Board 8 > Realistically, what characters are not making it back in the next Smash Bros.?

(+) Yeah! (+)

just put all that time into character-unique Break the Targets again

I remember reading that Sakurai wanted to take the series in a new direction a long while ago, not being satisfied with doing the same style of "sideview platform" fighting over and over again. But Smash was such a reliable series for Nintendo, and creating a brand new gameplay system would take a LOT of time and effort to design and implement, he settled for doing "the same but MORE" for the past couple of games.

But now that we have Ultimate and can't really "plus" that anymore, maybe it's time for a fresher new style of fighting game?

Smash except it's an over the shoulder third person shooter where you drop down onto a big island and then have to run around and loot and shoot each other while a deadly ring closes in on you

gacha

Port Ultimate with good online and we're golden.

This is Nintendo though so "good online" is laugh out loud worthy

AriaOfBolo posted...

gacha

This is what Smash Run was made to be

Smash Go by Niantic

Most likely cuts:

-A lot of the 3rd party DLC (safest 3rd party characters are probably Sonic, Bayonetta, Mega Man, Pac-Man, and maybe Ryu and Simon)
-Some of the "flavor of the month" type characters (Greninja/Incineroar, non-Marth/Ike/Robin FE characters, etc.)

I think the "essentials" basically boil down to something like...

Mario
Donkey Kong
Link
Samus/Zero-Suit Samus
Yoshi
Kirby
Fox
Pikachu
Luigi
Ness
Captain Falcon
Jigglypuff
Peach
Bowser
Sheik/Zelda
Falco
Marth
Ganondorf
Mr. Game & Watch
Meta Knight
Pit
Wario
Ike
Diddy Kong
King Dedede
Olimar
Lucario
R.O.B.
Villager
Rosalina
Little Mac
Robin
Shulk
Bowser Jr.
Inkling
Ridley
K. Rool
Sonic
Mega Man
Pac-Man
Ryu
Bayonetta

That's not to say other vets wouldn't make it in, but I think that's a good list to build a roster off of. It's 42 characters (44 with Sheik and ZSS), and could probably be built up to something like 58 with newcomers and a few other non-essential vets (Palutena, Ice Climbers, etc.) while being in-check and not getting out of hand.

foolm0r0n posted...

Smash except it's an over the shoulder third person shooter where you drop down onto a big island and then have to run around and loot and shoot each other while a deadly ring closes in on you

game theory battle royales were just clones of sudden death all along

Battle Royales are just Battle Royale (the manga/movie)

paperwarior posted...

Battle Royales are just Battle Royale (the manga/movie)

I hope there'll be a battle royale game that sticks closer to the source material (IIRC it was a novel first) one day.

Raka_Putra posted...

I hope there'll be a battle royale game that sticks closer to the source material (IIRC it was a novel first) one day.

I desperately want to see a new adaptation of the original Battle Royale so I can see legions of Fornite player complaining that it's 'ripping off' the genre name

They need to combine 4 and Ultimate for the next game. Every Smash game prior was a step forward. Melee stepped forward from 64. Brawl stepped forward from Melee. 4 stepped forward from Brawl. But Ultimate stepped sideways from 4.

Never heard that one before. The only one that stepped sideways or even backward was Brawl. Ultimate took the foundation of 4 and improved upon it in pretty much every way.

TomNook posted...

They need to combine 4 and Ultimate for the next game. Every Smash game prior was a step forward. Melee stepped forward from 64. Brawl stepped forward from Melee. 4 stepped forward from Brawl. But Ultimate stepped sideways from 4.

So what did Smash 4 have that Ultimate didn't?

Leonhart4 posted...

This is what Smash Run was made to be

I frickin loved Smash Run, I'd play a whole game of it, gacha or no

KamikazePotato posted...

I desperately want to see a new adaptation of the original Battle Royale so I can see legions of Fornite player complaining that it's 'ripping off' the genre name

Kids are dangerously online nowadays, they know the reference

Ultimate had a lot of improvement over Smash 4, but yeah I loved Smash Run and the alt specials

Honestly, I'm 100% down for Smash Ultimate DX and just continue Smash Ultimate with another fighter's pass and plenty of fixes. This is the ONE type of game where something like that is not only acceptable, it'd be welcome.

Bring back the red shell

TomNook posted...

Brawl stepped forward from Melee.

LOL fake tomnook you so crazy

I actually agree that Brawl was a step forward from Melee in perhaps every regard except competitive level gameplay. I certainly had more fun with it, anyway.

And for what it's worth, I think Brawl's roster was probably the most solid overall. It added most if not all of the remaining genuine "Nintendo All-Stars," had little if any fluff, and the third party characters were kept reasonable.

That's not to say it isn't cool to get Rosalina and Ridley and even silly stuff like Wii Fit Trainer in further installments, but by the time we got all of Ultimate's DLC the roster kinda started to look like a 12-year-old listing every character he could think of. Brawl's roster felt so much more concise.

KateMarsh posted...

And for what it's worth, I think Brawl's roster was probably the most solid overall. It added most if not all of the remaining genuine "Nintendo All-Stars," had little if any fluff, and the third party characters were kept reasonable.

That's not to say it isn't cool to get Rosalina and Ridley and even silly stuff like Wii Fit Trainer in further installments, but by the time we got all of Ultimate's DLC the roster kinda started to look like a 12-year-old listing every character he could think of. Brawl's roster felt so much more concise.

I do kinda sorta agree with this? I think there's a few essentials in 4/Ultimate (Villager, Mega Man, Simon Belmont - I know the latter two are third party but they're so quintessentially Nintendo that they don't feel like guest characters to me whereas Sonic/Snake do) but for the most part Brawl has all the A-listers and B-listers covered and doesn't feel like it's stretching itself to come up with ideas. I actually do genuinely think Ultimate's roster is teetering on the edge of being too big - otherwise cool characters get completely lost in the shuffle which is not how I felt in Brawl.

Smash and Kart are gonna be turned into live service/battle pass/seasonal contents. Sorry guys.

Brawl is the moment of adding the most "important" characters since the original, yeah. But the continuation of new guest characters is also cool, and it wouldn't feel right anymore without Ryu or Pac-Man.

Sorozone posted...

Smash and Kart are gonna be turned into live service/battle pass/seasonal contents. Sorry guys.

They already did that with Mario Kart Tour which literally stopped updating new content and is just going on maintenance mode of cycling through stuff.

I woudl be surprised if we get another one. Sakurai has kinda seemed like he's ready to be done for a while, between his hand problems and his loathing of how people treated brawl. Ultimate feels like a great stopping point

theres no way Nintendo doesnt do another game titled Smash Bros. eventually, even if its kind of different or if it has to be without Sakurai. It sells too well to shelve forever.

Sorozone posted...

Smash and Kart are gonna be turned into live service/battle pass/seasonal contents. Sorry guys.

Isn't that what we all want? I'd love that for both series!

MacArrowny posted...

Isn't that what we all want? I'd love that for both series!

Yeah TBH I was a bit surprised they're done with DLCs for Ultimate.

Accel_R8 posted...

I actually agree that Brawl was a step forward from Melee in perhaps every regard except competitive level gameplay. I certainly had more fun with it, anyway.

I definitely had the most fun with it out of all of them (except probably 64) but I still recognize the gameplay was worse. It's weird, everything was just more fun on the Wii.

And there's nothing in Ultimate that comes even half as close as the hype of Snake in Brawl, or even Sonic for that matter. No amount of the Ridley and K Rool memes can come close.

Ultimate's roster is so big that last time I played it at my friend's place, I was lamenting to him that they missed out on adding Sora to the game. Then he was like "uh they did" and sure enough there he was on the select screen. I lost track of all the DLCs and reveals a long time before that I guess.

Lmao go back and play Brawl guys. That character select is comically small. Play like two matches and then realize how much that games leaves to be desired

Ultimate has spoiled you if 39 characters is "comically small"

foolm0r0n posted...

And there's nothing in Ultimate that comes even half as close as the hype of Snake in Brawl, or even Sonic for that matter. No amount of the Ridley and K Rool memes can come close.

Ultimate's roster is so big that last time I played it at my friend's place, I was lamenting to him that they missed out on adding Sora to the game. Then he was like "uh they did" and sure enough there he was on the select screen. I lost track of all the DLCs and reveals a long time before that I guess.

Bringing everyone back sure did bring the hype, especially since nobody thought Snake would ever return (and Cloud was pretty iffy too).

foolm0r0n posted...

It's weird, everything was just more fun on the Wii.

Just replace this with 'everything was more fun when I was 15 years younger'. Somehow I don't think newcomers who started with Ultimate would be especially impressed if they played Brawl today.

KamikazePotato posted...

Just replace this with 'everything was more fun when I was 15 years younger'.

No cuz I thought the GC and Melee sucked

i remember i think i had gtm over and we were playing hacked brawl and i completely forgot (because this was years after relevancy of the wii) I had a hack that makes peach hentai pop up during her final smash and then it suddenly came up and we burst out laughing

hacked brawl was good times

it also lets me relate to that recent chun-li tournament

Mewtwo59 posted...

Bringing everyone back sure did bring the hype, especially since nobody thought Snake would ever return (and Cloud was pretty iffy too).

They knew that too, it's no coincidence Snake is the character used to show everyone is here and Cloud was right before it.

Paratroopa1 posted...

I do kinda sorta agree with this? I think there's a few essentials in 4/Ultimate (Villager, Mega Man, Simon Belmont - I know the latter two are third party but they're so quintessentially Nintendo that they don't feel like guest characters to me whereas Sonic/Snake do) but for the most part Brawl has all the A-listers and B-listers covered and doesn't feel like it's stretching itself to come up with ideas. I actually do genuinely think Ultimate's roster is teetering on the edge of being too big - otherwise cool characters get completely lost in the shuffle which is not how I felt in Brawl.

I remember Smash 4's roster got criticism for featuring too many characters who seemed to be there just to advertise Nintendo's newest games. Then there's all the flack the game (and to a lesser extent Melee) got for having too many clone characters. In Brawl the only real "advertisement" characters were Ike and Lucario. On the Fire Emblem front, maybe Lucina and Roy can return as clones of Marth while Ike can also stay and the other Fire Emblem characters can all go? And then for Mario characters, maybe ditch Piranha Plant and Dr. Mario in favor of Waluigi? And maybe reclassify Yoshi as a Mario character instead of a Yoshi character? Possibly also same for Wario? For third-party additions maybe Sonic, Mega Man, Pac-Man, and Bayonetta can all stay and then maybe a handful at most of hype newcomers like Crash Bandicoot, Ryu Hayabusa, and Dante while everyone else is cut?

So about Kirby, I looked it up and very few of his standard moves resemble Fighter Kirby. In fairness the issue with characters like him and Samus is that their melee-focused moves being so out-of-step with how they fight in their own games stands out increasingly with characters like Mega Man on the roster. Kirby and Samus feel like the biggest standouts on that front, since at least the likes of Mario and DK did have games where they fought similarly to how they do in Smash.

Leonhart4 posted...

Ultimate has spoiled you if 39 characters is "comically small"

Smash for wii u had 20 more than that, and that was ten years ago. Ultimate has 50 more than that. So yeah, going back to a compact roster for the next generation of Smash is insane. Also what about stage and item variety?

Smash isnt like Tekken where every character has this massive repertoire of unique moves and animations. The average Smash character only has like 30 moves total. And if they made a new game, they still have access to all of those old character assets. They wouldnt have to rebuild an entire game from scratch.

So yeah I dont think staying with Ultimate forever is the right approach. Theres still plenty of ways they could push this game forward with new physics, rebalancing, better graphics, accessibility options, even something like a heat or rage meter like Tekken (because smash balls kinda suck lets be honest.)

Ask any competitive smash player, and theyll tell you how much Wii U feels different to play from Ultimate. All they have to do is tweak a few things and its an entirely new game

Also cutting characters is tricky. Just about every character has its own dedicated fanbase, even stuff like Dr. Mario. Wolf became one of the most used characters in Ultimate for a little while. And they literally made amiibos for all 89 characters so everyone could have one of their favorite character. And I really dont see why everyone is here couldnt happen again in a brand new game over time.

TomNook7 posted...

Smash for wii u had 20 more than that, and that was ten years ago. Ultimate has 50 more than that. So yeah, going back to a compact roster for the next generation of Smash is insane. Also what about stage and item variety?

You're missing the point that it's just my personal opinion that Ultimate's roster size is too unwieldy and past the ideal size, has nothing to do with whether or not it's actually a good idea to downsize the roster or anything like that, it's silly to think that I haven't thought through the practical implications of cutting characters from Ultimate

MacArrowny posted...

Isn't that what we all want? I'd love that for both series!

Sure, if it's implemented like the booster pass, where you just get it for 'free' if you are subscribed to whatever tier of the online membership they need to be on as opposed to how most other live service/seasonal/battle passes work. I'd rather spend the one time yearly fee while getting access to other game title extra content as opposed to being nickel and dimed for more content every 2 to 3 months on multiple games.

I bought both season passes for Smash Ultimate and didn't feel like I was being "nickel and dimed".

Yeah Ultimate is one of the few games that has extremely good & valuable DLC

TomNook7 posted...

Ask any competitive smash player, and theyll tell you how much Wii U feels different to play from Ultimate. All they have to do is tweak a few things and its an entirely new game

I think ultimate is actually the only game that feels like a sequel, I call it smash 4 2 all the time. Every other smash game switched up the formula a lot more. It's definitely still an improvement on 4 (by far the worst competitive smash) but the changes are not really interesting enough to make me want to play it.

MacArrowny posted...

I bought both season passes for Smash Ultimate and didn't feel like I was being "nickel and dimed".

Me neither, good thing I didn't say that.

jcgamer107 posted...

Yeah Ultimate is one of the few games that has extremely good & valuable DLC

It is.

To put in more clearer terms. What Nintendo did with MK8 Deluxe and SSBU is 100% fine. The base games were great, had a lot of content, and the additional content release later was a good value for what you were getting. What I'm saying if they develop newer titles from the ground up as a live service/battle pass/seasonal update where they know people will pay for extra content every few months, but at the cost of a bare-bones title to start out that slowly drip feeds you content that you want.

I'm not saying that's what will happen, but Nintendo absolutely has the IP power to do this.