Hey, that's a victory! Answered a question I asked earlier too. About how well Age of Calamity did, sales wise, compared to the original Hyrule Warriors. I'll take every victory at this moment.
Surely, our campaign has suffered from the Spirit Event. And yeah, Impa is probably out for Smash Ultimate, on Nintendo Switch. I do think however that Ultimate is literally the
ultimate base for Smash to grow further. I don't see them tackling a grander project, unless it's run by Master Hand himself.
I'll say it, Smash Ultimate is most likely gonna be ported for a next Smash game. And am not even sure if this Fighter Pass is gonna be the last of the DLC. It just does too well. I am at least guessing that down the line, a total package of Smash Ultimate will be sold with all the DLC Fighters. Might be for Switch, might be for the next thing. But I can't believe this is gonna be over after all this.
Smash is now the most legendary cross over in gaming probably. I can only imagine it going bigger. Ultimate is then gonna be the base. And surely a next game is gonna need to address some newcomers from Nintendo franchises as well. Ultimate added characters that seemed unlikely , but had huge demands, such as K.Rool and Ridley. But to many, even characters as Byleth and Min-Min where not considered extremely likely and favorable in chances. Ultimate added back all the veteran fighters, because they where popular, added K.Rool and Ridley, easily the characters with the most loud and widespread support back in the day, and Ultimate added many big time 3rd party characters. Many who also had quite some deep support even I didn't expect, as Sephiroth and the Belmonts.
A Zelda newcomer is a very widely discussed prospect right now. It's almost as demanded as people NOT wanting more Fire Emblem characters (by now, Intelligent System should try to make a Fire Emblem traditional fighter game like Soul Calibur but with FE characters or something). So I'm very positive that Impa will happen, eventually. She might not be the "main" Zelda newcomer, the one who will catch the most eyes, but I definitely think she will be added. If only for the legacy.
We need to keep Impa on the radar as the most logical choice for a Zelda newcomer. This has been beneficial for many other fanbases of characters who had to "compete" with other characters from the same franchise, for example Toad, Paper Mario, Geno even maybe ..? And maybe more relevant: Dixie Kong and King K.Rool. Many thought Dixie to be the next natural choice, she came back in Tropical Freeze after all, but she wasn't nearly as demanded as K.Rool.
Let's not forget, and let's not make that happen here. Impa is now far and wide the most widespread logical choice for a Zelda newcomer, and let's not take that status for granted. Because a next Zelda game is going to come out... Sometime. And with that, a next new Zelda character is always gonna stand out. And Impa will lose traction because of it.
Since the next game is also within the same world as BotW and Age of Calamity, it's in our advantage that we have had a younger Impa playable as one of the most popular characters in the best selling Warriors game so far. First recruitable character, close ties to both Link and Zelda, and at least present in 2/3 games, one as playable. She shares that with the Champions, but the Champions died in BotW, Impa did not. It's more likely she will return than them. And we know the next villain of BotW2 is likely gonna be a zombified Ganondorf.
Since BotW2 is likely gonna be the next source of inspiration for Zelda in the next Smash, I think they're gonna revamp both Zelda, and Ganondorf at least to match the BotW lore. Impa could be a logical newcomer in this. Or replace Sheik altogether. But that's unlikely with Everyone Is Here.
So best we can do is try and see how we can fit Impa in Smash best. Be it as a fully unique character, a semi clone of Sheik, or a Echo Fighter of Sheik who might borrow from Greninja a bit here and there.
I'm down for fighting a bit more for Impa, to maintain our position. Who's with me?
-like treatments, I could picture her like this;
