SamuraiPanda
Smash Hero
- Joined
- May 22, 2006
- Messages
- 6,924
Straight from the Show Me Your News podcast is my “conspiracy theoracy” (typo on purpose, you'd get the joke from the podcast) that the screenshot we got of the character selection screen on Friday is the actual starting roster. I’m just making this into a thread for those of you who don’t listen to the podcast (but should) and where we can keep the discussion.
***Final (?) Edit: Ok, so here is the deal. I've decided to change the way I formatted this post, because many people have ignored many of the points I've made throughout it, and decided to post counter-arguments without reading the first post. Also, this is merely a possibility. You cannot “prove” me wrong, nor can I “prove” I’m right, until the Dojo updates blatantly saying “this is the starting roster.” This ‘theoracy’ can merely become less, or more, likely upon debating.
And also, I think after this update is up for a few days, I may just lock the thread. I wrote this thread as a light-hearted way of saying, "don't rule out the possibility of this roster being the starting roster just because we saw the same character lineup in the demo." I don't see the need to constantly debate with people about it (as I don’t want this to be a possibility more than you guys do), nor do I see the need for people to resort to ad hominem arguments. The only reason for this update is that I gave my word I would do so, nothing more. This thread is becoming a cesspool of bickering and, oddly enough, anti-moderator hating. If the trend doesn't change after I update the post, then I see no reason to keep it open.
BTW, I kinda got bored while revamping the post, so other than the beginning parts, not too much has changed. Instead of taking a lot more time to revise more of my statements, I figured I’d just post it instead. I may come back and “complete” the update if I feel like it.***
As a disclaimer: I personally don’t want this to be true. But I think that a few main points of this “theocracy” definitely make this screenshot being accurate a possibility. Although, the screenshot doesn’t necessarily have to be the exact starting roster, just possibly CLOSE to the final starting roster (i.e. there can be a few additions, like Kirby or Zelda, but I don’t see the roster changing much more than adding a few characters or rearranging the order a bit).
This is the story: I never seriously thought about the screenshot being the final starting roster, because like most people I recognized that it was the same selection from the demo, and it would be outrageous for people like Kirby to not be starters. Then I thought about one simple thing… The Dojo is tailored for the casual smasher. There is no doubt about it. There are even updates that have blatantly said things like ‘in case you’ve never played a Smash Bros game before.’ So why would they use this screenshot? It made no sense to me, because normal people would think this is the character selection screen. And that’s when I started to think that maybe this could actually be possible…
We aren’t “supposed” to have known about the character selection screen. The Dojo is NOT tailored for people who broke down and analyzed everything in the E4All demo, it is tailored for everyone else. So the normal response to that screenshot would be “Oh, that’s the starting roster.” Not, “Oh, that’s from the demo so it can’t be real.”
Also, I’ve recently realized something else: This is different from the character selection screen seen in the demo.
This is the demo character select screen:
In the screenshot from the Dojo, the upper right hand corner has buttons for Items and Stages, there is also a countdown for the character selection, and “seeking” in the player selection boxes. Most people argue that Sakurai just put this screen up there because he "needed something" so he just used the demo roster for demonstration purposes only. But there are differences.
A few of you are probably thinking he maybe just photoshopped it a bit, and its not a big deal, but think about this: The only "important" parts of that screen (according to that argument) would be the buttons in the upper right, the countdown, and the "seeking" where other player selections are. So why wouldn't Sakurai just blur the character selection out and say that it is still secret? He's done that before... so why not again?
From here on out, I refute some of the most commonly stated arguments to this possibility. This is where the true “theory” begins, because everything from here on out is pure speculation on my part.
1. There is that one screenshot where the character select screen is blurred out… why isn’t the select screen shown there?
First of all, they’ve only updated 1 screenshot in the past. Second of all, check this out:
The more recent screenshot has a P2 Entry on the side there. But, the older screenshot is missing this:
So that could mean that they don’t always go back and update these pictures and/or that the co-op events mode is an unlockable mode (maybe after you play SSE through once with co-op?).
2. No Kirby! OMGWTF YOU’RE SO WRONG ABOUT THIS!!!111!!!
Calm down. Notice how I said before that this could be close to the starting roster? Kirby could still be a starter. But, there is actually some interesting reasoning behind why he may be an unlockable, if he really is…
I direct you to this quote from the Dojo that came with the update:
“But even without this mode, given the proliferation of the Internet these days, the existence of hidden characters is going to get exposed anyway.
So, this time I’m moving in the direction of not being too hung up on hidden characters.
You can earn most characters by playing through Adventure Mode: The Subspace Emissary. For those of you who look forward to those encounters, I recommend you clear this mode before playing Basic Brawl.”
What is the very first battle in the Subspace Emissary? Mario vs Kirby. You unlock him in the very beginning of the mode. Next match? Petey Piranha with Zelda and Peach in a cage. Save Zelda to unlock her. Sakurai is making the subspace emissary much more enjoyable for people to play by letting you rapidly unlock characters. Don’t you think its more fun if you unlock a bunch of characters while playing through it, instead of one every 2 hours? It’ll really make you want to play that mode, probably before you do anything else in the game. Also, think of the event mode. The very first event, which was already revealed, is DeDeDe and Bowser vs Mario. Beat that and you unlock DeDeDe. Sakurai is encouraging people to play all these different single player modes by having you unlock characters really easy/early/frequently, so that you play the whole thing through. In Melee, there were really obscure ways to unlock a lot of characters that most people would, and should, have taken a long time to figure out. But, because of the internet, we unlocked them all as soon as humanly possible, so there is no point in making unlockable characters so hard to obtain anymore (although there will invariably be a few that are very difficult to unlock).
3.5a You can select Kirby in the first battle in the subspace emissary instead of fighting against him
Well, that video could easily be a person “replaying” SSE, where you can choose to play with Kirby. But that if that isn’t the case, I have another reason this could be true.
As others have already pointed out, this game is not 64, nor is it Melee. This is 6 years after the originals were made. So why do you assume you have to battle against the person you're about to unlock? I could easily see you having to win this battle with either Mario or Kirby (who could go on to fight Petey?) to unlock Kirby.
Also, remember that SSE is Co-Op. Wouldn’t it be boring for the second player if only the first player could fight every time there is a 1v1. So how do you get the second player involved? You can't just make the 1v1 a 2v1 whenever you're playing Co-Op, so maybe Sakurai just wanted 2 players to be able to play at the same time throughout most of the SSE (remember, you get your second teammate really early in the game, as Kirby gets one after beating Petey, and Mario meets Pit immediately). But the only way to do let 2 players play in the first match is by letting the players choose who they want.
3.5b Peach is on the starting roster, so why not Zelda?
This may be a bit tough for people to get, but it makes perfect sense to me. When you are going to battle Petey Piranah, do you know which princess you want to save? Do you even care? Frankly, I think most people (like myself) don't care which princess they save. It simply doesn't matter either way. But wait, what if you could unlock them? Well, it still wouldn't matter since you'll have to do both at some time or the other. But what if only ONE was unlockable? That is more than enough incentive for me to want that unlockable one. Badly. And honestly, I think it would be alot more fun if you actually cared which cage you opened.
4. No Kirby, but Metaknight? Yeah right.
There is no way you can have only veterans in the starting roster, that’s ridiculous. You have to include newcomers. So who do you include? Well, if I were Sakurai, I would try to include at least one really cool, fun to play, unique, and noob-friendly character. One person that fits this perfectly is Metaknight. He is freaking awesome. How many people, who didn’t know/care about Metaknight before SSBB have fallen in love with how cool he is? Including him in the starting roster would make sense. Especially since its so easy to unlock Kirby anyways. Plus, you may meet him much later in the emissary, which is a good reason to have him unlocked from the start since he is so appealing to new players.
EDIT: Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying he would be a starter because he is popular. I'm saying he would be a starter because he has alot of "WOW" factor, meaning people who are looking forward to really different characters from Melee would enjoy playing Metaknight alot because of his originality, overall coolness, etc.
5. Sonic? Sakurai said he’ll be an unlockable! And why is there no Snake?!?
Yes, I know. I did the translation where he said 3rd party characters will be unlockable. But probably one of the reasons they never officially translated the blog into English was because everything he said is subject to change. Whenever I talk to casual smashers (and many hardcore ones too) about SSBB, and I mention Sonic is in the game, you know what they say? “Oh man, that is the FIRST character I’m playing with.” I’ve gotten that response incredibly often. Plus, having Sonic in the game is a HUGE selling and advertising point. It only makes sense that he’s playable from the very beginning. Snake, on the other hand, is not nearly as “huge” to the SSBB series, or to fans worldwide as Sonic. Comparing the two would be silly.
Many, many people have pointed out this qoute from the E4A update on the Dojo: "The problem is Sonic. What to do... I suppose if we’re going to all this trouble, perhaps we should make him playable." This update was only in English. No other language. Did Sakurai write this? I don't think so, I think its much more likely Nate himself wrote this in Sakurai-style prose. But in the end, there is no way to tell who is actually saying this.
6. There is no way they can fit many more characters on that select screen.
Same with the stage selection screen. But is it really that difficult to imagine it zooming out when you unlock a certain amount? Do you think they can’t simply make the icons move places or rearrange? There are hundreds of things they can do besides the silly idea of squeezing everything into the available space there. That argument doesn’t mean anything. And how sweet will it be if we unlocked 26 characters instead of just 14? Can you imagine how fast we’d be unlocking stuff in the subspace emissary? It would be awesome.
Some new counterpoints were stated after the podcast was released. I don’t believe any of them are strong enough to completely counter my argument, but they are worth pointing out:
Actually, Pikachu was in the middle of Mario and Bowser before you unlocked secret characters in Melee. So rearranging the character select screen has been already done in Melee. I guess that actually strengthens my argument ^_^''
Like you said, those characters could potentially be locked very early (see the first few Co-Op events), or this boxart could not be the final box art. Plus, newcomers are the selling point of SSBB. If the game had exactly the same characters as Melee, not nearly as many people would care about it. If they want to sell the game even better than it already will, then advertising their newcomers are a great way to do it. And yes, I agree, nothing is truly confirmed until the Dojo announces it (nice Sakurai impression btw).
Easy, he can just say “then you go straight to the character selection screen!” There is no reason to show it. He does that often in Dojo updates, which makes me think he purposefully wanted to reveal the starting roster.
Try to be open minded with this, and don’t just say “you’re wrong because I don’t want this to be true although I can’t prove you wrong.” I don’t want it to be true just as much as you guys do, but I don’t see any gaping flaws in what I’ve said. If someone can try to prove me wrong through logic and reasoning, then by all means go ahead (keep in mind, it may take me awhile to answer you guys as I have my finals this week). Until that happens, it looks like we may already have our starting roster.
***Final (?) Edit: Ok, so here is the deal. I've decided to change the way I formatted this post, because many people have ignored many of the points I've made throughout it, and decided to post counter-arguments without reading the first post. Also, this is merely a possibility. You cannot “prove” me wrong, nor can I “prove” I’m right, until the Dojo updates blatantly saying “this is the starting roster.” This ‘theoracy’ can merely become less, or more, likely upon debating.
And also, I think after this update is up for a few days, I may just lock the thread. I wrote this thread as a light-hearted way of saying, "don't rule out the possibility of this roster being the starting roster just because we saw the same character lineup in the demo." I don't see the need to constantly debate with people about it (as I don’t want this to be a possibility more than you guys do), nor do I see the need for people to resort to ad hominem arguments. The only reason for this update is that I gave my word I would do so, nothing more. This thread is becoming a cesspool of bickering and, oddly enough, anti-moderator hating. If the trend doesn't change after I update the post, then I see no reason to keep it open.
BTW, I kinda got bored while revamping the post, so other than the beginning parts, not too much has changed. Instead of taking a lot more time to revise more of my statements, I figured I’d just post it instead. I may come back and “complete” the update if I feel like it.***
As a disclaimer: I personally don’t want this to be true. But I think that a few main points of this “theocracy” definitely make this screenshot being accurate a possibility. Although, the screenshot doesn’t necessarily have to be the exact starting roster, just possibly CLOSE to the final starting roster (i.e. there can be a few additions, like Kirby or Zelda, but I don’t see the roster changing much more than adding a few characters or rearranging the order a bit).
This is the story: I never seriously thought about the screenshot being the final starting roster, because like most people I recognized that it was the same selection from the demo, and it would be outrageous for people like Kirby to not be starters. Then I thought about one simple thing… The Dojo is tailored for the casual smasher. There is no doubt about it. There are even updates that have blatantly said things like ‘in case you’ve never played a Smash Bros game before.’ So why would they use this screenshot? It made no sense to me, because normal people would think this is the character selection screen. And that’s when I started to think that maybe this could actually be possible…
We aren’t “supposed” to have known about the character selection screen. The Dojo is NOT tailored for people who broke down and analyzed everything in the E4All demo, it is tailored for everyone else. So the normal response to that screenshot would be “Oh, that’s the starting roster.” Not, “Oh, that’s from the demo so it can’t be real.”
Also, I’ve recently realized something else: This is different from the character selection screen seen in the demo.
This is the demo character select screen:
In the screenshot from the Dojo, the upper right hand corner has buttons for Items and Stages, there is also a countdown for the character selection, and “seeking” in the player selection boxes. Most people argue that Sakurai just put this screen up there because he "needed something" so he just used the demo roster for demonstration purposes only. But there are differences.
A few of you are probably thinking he maybe just photoshopped it a bit, and its not a big deal, but think about this: The only "important" parts of that screen (according to that argument) would be the buttons in the upper right, the countdown, and the "seeking" where other player selections are. So why wouldn't Sakurai just blur the character selection out and say that it is still secret? He's done that before... so why not again?
From here on out, I refute some of the most commonly stated arguments to this possibility. This is where the true “theory” begins, because everything from here on out is pure speculation on my part.
1. There is that one screenshot where the character select screen is blurred out… why isn’t the select screen shown there?
First of all, they’ve only updated 1 screenshot in the past. Second of all, check this out:
The more recent screenshot has a P2 Entry on the side there. But, the older screenshot is missing this:
So that could mean that they don’t always go back and update these pictures and/or that the co-op events mode is an unlockable mode (maybe after you play SSE through once with co-op?).
2. No Kirby! OMGWTF YOU’RE SO WRONG ABOUT THIS!!!111!!!
Calm down. Notice how I said before that this could be close to the starting roster? Kirby could still be a starter. But, there is actually some interesting reasoning behind why he may be an unlockable, if he really is…
I direct you to this quote from the Dojo that came with the update:
“But even without this mode, given the proliferation of the Internet these days, the existence of hidden characters is going to get exposed anyway.
So, this time I’m moving in the direction of not being too hung up on hidden characters.
You can earn most characters by playing through Adventure Mode: The Subspace Emissary. For those of you who look forward to those encounters, I recommend you clear this mode before playing Basic Brawl.”
What is the very first battle in the Subspace Emissary? Mario vs Kirby. You unlock him in the very beginning of the mode. Next match? Petey Piranha with Zelda and Peach in a cage. Save Zelda to unlock her. Sakurai is making the subspace emissary much more enjoyable for people to play by letting you rapidly unlock characters. Don’t you think its more fun if you unlock a bunch of characters while playing through it, instead of one every 2 hours? It’ll really make you want to play that mode, probably before you do anything else in the game. Also, think of the event mode. The very first event, which was already revealed, is DeDeDe and Bowser vs Mario. Beat that and you unlock DeDeDe. Sakurai is encouraging people to play all these different single player modes by having you unlock characters really easy/early/frequently, so that you play the whole thing through. In Melee, there were really obscure ways to unlock a lot of characters that most people would, and should, have taken a long time to figure out. But, because of the internet, we unlocked them all as soon as humanly possible, so there is no point in making unlockable characters so hard to obtain anymore (although there will invariably be a few that are very difficult to unlock).
3.5a You can select Kirby in the first battle in the subspace emissary instead of fighting against him
Well, that video could easily be a person “replaying” SSE, where you can choose to play with Kirby. But that if that isn’t the case, I have another reason this could be true.
As others have already pointed out, this game is not 64, nor is it Melee. This is 6 years after the originals were made. So why do you assume you have to battle against the person you're about to unlock? I could easily see you having to win this battle with either Mario or Kirby (who could go on to fight Petey?) to unlock Kirby.
Also, remember that SSE is Co-Op. Wouldn’t it be boring for the second player if only the first player could fight every time there is a 1v1. So how do you get the second player involved? You can't just make the 1v1 a 2v1 whenever you're playing Co-Op, so maybe Sakurai just wanted 2 players to be able to play at the same time throughout most of the SSE (remember, you get your second teammate really early in the game, as Kirby gets one after beating Petey, and Mario meets Pit immediately). But the only way to do let 2 players play in the first match is by letting the players choose who they want.
3.5b Peach is on the starting roster, so why not Zelda?
This may be a bit tough for people to get, but it makes perfect sense to me. When you are going to battle Petey Piranah, do you know which princess you want to save? Do you even care? Frankly, I think most people (like myself) don't care which princess they save. It simply doesn't matter either way. But wait, what if you could unlock them? Well, it still wouldn't matter since you'll have to do both at some time or the other. But what if only ONE was unlockable? That is more than enough incentive for me to want that unlockable one. Badly. And honestly, I think it would be alot more fun if you actually cared which cage you opened.
4. No Kirby, but Metaknight? Yeah right.
There is no way you can have only veterans in the starting roster, that’s ridiculous. You have to include newcomers. So who do you include? Well, if I were Sakurai, I would try to include at least one really cool, fun to play, unique, and noob-friendly character. One person that fits this perfectly is Metaknight. He is freaking awesome. How many people, who didn’t know/care about Metaknight before SSBB have fallen in love with how cool he is? Including him in the starting roster would make sense. Especially since its so easy to unlock Kirby anyways. Plus, you may meet him much later in the emissary, which is a good reason to have him unlocked from the start since he is so appealing to new players.
EDIT: Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying he would be a starter because he is popular. I'm saying he would be a starter because he has alot of "WOW" factor, meaning people who are looking forward to really different characters from Melee would enjoy playing Metaknight alot because of his originality, overall coolness, etc.
5. Sonic? Sakurai said he’ll be an unlockable! And why is there no Snake?!?
Yes, I know. I did the translation where he said 3rd party characters will be unlockable. But probably one of the reasons they never officially translated the blog into English was because everything he said is subject to change. Whenever I talk to casual smashers (and many hardcore ones too) about SSBB, and I mention Sonic is in the game, you know what they say? “Oh man, that is the FIRST character I’m playing with.” I’ve gotten that response incredibly often. Plus, having Sonic in the game is a HUGE selling and advertising point. It only makes sense that he’s playable from the very beginning. Snake, on the other hand, is not nearly as “huge” to the SSBB series, or to fans worldwide as Sonic. Comparing the two would be silly.
Many, many people have pointed out this qoute from the E4A update on the Dojo: "The problem is Sonic. What to do... I suppose if we’re going to all this trouble, perhaps we should make him playable." This update was only in English. No other language. Did Sakurai write this? I don't think so, I think its much more likely Nate himself wrote this in Sakurai-style prose. But in the end, there is no way to tell who is actually saying this.
6. There is no way they can fit many more characters on that select screen.
Same with the stage selection screen. But is it really that difficult to imagine it zooming out when you unlock a certain amount? Do you think they can’t simply make the icons move places or rearrange? There are hundreds of things they can do besides the silly idea of squeezing everything into the available space there. That argument doesn’t mean anything. And how sweet will it be if we unlocked 26 characters instead of just 14? Can you imagine how fast we’d be unlocking stuff in the subspace emissary? It would be awesome.
Some new counterpoints were stated after the podcast was released. I don’t believe any of them are strong enough to completely counter my argument, but they are worth pointing out:
Actually, Pikachu was in the middle of Mario and Bowser before you unlocked secret characters in Melee. So rearranging the character select screen has been already done in Melee. I guess that actually strengthens my argument ^_^''
Like you said, those characters could potentially be locked very early (see the first few Co-Op events), or this boxart could not be the final box art. Plus, newcomers are the selling point of SSBB. If the game had exactly the same characters as Melee, not nearly as many people would care about it. If they want to sell the game even better than it already will, then advertising their newcomers are a great way to do it. And yes, I agree, nothing is truly confirmed until the Dojo announces it (nice Sakurai impression btw).
Easy, he can just say “then you go straight to the character selection screen!” There is no reason to show it. He does that often in Dojo updates, which makes me think he purposefully wanted to reveal the starting roster.
I agree that the little details are aimed towards us. Things like attacks, taunts, etc. But something like the character selection screen is a BIG detail that even the least analytical Dojo reader will be able to catch.
Try to be open minded with this, and don’t just say “you’re wrong because I don’t want this to be true although I can’t prove you wrong.” I don’t want it to be true just as much as you guys do, but I don’t see any gaping flaws in what I’ve said. If someone can try to prove me wrong through logic and reasoning, then by all means go ahead (keep in mind, it may take me awhile to answer you guys as I have my finals this week). Until that happens, it looks like we may already have our starting roster.
