Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[Gengar84]

I do think if never got into Smash 4, would have gotten into Ultimate anyway and effectively become the mascots of the series.

It would’ve been like a modern day situation.

We’d probably be discussing Shulk’s chances right now if he didn’t make it into Smash 4.

Do you think Shulk getting into Smash significantly boosted the sales of the enclave series? I wonder how well. Enclave 2 would have done without Smash. That probably helped Pyra/Mythra’s chances.

 

[smashkirby]

What if the big story mode is sold separately as DLC down the line for like $30? Would anyone here buy a standalone story DLC for that price if it was good?

Yeah, why not? It's something more to do, so...

chibi-robo vs megman? anyone? no? worth a try

I'd certainly love it!

Still though... probably safe to say that Chibi-Robo is (sadly) in a similar position to Wars at this point, huh?

What would that even look like? Get rid of everyone except Mario and Luigi?

I'd imagine the Original 8/12, with everyone added to Smash since Melee getting dropped?

Question about Doshin the Giant, I noticed the composer for that game uploaded the soundtrack and it seems like Nintendo doesn't own the rights to the music? A shame since Doshin OST is incredible, not that it was ever used in any previous smash game but still.

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If I remember correctly, I heard (I think from this very site, no less) that Doshin is currently dealing with a situation similar to what Joy Mech Fight dealt with during the development of Melee where Nintendo either didn't renew their ownership of the IP/they lost the proof of their ownership, so Doshin isn't eligible to appear in Smash Bros. in any meaningful capacity at the moment.

2015 was a hyped up era for Kingdom Hearts fans. They were excited and almost rabbid about Kingdom Hearts 3. The fandom was pretty active back then. They just came off of the fan favorites that are 2 and BBS. 3 being disappointing hadn't happened yet.

I'm sorry, but that "3 being disappointing hadn't happened yet" is just taking me out...

 

[Watuna4343]

Is there a character in the Ultimate roster that qualified as "obscure" when they joined Smash Bros.?
Maybe Ice Climbers in Melee? But i dunno, i don't think they were that unknown.

The Ice Climbers and Mr. Game & Watch were definitely (especially the latter, which is kind of a hybrid of different characters) but I am pretty confident that a character that fits as an answer that I don't see brought up often is Ness. When people talk about Smash 64, Jigglypuff is the go-to character for 'random/joke/surprise' pick but even though I wasn't born when Smash 64 came out from what I gathered Ness was still very niche when Smash 64 came out

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

The Ice Climbers and Mr. Game & Watch were definitely (especially the latter, which is kind of a hybrid of different characters) but I am pretty confident that a character that fits as an answer that I don't see brought up often is Ness. When people talk about Smash 64, Jigglypuff is the go-to character for 'random/joke/surprise' pick but even though I wasn't born when Smash 64 came out from what I gathered Ness was still very niche when Smash 64 came out

Mother was MASSIVE in Japan (and still is, actually), so it makes sense that he would be part of the original roster.

The problem is that EarthBound basically flopped in America before ascending into cult classic status and straight up never released in Europe until the 2010s so in our Westerner perspective, Ness was undoubtedly the "literally who?" character but in Japan, people popped the **** off.

 

[fogbadge]

Still though... probably safe to say that Chibi-Robo is (sadly) in a similar position to Wars at this point, huh?

almost I suppose. but wars had a remake giving it new life whereas chibi is getting a spiritual successor

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Maybe not outright obscure, but I do think in the West Ness was a relatively small name at the time he got into Smash. Earthbound's reputation as a classic hadn't entirely taken hold, the game didn't really do strong numbers in the US (while not even releasing in Europe), and many that did remember it often recalled the odd advertising campaign of "This Game Stinks" (one of the more questionable Play It Loud era marketing efforts) more than the title itself.

His presence in 64 and Melee wasn't "Fire Emblem to Westerners" level of fame elevation that Marth and Roy helped bring about, but it was the kind of notoriety that made many more curious about the game than they would have been otherwise.

 

[ninjahmos]

"This Game Stinks" probably wasn't the best advertising/marketing choice for EarthBound.

 

[RileyXY1]

Ultimate really didn't have an obscure character who was uplifted through being added. Smash 64 had Ness, Melee had Marth and Roy, Brawl had Pit, and Smash 4 had Shulk. There wasn't really an addition like this through Ultimate.

 

[SPEN18]

I mean, it's likely a mix of both.

What most people look back on for Smash 4 Ballot era speculation is mostly limited to Smashboards, YouTube, and GameFaqs. Twitter hadn't really become a dominant speculation arena yet. But there were TONS of people well outside of those three websites. It wasn't just Smash 4 superfans voting. One of the best go-to examples of this, in my eyes, is Tumblr.

Back in those days, there was a sizable chunk of the fanbase there that didn't really intersect with the three aforementioned sites of the 4 days. And presumably, a wider and more diverse sect of ballot voters, like a smaller version of the groundswell that would happen in the Twitter/Ultimate era. And what's funny is that the Tumblr Ballot Exit Poll™ from those days that was going around actually did a fairly good job of showing characters that we know did well on the ballot.

The poll results post. The sample size is comparable if not larger than the polls from sites like Smashboards and GameFaqs at the time.

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Yeah fwiw it looks like this poll is included in the big spreadsheet with the consolidated polling data. It's a good find to show that there was at least one poll that had Sora placing highly, but the thing is that there really aren't any others that I can see which corroborate this result. I mean there's one roughly comparable in size to this one in which Slippy Toad of all characters gets about twice as many votes as Sora. Could this Tumblr audience have been closer in demographics to the actual voting base? Maybe, but the numbers are probably too small to say that conclusively, and this poll has a little oddity in it as well I'd say with YL being the second-highest 1P vet. I think it's fair to say the overall online polling efforts largely whiffed on Sora, and he is totally absent even, or close to it, on some polls. I mean, it did capture that he was in the upper echelon of, oh, say 40-50 characters who seemed like they could have realistically done quite well, but the data certainly doesn't seem to paint a scenario where he's the absolute top-voted character.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

Ultimate really didn't have an obscure character who was uplifted through being added. Smash 64 had Ness, Melee had Marth and Roy, Brawl had Pit, and Smash 4 had Shulk. There wasn't really an addition like this through Ultimate.

One could make a case for Terry. If you were hanging around FGC stuff or live in Latin America, you absolutely know SNK.

Otherwise, he was pretty niche.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Why do you think Sakurai said : "Shulk isn't the type of character we'd normally add."

Was it purely because of obscurity? Was it due to the Xenoblade franchise's future being uncertain?

 

[RileyXY1]

Why do you think Sakurai said : "Shulk isn't the type of character we'd normally add."

Was it purely because of obscurity? Was it due to the Xenoblade franchise's future being uncertain?

At the time Xenoblade Chronicles was a single, rather obscure game. It took a push by fans to even get the game localized for one thing.

 

[Idon]

Why do you think Sakurai said : "Shulk isn't the type of character we'd normally add."

Was it purely because of obscurity? Was it due to the Xenoblade franchise's future being uncertain?

He was a niche ass character from a Wii RPG that had to be petitioned to be released worldwide. A wii rpg from a company that already migrated twice and was relatively simpler than their past ventures.

Like I got my copy of Wiinoblade from the bargain bin at gamestop and didn't even know he was a Nintendo character at the time.

 

[ninjahmos]

What if the next game had a Bonus Stage with music that sounded similar to this?

 

[SuperSonicFlyer]

What if the next game had a Bonus Stage with music that sounded similar to this?

I’d actually love that! That is one of my favorite Sonic tracks of all time.

 

[RodNutTakin]

what do you mean? Template?

I'm late to respond since users spent multipla pages talking about Sora, but I'm referring to how Tiermaker lists come from "templates", i.e. when you click on a specific page, you're given whatever icons the template maker put on there to work with. And the selection the video maker put here is just...not good. Let me post the selection without any of the tier names being shown:

To me, this honestly feels like whoever created the tiermaker page with this lineup just asked on Twitter or Bluesky "what characters should I put in" and let replies decide it, instead of actually doing research on what characters would actually have a logical reason to be in regardless of likeliness, as subjective as it sounds. Not to mention the obvious western skewing on display here. Just a lot of things that irk me here.

There's a bunch of choices that make little sense to be here IMO (Captain Toad over normal Toad or Toadette, Wolf Link, Lyn and Black Knight, Sami over Andy [because the former was planned for project M guise!!], whoever the heck that is between Monster Hunter and Dragonborn, Heihachi, Hisuian Zoroark, Akuma, whoever that is next to Wolf Link, Feraligatr, EMMI)

There's a complete imbalance regarding third-parties (Capcom gets to have a lion's share of characters on here, while other companies like Sega, Square, and Konami only get the bare minimum)

As I mentioned, there's a blatant western skew going on here, particularly with how the characters are ordered (assuming the video creator also chose the characters to be on here)

And there's a number of shocking and baffling exclusions that signal to me a lack of understanding regarding choices for Smash. I could complain about Arle from Puyo Puyo not being here, I could complain about the Konami characters besides Bomberman snubbed in favor of Pyramid Head, I could complain about the lack of anyone from Resident Evil here, I could complain about no Square-Enix characters period besides 2B, I could complain about series like Team Fortress 2, Soul Calibur, Double Dragon/Kunio-kun not even being given passing considerations. But do you want to know what I consider extremely shocking in terms of absences on here?

Ryu Hayabusa, and to a lesser extent, Dixie Kong.

What a monkey cheeseload with a side of cowabunga crap.

 

[Thegameandwatch]

My understanding is they usually stick to their guns here unless they've set aside a placeholder slot. Which as we know is frequently done for Pokemon and has been done for Fire Emblem in the past, so whatever characters are fortunate enough to trickle in after the project plan are from these series that are always introducing new major characters / protagonists.

Actually according to the project slides and notes we were shown, this is what Sakurai has to say about it.

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I think Ultimate is the only game where every character that was planned in the final draft of the planning stage was added. I think the echoes in Ultimate were planned from the start.

Previous games generally have a group of characters that were added later such as the clones in Melee and Smash 4 (Dr. Mario, Lucina and Dark Pit were apparently originally developed as costumes) while Brawl had Sonic, Jigglypuff, Toon Link and Wolf.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

It's easy to forget now with the Switch becoming such a strong JRPG machine internationally that previous home consoles of Nintendo really struggled to have much of the genre in various libraries. Third parties specializing in the field had ditched the N64 in favor of the Playstation, only some had come back for the Gamecube, and while a few types had managed to become prominent on the Wii, the very existence of Operation Rainfall demonstrated what a struggle it was to get even Nintendo wholly owned role-playing games to come West. In some ways the eventual elevation of Fire Emblem and the foundation build for Xenoblade to rise came about because non-portable systems had become so bereft of JRPG titles to fans that first party series had become the best possible way to get that fix.

In that sense getting Shulk was a bit unlikely at the time, both because Xenoblade lacked both the legacy/strong Japanese loyalty of Fire Emblem, and because even the Wii U era, there was still no guarantee that the series was going anywhere beyond XC1 ports until X got revealed in 2015.

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

He was a niche ass character from a Wii RPG that had to be petitioned to be released worldwide. A wii rpg from a company that already migrated twice and was relatively simpler than their past ventures.

Like I got my copy of Wiinoblade from the bargain bin at gamestop and didn't even know he was a Nintendo character at the time.

Ironically some people still didn't even when he was in Smash 4 because on 3DS I think he's placed after the clones right before the third parties lmao

I think Wii U puts him before the clones, but when Nintendo bought the last like 4% of Monolith Soft that they didn't own, I swear I saw a lot of people like "wow, nintendo owns xenoblade now" on Twitter lol

 

[cashregister9]

Ironically some people still didn't even when he was in Smash 4 because on 3DS I think he's placed after the clones right before the third parties lmao

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I think Wii U puts him before the clones, but when Nintendo bought the last like 4% of Monolith Soft that they didn't own, I swear I saw a lot of people like "wow, nintendo owns xenoblade now" on Twitter lol

God every time I see Smash 4's CSS I wince

How did we live like that?

Ult's isn't my favorite but I at least understand it's organization

 

[BrawlX10]

I feel like Pokemon is the main exception on that since Sakurai gets info from Pokemon Company so far ahead that Greninja didn't have a name when Sakurai selected it for Smash 4.

Otherwise it's a pretty solid indication of the limit though there may be exceptions here and there potentially? Which is why I'm kiiiinda hoping the 2021/2022 project plan isn't Smash because that's a pretty short turnover considering Ultimate's newest character is from 2019 lol

If the cutoff is 2022 then Oatchi and TOTK reps probably will have to wait as DLC (asuming they get added)

 

[RileyXY1]

God every time I see Smash 4's CSS I wince

How did we live like that?

Ult's isn't my favorite but I at least understand it's organization

Yeah. For one thing Yoshi is randomly sandwiched in with the Mario characters instead of being his own separate thing.

 

[fogbadge]

Why do you think Sakurai said : "Shulk isn't the type of character we'd normally add."

Was it purely because of obscurity? Was it due to the Xenoblade franchise's future being uncertain?

I think sakurai says things without putting to much thought into it.

 

[Thegameandwatch]

If the cutoff is 2022 then Oatchi and TOTK reps probably will have to wait as DLC (asuming they get added)

TOTK will probably still be represented like how Breath of the Wild was referenced heavily in Ultimate despite that game not releasing until after the planning was done.

 

[dream1ng]

Why do you think Sakurai said : "Shulk isn't the type of character we'd normally add."

Was it purely because of obscurity? Was it due to the Xenoblade franchise's future being uncertain?

I mean most people who play Smash still go "who the hell is Shulk?", let's be real.

Even now that the series is less niche, it's still pretty niche. Let alone over a decade ago when it was a single title that didn't even get a normal release in NA. Rainfall gave it more publicity than Nintendo did - so if you weren't online, tuned in Nintendo or smaller JRPGs, it easily could've gone unnoticed.

I think sakurai says things without putting to much thought into it.

Lmao

Every time he talks about a game people try to link it to Smash, and he's even written articles about that, saying that's why he doesn't speak about most of the games he plays. He chooses his words very carefully.

Now whether they get translated accurately, that's a different story.

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

God every time I see Smash 4's CSS I wince

How did we live like that?

Ult's isn't my favorite but I at least understand it's organization

Even if it also looks a little scuffed in places (Ganondorf especially), I actually didn't mind how Melee CSS did clones because it at least kept them NEAR their series?

Smash 4's is just screaming "damn, you made these so late you didn't even have time to fit them into the css right" but I know that kind of thing is kinda hard to do without knowing ahead of time.

I do think Ultimate's Echo change will be better for futureproofing how the CSS looks though because clones are always next to their base character so they'd always be mixed into the group (like Lucina would be next to Marth or Dark Pit next to Pit, etc).

 

[fogbadge]

Lmao

kindly go away

 

[Dukefire]

Well, Sony will have their State of Play airing tomorrow. So, looks like this week isn't the time for Nintendo. I think April 2nd is the day to expect news.

 

[BrawlX10]

TOTK will probably still be represented like how Breath of the Wild was referenced heavily in Ultimate despite that game not releasing until after the planning was done.

I meant a TOTK newcomer like Rauru, TOTK link re-work, TOTK stages, TOTK Items and etc are still viable for base game.

 

[SuperSonicFlyer]

Well, Sony will have their State of Play airing tomorrow. So, looks like this week isn't the time for Nintendo. I think April 2nd is the day to expect news.

Yeah, but there is an eShop maintenance happening next week, and I think Directs have aired in February a week after the State of Play. A Direct could still happen by next week.

 

[RileyXY1]

Yeah, but there is an eShop maintenance happening next week, and I think Directs have aired in February a week after the State of Play. A Direct could still happen by next week.

The only Direct I'm expecting this month is a Pokémon Direct on the 27th.

 

[SuperSonicFlyer]

The only Direct I'm expecting this month is a Pokémon Direct on the 27th.

That is perfectly fine. Keep in mind, I am just speculating. My hopes for an actual Direct from Nintendo are so so right now.

 

[dream1ng]

God every time I see Smash 4's CSS I wince

How did we live like that?

Ult's isn't my favorite but I at least understand it's organization

The shape is awful, but overall I'd take its style of organization to Ultimate's. Literally the only part I think is unintuitive is the placement of the future echoes, but I've played other fighting games where the "bonus" characters are at the bottom, it's not unprecedented.

The order of the rest I think is much better than Ultimate's. I understand Ultimate's order, but it's initially super unintuitive to anyone who doesn't sort fighters by the order they joined. Which, frankly, was most people outside the dev team. Especially since the previous three games didn't order them that way.

Not to mention people who came to the series after 64 probably won't make a per-game distinction between all the existing characters. If they started when there were already like three or four dozen characters, they're not going to be like "ah, the Melee group". At least, not most people.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Maybe being able to order the fighters yourself is asking too much, but having options with sorting characters would be nice. By series, by Smash introduction heck alphabetically would be exciting to at least one person.

 

[dream1ng]

kindly go away

Yeah, but there is an eShop maintenance happening next week, and I think Directs have aired in February a week after the State of Play. A Direct could still happen by next week.

Next week idk but it sounds like they still have a few things to show for the og Switch, which I imagine they'd want out of the way prior to April. We'll see.

 

[SuperSonicFlyer]

Next week idk but it sounds like they still have a few things to show for the og Switch, which I imagine they'd want out of the way prior to April. We'll see.

Yeah, we will see. I am kind of 50/50 on expecting it happen or not, but yeah, who knows if it could happen or not?

 

[Watuna4343]

Now that Pokémon is referenced, I have to ask... given that every Smash game introduces new Pokémon, it is a given that it will happen in Smash 6. However, what do you think are the chances that instead of Smash 4 and Ultimate, Smash 6 introduces two new Pokémon fighters instead of one?

 

[Thegameandwatch]

Now that Pokémon is referenced, I have to ask... given that every Smash game introduces new Pokémon, it is a given that it will happen in Smash 6. However, what do you think are the chances that instead of Smash 4 and Ultimate, Smash 6 introduces two new Pokémon fighters instead of one?

I feel like depends on how many from that series gets cut if the developers don’t want too many Pokemon.

 

[fogbadge]

do you enjoy being a jerk?

 

[Guynamednelson]

Now that Pokémon is referenced, I have to ask... given that every Smash game introduces new Pokémon, it is a given that it will happen in Smash 6. However, what do you think are the chances that instead of Smash 4 and Ultimate, Smash 6 introduces two new Pokémon fighters instead of one?

I would hope it does so it's more likely I get a Pokemon newcomer I like.