Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[dream1ng]

True, but my point is that the two most suggested directions mean we probably won’t get many newcomers. If we go with “Ultimate Deluxe”, we’re probably only getting a few characters at most. This seems pretty pointless to me now that backwards compatibility is confirmed. The second is a more standard Smash with a much smaller roster of around 50-60 characters.

I don't think we'll get as many newcomers in base as people are expecting, but I think the next game will lean even more heavily into the service model, releasing newcomers and cut vets as DLC pretty regularly. I think having a permanent team facilitates this kind of development better.

So eventually I think we'll get the same amount of newcomers we usually do. They're not going to scrimp on newcomers, those are what sell the game the most. Look at how they allocated the marketing budget.

But I don't think we're going to get a deluxe version. You're right, with backwards compatibility that would seem redundant and inhibit its potential sales. However, that doesn't preclude them changing enough to slap a new label on it despite using the same base, like they did with Ultimate.

I doubt they go that route though, just because it's not tenable cost-wise to keep repurposing such old data. I think they'll start again, which does tie in better with a smaller base but more frequent updates post-launch.

The problem there is that we have so many essential “must have” characters that would be hard to cut in order to fit a sizeble amount of newcomers. We’d essentially have to go back to Brawl size for the veterans if you want the usual 15 or so newcomers.

It will come to pass that once cuts happen in earnest, we will lose characters some people consider "essential". It's just how it goes. The true number of essential characters (as in, characters they absolutely won't cut) in reality is much smaller than some people suggest.

I think the only truly essential characters are the leads of big first-party series, and, in the biggest series, some of the supporting cast. Not that those will be the only ones we keep, but I believe those are the only genuinely essential characters.

As for Mario Kart, I feel like I’d actually sooner buy Mario Kart 8 Deluxe than Mario Kart 9 if there’s significantly less content. I owned vanilla 8 on the Wii U but never bought Deluxe. I’ve been really tempted with all the additional stages added to the game.

I mean if there are two games that are "new" to you, then yeah, you'd probably opt for the one with more content, but this is the paradigm where there's only one new game for most people, as they presumably played Ultimate.

However, even most of the casual audience, if they didn't own either, would probably opt for the newer one, the one being touted as the next big game, just because it's the popular one in the moment. It's less likely they'd go back to a seven, eight-year-old game.

Mario Kart also has less expectation to bring back as many tracks from previous games compared to Smash. That means you can essentially have a completely fresh set of stages every game. In order for Smash to do the same with its playable characters, we’d have to cut a ton of otherwise essential characters every game.

Yes, there will never be a complete revamp of Smash's roster that discards everything (nor will there be with Mario Kart at this point, retro stages are a big part of the course list) but it only takes one game that makes significant cuts for a good deal of turnover to become the norm between titles going forward. And that will happen to Smash sooner than later.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

There is something very funny about Perkilator mentioning a Sonic moveset remake and then a few days later, an update for it gets shadowdropped.

 

[Scrimblo Bimblo]

However, even most of the casual audience, if they didn't own either, would probably opt for the newer one, the one being touted as the next big game, just because it's the popular one in the moment. It's less likely they'd go back to a seven, eight-year-old game.

I'm not sure about that. Breath of the Wild sells better than TotK nowadays.
Games become popular organically, not just because they're the most recently heavily marketed thing.

 

[Guynamednelson]

What if the next Smash is just DLC for Ultimate? But its huge.

They'll say it had something to do with licencing and stuff and they keep continuing to update Ultimate forever basically. Or at least coming 10 years or so.

What would your reaction be?

I'd rather have the huge DLC come in the form of one huge expansion (even if they have to do a lot of asset reuse and only having a few fighters come with a Challenger Pack's worth of content to make it possible) than 10 years of DLC. I may have advocated for giving SSBU the BCP treatment, but that doesn't mean I want SSBU to go on forever.

 

[Perkilator]

SharkLord HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU

『イースⅩ -Proud NORDICS-』2025年発売決定！
新規ストーリー&冒険の舞台、
多数の要素が追加され大幅グレードアップ！

もうひとりの“マナ使い”との出会いが、
アドルたちを未知の冒険へといざなっていく──
ティザーサイト：https://t.co/nJr5a7HKqW pic.twitter.com/rkiFDIWWse

— 日本ファルコム (@nihonfalcom) December 19, 2024

 

[Royaru]

In a recent interview with Miyamoto and Takashi, they have mentioned again that not all developments are going to have huge teams or million-dollar costs, they are going to continue developing lower budget games, that is, more AA games with smaller teams but that result in very polished experiences.
Which dormant franchises do you think will benefit the most from this?
Another important detail to consider is that Nintendo has increased its workforce by almost 3,000 workers since 2017, with 2022 being the year in which the most workers were hired, with more than 600 workers. It would not be strange if next year we see more of these small projects alongside the big titles.

 

[PersonAngelo53]

SharkLord HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU

『イースⅩ -Proud NORDICS-』2025年発売決定！
新規ストーリー&冒険の舞台、
多数の要素が追加され大幅グレードアップ！

もうひとりの“マナ使い”との出会いが、
アドルたちを未知の冒険へといざなっていく──
ティザーサイト：https://t.co/nJr5a7HKqW pic.twitter.com/rkiFDIWWse

— 日本ファルコム (@nihonfalcom) December 19, 2024

Man the remake is looking so good for Trails in the sky. Honestly I just hope this brings a lot more players to the series and hopefully finally some Nihon Falcom character or content gets included in smash. A side of me can see a Nihon Falcom character be our dlc unexpected Terry like pick for the next smash bros game potentially.

 

[Folezicle Lives!]

I don't know anything about Famicom Detective Club, but I know Ayumi Tachibana comes up from the series every so often since she was considered briefly for Melee.

So honest question...

I'm currently making the third party poll. And new franchises are certainly a doozy.

What companies should I give their own section. I plan on having a general "other" section for things like indies and smaller companies.

Currently I have...

Konami
Sega
Capcom
Bandai-Namco
Square Enix
Microsoft
SNK
Disney
Sony
EA
Ubisoft
Valve
Koei Tecmo
Falcom
Atari
Take 2
Tencent
Riot Games
Netease

What else am I missing? Keep in mind, smaller companies like Atlas or Bethesda will be included with their owners, Sega and Microsoft.

Marvelous Entertainment

 

[Kirby Dragons]

I have a gut feeling that will continue to slip by if Palutena's Guidance sticks around. At that point you already have her actress in the booth, the character already has a prominent role in the game, it may feel a bit silly to dangle her over your head like that and refuse to bring her back. Even if it's post-launch as one of the veteran DLCs, I just think she will make her way back onto the roster at any point.

Not saying that Palutena cannot be cut, but I think these things will just continue to keep the character prominently on the team's mind. Maybe not as the absolute highest priority but I think it edges her out among the middle of the pack characters, along with being generally popular and having a pretty unique aesthetic presence as a light goddess / gameplay role with a staff. It's fun to have god-level characters around to pick up and play like anyone else... frankly I wish they pushed it even further, like bring all these guys (Palutena, Rosalina, Mewtwo, Ganondorf) up to Sephiroth levels of flash now.

But yeah, I'd say Palutena is more likely than not. I wouldn't be entirely shocked if she missed the boat but I think she's pooling pretty high to slide back into any roster above 50-ish characters.

I do see Palutena being lower priority, but I'd be disappointed about her being cut because she's one of my more favorite characters on the roster.

 

[Amornal1]

So honest question...

I'm currently making the third party poll. And new franchises are certainly a doozy.

What companies should I give their own section. I plan on having a general "other" section for things like indies and smaller companies.

Currently I have...

Konami
Sega
Capcom
Bandai-Namco
Square Enix
Microsoft
SNK
Disney
Sony
EA
Ubisoft
Valve
Koei Tecmo
Falcom
Atari
Take 2
Tencent
Riot Games
Netease

What else am I missing? Keep in mind, smaller companies like Atlas or Bethesda will be included with their owners, Sega and Microsoft.

Embracer group and Remedy.

 

[Folezicle Lives!]

I'm pretty sure this is the weapon she knows how to use

You know sometimes a detective has to do a bit of gardening and cut those high branches.


Edit

What if the next Smash is just DLC for Ultimate? But its huge. They'll say it had something to do with licencing and stuff and they keep continuing to update Ultimate forever basically. Or at least coming 10 years or so. What would your reaction be?

This would be the ideal scenario for me. I just think it's such a rare opportunity to get a roster as big and fleshed out as ultimate.. Maybe improvements on physics and balancing Steve. But yeah

 

[HyperSomari64]

So honest question...

I'm currently making the third party poll. And new franchises are certainly a doozy.

What companies should I give their own section. I plan on having a general "other" section for things like indies and smaller companies.

Currently I have...

Konami
Sega
Capcom
Bandai-Namco
Square Enix
Microsoft
SNK
Disney
Sony
EA
Ubisoft
Valve
Koei Tecmo
Falcom
Atari
Take 2
Tencent
Riot Games
Netease

What else am I missing? Keep in mind, smaller companies like Atlas or Bethesda will be included with their owners, Sega and Microsoft.

I wanted to say Idea Factory, but then I remembered that NoA had recently cancelled the western release of a few games made by them. So I abstain from this.

Imagineer, so I can vote for Metabee.

 

[Gengar84]

SharkLord HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU

『イースⅩ -Proud NORDICS-』2025年発売決定！
新規ストーリー&冒険の舞台、
多数の要素が追加され大幅グレードアップ！

もうひとりの“マナ使い”との出会いが、
アドルたちを未知の冒険へといざなっていく──
ティザーサイト：https://t.co/nJr5a7HKqW pic.twitter.com/rkiFDIWWse

— 日本ファルコム (@nihonfalcom) December 19, 2024

Trails in the Sky remake looks great so far. I’m excited to really dive into the Trails series when that comes out. Hopefully it’s just the start of modernizing all the games. I’ve played a little bit of Trails of Cold Steel and Trails through Daybreak but not really enough to get a true feel for the series.

As for smaller indie studios getting the chance to work on dormant Nintendo IPs, two immediately come to mind: Sabotage Studio (creators of Sea of Stars) for a new Golden Sun game and Playtonic Games (creators of Yooka-Laylee) for a new Donkey Kong game.

I’m currently playing through Sea of Stars with my brother and it’s great so far. It has some of the most visually impressive sprite graphics I’ve ever seen and the animations are just as good. It combines gameplay elements from Super Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger to make a really fun and engaging combat system, especially with two players. The character design, particularly of one of the two main heroes, Zale, reminds me a lot of Golden Sun and it would be great to see the series brought back with the same level of polish and beauty Sea of Stars has.

Several members at Playtonic were former RARE employees when they used to be on Nintendo. A few have even worked on the old Donkey Kong Country games. The studio struggled a bit out the gate with their first game (Yooka-Laylee) but the next one (Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair) showed that they have a ton of potential. I’d say the game is about on par with Tropical Freeze from what I’ve played of each. I think it would be awesome to see the original creators of DKC get another shot at the series (assuming both Playtonic and Nintendo are interested).

 

[Truth the Ceomasterz33]

So honest question...

I'm currently making the third party poll. And new franchises are certainly a dozens.

What companies should I give their own section. I plan on having a general "other" section for things like indies and smaller companies.

Currently I have...

Konami
Sega
Capcom
Bandai-Namco
Square Enix
Microsoft
SNK
Disney
Sony
EA
Ubisoft
Valve
Koei Tecmo
Falcom
Atari
Take 2
Tencent
Riot Games
Netease

What else am I missing? Keep in mind, smaller companies like Atlas or Bethesda will be included with their owners, Sega and Microsoft.

Sorry, we're late. Yep, I considered as Hoyoverse/miHoYo, Nexon, Moonton/Bytedance, Halfbrick Studios and Garena? But where remains Asia-Pacific and other companies?!

 

[Gengar84]

Does the Embracer Group count for this? They happen to own a lot of IP that I’m interested in but I don’t think they actually make any games themselves. They’ve also apparently had a lot of controversy and struggles recently but I’m not sure where else I’d group Borderlands, Legacy of Kain, and Darksiders.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

I have a gut feeling that will continue to slip by if Palutena's Guidance sticks around.

Because the Star Fox conversations sure as hell prevented Wolf from being cut in Smash 4, right?

Like, you make some good points but just because Palutena is part of the best easter egg doesn’t mean she’s safe; they can still keep the Guidances even if Palutena herself doesn’t make it into the roster.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

There is something very funny about Perkilator Perkilator mentioning a Sonic moveset remake and then a few days later, an update for it gets shadowdropped.

Interesting. Looks like they turned Boost into a Falco Phantasm/Wolf Flash hybrid instead of being a variation on Spin Dash.

Kinda cool that it's unique now, but I'm also a bit sad since I liked the idea of Boost being less campy Spin Dash.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

Interesting. Looks like they turned Boost into a Falco Phantasm/Wolf Flash hybrid instead of being a variation on Spin Dash.

Kinda cool that it's unique now, but I'm also a bit sad since I liked the idea of Boost being less campy Spin Dash.

It’s still less campy Spin Dash in the Modern moveset. Light Speed Dash is a new side special in the Battle moveset only.

The trailer even shows both moves so Boost didn’t go anywhere.

 

[dezeray112]

So I recently read about the leaked dev diary from one of the Marvel vs Capcom 1 devs and man, while I'm sad there was no mention of Capcom characters, seeing all of the Marvel characters suggested and OK'd by Marvel was incredibly fascinating.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/1hh9m0d/marvel_vs_capcom_1_dev_diary_has_been_found_many/

Spoiler: Basically, suggested characters include:

• The original proposed list was Captain America, Spider-Man, Hulk, Wolverine, Gambit, Psylocke, Thor, Dr. Doom, Juggernaut, Magneto and Thanos when it was internally known as Marvel Super Heroes 2.
• The list would later become Captain America, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Psylocke, Venom, Jubilee, Mr. Fantastic and Howard the Duck.
• OK'd characters at the time included Beast, Deathlok, Iron Fist, Quasar, Namor, Sasquatch, Machine Man, Elektra, Speedball, Spider-Woman, Medusa, Fin Fang Foom, Super Skrull, Wizard, Ultron, Diablo, Scorpion and Doc Ock. Out of all these, only 3 managed to appear in a future MvC title, being Iron Fist, Super Skrull and Ultron, with Doc Ock almost getting in MvC3.
• Psylocke was intended to be playable, but the arcade hardware they had prevented her from becoming one, so she became a partner. The Marvel characters that were really pushed for were Jubilee and Howard the Duck. Jubilee almost got in, but eventually, it was a choice between her and Venom and Venom was ultimately chosen over her. Meanwhile, despite alot of push and even a petition for Howard the Duck, Marvel kept saying no to him, probably because of the movie's reception.
  It sounds very odd on why quite a number of folks at Capcom wanted Howard the Duck, but remember that Capcom did do the ever popular Duck Tales game.
• In terms of final bosses, after Galactus was rejected, the first villain Marvel proposed was Loki, which Capcom saw the reasoning, but thought Japan wouldn't like him. Fin Fang Foom was the 2nd suggested by Marvel and aside from confusing the dev on why Iron Man wasn't allowed, but other characters associated with him were, the dev also wondered if Fin Fang was selected because Capcom had recently done a giant dragon boss for the DnD game, Shadow Over Mystara(they even pointed out the Marvel rep's enthusiasm around the dragon bit).
• After Fin Fang Foom, the dev started rapid-firing different popular Marvel villains to see which one Marvel would say yes to. Carnage was one of them, but got rejected. Eventually, Onslaught was mentioned and after a pause, checking with Marvel and getting back to them, Onslaught was approved and Capcom was relived it had worked out.

It's very fascinating looking at the details on the Marvel character choosing. Makes me very sad we didn't get any mention of Capcom characters suggested.

Looking at the list of characters that were OK'd and suggested, I'm legit curious, if Marvel and Capcom made a new MvC game, got and made for the game every character who was proposed throughout MvC history alongside the main and big guns(including the X-Men characters like Wolverine, Storm, Psylocke and whatnot) and used the tagline, "Every Character Proposed in MvC History is Here!", how much would you be on-board?

A playable Howard the Duck would had been an awesome inclusion for Marvel Vs Capcom if it were approved at the time.

Makes me wonder about the process on the selection criteria for the Capcom side.

 

[Gengar84]

Ultimate was a great step in the right direction but I feel like Smash still has a lot of untapped villain representation, even just among existing series and/or first party. Are there any villains you’d like to see in Smash someday? I’ll try to break down by series and find something I’d be happy with for as many as I can:

Super Mario - Wart
Luigi’s Mansion - King Boo
Yoshi - Kamek
Donkey Kong - Lord Frederick
Legend of Zelda - Skull Kid
Pokémon - Team Rocket
Kirby - Elfilis
Fire Emblem - The Black Knight
Metroid - Raven Beak
Splatoon - DJ Octavio
Xenoblade - Mobius D&J
Kid Icarus - Medusa
ARMS - Dr. Coyle
Earthbound - Giygas

Which villains would you like to see?

 

[Golden Icarus]

Okay something has been on my mind that I realize I don’t have a clear answer to.

Do we have an actual understanding, or even a ballpark estimation, of just how much work it takes to create a given character? We know echoes are much simpler than unique characters, but to what extent? Are they 50% easier to implement? 20%? Were the six clones in Melee simpler than adding just one unique character?

And of course there is a spectrum of sorts depending on the simplicity of the design and whether or not the character can borrow assets. I can’t remember if this is confirmed or just conventional wisdom, but I remember Toon Link, Sonic, Wolf and Jigglypuff were relatively last minute additions to Brawl because they were all simple enough to conceptualize and implement, despite being mostly unique.

Looking at Ultimate, I can imagine Ken might’ve taken 50% more work than Daisy and then Isabelle might have been 50% more work than Ken. And was Inkling twice as much work as Isabelle? And god I have to imagine Steve took at least twice as much time and resources as Inkling, so is adding one Steve the equivalent of like seven or eight Daisys?

I feel like most of us just vibe which characters are easier or harder to include, but I’m sincerely curious if Sakurai has made clear statements that we can go off of, or if anyone well versed in game development can shed some light here.

 

[Guynamednelson]

Were the six clones in Melee simpler than adding just one unique character?

According to Sakurai, yes.

We know echoes are much simpler than unique characters, but to what extent? Are they 50% easier to implement?

It has to be way less than 50%, Sakurai said Wolf took 70% the work of a unique fighter, and he's a clone who has so many gameplay differences from Fox that some people think he shouldn't be called a clone.

 

[ScrubReborn]

I feel like most of us just vibe which characters are easier or harder to include, but I’m sincerely curious if Sakurai has made clear statements that we can go off of, or if anyone well versed in game development can shed some light here.

Well like you said, it's a spectrum that varies from character to character, so we'll never get a exact answer; even among unique characters, it can be assumed someone like Kirby is much more demanding than like, Falcon thanks to the copy abilities. I feel trying to boil it down to a science is kinda futile but **** it.

The most "normal" character would probably be Mario; back in Melee Sakurai said he balances everyone around Mario so I assume he's the rough baseline Sakurai uses for the following statements. Guy already kinda Ninja'd me on them but I'm gonna go a bit more in depth:

• Like you also said, we have Sakurai's word on Melee clone type characters; he more specifically said that he could not have included a unique character (Wario) with the development time that went to the six clones. This statement would imply that your average Melee clone wouldn't even take a sixth of the effort of a unique character. In rough numbers that would make a normal clone equal to under 17% of a normal fighter. Worth noting Melee clones recycled most of the source fighter's animations; I'd assume not changing them much shaves a ton of time off.
• When Sakurai talked about Wolf in Brawl, he claimed he took about 70% of the effort of a fully unique character. Wolf stands out as being a "clone" that barely even counts as a clone; he shares much less with Fox than a traditional semi-clone. I think SmashWiki calls him a psuedo-clone, that sounds right to me. I would guess the other "psuedo-clones" (so like Lucas, and maybe Jigglypuff) fall somewhere in this benchmark too.
  • I would guess that a "normal" semi-clone would be roughly 50-60% of the work of a normal fighter; no source to back this up though, but it's gotta be lower than Wolf. I don't think Sakurai ever commented on the resource strain of like, Roy or Falco or whoever.
• Dunno what the percent for (non-Ken) echos would be, other than "really ****ing low" for most. Dark Samus would prolly be higher because of her animations.

 

[Guynamednelson]

he shares much less with Fox than a traditional semi-clone

That was more true in Brawl than Ultimate to be fair, some of his animation changes in Ultimate change some of his moves to look more like their Fox equivalents (IE: Neutral air, dash attack).

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

So I guess, in as educated a guess as we can get:

• Some characters have annoying to implement mechanics/mechanics that require extensive work to implement, such as Copy Ability or Place Block, and development for those characters can make them take longer.
  • Swap Fighters take longer by virtue of being multiple characters in a trenchcoat, though Pyra/Mythra are clones of each other, so it's not too bad for them.
• Semi-Clones take 70% as long as characters that don't have something time consuming about them.
• Clones are extremely quick, and Echo Fighters may be even faster due to generally having no gameplay differences that the balancing team would have to worry about.

For these reasons, it's pretty clear why we see a lot of new clones in each entry, and we'll probably see even more in the next. Still though, it's difficult to say in terms of roster size how clones factor in. Some of them might be so quick they don't really count, but others might still require significant time and so may as well be considered a full character in terms of slot budget.

 

[ScrubReborn]

That was more true in Brawl than Ultimate to be fair, some of his animation changes in Ultimate change some of his moves to look more like their Fox equivalents (IE: Neutral air, dash attack).

Fair, but that's just two moves. Also, a lot of non-attack animations that he shared with Fox in Brawl were changed to be unique so that probably evens it out.

Semi-Clones take 70%

No, Wolf does. Like I said, characters like him are weird cases that really should not be treated as semi-clones when he shares well below half of his kit with Fox. At least he shouldn't be used as a baseline. I doubt Roy or Falco or, well, anyone that still shares like half their moves hits that big 70.

 

[Guynamednelson]

For these reasons, it's pretty clear why we see a lot of new clones in each entry, and we'll probably see even more in the next. Still though, it's difficult to say in terms of roster size how clones factor in. Some of them might be so quick they don't really count, but others might still require significant time and so may as well be considered a full character in terms of slot budget.

One way clones cut corners that we rarely talk about is modeling, which is something that might be a harder corner cut to make for the few that don't reuse preexisting models if Smash 6 is meant to make full use of the Switch 2 having better hardware:

• Luigi was a recolor of Mario in Smash 64 with his M replaced with an L
• Ganondorf in Melee was using his Spaceworld 2000 model
• Pichu might be using an enhanced version of its Pokemon Stadium 2 model, a lot of its textures in SSBM are high-res versions of the ones it had on the N64
• The clothes from Fox's model were tweaked for Falco, at least in Melee
• Dr. Mario obviously has to be reusing Mario's head, gloves and shoes from his model at the very least
• Lucas is a headswap of Ness minus his backpack
• Sakurai says that modeling Wolf would've been easier than Krystal thanks to Fox and Falco having been modeled for Brawl, but the UV mapping for Wolf's model doesn't really make it seem like making Wolf's model was as easy as taking Fox's and making it edgy
• Lucina and Dark Pit were already modeled for the sake of being Marth/Pit alts, and even if DP wasn't he's still a palette swap of Pit
• Daisy and Ken are slightly modified Peach/Ryu models
• Chrom is reusing his model made for Robin's FS/victory screen
• Mythra is reusing her XC2 model (and so is Pyra to be fair)

The only exceptions where they could've reused preexisting models but seemingly don't are Isabelle and Dark Samus, which is something I am solely judging from the UV mapping of their Smash 4 AT and Ultimate fighter models.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Would this DLC come with a bevvy of new assist trophies, items, stages and modes that we only usually expect with new games

Yeah. We'd get everything a new game typically gets. Newcomers, new stages, new assist trophies, new music, you name it. Missing single player modes, return of Custom Moves, you name it.

 

[Golden Icarus]

It has to be way less than 50%, Sakurai said Wolf took 70% the work of a unique fighter, and he's a clone who has so many gameplay differences from Fox that some people think he shouldn't be called a clone.

Honestly Wolf being 70% of a unique fighter is a decently higher percentage than I would expect. Even with how much he varies from Fox, he's clearly borrowing assets for the vast majority of his moves.

Well like you said, it's a spectrum that varies from character to character, so we'll never get a exact answer; even among unique characters, it can be assumed someone like Kirby is much more demanding than like, Falcon thanks to the copy abilities. I feel trying to boil it down to a science is kinda futile but **** it.

The most "normal" character would probably be Mario; back in Melee Sakurai said he balances everyone around Mario so I assume he's the rough baseline Sakurai uses for the following statements. Guy already kinda Ninja'd me on Sakurai's statements but I'm gonna go a bit more in depth:

• Like you also said, we have Sakurai's word on Melee clone type characters; he more specifically said that he could not have included a unique character (Wario) with the development time that went to the six clones. This statement would imply that your average Melee clone wouldn't even take a sixth of the effort of a full-fledged character. In rough numbers that would be less than ~17%~ the work of a normal fighter. Worth noting Melee clones recycled most of the source fighter's animations; I'd assume not changing them much shaves a ton of time off.
• When Sakurai talked about Wolf in Brawl, he claimed he took about 70% of the effort of a fully unique character. Wolf stands out as being a "clone" that barely even counts as a clone; he shares much less with Fox than a traditional semi-clone. I think SmashWiki calls him a psuedo-clone, that sounds right to me. I would guess the other "psuedo-clones" (so like Lucas, and maybe Jigglypuff) fall somewhere in this benchmark too.
• I would guess that a "normal" semi-clone would be roughly 50-60% of the work of a normal fighter; no source to back this up though. I don't think Sakurai ever commented on the resource strain of like, Roy or Falco or whoever.

I dunno what the percent for (non-Ken) echos would be, other than "really ****ing low" for most. Dark Samus would prolly be higher because of her animations.

This is just what I was looking for. Thank you!

The statement about the Melee clones is really interesting. Granted, they were pretty damn unoriginal, but six of them being less work than a single character is pretty staggering. I wonder if even Sakurai's estimations are iffy because Melee Falco being ~17% the work of a full character, while Brawl Wolf was ~70% feels like a pretty wide bridge.

And using Mario as the default 100% difficulty character still has me curious. Most seem to agree Steve was probably the biggest undertaking of any single character. Incorporating mining and crafting and having to meticulously implement the build mechanic into every single stage. Is Steve hitting 150%, or somewhere like 300%? I'm not even sure who the second most complicated character is. I guess Kazuya and Hero with their sheer move quantity probably took a good deal of work, but maybe not as much as I'm assuming.

Some characters have annoying to implement mechanics/mechanics that require extensive work to implement, such as Copy Ability or Place Block, and development for those characters can make them take longer.

• Swap Fighters take longer by virtue of being multiple characters in a trenchcoat, though Pyra/Mythra are clones of each other, so it's not too bad for them.

The transforming characters are interesting. I'd love to know exactly how efficiently they were able to design Pyra/Mythra. Not only are they semi-clones, but they are also relatively simplistic and I wonder if designing both of them simultaneously made the process easier or harder.

The Miis also make me think. They each have 12 unique moves that have to be balanced and designed, but they are also extremely simple. And this is sidetracked, but I'm also curious how much work the custom moves in Smash 4 took. They were wildly unbalanced and rarely all that extravagant, but they still did that ****. People often cite special moves as being the most complicated aspect of characters, but Smash 4 (and Hero's move list) makes it seem like no big thing at all. Clearly I'm missing something about game development because the fact we get clones like Lucina and Daisy with zero unique special moves when Smash 4 added about 400 for a mechanic that no one cared about is quite the head scratcher.

 

[ScrubReborn]

One way clones cut corners that we rarely talk about is modeling, which is something that might be a harder corner cut to make for the few that don't reuse preexisting models if Smash 6 is meant to make full use of the Switch 2 having better hardware:

To add one; I think Jigglypuff's model in Smash 4 was ripped from Pokemon X and Y, or only slightly edited.

 

[Guynamednelson]

To add one; I think Jigglypuff's model in Smash 4 was ripped from Pokemon X and Y, or only slightly edited.

Yeah but I think she stopped being cloney immediately after 64 so I'm not counting her as a clone reusing a preexisting model.

 

[ScrubReborn]

The statement about the Melee clones is really interesting. Granted, they were pretty damn unoriginal, but six of them being less work than a single character is pretty staggering. I wonder if even Sakurai's estimations are iffy because Melee Falco being ~17% the work of a full character, while Brawl Wolf was ~70% feels like a pretty wide bridge.

If one number was iffy, I'd sooner point to the Brawl Wolf one; wouldn't be surprised if Sakurai pulled it out his ass, seemed liked a guestimate. Still, I'm sure at least some of those ripped animations had to be tweaked for Wolf's build, and maybe I just missed the similarities but a lot of his attack animations still seemed original even with the obviously ripped ones. Maybe the number is inflated but I don't feel like it's that far off. 30% less work is still a lot after all.

The Melee number though; I think it more or less checks out. It's based on a more direct comparison, and besides, apart from the model and a few animations here and there, most of, say, Melee Falco's differences are just tweaking numbers. I'd be shocked if it was much higher.

because the fact we get clones like Lucina and Daisy with zero unique special moves when Smash 4 added about 400 for a mechanic that no one cared about is quite the head scratcher.

Sakurai insisted those two play near-identically; him patching out Daisy's turnip difference tells their lack of real differences in specials was a deliberate choice more than anything.

 

[SPEN18]

Yeah unfortunately we're not likely to ever get a great handle on how much work X takes vs Y to any high level of specificity. All we have really, as said above, is the statement about six Melee clones vs. Wario and the Brawl statement about Wolf taking 70% of the effort of a unique. And both of those seem...incredibly inconsistent with each other, and probably very rough estimations or even exaggerations. Not to mention both are old and possibly outdated, as development for the GCN or Wii is obviously very different than development for contemporary consoles.
Though I'd personally lean toward the latter estimation, regarding Wolf, to be likely closer to accurate to the more modern style of non-Echo clone, and the Melee statement being closer to what would now be typically labelled as Echoes. At least that's one attempt to harmonize the incongruence.
Keep in mind also the contexts of those statements; both were specifically addressing why X unique character wasn't in the game, Wario and Krystal, resp. The primary purpose was to address a particular omission, not to make a definitive statement about the relative costs of various types of additions. And, besides that, it means they're likelier to bias in the direction of emphasizing the impossibility of the unique choice in the given situation, and thus the relative ease of the clone options.

 

[Scrimblo Bimblo]

I feel like Sakurai didn't think those answers through all that much.
But yeah the Melee clones (mostly different model + some tweaked stats) taking less work than Wolf/Lucas (basically original characters) makes sense.

 

[The Prankster 16]

I think it goes something like:
Full Clone/Echo (Daisy, DS, Richter) - 25%
Semi-Clone (64 Jiggs, Falco, Ganon) - 50%
Pseudo-Clone (Lucas, Wolf, Ult Luigi) - 75%
Full Character - 100%
Pyra/Mythra - 150%
Pokémon Trainer - 300%
Steve - 1000%

 

[ScrubReborn]

I think it goes something like:
Full Clone/Echo (Daisy, DS, Richter) - 25%

25% makes no sense for Daisy/Richter. If 6 Melee clones wasn't one character, then 4 Richters definitely isn't.

--

EDIT: I read a few responses I missed; honestly I maintain my position there isn't much room for skeptism in the Melee stuff; it wasn't a guestimate prediction, the clones were all made in a timespan when they didn't have time to make more unique fighters, which seems like it was determined beforehand; I don't think you even need Sakurai statements to conclude that would make it incredibly unlikely the six clones = a unique fighter.

Now the fact this was GameCube era instead of modern HD gaming; fair enough, but that would impact the original fighters too, I don't think that would make the difference that much wider.

 

[smashkirby]

A playable Howard the Duck would had been an awesome inclusion for Marvel Vs Capcom if it were approved at the time.

Makes me wonder about the process on the selection criteria for the Capcom side.

I spoke to the guy who talked about these MvC1 findings and he said that while he hasn't found anything about Capcom's character selection (yet), he did find out Sir Arthur (of Ghosts n' Goblins) WAS planned to be playable in MvC1, but Capcom didn't know how to differentiate him from Mega Man, so they made him an assist instead.

So...about that Sony/Kadokawa takeover...

https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/News/Press/202412/24-1219E/

So the outcome of this wasn't as catastrophic as we feared, for now at least.

What I want to know is... what does this mean for anime distribution...?

By the way, but I came across this neat little interview with the creator of Doshin the Giant. He mentions how Doshin was added into Melee as a Trophy, btw. I still wonder... DOES Nintendo have the rights to Doshin anymore, given the game's legal rights are in a similar situation to what Joy Mech Fight was dealing with until Brawl.

Exclusive Interview: Kazutoshi Iida Creator of Doshin the Giant - Consolevariations

and the experience of the 64DD!

consolevariations.com

 

[Guynamednelson]

Still, I'm sure at least some of those ripped animations had to be tweaked for Wolf's build

Well that and there weren't a lot of claw swipes to use at the time, so they'd also have to be tweaking punches and sword slashes (look at how he slashes with his left hand for his down smash, that'd probably be from Link's own) to resemble claw swipes. Not to mention that even beyond that Wolf had this animalistic body language to his animations that'd be beyond the work of just copypasting pre-existing fighter animations even if Brawl had a bunch of claw swipers.

Really where I think the 70% would come from would be that his Brawl animations were incomplete. Quote the Smash Wiki:

• He will briefly assume Fox's falling animation before reverting to his own during his air dodging animation and his forward, upward, and downward item throwing animations.
• During Wolf's tumbling animation, his left arm will detach from his elbow.
• Strangely, in some of Wolf's animations, his right shoulder pad will mysteriously flip upside down and return to its original position when the animation ends. This is noticeable when he performs an up smash, turns around while braking from a dash, and lands after doing his forward aerial.

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

By the way, but I came across this neat little interview with the creator of Doshin the Giant. He mentions how Doshin was added into Melee as a Trophy, btw. I still wonder... DOES Nintendo have the rights to Doshin anymore, given the game's legal rights are in a similar situation to what Joy Mech Fight was dealing with until Brawl.

Exclusive Interview: Kazutoshi Iida Creator of Doshin the Giant - Consolevariations

and the experience of the 64DD!

consolevariations.com

All I could find for Doshin in a short search was that apparently the trademark has been inactive since like 2003? Nintendo owned the trademark supposedly, but I'm just looking at Trademarkia which says there was no statement of use filed as of September 27th, 2002, which is literally a week after Doshin released in Europe on the Gamecube, so I don't know how true it is lol

 

[Louie G.]

By the way, but I came across this neat little interview with the creator of Doshin the Giant. He mentions how Doshin was added into Melee as a Trophy, btw. I still wonder... DOES Nintendo have the rights to Doshin anymore, given the game's legal rights are in a similar situation to what Joy Mech Fight was dealing with until Brawl.

All I could find for Doshin in a short search was that apparently the trademark has been inactive since like 2003? Nintendo owned the trademark supposedly, but I'm just looking at Trademarkia which says there was no statement of use filed as of September 27th, 2002, which is literally a week after Doshin released in Europe on the Gamecube, so I don't know how true it is lol

Well, funny enough, they just put the Doshin soundtrack on Spotify. So someone had to have used this trademark recently.

Pretty rare to see for Nintendo games, the only other I can think of is Planet Robobot. This probably implies at least some independent ownership, right? Hell if I know who's pulling the strings here but I can be pretty confident in saying Nintendo wouldn't make this decision themselves.

Or perhaps the soundtrack is just a separate case altogether? "Whereabouts Records" is credited at the bottom so presumably they just found a distributor. I'm assuming that the composer has some ownership of their own work, and control over distribution.