted member]

Elma shouldn’t be in for her skin alone.

She has way more points in favor of her that aren’t the skin. We should demand her based on those.

 

[Ramen Tengoku]

It's really low quality, but: https://twitter.com/NairoMK/status/1058532399074684928

Yes! It sounds amazing...
Nice to see my main getting special treatment

 

[BrytonJ]

So I decided to not check in on this thread right after the direct cause I knew there'd be a lot of salt (I just checked peoples reactions at the time just now actually and uh, ooh yeah yikes) and I figured that'd just fry my hype. I'll give my really late thoughts now though.

I don't get as frazzled about the directs as I think some other people do. You can put all the really hype reveals in one direct and all the slow nonsense boring stuff in another but the end product, the actual game, will always be the same. When I talk about the direct there's the part of me that's talking about my thoughts on the actual features in the final game and there's a part of me talking about the way the hype of the direct was handled. Essentially, part of it will still be relevant in a few months and the other part will just be a forgotten quirk of history and basically doesn't matter at all but anyways whatever.

Ken and Incineroar trailer was just awesome. A double reveal for them makes perfect sense and it looked gorgeous. I'm not super hyped for them as characters cause they weren't among my big desires but Incineroar looks like tons fun to play as and I'm sure I'll give Ken a go too. I think they're really good additions to the game. In terms of hype they kinda make for a lackluster final reveal though. Like, it probably should've been one of the big fan desires like RIdley or K. Rool to get more of a buzz going. Y'know, from a marketing standpoint, for whatever that's even worth.

Pretty much all the features in the direct looked really sick too it's just... the direct felt kind of bloated and weirdly managed. It failed to give a really good idea of what the core gameplay in Spirits mode for most of it. It's kind of like they gave us little tidbits until eventually we figured out what it is. However, once I kind of figured it out I gotta say, the mode looks hype to me. Event matches themed after tons and tons of characters from across all of Nintendo's franchises, catching those characters like Pokemon (literally in some cases), and training them up in like an upgrade sticker / blade / whatever system? That sounds rad to me I'm all over that. They just spent so long talking about it and didn't come out the gate with a good idea of the gameplay that it was hard for me to figure out how cool it was. The loss of trophies is really sad though those were so dope. My desire to collect stuff will be satiated but my desire to turn 3D objects around will be left wanting more...

The rest of the direct was cool but again, info that probably could've been trimmed (plus if it were shorter than 30 minutes I could've watched it on my lunch at work but WHATEVER.) Online looks nice hopefully there's enough people online that want to play 1v1s that I don't get matched up in too many casual matches (although actually that could be a nice breather in between serious matches,) some of the other stuff either doesn't effect me or looks fine. I am wondering if them mentioning multi man if that means other single player modes like home run contest are out. I'm crossing my fingers that that isn't the case but who knows. I'm even fine with all star being an extension of multi man I mean, that's basically what it is anyways so whatever. DLC package looks a bit better than the Smash 4 one so yeehaw to that. Pirahna Plant looks DOPE and I'm so so so excited for him. Perfect WTF character just completely unexpected. I don't even care that they could've been working on a really popular request like, sometimes you just have to make the game you want to make and sometimes that means Piranha Plant is in the game.

Which finally brings me to World of Light which is the part of the direct that made up for every misstep. That cutscene was seriously one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Even though it sounds like there won't be any more I'm glad we could at least get that. I know I'm getting ahead of myself here but honestly the gameplay looks to me to be even better than SSE and I'm gonna predict that it will actually be more fun. SSE was cool to me mostly because of the cutscenes and the story. The kind of half platforming beat em up thing I always felt worked just alright. I love SSE, I really do, but the gameplay doesn't really feel like it plays to smash's strong suits if you know what I mean. This mode is all fighting which really makes me feel like it'll work better in terms of moment to moment gameplay. The map screen also looks huge and I like that there seem to be things to do on it like surfing on lapras, some kind of electric puzzle with the goofy splatoon catfish, there was that switch thing where the platforms reminded me of mario galaxy, etc. I think I even saw Kap'n's bus on the map in the part where you see Isabelle. Involving the spirits thing with all the references and collectables that come with that makes it all more complex and more interesting as well. It's also kind of what I was hoping for with the streamlining character unlocking thing hehehehe. But yeah, this to me what the best possible thing to have as a final reveal. A full on new adventure mode that plays to the series' strengths: solid platform fighting gameplay and massive nintendo fan service. World of Light is more hype to me than any character they could've introduced.

So yeah tl;dr the direct was kind of mishandled but I loved all the content in it

 

[Kuon]

Elma shouldn’t be in for her skin alone.

She has way more points in favor of her that aren’t the skin. We should demand her based on those.

Even if we demand her, I think Sakurai said that the DLC was decided a while ago, just not developed yet, so the characters they plan on putting in as DLC are probably set in stone. No going back now.

 

[JCDied4U]

If this place is gonna turn into a Maga cesspit I guess it's my cue to leave.

Showing your true colors I see. They're just talking about how ridiculous some people can be with their complaints.

 

[Tako Tuesday]

Long post incoming.

Okay, so I'm finally gonna give my opinions on the Direct. I've been quite busy lately, and my GameCube controller arrived yesterday so I spent all night playing with it. I must say, it feels amazing, and this is coming from someone who's never used a GC controller.

Now, on to the Direct. My initial reactions were confusing, honestly. As soon as I saw the Boxing ring I knew it was gonna be Kencineroar, (I was a huge Incineroar supporter since before Verge, but all the recent talk against him and Box Theory made me less happy for him) because if the Grinch leak was real, why would they open with a cinematic trailer only for Ken? As soon as I saw Incineroar's eyes in the shadows, I knew Grinch was sadly dead.

But I still had hope. Maybe Shadow could still be an echo? He was my most wanted going into this. And what do they do? That dang assist trophy spotlight that crushed my (and many other's) hopes and dreams, which opened with Shadow. This set the tone for the rest of the Direct. Then we see Isaac, killing his potential as DLC (I feel so bad for Isaac's fans, I wanted him in too because of how passionate they are). Then they show freakin' Springman, and at that point I was so done. It really hurt to see that, especially as he was my top first party DLC candidate.

Then we get confusing Spirts info, online info didn't seem too bad, and World of Light, which looks great, but everything leading up to it dampened my mood making it harder to be excited initially (also, is it just me of did anyone get Smash Tour flashbacks seeing the overworld?).

At this point, after letting all the info sink in, I must say I'm actually feeling pretty good. Surprising, I know. If I stayed true to myself instead of getting caught up in what everyone else wanted (I have a tendency to bandwagon), the Kencineroar trailer would have been beyond hype for me, as Incineroar looks like everything I wanted him to be, and he's full of goofy expressions.

Spirts, while not what I expected turned out to be something I wanted: the return of Custom Equipment. Yes, I know not a lot of people seem to like them, but they're honestly my favorite thing about sm4sh. Changing up character stats goes a long way in adding another layer to this game. Not only in playing absurd smashes where you can die in two hits to attack-built fighters with Critical Hitter,
but they open the door for a ton of custom modes, which I just have a blast with. This may just be my opinion, and others may not get mileage out of them, but where would I be if I just agreed with other people instead of listening to myself? Disappointed. That's where.

Closing things off, I think it's best to just re-watch the Direct to make sense of everything,
which might change your opinion on it, and sadly trying to accept that some fan favorites simply didn't make the cut. Whew, I think that's everything now.

TL; DR sad at first happy at end, stay hydrated. Also Piranha Plant.

 

[KirbyWorshipper2465]

Yep. They want only their favorite characters to get in and every other character shouldn't be in the game because it's not who they like or want. I'm so glad Sakurai and Nintendo have the final say on what characters get in the game and that we as the fans don't

Man, I'll say. There's been some odd fan rosters posted on here before.

Elma shouldn’t be in for her skin alone.

She has way more points in favor of her that aren’t the skin. We should demand her based on those.

Yes, like a GIANT ROBOT. People dig those, y'know.

 

[KingofKoopas]

Elma shouldn’t be in for her skin alone.

She has way more points in favor of her that aren’t the skin. We should demand her based on those.

Any character who gets in should be based on Merit, Doc Louis would be a token choice lets be honest.. But if they wanted a GTA Protag you can do alot worse than CJ from San Andreas! I doubt that'll happen though but we should be caring about what the characters DO rather than what they ARE. Same with people!

 

[Deleted member]

Even if we demand her, I think Sakurai said that the DLC was decided a while ago, just not developed yet, so the characters they plan on putting in as DLC are probably set in stone. No going back now.

True.

 

[khfan93]

Elma shouldn’t be in for her skin alone.

She has way more points in favor of her that aren’t the skin. We should demand her based on those.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I am not aware of anyone saying that she should be in because of her skin tone. But it would be a good thing representation-wise.

 

[Thinkaman]

I just can't understand why the number of echoes must be so limited, while they are so easy to make...

People don't seem to understand the circumstances by which clones/echoes come about, or perhaps more broadly what game production is like.

Imagine a long conveyor belt, spanning all the stages of development for each character:

Rights Negotiation -> Planning -> High Poly Modeling -> Low Poly Modeling & 2D Renders -> Rigging -> Animation Keyframes -> Animation Tweening -> SFX & Voice -> Programming -> QA -> Marketing Assets

Strictly linear, this would take a little over a year per character, regardless of how many people you had working at any given stage. Thus, the magic of actually producing video games on time has little to do with how well/fast teams can complete individual steps, but how coordinated the overall team can be along two critical points of production optimization:

• How many tasks (in this case characters) can we do in parallel?
• How much can we restructure the pipeline so that we can start latter steps early + finish early steps late, without blocking?

Both of these optimizations are really easy on paper and really really hard in practice. Coordination, it turns out, is actually the most difficult element involving any great human creative or engineering accomplishment. (And games are both!) This is why games have Producers--team members whose entire job is to constantly address these problems.

Here's some obvious optimizations everyone does:

• Have programmers always working with placeholder assets
• Stagger the character schedule so art teams are minimally blocked
• Integrate programming tasks with QA testing, and 2D asset manifests with marketing needs

But all games have to come up with clever workflow solutions for their particular pipeline and balance of staff. Clones/Echoes address a big concern with the fighting game character pipeline:

"Most of our work is Animation, Programming, and QA. But for the last batch of characters in the game, what do all the character modelers do?"

In the old days, we'd just lay them all off, or move them to a different project. But Sakurai has a more clever, player-centric answer: Let's use them to make characters who only need new models. Yeah, they still need a tiny bit of extra programming & QA, they still need a handful of custom animations (like victory poses), and they all still need voice work. Echoes are just as much effort for the non-blocked teams, but for the blocked teams they are less than 2% of the work.

Clones/echoes are not done because they are simply less work, they are done because they are leftover work. It's like baking 50 cakes, and then making a couple loaves of banana bread with the extra leftover ingredients while your assistants decorate the cakes.

This is very logical and clever in the context of full-scale production. But in a far smaller team working on DLC characters far less in parallel (a couple cakes, 1 or 2 at a time), none of this is a factor.

 

[WaxPython]

Elma shouldn’t be in for her skin alone.

She has way more points in favor of her that aren’t the skin. We should demand her based on those.

Yeah exactly this characters need to get in based on their own merits. Whatever skin colour they have is irrelevant.

I'm personally not one that wants to include characters for the sake of filling in a quota. Personally I dont need to feel represented when I'm playing games.

If I'm playing Pikachu it's because I think hes a cool character with a fun moveset not because I need to relate to an electric mouse on a personal level.

 

[Kuon]

After seeing these posts about people's feelings on the direct, I think it was overall great. I have basically no complaints about it at all. A lot of the stuff they put in the game is stuff I've been dreaming of for years
Edit: Granted I really wanted Shantae, but I knew in the back of my mind she had no chance

 

[Nekoo]

I mean that was a slur used to degrade the Japanese that originated during WWII so there's your explanation.

I see, I didn't know that- Here in france it's just the short of japanese for I didn't though about it-
Sorry if I ever offended anyone

 

[Pakky]

Tiger Mask vs Andre the Giant

 

[Deleted member]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I am not aware of anyone saying that she should be in because of her skin tone. But it would be a good thing representation-wise.

No one did, of course.

I said it because of the ratial thing in general, not towards anyone.