Official Smash Ultimate Discussion

[vaanrose]

I fully believe the roster is going to get padded with Echoes this time around. Maybe "padded" isn't the correct word for a roster already pushing 70 characters, but I think what's going to happen is we only get a small handful of "true" newcomers, maybe even as few as three or four. That's simply an effect of bringing all the vets back.

But I don't think Sakurai will be content with that, and I see Echoes as his solution for adding in fan favorite characters there isn't time to add as fully fleshed options. Emphases fan favorite, because no, I doubt we're getting Funky Kong or Raichu just because they'd work quite well as Echoes.

Isabelle, Dark Samus and Shadow all fit nicely into the venn diagram of "popular character" and "echo potential". Characters like Waluigi, Takamaru or Midna might be popular enough to warrant inclusion as characters, but they don't have the echo potential. And characters like Raichu or Funky Kong may have the echo potential, but not really the popular backing.

Instead, characters like Dixie or Bandana Dee are more likely. Neither fits that well, but if the reason for putting Echoes in is to get more popular characters in, they both seem like good fits. If Diddy's truly lost his tail attacks, then technically nothing prevents Dixie from being skinned to his skeleton, even if the end result is a character that lacks Dixie's primary helicopter gimmick. Bandana Dee could easily be slapped onto Kirby's skeleton, maybe with a permanent B move as the only thing differentiating him (perhaps a variation on Kirby's Metaknight spin or Marth stab).

Impa has popularity within the fanbase and once again, her extreme ease of being implemented as an echo. Chrom, too, has a shot because of this even if I'd find the choice quite boring.

 

[Green_Pikmin*]

I actually think we're seeing Simon and Chorus kids this time.

Simon because... Dasvergeben (and after bomberman's deconfirmation, very likely would be the second konami rep anyway.). Also Sakurai has stated he was greatly inspired by the castlevania series on NES.

Chorus Kids were presumably cut from smash 4 (with it being extremely likely the gematsu leak was a genuine leak of an early development list of planned fighters) for the same reason ice climbers were, and with the ice climbers back it's incredibly likely we are seeing them this time.

Some other predictions:

I don't see mimikyu after we got pichu back, having 3 pokemon that look like pikachu in the roster seem to be a bit much. Decidueye is also considerably less likely in my opinion because of ivysaur returning and the fact that there's 5 archer characters (3 links and 2 pits who use bow and arrows, not even counting final smashes). Lycanroc is considerably more likely, although it fills a similar dog-like rep that Duck hunt dog, lucario, and wolf fill already. I think we might not see a pokemon newcomer at all after the pokemon roster increased from 6 to 9 (50% increase).

Dark samus would be a pretty neat Echo though. Her alt and assist trophy don't appear to be in the E3 demo, so maybe.

Although I don't think it's likely, I would love dry bowser to get a buffed version of the old bowser's moveset (brawl/melee bowser).

I think if K Rool is the DK newcomer, there's a decent chance Dixie kong is an echo of diddy because his tail attack was removed. There's still a pretty decent chance dixie is her own character as the DK newcomer on her own though.

Impa being a possible shiek echo is pretty likely IMO

And finally... I would also say that I think Elma, Bandana Waddle Dee, Geno, and Rayman stand a decent chance as well as newcomers, but I don't expect all of my possible predictions to be in.

I agree with this almost 100% especially the Chorus kids situation of them being cut potentially due to Sakurai functioning them similar to the Ice Climbers.

 

[CyberHyperPhoenix]

Ninten also holds the unfortunate accolade of being less popular than Ness or Lucas, and the casual Smash fan would just see him as a different Ness. I think the only chance he has of representation at this point would be as an Echo. I will give him that his game did get rereleased and Lucas’ didn’t, however!

Also, the fact that Lucas doesn’t learn PSI Freeze but he does learn Flash in his game just shows how much of a mess they are lmao

I do think Sakurai could take some liberties in making a unique design for Ninten in Smash, but you're right- if people thought Lucas was 'just another Ness' in terms of their shared move sets, then that same sentiment will definitely be echoed with Ninten even more.

 

[?????????????]

Okay, VERY minor worry about potential Octolings I'm sure, but...

I feel like one of the reasons the 8 different Inklings have different ink colors is so that they don't get mixed up; like, there's a special role to the ink and that would conflict/get confusing if there was another Inkling in the same fight with the same color of ink.

Wouldn't that be a problem for Octolings unless they had 8 new and different ink colors? Or is this a complete non-issue?

 

[SuperSmashStephen]

Yeah. He was in the gameplay on Treehouse or the Invitational. Just somewhere at E3 he was seen. I forget where.

Yep. It surfs across the screen and hits people. Kinda like a slower, straighter Lati@s.

Abra is a Pokeball Pokemon too. It teleports people to other parts of the stage if it gets close enough to them.

A Pokemon having an ability like this gives me hope for the return of Mushroom Kingdom 64.

Oh my God. I’ll have to go back and watch the TreeHouse stuff I missed.

I’ve always wanted Ditto to be a Pokéball summon. Comes out, makes a copy of your character and fights for a brief period before disappearing. 10-15 seconds tops.

 

[Roberk]

OK OK OK hear me out:

Tharja as an echo for Robin.

Robin already has Nosferatu. Change some of the attacks to be more dark-oriented and maybe do something with the sword to make it more in-character for Tharja (dark-focused energy blade?) and you'd have a pretty solid echo.

Then again I doubt they'd even consider her since she couldn't even get a trophy for Smash 4...

I don’t mean to be rude, but please dear God no. Even as the main lord, Chrom is a stretch since he is another Awakenkng rep, but he’s only considered due to how close/shafted he was. Also, a tertiary character before lords like Lyn, Hector, Ephraim, Sigurd, etc., not happening.

Edit: Also Also, I didn’t even mention the outfit. Or the personality. Or the dwindling popularity. Tharja is a bad pick on pretty much every level.

That leak is a lot of Mario and Mario extended universe characters.

I personally don't care because I love them all.

But Daisy, Ashley, Funky Kong, Waluigi, Geno, King K. Rool?

Peeps would complain about Mario oversaturation like Fire Emblem last game. Even if they had different symbols.

It’s only over saturation if it’s something they don’t like.

 

[Tree Gelbman]

I think we're getting too crazy about the new echo fighter thing.

I can see him using them to pad out the roster, but I don't think they are going to be a majority of the newcomers either.

I think we all know Sakurai is smart and he'd know that wouldn't go over well.

 

[ridleystan]

considering how easy it probably is to put in echo characters, i think they're going to be the majority of new characters. however i think geno and shovel knight are going to be added but no one else new. thoughts?

 

[?????????????]

considering how easy it probably is to put in echo characters, i think they're going to be the majority of new characters. however i think geno and shovel knight are going to be added but no one else new. thoughts?

It's difficult to gauge how much of a priority an indie character would be in the face of so many "bigger" characters, ESPECIALLY considering we know there will be fewer newcomers than usual.

But perhaps I'll be surprised.

 

[Shadowwolflink]

I fully believe the roster is going to get padded with Echoes this time around. Maybe "padded" isn't the correct word for a roster already pushing 70 characters, but I think what's going to happen is we only get a small handful of "true" newcomers, maybe even as few as three or four. That's simply an effect of bringing all the vets back.

But I don't think Sakurai will be content with that, and I see Echoes as his solution for adding in fan favorite characters there isn't time to add as fully fleshed options. Emphases fan favorite, because no, I doubt we're getting Funky Kong or Raichu just because they'd work quite well as Echoes.

Isabelle, Dark Samus and Shadow all fit nicely into the venn diagram of "popular character" and "echo potential". Characters like Waluigi, Takamaru or Midna might be popular enough to warrant inclusion as characters, but they don't have the echo potential. And characters like Raichu or Funky Kong may have the echo potential, but not really the popular backing.

Instead, characters like Dixie or Bandana Dee are more likely. Neither fits that well, but if the reason for putting Echoes in is to get more popular characters in, they both seem like good fits. If Diddy's truly lost his tail attacks, then technically nothing prevents Dixie from being skinned to his skeleton, even if the end result is a character that lacks Dixie's primary helicopter gimmick. Bandana Dee could easily be slapped onto Kirby's skeleton, maybe with a permanent B move as the only thing differentiating him (perhaps a variation on Kirby's Metaknight spin or Marth stab).

Impa has popularity within the fanbase and once again, her extreme ease of being implemented as an echo. Chrom, too, has a shot because of this even if I'd find the choice quite boring.

Who do you think the those three or four newcomers would be?

 

[ridleystan]

It's difficult to gauge how much of a priority an indie character would be in the face of so many "bigger" characters, ESPECIALLY considering we know there will be fewer newcomers than usual.

But perhaps I'll be surprised.

with the introduction of the new characters i think sakurai wants to appeal to fans all across the world, and a lot of people have been yelling for shovel knight so i don't think it's that improbable

 

[Gumzilla]

Honestly after looking at the website I can only assume we're only getting two more characters at least. Let's assume Simon is the next one since the leak has been correct so far. So that leaves one more slot. I personally want it to either be Gardevoir or a Fossil Fighters character. I also wouldn't mind Geno, Dixie, K. Rool, etc. Of course it could always be an Arms character like Spring Man but we'll never know until it's revealed. There's still the possibility for dlc as well.

 

[Zinith]

If there's gonna be more Echo Fighters, I'm assuming they have to be from the same series due to the bizarre numbering

 

[Dukeofdeath5]

considering how easy it probably is to put in echo characters, i think they're going to be the majority of new characters. however i think geno and shovel knight are going to be added but no one else new. thoughts?

I think you're insane but I hope you're right for the memes.

But I think everyone is VASTLY overestimating how many more newcomers we're getting in the first place, treating Ultimate as if it were a new iteration when in reality it's more like an expansion of Smash 4.

Either way, I'm not even sure if we're getting more echos.

but hey hope I'm wrong.

 

[PSIguy89]

I have this good gut feeling about Ninten being one of the Echoes...Sakurai does seem to love the mother series. Ninten really honestly could work off of Ness OR Lucas IMO, and don’t give me the whole “he doesn’t have any offensive PSI” bit...Ness and Lucas don’t have most of their specials or final smash...just call it creative liberties

 

[Dukeofdeath5]

Honestly after looking at the website I can only assume we're only getting two more characters at least. Let's assume Simon is the next one since the leak has been correct so far. So that leaves one more slot. I personally want it to either be Gardevoir or a Fossil Fighters character. I also wouldn't mind Geno, Dixie, K. Rool, etc. Of course it could always be an Arms character like Spring Man but we'll never know until it's revealed. There's still the possibility for dlc as well.

Two newcomers sound about right, rounding it out to 70 characters.

 

[?????????????]

with the introduction of the new characters i think sakurai wants to appeal to fans all across the world, and a lot of people have been yelling for shovel knight so i don't think it's that improbable

I agree that Sakurai wants to appeal to fans all across the world. However, if we go by that... we have reason to believe King K. Rool is much higher ranking, in both the US and especially in Japan.

Not to say Shovel Knight can't happen, but...I'm not convinced he'll out-prioritize some of the others.

 

[N3ON]

I think we may be in a Melee situation where the number of original newcomers may not be overly impressive so Sakurai adds a little padding through an above average ratio of clones, or echoes. But probably to a lesser extent than Melee on both accounts, because I don't expect 14 new characters.

 

[smashkirby]

They did. It's called Pokken.

Speaking of Pokken, was anyone else unnecessarily hyped over the reveal of Pikachu Libre being added as an alt. for Pikachu? Honestly, I MIGHT have screamed a little. Granted, I know Pika Libre isn't a separate character like in Pokken, but I was still hyped nonetheless.

Or this.

View attachment 148432


A Spirit Bomb, but made of Waddle Dees.

View attachment 148430

Thanks a lot, now I actually want this!

 

[Chandeelure]

Before Echo Fighters announcement:

"I expect 10 characters max".

Now:

 

[vaanrose]

Who do you think the those three or four newcomers would be?

Inkling, Ridley, and I'mma go out on a limb here and say K.Rool.

I think we're getting too crazy about the new echo fighter thing.

I can see him using them to pad out the roster, but I don't think they are going to be a majority of the newcomers either.

I think we all know Sakurai is smart and he'd know that wouldn't go over well.

It's precisely because Sakurai is smart and knows that won't go over well that they've taken the opportunity to rebrand the very concept of clones. Sometimes it's easier to convince a customer to buy what you're selling than it is to produce what they're asking for.

 

[Blargg888]

It wouldn't surprise me if we got only 1 more newcomer, or up to 5 more newcomers.

No more newcomers, or 9+ total newcomers would surprise me though. I don't expect many more newcomers given what we've already gotten thus far.

 

[Tree Gelbman]

Yeah, vaan. I usually agree with you on things, but not this. This just doesn't seem like something Sakurai is going to do.

I can't see more than a few other echo fighters. Like 2 or 3 more at most.

There's not even that many fan favorites that are viable to be echo fighters of other characters in the roster to begin with.

 

[?????????????]

I'm fairly confident we'll get at least two more newcomers (that aren't echoes).

 

[MoonlitIllusion]

Okay, VERY minor worry about potential Octolings I'm sure, but...

I feel like one of the reasons the 8 different Inklings have different ink colors is so that they don't get mixed up; like, there's a special role to the ink and that would conflict/get confusing if there was another Inkling in the same fight with the same color of ink.

Wouldn't that be a problem for Octolings unless they had 8 new and different ink colors? Or is this a complete non-issue?

They could always use different colours/shades, there could be a lilac, a baby pink and baby blue, a dark green, black, white etc

 

[Shadowwolflink]

I think you're insane but I hope you're right for the memes.

But I think everyone is VASTLY overestimating how many more newcomers we're getting in the first place, treating Ultimate as if it were a new iteration when in reality it's more like an expansion of Smash 4.

Either way, I'm not even sure if we're getting more echos.

but hey hope I'm wrong.

I don't really understand how you can think it's an "expansion of Smash 4" considering the changes to the current characters, the stage list pushing 80 already, the changes to mechanics, and especially the new engine.

 

[N3ON]

These conservative roster guesses are giving me flashbacks to when people thought we'd get 3 or 4 characters as DLC.

 

[Bowserlick]

Five more non-Echo characters bringing us to 70 sounds nice.

1. Simon Belmont
2. Geno
3. King K. Rool
4. Dixie
5. Mach Rider

Might not happen unless DLC. But might because Sakurai cannot stop working.

 

[vaanrose]

Yeah, vaan. I usually agree with you on things, but not this. This just doesn't seem like something Sakurai is going to do.

I can't see more than a few other echo fighters. Like 2 or 3 more at most.

There's not even that many fan favorites that are viable to be echo fighters of other characters in the roster to begin with.

I'm not claiming there's gonna be a bunch of them, or that all the options I listed will make the cut. But I think we'll get at least 4 including Daisy and those options seem the most likely to me. I'm personally only expecting two more "true" newcomers.

 

[Amazeballs]

Don't know if anyone's mentioned this but on the official website R.O.B. doesn't have a stage. This is odd, what with Balloon Fight, Pictochat, or even Port Town Aero Drive if they just give Captain Falcon Big Blue. Heck, Nintendogs might even work. There are more options than just these, so it seems suspicious to leave him blank. Professor Hector's lab anyone?

 

[?????????????]

These conservative roster guesses are giving me flashbacks to when people thought we'd get 3 or 4 characters as DLC.

I'm guessing there will be a pretty darn good amount of DLC! This game is being released earlier on the Switch lifespan, the developers now know that DLC works with Smash Bros., and they won't have to develop DLC for two versions of Smash Bros. simultaneously like they did before.

 

[Gumzilla]

So let's say they bring back all the stages. Do you think they'll go full circle and bring back all the items too? The cloaking device might be a bit tricky to get back though. Honestly I just want the fan back. Sure I was never the biggest fan (no pun intended) but when it was removed in Sm4sh it just felt like an important piece of Smash history was gone, y'know?

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Like obviously Smash Ultimate used some Smash 4 assets here and there. But so has every game.

It's a new game. They made it clear it was made from scratch directly. It's not a Splatoon 2 situation. It's not a ported-so-hard-and-new-it's-almost-a-new-game situation either.

It was understandable to not be sure at first. But when they make a statement saying it was made from scratch? Time to let the port thing go. There's no confusion or vagueness.

 

[Polan]

The thing had "support"and was the "most likely" newcomer for Pokémon before anyone even knew what a "Decidueye" was.

And I seriously doubt Decidueye would have been such a big name in Smash speculation if it weren't for the fact we had no Grass Starter to go with Charizard and Greninja

tired of all these ignorant-ass statements about decidueye fans. people want decidueye in smash because it has a cool design, a cool typing and a lot of moveset potential. generalizing decidueye fans as only wanting him because he's a grass starter is incredibly disingenous, inaccurate and just plain wrong. i mean would you like incineroar and mimikyu fans to be called popularity bandwagoners?

 

[Shadowwolflink]

Inkling, Ridley, and I'mma go out on a limb here and say K.Rool.



It's precisely because Sakurai is smart and knows that won't go over well that they've taken the opportunity to rebrand the very concept of clones. Sometimes it's easier to convince a customer to buy what you're selling than it is to produce what they're asking for.

I totally thought you meant 3-4 more.

 

[Bowserlick]

Now Mimikyu can be a transforming character.

Regular form is an underpowered Echo of Pikachu that turns Busted after a certain percentage and gains unworldy powers.

 

[Tree Gelbman]

These conservative roster guesses are giving me flashbacks to when people thought we'd get 3 or 4 characters as DLC.

This whole time is reminding me of that as well.

Honestly, we just need to sit back and stop reading into Sakurai's words so much. He's made similar quotes to this before and done the exact opposite.

Sure this one might be the time to take him at his word, and if it is. That's fine. He's done alot for Smash already, but he's also the type who just keeps pushing him while at work. Trinen himself already acknowledged this fact in an interview about THIS game.

 

[MoonlitIllusion]

I think we may be in a Melee situation where the number of original newcomers may not be overly impressive so Sakurai adds a little padding through an above average ratio of clones, or echoes. But probably to a lesser extent than Melee on both accounts, because I don't expect 14 new characters.

I mean 8 unique characters and 6 echoes like melee doesn't sound that unrealistic tbh

 

[vaanrose]

This game is gonna get hella DLC, imo. But it still seems right that the vanilla roster will be "conservative." (Feels so wrong to describe a roster this large that way, lol).

 

[Bowserlick]

People have to be careful for what they wish for.

"No cuts, bring everyone back. OR else you're disrespectful!"

Now, people are nervous about the prospect of very few newcomers.

- Their salvation is Sakurai.

He is a workaholic, sadly always unsatisfied and always motivated to sacrifice body, mind and countless days to come as close to perfection as he could.
Only because Sakurai is the director, we will get all past fighters and very possibly a nice amount of newcomers.

- The Ultimate Smash.