Sunrise, Sunset - Isaac for Smash Ultimate #GoldenSunday

[OptimisticStrifer]

As all 103 stages are now all accounted for on the stage select screen, if that really is the cap, that doesn't bode well for Isaac.

I still feel; however optimistic it seems, there will be unlockable stages and the stages shown is just the base number you start out with. Or their just lying to keep the surprise. Like good ol "Boxing Ring"

Count me in as a support for Isaac! Never played golden sun but count me in as support for this terraforming anime swordsman! He is my dark horse candidate and in my current top three most likely newcomers at the moment!

 

[ThoughtfulWanderer]

As all 103 stages are now all accounted for on the stage select screen, if that really is the cap, that doesn't bode well for Isaac.

He never explicitly stated it was the final tally. All he said was "now the total number of stages is 103" and there are six very defined blank spots right there on the select screen. If that was the final count, they would be aligned towards the middle rather than the left.

Besides, it wouldn't be smart to essentially imply that no other newcomer franchises would get a playable character or that they just wouldn't get the same treatment as nearly every other.

I sort of doubt it. I mean there’s already a lot of empty space in the screen.

But anyways, I think Isaac’s chances have skyrocketed. If the devs heard about Shovel Knight, then I’m sure they know about Isaac with the amount of vocal support he has gotten.

Although, I’m unsure when they’re going to reveal him. When do you guys think he’ll be revealed.

If he's in, then the very last set of reveals before launch. They've probably got one more info dump for us and I think it'll come in the form of another Smash direct/presentation. The only other thing we may get is a newcomer in a general direct if Nintendo is having one next month to talk about their online service and potential holiday + 2019 releases. Isaac definitely wouldn't be revealed there just due to the audience not being filled with Smash fans, so there wouldn't be as much recognition among the viewers. If K. Rool was revealed in a Smash direct, then so too would Isaac.

 

[DogManStar]

Yeah, I don't think 103 stages is going to be the final number, because there are definitely going to be more characters, and I don't think Sakurai is going to restrict newcomers to only ones from existing series from here on out. I don't think that disconfirms anyone.

 

[isaac3000]

Do we know how all 103 stages look like? Can we like, see the right now?

 

[DogManStar]

Do we know how all 103 stages look like? Can we like, see the right now?

I think there was a brief image of the stage select screen during the direct when Sakurai mentioned that number. There is still space for more stages.

 

[~ Valkyrie ~]

I sort of doubt it. I mean there’s already a lot of empty space in the screen.

Also do note they don't have Jungle Hijinx from Wii U Sm4sh in the game, among other pretty important stages for characters. So perhaps there could be more coming.

Otherwise it'd be too easy to guess rest of the newcomers just by stages alone.

 

[RandomAce]

Also do note they don't have Jungle Hijinx from Wii U Sm4sh in the game, among other pretty important stages for characters. So perhaps there could be more coming.

Otherwise it'd be too easy to guess rest of the newcomers just by stages alone.

Pretty much, I also don’t even think that the final stage selection might even look like this. It’s rushed? It looks like it needs some touching up, but we’re getting more.

 

[Sabrewulf238]

I still feel; however optimistic it seems, there will be unlockable stages and the stages shown is just the base number you start out with. Or their just lying to keep the surprise. Like good ol "Boxing Ring"

I'm pretty sure Sakurai said that you'd get every stage right from the start. I mean I guess he COULD be lying but misdirection seems more like Sakurai's style...rather than just outright lying about something.

To be honest something what's making me more nervous is that they added the stages page to the official Smash website, and it only has space for two new stages. That can't be right....

If there are only about 6 new stages left, I find it hard to imagine any of them being old stages. It seems to me like they've already shown us all the stages that are returning. (there are some strange omissions, Jungle Hijinkx and Pac Maze comes to mind, but then Smash Bros has been known to have weird omissions. )

 

[isaac3000]

Ah right, so we know what the stages are at least...
Not sure how i feel about this...

 

[ThoughtfulWanderer]

I'm pretty sure Sakurai said that you'd get every stage right from the start. I mean I guess he COULD be lying but misdirection seems more like Sakurai's style...rather than just outright lying about something.

To be honest something what's making me more nervous is that they added the stages page to the official Smash website, and it only has space for two new stages. That can't be right....

If there are only about 6 new stages left, I find it hard to imagine any of them being old stages. It seems to me like they've already shown us all the stages that are returning. (there are some strange omissions, Jungle Hijinkx and Pac Maze comes to mind, but then Smash Bros has been known to have weird omissions. )

I agree on the part about the missing veteran stages simply because it makes no sense to keep hiding Jungle Hijinx and Pac-Maze at this point. That being said, I don't think the space on the website means anything. That kind of stuff can easily be adjusted (and I believe depending on your settings or device, the arrangement and open spaces usually changes?).

While I don't know if every remaining stage belongs to a newcomer, it seems likely to be true for most of them as I can't imagine what other kinds of stages they'd bother to add when focusing on fanservice (Bowser's Castle? Some random out of the blue stage like Wrecking Crew?).

But even that feels iffy because couldn't it be too indicative of mostly new franchises that are left to get newcomers? It's not like Bandana Dee or Isabelle would warrant a new stage for their inclusions. Outside of Elma, a Sun & Moon rep, non-represented Nintendo franchises like Golden Sun and Rhythm Heaven, and third parties, what could those stages possibly belong to? Are there exactly 6 stages left after all?

There's still so many questions that are impossible to answer but those answers are all still plausible.

 

[N3ON]

The current orientation of the stages is strange, but if there are stages still to come I don't understand why they wouldn't push it as "100+ stages" like they did for music. It'd be counterproductive marketing-wise to push a specific number that will get surpassed by release (unless you state as much).

Guess we'll find out.

 

[PhilosophicAnimal]

Hello, Isaac fans! Never been in here before now, but I just thought to pop in to say how much my opinion of Isaac's chances has changed. This direct has basically confirmed to me that the ballot-era speculation thread popularity order is the same order that these characters are being revealed, and that the top five or so will see confirmation. As such, Isaac will most certainly be next.

As for when he could be revealed...I think you guys might be short selling the idea of him being a surprise in the general direct. For all we know, and I'm being completely serious here, there could be a new Golden Sun game announced in that direct. Or, more realistically, a package deal of the Golden Sun series, possibly as a 3DS support game, or even a remake of the first two titles. It's possible, and honestly, if any Smash character is in that direct, I imagine they would be tied to an announcement of one of the games in it. Isaac is the only character in the running that I think could pull that off.

Either way, I think Golden Boy's chances are as high as they've ever been. And this is coming from someone who was very pessimistic about his chances before. I'm rooting for you guys!

I'm pretty sure Sakurai said that you'd get every stage right from the start. I mean I guess he COULD be lying but misdirection seems more like Sakurai's style...rather than just outright lying about something.

To be honest something what's making me more nervous is that they added the stages page to the official Smash website, and it only has space for two new stages. That can't be right....

If there are only about 6 new stages left, I find it hard to imagine any of them being old stages. It seems to me like they've already shown us all the stages that are returning. (there are some strange omissions, Jungle Hijinkx and Pac Maze comes to mind, but then Smash Bros has been known to have weird omissions. )

The Jungle Hijinx we're talking about is the Returns one, yes? I think the reason that one's out should be pretty clear: it had the distance gimmick, where you could fight in the background. That would work fine on a TV, but in portable mode, it might be too hard to see eight fighters clearly. In fact, I'd imagine any stages not returning are ones that wouldn't work well with 8-player smash, especially in portable mode.

...unless that's not the stage in question. In which case, please disregard, lol.

 

[Sabrewulf238]

Something I just noticed from looking back at the direct. Sakurai says:

"We plan to reveal the designs of every character before the game launches"

I'm probably looking too much into this or it's just some translation quirk but does anyone else think this was worded strangely? Why not just say that you planned to reveal every character before the game launches, why mention design?

It makes it sound like they're going to reveal the artwork or model for a character without showing gameplay footage.

 

[Ura]

The current orientation of the stages is strange, but if there are stages still to come I don't understand why they wouldn't push it as "100+ stages" like they did for music. It'd be counterproductive marketing-wise to push a specific number that will get surpassed by release (unless you state as much).

Guess we'll find out.

Yeah that's something that really puzzled me.

I have a bad feeling this deconfirms every character not from a represented series in Smash.

 

[Sabrewulf238]

Maybe they don't feel confident advertising something as 100+ of it's only a few stages over 100. Like under 110.

That would still fall in line with there being 6 more stages.

On the other hand, it could just be an advertising quirk.

 

[N3ON]

Maybe they don't feel confident advertising something as 100+ of it's only a few stages over 100. Like under 110.

That would still fall in line with there being 6 more stages.

Why would they not feel confident in advertising something objectively accurate, and comparatively impressive?

 

[Ura]

Why would they not feel confident in advertising something objectively accurate, and comparatively impressive?

Yeah if they had more than 100 they would want to market it as "we have over 100 stages".

Though I do see why Sakurai would say "we have a total of 100" if he had like one or two more left that would make that sound a bit silly.

 

[ThoughtfulWanderer]

Maybe they don't feel confident advertising something as 100+ of it's only a few stages over 100. Like under 110.

That would still fall in line with there being 6 more stages.

On the other hand, it could just be an advertising quirk.

The way I looked at it was, since they pulled up a bar graph comparing the number of stages the prior Smash games had compared to Ultimate, 100+ would be an odd stylistic choice when all the others had exact numbers. It very well could be them just saying "Look how far we've come", rather than saying that's the final number. I feel that Sakurai would've made explicit mention of that if that was the case.

Besides, it's a terrible idea to essentially close the door on third parties and other Nintendo franchises by saying this is all the stages we're going to get. We still have 4 months to go until launch.

 

[Sabrewulf238]

I mean they do have over 100 stages. Alongside Battlefield, Big Battlefield and Final Destination there are 103 currently known stages.

So we already know they could have said 100+, but they didn't.

Not sure if it counts, but they also said there were actually over 300 stages if you take the different stage forms into consideration. Maybe they choose to say that instead of "There are 100+ completely unique stages".

 

[Ura]

The way I looked at it was, since they pulled up a bar graph comparing the number of stages the prior Smash games had compared to Ultimate, 100+ would be an odd stylistic choice when all the others had exact numbers. It very well could be them just saying "Look how far we've come", rather than saying that's the final number. I feel that Sakurai would've made explicit mention of that if that was the case.

Besides, it's a terrible idea to essentially close the door on third parties and other Nintendo franchises by saying this is all the stages we're going to get. We still have 4 months to go until launch.

"Now the total number of stages is...103!"

Sakurai said it was the total number of stages. I think trying to word it differently is really reaching TBH.

 

[Sabrewulf238]

I mean they do have over 100 stages. Alongside Battlefield, Big Battlefield and Final Destination there are 103 currently known stages.

So we already know they could have said 100+, but they didn't.

Not sure if it counts, but they also said there were actually over 300 stages if you take the different stage forms into consideration. Maybe they choose to say that instead of "There are 100+ completely unique stages".

I just double checked and they said 300+ stages.

Assuming every stage has a final destination and battlefield form. Then that means there are more unrevealed stages, because there wouldn't be 300+ stages if the only stages that existed were the 100 we know about now.

Of course that doesn't tell us how many more they are, but we don't need to worry about there being no more stages.

 

[Ura]

I just double checked and they said 300+ stages.

Assuming every stage has a final destination and battlefield form. Then that means there are more unrevealed stages, because there wouldn't be 300+ stages if the only stages that existed were the 100 we know about now.

Of course that doesn't tell us how many more they are, but we don't need to worry about there being no more stages.

300+ stages as in 309.

But hey I would love if what you said was the case.

 

[N3ON]

By my count there'd be 307 stages, as Battlefield and FD won't have Battlefield and FD forms, respectively.

 

[Sabrewulf238]

You know, they already said 300+ stages, so I'm not sure what you're looking for at this point. Is it that much of a sticking point that they never said 100+ stages? Why would they say that when they could say 300+ instead?

It sounds crazy to me to think there won't be any more new stages....I mean I can't help but think that it's just pure pessimism talking when people start speculating that no new stages will be revealed between now and December.

 

[Katy Parry]

Dudes when I saw that death sythe I admit I peed a little

Just a little

 

[N3ON]

I don't understand the tactic they're taking if there are more stages to be revealed, but I'm not going to make any definitive statements. That's unwise given how unpredictable the series, and Sakurai, are. There could be. And while the current layout could be anticipatory for DLC, as it stands now, it does look questionable.

 

[PhilosophicAnimal]

I don't understand the tactic they're taking if there are more stages to be revealed, but I'm not going to make any definitive statements. That's unwise given how unpredictable the series, and Sakurai, are. There could be. And while the current layout could be anticipatory for DLC, as it stands now, it does look questionable.

Have you guys seen the stages section of the official site? The layout looks finite, except for five squares near the bottom, currently containing an easily-movable tab with a link to stage articles. Five squares...one less than the screen we were shown.

Just saying.

 

[iam8bit]

I think we can chuck Sakurai's "Don't expect too many newcomers" statement out of the window somewhat, because including Echoes we've had 8 characters revealed for this game so far.

I always thought he was referring to completely new characters (3 so far), not Echoes, and that "not too many" meant few in the context of Smash. Meaning we're not getting as many new characters as the last game, for example. So I still expected a bunch of newcomers, Echoes and original characters. It seems like that will be the case.

This is looking like a Melee situation, where Sakurai is including as many Echoes as he can because they can't include as many original characters as expected.

 

[DogManStar]

I don't know what to think about the stage list. I think it's possible that he meant that the total number of stages was 103 for the moment, but he could have also meant that those are all the stages we will see. In that case, I don't think that completely rules out Isaac, but it would be weird to get a character from an unrepresented series with no new stage for that series.

 

[N3ON]

Have you guys seen the stages section of the official site? The layout looks finite, except for five squares near the bottom, currently containing an easily-movable tab with a link to stage articles. Five squares...one less than the screen we were shown.

Just saying.

If there were actually squares maybe you'd be on to something, but it's just uniform blank space underneath the stages... it'd be a reach to classify that as indicative of anything. I mean there's nothing stopping them from placing the tab to the side currently, it's not like that would give their hand away, should that be their plan.

 

[Thirdkoopa]

Here’s a take that wouldn’t be too crazy (if we esp assume both Soren and Verge leak are correct): what if Isaac’s in the game but he doesn’t have a stage?

He’s the only character I can see this happening to. Not even Rhythm Heaven, given how iconic that element is.

 

[DogManStar]

Here’s a take that wouldn’t be too crazy (if we esp assume both Soren and Verge leak are correct): what if Isaac’s in the game but he doesn’t have a stage?

He’s the only character I can see this happening to. Not even Rhythm Heaven, given how iconic that element is.

Looking at the page for the first time now, I think it's possible they could change the layout if they needed to, like how they made spaces for new characters on the front page's character mural. Also, like someone else said, there is space for more squares if they move the blog link.

I guess it's possible that Isaac could join without a stage, but as far as I know that hasn't happened for a character from a series with no stages yet.

 

[NoOtherPersona]

Looking at the page for the first time now, I think it's possible they could change the layout if they needed to, like how they made spaces for new characters on the front page's character mural. Also, like someone else said, there is space for more squares if they move the blog link.

I guess it's possible that Isaac could join without a stage, but as far as I know that hasn't happened for a character from a series with no stages yet.

only character with out a stage is ROB

 

[SmashShadow]

Considering there is like 6 more spaces on the stage select screen for stages, I doubt those are the last ones. Heck, they haven't even really talked about that monster Hunter stage outside of that dragon boss thing.

 

[N3ON]

Here’s a take that wouldn’t be too crazy (if we esp assume both Soren and Verge leak are correct): what if Isaac’s in the game but he doesn’t have a stage?

He’s the only character I can see this happening to. Not even Rhythm Heaven, given how iconic that element is.

Nothing's impossible, but that seems like a stretch to me. ROB is there to prove an exception, but Isaac doesn't exactly seem the type to reside in the same pigeonhole, especially with the current volume of stages. Though I guess if Sakurai has widened his parameters... Isaac could be considered retro at this point.

Also I don't buy the Soren leak for a second, though obv I'd love for it to be true.

 

[Amtoj]

Golden Sun could get a pretty good deal in Smash if Castlevania can be used as a reference. Simon got Richter as an echo fighter, so it's very possible that Isaac could end up being paired with Felix. That would make two Golden Sun characters. No point in giving up hope over stages when the possibilities are starting to look this promising.

 

[Sabrewulf238]

I don't understand the tactic they're taking if there are more stages to be revealed, but I'm not going to make any definitive statements. That's unwise given how unpredictable the series, and Sakurai, are. There could be. And while the current layout could be anticipatory for DLC, as it stands now, it does look questionable.

Well they're not going to reveal a stage if it would hint at a character being playable before they're ready to reveal the character.

If anything it could point to the remaining handful of stages being dedicated to new franchises or being revealed in conjunction with other newcomers from existing franchises that would probably warrant a new stage. (like Elma or a Gen 7 Pokemon) I don't think we're getting anymore new "nostalgia for nostalgias sake" stages like the gameboy Kirby stage. Whatever new stages we get now will probably be tied to newcomers in some way, or relevant games like Xenoblade X, Arms or Pokemon Sun/Moon.

I get where you're coming from but at the same time I don't think we know enough to be sure how it's going to pan out.

I mean I certainly don't believe we're getting a flood of new stages, we're almost certainly talking about single digits here. (most likely 6 or less based on the stage selection screen)

So if Isaacs getting in along with a Golden Sun stage, it's certainly going to be tight.

 

[Lone V]

I've been out of the loop for a while. What did the Vergeben and Soren leaks have to say about Isaac?

 

[Katy Parry]

Nothing's impossible, but that seems like a stretch to me. ROB is there to prove an exception, but Isaac doesn't exactly seem the type to reside in the same pigeonhole, especially with the current volume of stages. Though I guess if Sakurai has widened his parameters... Isaac could be considered retro at this point.

Also I don't buy the Soren leak for a second, though obv I'd love for it to be true.

The Soren leak? What are the deets for that Neon?

 

[iam8bit]

Well they're not going to reveal a stage if it would hint at a character being playable before they're ready to reveal the character.

Exactly this.

Come on people, they obviously won't reveal the complete list if a new character is associated to one of the stages. We KNOW more characters are coming, why wouldn't more stages be coming too? The new stage count would be pretty low otherwise.