The Professor Layton for SSB4 thread!

[Martingale]

Interesting, unrelated tidbit: Five days after the Layton rumours came to light, Miller spent money to promote the Wikipedia page on Professor Layton characters. The last time he had done something related to Layton in this way was January. Perhaps he had done it just because the rumours came to light and more people would be looking up Layton, but perhaps there was some other motivation to that.

 

[Curious Villager]

Interesting, unrelated tidbit: Five days after the Layton rumours came to light, Miller spent money to promote the Wikipedia page on Professor Layton characters. The last time he had done something related to Layton in this way was January. Perhaps he had done it just because the rumours came to light and more people would be looking up Layton, but perhaps there was some other motivation to that.

Huh that's interesting. Guess the man misses the series as much as the fans do...... I don't blame him, I recall him saying that he really enjoyed voicing Layton, Chelmey and Don Paolo.

 

[RamOne]

Layton is really popular in Spain, huh? Well, that certainly explains why they used Penelope Cruz (Spanish actress for those who don't know her) for this Miracle Mask commercial:

The franchise is also popular in The Netherlands, it's one of the few franchises that are translated into Dutch (except Curious Village).

And it's always nice to see the VA rooting for Layton in Smash as much as we do.

 

[BluePikmin11]

We've been teased by Official Nintendo Magazine and Rogersbase, answered by Akihiro that he would love to put Layton in a Nintendo game, and many rumors regarding Miller and Smash. I hope it doesn't end in disappointment.

 

[Pazzo.]

It's been a long ride, for sure.

I hope that our favorite Professor makes it in... Surely, someday Sakurai will recognize Layton's greatness.

 

[The Light Music Club]

If I'm not already, can I please be added to the supporter list?

I have convinced quite a few of my friends, that Layton has a fantastic shot. He would be a dark horse cause I'm sure many people wouldn't see him coming.

As for my reaction it would be similar to my Palutena reaction:

 

[Curious Villager]

Sure, weclome on board The Light Music Club

I wonder if we will reach 100 supporters by the 30th.....

We only have two left to go.....

 

[RamOne]

Sure, weclome on board The Light Music Club

I wonder if we will reach 100 supporters by the 30th.....

We only have two left to go.....

I know for a fact @Prof. OboroTa-don Layton supports Layton as well. If she wants to be on the list, there's only one left.

 

[GWTCN]

Not strictly relevant to Smash Bros., but I thought I might post about it because it's Layton related.

For those of you out there who are fans of the Epic Rap Battles of History, I have almost finished writing a rap battle between Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright, because of course. I'm a great writer, and I've gotten good feedback on the battle so far, however, I have no skills in video editing, and costuming will be subpar, but if I ever do manage to complete it, I'll be sure to post it here if you guys are interested.

 

[WeirdChillFever]

because of course. I'm a great writer, .

A real gentleman never shows his hubris, GWTCN.

That said, I have no experience either.

 

[BluePikmin11]

Top 438 in the Individual Character Poll!

Want to see how well your character is doing in the top 438 check and find out!
The poll results are based on this poll.
http://www.sourcegaming.info/2015/09/10/pollsmash4/
Thanks Logo12 from Smashboards for making this!
Over 1600+ votes have been casted in the poll, if you haven't voted please do so!

 

[Curious Villager]

I know for a fact @Prof. OboroTa-don Layton supports Layton as well. If she wants to be on the list, there's only one left.

Oh, I could have sworn I've already added her..... Guess I'll do so for sure then. ^^

Well, only one supporter left to go then....

BluePikmin11 Its nice to see Layton doing so well in terms of popularity and demand. Hopefully Sakurai is aware of it too....

 

[Ekazumon]

Top 438 in the Individual Character Poll!

Want to see how well your character is doing in the top 438 check and find out!
The poll results are based on this poll.
http://www.sourcegaming.info/2015/09/10/pollsmash4/
Thanks Logo12 from Smashboards for making this!
Over 1600+ votes have been casted in the poll, if you haven't voted please do so!

Nice to see Layton and other great choices so high.

Also nice Fumi picture, BluePikmin11! Very Level-5ish!

 

[WeirdChillFever]

Top 438 in the Individual Character Poll!

Want to see how well your character is doing in the top 438 check and find out!
The poll results are based on this poll.
http://www.sourcegaming.info/2015/09/10/pollsmash4/
Thanks Logo12 from Smashboards for making this!
Over 1600+ votes have been casted in the poll, if you haven't voted please do so!

Threw in a Level 5 vote by filling in the Third Party poll.

 

[BluePikmin11]

Nice to see Layton and other great choices so high.

Also nice Fumi picture, BluePikmin11! Very Level-5ish!

Lots of Yokai Watch news has exploded today, which is why I changed to a Fumi-avatar.

 

[Curious Villager]

The girl of Yokai Watch does indeed look pretty cute. Then again, Level-5 has a pretty neat artsyle that makes a lot of characters look pretty fun, pleasing and entertaining to look at. Which is partly what I really like about this company.

Then again, their also pretty good at creating characters that makes you wonder how they even come up with these design's in the first place.....

Spoiler

Professor Layton and its colourful NPC's is something I'm certainly going to miss.....

 

[BluePikmin11]

I love Level-5 character's designs for sure.
Speaking of which NPC characters in any Layton game did you find to be the most memorable design?

 

[Curious Villager]

Stachenscarfen man. His name in its own is memorable.

Unless you don't mean recurring NPC's. I found Becky from Unwound/Lost Future a pretty memorable NPC.
Some of the NPC's from Curious Village (Such as Pauly) had pretty memorable quotes too.

 

[BluePikmin11]

As far as Layton games I played, I found Scarlett, Martine, and Prima to be the most memorable.

Something about the female design intrigues me greatly. Yokai Watch has some pretty memorable character designs too.

 

[Curious Villager]

Some characters in the series do have incredibly bone skinny arms and legs though.... Martine, Young Angela and even Flora. (I didn't even realize how skinny she was until I modeled her.....)

It's all a part of Level-5's style I guess.

 

[BluePikmin11]

Can't forget this one, she's a work of art:

Love the expression and character design in this one.

 

[Curious Villager]

Oh Adrea. There was Lucy too.

To be honest, I think the one game which I found had the most memorable NPC's has to probably be Curious Village imo. I can even name most of them. (Then again, I do replay that game as well as Unwound/Lost Future a lot so that may be partly why....)

I think it has partly to do with the fact you explore a small village so you have to make do with meeting up with some of the same villagers again and get to know them and their individual personalities better. Whereas with the other games the area's are much bigger and you go from one place to another pretty quickly so you don't really get to know most of the NPC's pretty well apart from a select few.

For example, in the Elysian Box once you arrive at Folsense, you don't really get to interact with the NPC's in Drop Stone and the Molentary Express anymore. Likewise in Unwound/Lost Future, Future London in its own was a very big area so you moved from one place to another pretty frequently too. Not to mention that you don't really get to explore current London anymore once you reach the end of the game, so you don't really get to know most NPC's apart from a select few such as Becky and Edgar/Hazel etc. I suppose that's partly why they introduced the Episodes feature in the prequels so you get to see a bit more of the NPC interactions etc.

 

[Pazzo.]

Hmm...

100 supporters? That's quite the achievement... We'll have over a week to get just one supporter.

 

[Curious Villager]

Hmm...

10p supporters? That's quite the achievement... We'll have over a week to get just one supporter.

Imagine if Layton got revealed almost as soon as we got our 100th supporter. Almost like it was an unlock requirement or something. xD

 

[Pazzo.]

Imagine if Layton got revealed almost as soon as we got our 100th supporter. Almost like it was an unlock requirement or something. xD

*New challenger approaching...!*

How I wish to see those words.
Well, it'll all be over soon enough, for better or for worse.

 

[Erureido]

Since there is a discussion regarding most memorable NPC characters from the Layton games, I'd thought I'd share mine.

The first two, Julian and Romilda, are memorable for me since their names are plays on Romeo and Juliet. The third one, Flint, is probably my favorite of the bunch because of his Clinton Eastwood visage going for him (he's even called Eastwood in the Japanese version), and Umid, the fourth character, is memorable for me thanks to his design and his character (I liked how he was active in helping Layton find the Azran mystery within his town).

Yes, I'm aware these characters are all from Azran Legacy. I guess that's because it was the most recent game released and is thus fresher in my memory compared to NPC characters from the earlier Layton games.

 

[Hockeyfan44]

I hope I'm not interrupting, but count me on the Professor bandwagon. I'll admit, when I first saw support for him, I thought 'Interesting," but having watched videos of his games, namely, Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney and Azran Legacy, I'm now convinced. He would be a really cool and unique addition, even though his chances are not very good. Plus, as several people have suggested, I could easily see his Final Smash being a puzzle you would have to solve in a tight time limit to earn KOs.

 

[Curious Villager]

I hope I'm not interrupting, but count me on the Professor bandwagon. I'll admit, when I first saw support for him, I thought 'Interesting," but having watched videos of his games, namely, Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney and Azran Legacy, I'm now convinced. He would be a really cool and unique addition, even though his chances are not very good. Plus, as several people have suggested, I could easily see his Final Smash being a puzzle you would have to solve in a tight time limit to earn KOs.

Thank you! You're our 100th supporter now.

Great, it took a few years. But Smashboards now has 100 supporters for Professor Layton's inclusion in Super Smash Bros for Wii U and 3DS! Here's hoping for the best now.

 

[Lyngstud]

Make that 101 (wonderful) supporters. I have lurked on these forums for years, and I finally signed up to show my support for Layton. Are we making one last push for the Smash Ballot?

 

[Still~Wolf]

Hell sign me up for support. I would be pretty happy with his inclusion.

 

[Curious Villager]

Thank you Still~Wolf and welcome to Smashboards Lyngstud thanks for joining the Professor Layton supporters too.

And yes, we certainly will. We've already seen that Layton is still popular and highly requested for Smash. So we should certainly show that that's still true in the official ballot too. ^^

 

[Martingale]

I'm back having ridiculously analysed Miller's three suspicious tweets again. And I can say with 90% certainty that he was telling the truth on all accounts.

Some folk might have seen the PerformanceMatters hashtag on Twitter, about a few changes of the rights of game voice actors. An interesting thing in that is that generally voice actors do not know what they are recording for until much later, something they want to change. This is applicable to all we know of other VAs discussing their role as Smash was used by Shulk and Ryu as a proper noun, which would instantly throw up a red flag and enter them into NDA territory.

Under the current structure of the game acting industry, though, there would be no arguing that the scenario Miller presented regarding extra pages in a session is a possibility. He's probably had to work with last minute amendments without context before, hence why it didn't seem like a big deal to him.

So the timeline is:

-July-- Layton's name appears on IMDb for Smash 4
-Aug 3-- Miller denies involvement after seeing IMDb data
-Mid-August-- Supposed voice session.
-Aug 22-- Miller suggests that he has recorded for Smash on a hunch, given the IMDB data. Cites extra pages.
-Aug 23-- Miller clarifies he actually doesn't know for sure, in line with the standard business practise of voice actors in games. Remains hopeful.
-Aug 25-- Posts an article on the rumour on Facebook, confused at media's choice context and continues to show hope for the role.
-Aug 27-- Miller begins promoting pages on Layton actively again for the first time since January.

I know I have focused all too much on this, but this is the very solid something that Layton fans have needed for a while. I can't wait to see what comes from those. Even if nothing, it has been fun to analyse.

 

[GWTCN]

I've gotta say, it's great that this thread has over 100 supporters now, don't get me wrong. If only they were determining DLC characters by the size of their Smashboards support pages.

There's only 10 days left in the Fighter Ballot. If all of us put in at least one vote for Layton every day until then, that'll mean over 1000 votes for Layton in the last few days of the ballot. Every little bit counts, after all.

 

[Lyngstud]

One vote per day should be managable. I'll try to do ten votes every day until it closes, as long as I have the time. If not, one vote should be possible in any case.

One last effort like this, and I'm certain that Layton will at least get some consideration for one of the spots.

 

[MegaMarioMan9]

I've gotta say, it's great that this thread has over 100 supporters now, don't get me wrong. If only they were determining DLC characters by the size of their Smashboards support pages.

There's only 10 days left in the Fighter Ballot. If all of us put in at least one vote for Layton every day until then, that'll mean over 1000 votes for Layton in the last few days of the ballot. Every little bit counts, after all.

One vote per day should be managable. I'll try to do ten votes every day until it closes, as long as I have the time. If not, one vote should be possible in any case.

One last effort like this, and I'm certain that Layton will at least get some consideration for one of the spots.

I'm sorry, but you guys do realize that the ballot winners aren't strictly based on votes numbers, right? It helps for sure, but they look for popular characters that would be unique, not cost insane amounts of time to make, and will sell well. For instance, if a character like Ridley had the most votes out of any of the characters, I still highly doubt that Sakurai would add him as he's already shown heavy disinterest in adding him in the past.

In short, at least try to put some thought into each of your votes, because the reasons would definitely be the deciding factor rather than votes. After all, Layton's definitely not going to get the most votes out of all the characters. He'll be popular no doubt, but votes alone won't get him in.

 

[GWTCN]

I'm sorry, but you guys do realize that the ballot winners aren't strictly based on votes numbers, right? It helps for sure, but they look for popular characters that would be unique, not cost insane amounts of time to make, and will sell well. For instance, if a character like Ridley had the most votes out of any of the characters, I still highly doubt that Sakurai would add him as he's already shown heavy disinterest in adding him in the past.

In short, at least try to put some thought into each of your votes, because the reasons would definitely be the deciding factor rather than votes. After all, Layton's definitely not going to get the most votes out of all the characters. He'll be popular no doubt, but votes alone won't get him in.

You're absolutely right there, but the way I see this ballot working is that they look at the highest number of votes first, then assess the validity of the character. If it comes down to two characters, equally valid, they'll have to pick based on the number of votes. It can't hurt to put as many votes in as we can, but you're right in saying that we need to put thought into the votes as opposed to just saying, "just because".

 

[Lyngstud]

I'm sorry, but you guys do realize that the ballot winners aren't strictly based on votes numbers, right? It helps for sure, but they look for popular characters that would be unique, not cost insane amounts of time to make, and will sell well. For instance, if a character like Ridley had the most votes out of any of the characters, I still highly doubt that Sakurai would add him as he's already shown heavy disinterest in adding him in the past.

In short, at least try to put some thought into each of your votes, because the reasons would definitely be the deciding factor rather than votes. After all, Layton's definitely not going to get the most votes out of all the characters. He'll be popular no doubt, but votes alone won't get him in.

Of course, but believe me, I have already submitted a number of well articulated votes (although the character limit of 500 certainly makes it more diffcult to make a truly solid case), but for any character there will be a bulk of votes with poorly thought through reasons for that character being added. Moreover, I think the poll is mostly to gauge interest, but the reasons will most likely not be enough to win over or lose Sakurai in the matter. If he's unconvinced of a character from the beginning, I don't see him being won over by the notes in one of the ballot suggestions.

That being said, no vote for Layton is harmful to his inclusion, but a well thought through suggestion will always be better.

 

[Curious Villager]

I think the most the votes would do is get the character noticed to the dev's. They more than likely still want to include characters that can bring something unique and interesting into the game though.

Assuming Sakurai did choose Layton for DLC. He probably looked into the character and the type of game series he's from. Professor Layton is a character from a puzzle solving series. So far there aren't really many (if any) characters in the game that take very much advantage of this concept. Not even Dr. Mario. This is a highly unique concept that Layton can bring to the table and the puzzle solving genre is something that hasn't really been much explored yet in Smash. So its something that might catch Sakurai's interest and think "Hey, this is a character that can bring a unique and interesting playstyle into Smash. Lets see if we can get Nintendo and Level-5's approval and add him into the game."

All in all. I think putting forward as much votes as possible can help get the character noticed. But at the same time. You should also give good and thorough reasons of why this character should be added and what he or she can bring into the game. Hence why they also asked us to explain to them why the character you want should be in Smash all the way back during the April Direct.

That's what I think at least.

 

[Laytonite]

Wow I've missed a lot of great stuff! Quick catch-up: Chelmey and Barton for me are the most memorable characters. They're brilliant and you can tell a lot went into their dynamic. Also good news with the number of supporters! Congratulations to Team Layton, and shoutouts to Curious Villager and Martingale for sustaining the Layton campaign as well as they have been doing.
Regarding the ballot... I believed that the main point of it was to put characters onto the dev's map. It's a suggestions box, as opposed to a FPTP-style "election". They'll be looking at popularity to an extent, but - I've said this here before and I willl say it again now, bare with me - they'll want to make sure that the character they pick has a large and varied demographic. For instance, a character like Banjo-Kazooie, awesome as they may be, are handicapped because they are old. I would imagine most of their support comes from people in their 20s and not much younger. Similarly they won't be adding some random Pokemon because of it's popularity among kids if they have no support in the older demographic. I would also imagine that they will be looking at separate statistics to work this out.
Layton has this going for him. He's popular across a reasonably large age demographic and is pretty much split 50-50 between male and female fans.
They'll also be looking for characters that are fairly hassle-free. They do not want to be wrangling for rights for characters and they don't want to be overworked trying to animate complex bone structures or create complicated models. Two ticks in Layton's favour: Akihiro Hino has expressed support and Layton is a very simple humanoid character. To quote an issue of ONM, "he's literally a sausage in a hat". He is probably one of the easiest characters to just drop in the game from a design standpoint. (I've worked out that if you make the prof himself the same height of Pit, it would be reasonable to add his top hat without it clipping through Battlefield's platforms but not being too small - in total, he'd be the same height as Rosalina the way I see it).
They may not necessarily be looking too deeply into uniqueness, but frankly it's a huge asset to Layton that I doubt they'll just ignore, especially given how well he fits the above.
And of course, despite popular opinion, we've proved here that it's easy enough to create a unique moveset perfect for Smash!

Obviously I'm not in charge, but from a critical standpoint and in my opinion I can see these factors being heavily influential.

If that wall of text was too big and boring, here's my reasons that I'm personally including in my vote, condensed:

Spoiler

-Popular across a wide age range and 50-50 between both genders; in addition he is a globally recognised name and a legitimately popular franchise
-Getting the rights should be relatively pain-free as Akihiro Hino has reacted positively to the suggestion
-Being a remarkably simple character, he'd be easy to incorporate from a design standpoint. Despite this he is very distinct from all other characters
-Represents a new (deserving) company, series and genre
-Has plenty of moveset potential between various puzzles, trunk minigames, cutscenes and his background
-He represents a critical part of Nintendo's recent history - the Touch Generation. (I believe he'd be the first character you'd instantly associate with the DS?) He is third-party but is generally regarded as a Nintendo hero.

Did I miss anything? Do you disagree with my conjecture criteria? I'm open to being told I'm wrong!
At this point, best we can do is hope, but it's not as if we've not got anything to stand on. I'm not as pessimistic as I was a couple of months ago.

 

[Hockeyfan44]

You know, there is something that, while it's extremely unlikely and likely dumb, I would like to see. Since the main series is over, there should be a compilation game for the WII U or NX. Professor Layton's Puzzle Party, which could have been a great way to introduce a new generation to the Layton games. What it could be would be as I said, a compilation of puzzles from all of the Professor's games, where you could choose how difficult you would want the puzzles to be: Normal or Professor. This could also have cameos from Phoenix Wright (continuing from the vs. game) Mario, Link and Zelda, Shulk, Chrom and Lucina or Marth, Rosalina, Samus, Pit and Palutena and others, all bringing puzzles based off of their own games. Like I said, it's a stupid idea, one that will never happen, it's just something I'd want.