Curious Villager
Puzzles...
Oh I see, I had no idea about that notebook actually existing in real life. It's more than likely just that yeah, a shame, would have been cool if they did subtly hint something but I understand that they will have to keep NDA's if Level-5 did have content in Smash and even subtle hints like this could break out easily.Some unfortunate news regarding the Curious Village HD easter egg picture Curious Villager posted. I did some digging on the tumblr post, and one user pointed out that 'Smash' symbol might just be a reference to the Big Ben sticker found in the real life version of the notebook that you can purchase.
However, something strikes me odd. I am curious as to why in the game, that sticker is in a minimalist design. While the notebook in the game is simplistic in general... they made Katrielle's charm in detail, replacing the UK heart sticker which was detailed to begin with. They also kept her symbol intact. So why does the Big Ben sticker look so simple? They could have retained some of its original properties such as the colors, and Level-5 has the money for animation. Then again, maybe they were lazy. As the rest of the notebook is missing some properties from the real one like the pink stripes.
They're also a bit different. Here's a comparison (I even flipped the picture to compare):
View attachment 168398View attachment 168400
If you notice, the line that crosses, where the word 'London' is supposed to be in the game one is narrower toward the left side, the real one does not have that.
Here's the Smash logo if you wanna add to the comparison.
This is all just silly speculation with no merit, but it's fun to look at. I'm probably buying too much into this though, but it could be a hint with how different the sticker is in the game and being more similar to the Smash logo than the real one. The Layton twitter was dropping hints for CVHD, wouldn't be too far fetched if the game devs were dropping hints for other titles that involve Layton in the game. But anything regarding Smash would have to be kept really low profile and minimum due to NDAs from Nintendo, so Level-5 can't say anything. But something like this would be a perfect way to subtly hint Layton in Smash, especially since I haven't really seen anything about this 'easter egg' until now.
And if it is a hint, and since the sticker is in Kat's notebook... could that mean she is in Smash instead of her father? (Lucina was picked in Smash 4 instead of her father, Chrom. That could be a possibility.) Suppose it is a Smash reference, why would Katrielle have it and not Hershel? Or maybe her dad is in, and she tags along as an echo fighter? Again, I feel like I'm just grasping straws with little to no basis, but it's kinda fun to talk about such trivial things. xD This thread hasn't been so active after all.
I'd totally be down for a Kat echo, by the way.
I always felt like Layton would be the same height as either Cloud or Bayonetta. Maybe Ike. I don't think his hat would matter much, since... well we have characters who wear hats like Mario who I don't think their apparel is affected by hitboxes.
Akihiro Hino was also in good terms with Satoru Iwata, who no doubt was close with Sakurai. Iwata stated how he and Hino had a lot in common as developers. Iwata was also the reason why Nintendo invested in publishing the Professor Layton series overseas. If you're curious about the source behind these, it's this magnificent interview... another Iwata Asks with Akihiro Hino. This part of the interview talks about the Professor Layton series and and the next part after it talks about its impact around the world and Europe. I recommend it to all of you here to take a good read at it, because you learn some interesting stuff such as what I stated above. From the interview, it really seems like Iwata respected the Layton series and was possibly a fan. And I think as tribute for his wonderful contributions to Nintendo and gaming after his passing, Hino and Sakurai could do something with Professor Layton and his series being added to Smash.
And I'll leave this fun tidbit, there was a rumor a few years back that Iwata possibly wanted Hino to succeed him as Nintendo's president! Imagine that, Level-5 could have merged with Nintendo and Layton would have most definitely been in Smash by now.
Though it is odd by some of the design decisions they made for it but I guess they wanted to keep things minimalistic.. Either that, or like you said, they where too lazy to add a few extra colours to make it look more like the actual sticker...
If it was a tease, I doubt they'd tease Kat for Smash though since Sakurai most likely had no idea of her existence during the project plan since she wasn't officially revealed until like the end of 2016 I think. (Plus the Prof would kind of take priority) She'd be a good candidate as a potential echo for Hershel though.
It's nice to know that Iwata was a big fan of the Layton series too. I know Satoru Shibata and Miyamoto really respect the series too. If only we knew what Sakurai thought of the Layton series though. He made a lot of columns talking about all sorts of games he played, though I don't know if he ever talked about the Layton series before. Might be worth taking a look into...
Hino as a potential president of Nintendo sounds interesting, though I don't know how that would have worked out as he and Nintendo kind of work on different philosophies. Nintendo tends to be a bit more conservative as a company and while Hino is a bit more of a risk taker, he can get a little carried away whenever he hits a jackpot. Though there is no doubt that he and his company are very creative when it comes to new ideas. But yeah. Pretty sure we already got our new president of NoJ recently so if he was elected, I guess it didn't really pan out.
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