Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[Will]

I get the legitimacy behind characters that hardly showed up on Nintendo systems before their official reveal. There’s too many to count.

Think about . What did he have?

• An NES port of the original Metal Gear that Kojima didn’t know existed because he never authorized it
• A non-canon Gameboy Color game (Ghost Babel is pretty good imo I would recommend it)
• The best version of A remake of Metal Gear Solid for the GameCube, except it’s 10 times wackier.

This kind of stuff faded away staring with Brawl, any Smash nerd can tell you that. I think people just expect this kind of character to be scarcely added per installment, yet Ultimate had 3. Granted, they were DLC, but they were there! I’m sure I’m missing other people that I can’t remember right now.

I think this preconceived notion of having slim pickings is what makes the idea of adding more traditionally non-Nintendo character so hesitating, even to someone like me. Maybe the 10 years of being in this echo chamber made me always anticipate the worst.

It was an award show darling in the same year as BotW, Nier Automata and Mario Odyssey

Cool.

Must’ve been a Smash hit.

 

[Hadokeyblade]

joker was added because Sakurai really likes the Persona series and this was basically a freebie for him, i thought that was established.

 

[Gengar84]

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

Just gonna leave this here.

I just watched that. I’d personally love option 4 even if it’s not entirely realistic. More realistically, I’d be happy with option 1 as long as we still had a base roster close to Ultimate’s starting roster size.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

joker was added because Sakurai really likes the Persona series and this was basically a freebie for him, i thought that was established.

But it's been stated that Nintendo made the choices for DLCs... and that Sakurai had the final say OH MY GOD YOU'RE COOKING

 

[Will]

But it's been stated that Nintendo made the choices for DLCs... and that Sakurai had the final say OH MY GOD YOU'RE COOKING

Dude we have a plant, you always gotta account for Sakurai’s whimsy.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

Dude we have a plant, you always gotta account for Sakurai’s whimsy.

This just proves Sakurai has more imagination than this thread's collective hive mind

 

[Will]

This just proves Sakurai has more imagination than this thread's collective hive mind

I believe it.

I like Piranha Plant, I hope he stays. Sakurai can make some damn good platform fighter characters if he gets inspired. As expected from the pioneer of the genre.

 

[PersonAngelo53]

I just watched that. I’d personally love option 4 even if it’s not entirely realistic. More realistically, I’d be happy with option 1 as long as we still had a base roster close to Ultimate’s starting roster size.

Same, I would love that it would be insanely cool if it happened but am not sure that would be manageable but will see.

 

[SuperSonicFlyer]

This just proves Sakurai has more imagination than this thread's collective hive mind

Hey, some people on this forum know I have a pretty big imagination. You're not dissing me, are you?

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

Hey, some people on this forum know I have a pretty big imagination. You're not dissing me, are you?

I'm not dissing you specifically. I'm dissing every single one of us

For the sake of not being torn apart by y'all, this is a joke

 

[dream1ng]

Let's be honest, Persona 5 had only been out for about 2 years at that point. No matter how much it sold, Joker was no Mega Man or Simon or Ryu or Cloud and was certainly not expected or seen as a likely Smash candidate by a lot of people. So he was quite a surprise in a few ways.

Yes, but there's a big middleground between Ryu and Cloud and Estelle Bright, in which a character like Joker would sit. Let's be real, even Simon is no Ryu or Cloud.

I'd say the two biggest reasons Joker was a surprise was one, because of how minimal a presence Persona had on Nintendo systems, including his own appearance. Joker helped shed residual focus on Nintendo association that really kicked off with Cloud. And two, because Sakurai had recently said Nintendo was picking all the DLC and people figured that meant it'd just be like FE and Pokemon and Xenoblade and occasional third-parties.

 

[SuperSonicFlyer]

I'm not dissing you specifically. I'm dissing every single one of us

For the sake of not being torn apart by y'all, this is a joke

Yeah, I know, for I was too. Hence, the emoticon at the end of my last post.

 

[KingofPhantoms]

This is how we weasel Peppino into the roster, my friends.

I am 100% on board with this idea and timeline.

 

[dream1ng]

joker was added because Sakurai really likes the Persona series and this was basically a freebie for him, i thought that was established.

Any third-party we can't otherwise account for was obviously Sakurai bias

Who needs all the facts

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Not like we don't have other characters with actual body counts on the roster already though.

Don't forget .

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

Don't forget .

The irony of Kirbeh forgetting Kirby.

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

I am 100% on board with this idea and timeline.

If Peppino did end up in Smash, I think they'd pick a different stage, but I do think it'd be really funny if they picked Fun Farm just to have Mort/Mort Cube in the background for ****s and giggles lmao

 

[DarthEnderX]

My two casual friens didn't know any of the dlc fighters except Steve and Kazuya, and the latter only known as "the guy from tekken", i think people overstimate how much the average casuals would recognize, specially in countries outside Japan and America.

Your friends didn't know Sephiroth or Sora?!

Also weird seeing characters like Doc and Pichu being considered unique, while Ken is labelled as an echo. I understand that it has more to do with how the characters were designed in Ultimate and less to do with how specifically unique they are, but the line between echo and unique fighter still feels arbitrary at worst and unintuitive at best. It almost makes me wish there was a separate label like “semi-echo” or “former echo” but at that point…yeah just ditch the label there really is no need for it.

I agree that that's an issue. But the solution isn't to ditch the label. It's to expand the label so that includes characters like Dr. Mario and Pichu.

A character should either be a unique Fighter, or an Echo. If they're currently a mostly unique semiclone, like Wolf, then change those last few moves up so the character is fully unique.

Who are the most realistic options for new and veteran echoes?

Is a veteran Echo a returning Echo, or a new Echo for a veteran Fighter?

I think people are overestimating the prevalence/familiarity of Estelle/Trails or underestimating the prevalence/familiarity of Joker/Persona if they're being equated. The entire former series has sold about the same as just Persona 5.

I think a closer example to Joker would be 2B.

That's fair. But the question only asked for "a surprising 3rdparty character that opens the first pass". Not "a surprising and popular 3rdparty character".

smash’s surprise element is all but burned out. I think it’d take an inanimate object to be surprising

A Sony character or 4P character would still be surprising.

Who is the most likely Final Fantasy character excluding FF7.

I dunno...Yuna? Maybe Vivi.

Let's ask something fun.

Who are the top 5 characters you don't want as Newcomers or ones you don't see much of chance getting in for Smash 6?

That doesn't sound fun...

It's obviously going to be Cactaur.

A perfect AT.

1000 Needles adds 100.0% damage.

 

[BrawlX10]

I don't think the sheer shock of Joker will ever be recreated, honestly. At this point everything is seen as worth consideration, no matter how out there. Even if someone is seen as unlikely, all the really big candidates aren't seen as impossible anymore.

Maybe not the sheer shock of Joker, but there's definitely characters left that will shock people, even if they're mostly unlikely characters.
Like i dunno if they add Valkyrie, Alain from Unicorn Overlord or Ratchet & Clank of all characters i will be shocked, even if they've been worth of consideration before, maybe not Joker-levels, but still shocking definitely.
Honestly, i think the Crewmate from Among Us would probably be as shocking as Joker to me, lol.

 

[Wonder Smash]

Yes, but there's a big middleground between Ryu and Cloud and Estelle Bright, in which a character like Joker would sit. Let's be real, even Simon is no Ryu or Cloud.

I'd say the two biggest reasons Joker was a surprise was one, because of how minimal a presence Persona had on Nintendo systems, including his own appearance. Joker helped shed residual focus on Nintendo association that really kicked off with Cloud. And two, because Sakurai had recently said Nintendo was picking all the DLC and people figured that meant it'd just be like FE and Pokemon and Xenoblade and occasional third-parties.

That's why I said Joker was quite a surprise in a few ways. All that made him one of the least discussed characters for Smash Ultimate (unlike the case with Simon, who was brought up constantly). Estelle Bright would also be one of the least discussed, though for different reasons (Trails doesn't get much talk when it comes to Smash outside of this forum).

Though personally, I compared Falcom as a whole to SNK.

 

[Gengar84]

I'm not dissing you specifically. I'm dissing every single one of us

For the sake of not being torn apart by y'all, this is a joke

Lol yeah, I feel that sometimes. I’d like to think I do my part to offer fresh perspectives and character options that are outside the box of general speculation. Maybe to the point that I unintentionally annoy people that I talk so much about characters no one else seems to have an interest in but I do what I can.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

Lol yeah, I feel that sometimes. I’d like to think I do my part to offer fresh perspectives and character options that are outside the box of general speculation. Maybe to the point that I unintentionally annoy people that I talk so much about characters no one else seems to have an interest in but I do what I can.

I say keep being annoying. I don't want an echo chamber that says the same few things over and over and over again.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

I say keep being annoying. I don't want an echo chamber that says the same few things over and over and over again.


I'm sorry. I had to. lol

 

[Guynamednelson]

I say keep being annoying. I don't want an echo chamber that says the same few things over and over and over again.

I saw a mudcrab the other day. Horrible creatures.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Annoying People who never bought Tekken Advance, Tekken 3d Prime Edition or Tekken Tag 2 on the Wii U on their way to tell you those titles were ultra important actually

The Wii U version of Tekken Tag 2 was what got me to try Tekken actually.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

The Wii U version of Tekken Tag 2 was what got me to try Tekken actually.

Thus confirming you are not annoying.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Thus confirming you are not annoying.

Well no.

I'm hella annoying.

Spoiler

I don't get the joke.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

Spoiler

I don't get the joke.

Spoiler

You can't be one of the "Annoying People who never bought the games" if you actually bought one of the games

 

[Perkilator]

Delzethin put out a video discussing potential routes Smash can go down.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Spoiler

You can't be one of the "Annoying People who never bought the games" if you actually bought one of the games

Ah.

Well then, I've played almost every franchise with a character in Smash. I think the only ones I'm missing are Wii Fit, Duck Hunt and... R.O.B.

So I'm only somewhat annoying.

 

[ninjahmos]

I saw a mudcrab the other day. Horrible creatures.

Horrid creatures, but I hear their meat is rather tasty.

 

[The Prankster 16]

Delzethin put out a video discussing potential routes Smash can go down.

My tiers of how likely these are to happen are:

1. A regular sequel - Might be boring but it's the easiest choice and you aren't always going to get exactly what you want.
2. Reboot - Is a cool idea and could offer refreshes on older content, but I think that selling a game with so much less content might be unappealing to consumers. Plus I don't think full moveset reworks are very likely at all, at most maybe some characters will get some new Normals, maybe a Special.
3. Ultimate Deluxe - Could happen, but with SW2 being BC and Ultimate selling well already, I don't see a reason for it other than laziness or unwillingness by Nintendo or the dev team to move on.
4. A Spin Off - Pretty unlikely, but could happen, just not in place of a new Smash entirely.
5. Ultimate 2: Even Ultimater - Would be really cool, but there's just no way they would go with this over any of the other more safe and easy options.

 

[SharkLord]

I do wonder what exactly a "reboot" would entail. How many movesets warrant complete reworks? How many veterans can be dropped without sparking riots? How much can we change the gameplay before people start getting alienated? Assuming we don't get EiH 2, we're probably just seeing a normal fighting game sequel, with some moveset tweaks, some new mechanics, and maybe an art style shift, but for the most part Smash 6 will probably just be a normal Smash game.

 

[Laniv]

Also Leaf, Villager, Dark Pit, Inkling, and Ken, but only for an alt or two.

...And I think that's about it.

Yeah.

View attachment 399552

Hey now, don't forget about Red

The fact that alts are the closest we have to Black characters in Smash is utterly embarrassing

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

How much can we change the gameplay before people start getting alienated?

This is my biggest issue with the idea of Smash doing a reboot. Didn't Sakurai say that he keeps movesets mostly the same between games exactly for this? Like Sakurai hasn't changed the fact that Sonic has two nearly identical looking Specials for three games now (even though he really should) and took until Smash 4 to give DK his roll from the SNES as a dash attack, he's not gonna suddenly gut the roster and revamp EVERY CHARACTER to be completely different.

At that point you're basically just gutting the roster for the sake of it.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

The fact that alts are the closest we have to Black characters in Smash is utterly embarrassing

I do appreciate that my favorite color alt is the one they chose to add my skin tone to tho.

And that they replaced that ugly as sin pallet with a super cool blue one.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Talking about echo fighters…

Who are the most realistic options for new and veteran echoes?

Hero of Time for Champion Link. More technically he'd be a bigger Young Link literally, but Young Link might just not stay around.

And if they go that route, maybe Impa for Sheik. Sure thing, sure thing she has all the merits to be unique. Not sure if they will do such. She could be Sheik + a kodachi and kunai instead of needles for example. A semi clone situation is more ideal however. I think they could do this just to boost the amount of Zelda characters.

Octolings for Inklings too. Easy. They don't have to be clones probably, but they can.

Funky Kong could potentially be a little clonish using DK as a base. But again, I don't think they would. But they could, at the very least Funky will be build up from DK's model.

Tom Nook same idea. They'd probably make him more unique however.

Shadow as a Sonic Echo too maybe?

This is taking account that Echoes are more like Ken type Echoes than full clone ones like Daisy. If anything, all these could be semi clones too. Except Hero of Time Link. That's the ONE Echo I really want as a Echo, mostly to preserve a classic Adult Link moveset.

 

[DarthEnderX]

I say keep being annoying.

Alright.

I do wonder what exactly a "reboot" would entail.

Nothing.

You can't reboot something that doesn't have a continuity.