Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[DynamicSmasher]

I know Smash Bros does tend to prefer the avatar character over the important recognisable character, but Cross/Ryan over Elma would feel like such a monumental mistake. Cross but such a nothing nothing to me and I really disliked his customisation options, especially his face. Going from generic battle quotes to complete silence in cutscenes was off-putting to me, he was just too much of a nonentity. And Elma was very obviously the actual main character.

I think it's less about being the avatar character and more a mix of making interesting gameplay and representing the totality of a given game. With the FE characters especially, Robin was chosen because magic + sword was more interesting than just sword, which Chrom would have been(Robin's Palutena's guidance even points this out), while Corrin and Byleth are the main neutral reps in games with multiple paths. If 3 Houses was 1 House and you always had to go Crimson Flower, then I could see Edelgard being picked over Byleth, for example. Inkling, Villager and Steve/Alex/MC avatar are the only playable characters in their games, making them obvious picks.

The main outlier would probably be Joker, but Joker is much more story-important cross. Joker is the impetus for the Phantom Thieves forming, their leader and the one who beats the final boss. And the final boss after the final boss. Cross, by comparison, is more of a supporting protagonist- part of team Elma, but not its leader or especially important in the main narrative. That could change with Definitive edition I suppose, but I seriously doubt that it will, seeing as how that appears to be more about Mira itself and what happened to Lao and to Elma's partner.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

I know Smash Bros does tend to prefer the avatar character over the important recognisable character, but Cross/Ryan over Elma would feel like such a monumental mistake. Cross but such a nothing nothing to me and I really disliked his customisation options, especially his face. Going from generic battle quotes to complete silence in cutscenes was off-putting to me, he was just too much of a nonentity. And Elma was very obviously the actual main character.

Given that Elma is the one Monolith picked when adding a Xenoblade X character in 2's DLC, I suspect Cross wouldn't even be in the conversation.

 

[Garteam]

X/Zero... are picks that feel really 'bubble picks' and are really weird characters to add in Smash 6 in terms of timing and rep... Mega Man is a legacy pick first and foremost and I highly doubt the general audience (as well as the team) would really die for a 2nd Mega Man rep

There's a lot more to Mega Man's popularity than just nostalgia among Smash's core fanbase. People just really like the games and the series. Here's a screenshot from Capcom's Super Election poll that was released last year.

Spoiler

Likewise, Mega Man's characters are still quite popular among general audiences. X and Zero are, in particular, pretty well-liked. Here's the character section from Capcom's same poll:

Spoiler

In terms of the dev team not really gelling with Mega Man, we don't have any real way of gauging their attitudes. However, it seems weird that Mega Man would get the red carpet treatment for two games straight if he wasn't actually popular among the dev team.

If anything, the one group of devs we know the tastes of are the composers because Sakurai lets them work on the series that they want and they love Mega Man. According to the Smash wiki, Mega Man is either tied for the highest number of new remixes or has the highest number of new remixes (depending on how you count the versions of Psycho Soldier).

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

And Elma was very obviously the actual main character.

I mean...no? You're still a main character, and the story wouldn't work nearly as well if it removed Cross and used Elma's POV because all but one of the big reveals are information she already knows.