The very first fighting games, from Cinematronics’ Warrior to Data East’s Karate Champ, all featured two identical characters facing each other in one-on-one combat. The now iconic Street Fighter began with two functionally identical yet visually and personably distinct playable characters, Ryu and Ken. It’s no surprise, then, that so-called clone characters have remained one of fighting games’ longest-standing traditions.
Just as pervasive as the clone is the act of “decloning”, or taking an existing clone and making them more unique in later releases. Many debate over whether Ken can still be called a true clone, and, if not, when he crossed the increasingly blurred line. This concept of where the clone becomes a character in its own right is perhaps best explored in Smash, where decloning has gone back and forth between an important goal of the development team and a betrayal of perceived fan desires.
Melee‘s clones are recessed on the character selection screen, and appear next to their character of origin.
The original Super Smash Bros. features a starting roster of eight characters alongside four secret, unlockable characters which reuse assets. The degree to which each of these characters were really recycled varies greatly. Both Luigi and Ness utilized Mario as a base, but Luigi’s only unique attacks were his dash attack and down tilt. Ness may as well be original, copying only Mario’s getup attacks and polygonal model. Melee has similar highlights for its six clones. Officially called モデル替えキャラ or “model swap characters” at the time, these characters are recessed on the character select screen and appear directly next to their source character.
Brawl took the major step of cutting most clone characters and revamping the ones that returned, making it the first and, as of yet, only game in the series without a single true clone. Despite this, newcomers Lucas and Wolf took clear inspiration from Ness and Fox, and the term “pseudoclone” eventually came to be to describe such characters. Smash 4 immediately reverted this philosophy with two new clones, originally developed as alternate costumes and only turned into separate characters late in development. The level of overlap was embraced to the point of being lumped into other characters’ reveal trailers. Smash 4 also saw the return of fan favorite clones Dr. Mario and Roy, and the introduction of Mii Fighters, who largely copy their movesets from existing characters to allow for customization.
The reveal of “Echo Fighters” as a term came with two immediate examples, both from Smash 4.
Ultimate finally saw an update to the official name for clone characters, now called Echo Fighters in the west and Dash Fighters in Japan. The label sought to make official a concept that had existed in the series from its very foundation, but instead acted only to further blur the definition; Ken controversially earned the title, unlike Dr. Mario, Pichu, and Young Link, whose differences from their source material largely amount to attribute changes. One can speculate that the Melee trio was awarded unique status due to its history with the series – every Echo Fighter originated either in Smash 4 or Ultimate – or that Ken is the special one due to his historical significance as the original clone.
Ultimate also brought with it a new concept in the recloning balance patch; while Daisy was already a clone of Peach, she at least had one notable attribute difference in her down special’s knockback values, but this difference was patched out in Ver. 3.0.0. This makes Daisy the closest character to an identical copy in series history, having just slightly different hitboxes in her idle and running animations… aside from Alph and the Koopalings, who don’t even get their own character slots, instead relegated to costumes. What makes a clone, then, has shifted drastically across the history of the series and even within individual games.
Another ambiguity exists in Ultimate‘s Terry. Despite having had his similarities with Ryu explicitly highlighted in his gameplay reveal presentation, his similarities end in what little was discussed. Many consider Terry not to be any sort of clone, alongside such borderline characters as Melee‘s Jigglypuff and Smash 64‘s Captain Falcon. We seem to have some ambiguous characters emerging, neither clone, semiclone, pseudoclone, nor non-clone.
Terry was directly contrasted with Ryu in his reveal, harkening back to Fatal Fury‘s origins.
This article is inspired in part by Toomai’s “Cloneosity”, a work written for the sake of organizing clone characters on SmashWiki. To oversimplify, it involves a system of points awarded to characters for shared moves to reach a percentage score of similarity. This method is likely the most objective possible for creating a sort of “clone gradient”, and I always find myself coming back to it when considering this topic.
Where it loses this objectivity, though, is in its conclusion. Toomai’s categories are usually made by dividing at major gaps between groups of characters, but the largest gap by far (6.3%-22.4%) was ignored. The sixth largest, meanwhile, was chosen as a major dividing line to fit the term “semiclone” in implied meaning of “at least half”. Toomai acknowledges this, highlighting that Smash 4‘s Luigi (52.8%) and Ultimate‘s Ganondorf (50.0%) are “the most on-the-fence between any two categories”.
These decisions are, of course, human. As tempting as it may be to try to find perfect numbers that line up with how everyone thinks, the reality is that the concepts of “clones” and “semiclones” and “pseudoclones” are not naturally occuring. We’re not categorizing minerals, we’re reverse engineering the thought process of a team of developers who themselves have been trying to neatly explain decades of design and iteration.
Smash Ultimate allows for the grouping of Echo Fighters with their base character.
Other games have toyed with ways to approach clone characters. Rushdown Revolt, an indie platform fighter, marketed Seth as a fusion character, described in his reveal trailer as “a fusion of Ashani and Weishan”, two other characters in the game. This created a completely different playstyle, and successfully avoids feeling like a clone while still efficiently using limited indie developer resources.
Tekken‘s core story revolves around clones, with the members of the Mishima family inheriting the Wind God Fist while still retaining their own identity. That story connection allows the act of decloning to then become a storytelling device. As Jin begins to rebel from his father, he develops a more traditional karate moveset, only to regress with the introduction of his Devil Jin form.
Street Fighter explores how Akuma’s temptation to learn the dark arts created the unique aspects of his moveset that separate him from Ryu. Even something as simple as Pichu hurting himself when he attacks creates the impression of an inexperienced fighter, while Pikachu demonstrates better control. Developers create clones not just to save resources, but to tell their stories and develop their worlds, and so the correct “level” of cloning has to balance all of these factors.
Tekken‘s Mishima family offer a story connection to the concept of cloned movesets.
In early versions of “Cloneosity”, certain characters who hovered close to dividing lines were included in limbo zones. Toomai put it best in the intro to his analysis: “it’s a continuous scale, even if the terms are used in a fairly hardline fashion.” The only true clone, then, is along the lines of Street Fighter I‘s Ken or Smash Ultimate‘s Alph, differing in aesthetic alone. Any other character, from Daisy to Terry, exists elsewhere on the spectrum.
Most impressive are such characters as Melee‘s Falco, who are complete, 100% clones of their source material and yet offer a totally different way to play through numerical tweaks alone. Few Melee players would refer to Falco as anything short of his own character; small changes to his laser fundamentally change the neutral game, and stat adjustments for many of his other moves give him an entirely different set of combos. Despite this, his moveset is identical to the casual eye, and it’s difficult not to define him as a true clone.
Conversely, characters like Ganondorf have changed in the minds of players at different times than any moveset data would suggest. Ganondorf was introduced in Melee as a near-total clone of Captain Falcon, before being significantly decloned in Brawl. You wouldn’t know that if you asked the average player, though, who thinks he was decloned in Ultimate. There, he received a sword that appears twice in his entire toolkit, and is otherwise unchanged. That visual distinction entered the minds of most players far more successfully than any of the more significant changes he had received prior.
Returning to the title, then: what makes a clone has two potential answers. The literal answer is that what makes a clone is whatever they share in common with another character. Perhaps more thoughtfully, the clone is whatever differences manage to shine through in spite of the similarities, whatever new way to play emerges from within this box. Regardless of what we call each individual character, it doesn’t change how you can best develop your play with them, nor does it offer any meaningful insight into their potential.
A clone, then, isn’t all that different from any other character.
I made this blog about four years ago but never published it as Heihachi was shown as a mii costume right before I could. I decided to post this now just to have it out and not stuck in draft forever. So have my ramblings and a broken image from way back!
Before I begin, some clarification. Yes this does conflict with the Lloyd document sort of. However, do keep in mind me and Kagura are different people with our different thoughts on what will happen. Even if we are probably only getting one of them in, we should still discuss all possibilities for who can join Smash.
Now, for those of you who are unaware, Heihachi Mishima is the main antagonist of the Tekken series, a 3D Fighting game developed by Bandai Namco. In these games, many fighters compete in the King of Iron Fists Tournament with their own stories, but the main story line revolves around the Mishima Family. To sum it all up, it isn’t exactly a happy family. Throwing each other off cliffs or into active volcano, attaching the rest of the family to a rocket, starting World War III, the usual family feud. Anyways, I will get into everything that Heihachi (and the Tekken series in general) has going for them and bring up some counterpoints along the way.
TEKKEN’S LEGACY
Tekken is one of the biggest fighting game franchises. In terms of sales, Tekken is one of the best selling fighting games of all time. The first Tekken was the first game on the PlayStation to sell over a million copies (Source). Tekken 3 is the fourth best selling fighting game (only beaten by Brawl, 3DS and Ultimate) with 8.3 million copies sold. If you do not consider Smash to be a fighting game, it outright becomes the best selling fighting game of all time. The whole franchise has sold 49 million copies as of December 29, making it the second best selling fighting game franchise (again, only beaten by Smash). The series is also well received in terms of critical reception. Tekken 3 for example has a 95 and 96 on GameRankings and MetaCritic respectively and is usually cited as one of the best games of all time. There even exists a Tekken museum which showcases many goods, artwork and statues.
TEKKEN TODAY
To this day, Tekken is still going strong. The most recent entry, Tekken 7, has gotten support in terms of DLC and its competitive scene. For DLC, the game had gotten up to 3 different seasons of DLC content, including new, returning, and guest characters. The competitive scene also gets support from Bandai Namco itself and is played by players all over the world, such as the United States, Japan and South Korea.
TEKKEN ON NINTENDO
While history with Nintendo is way less significant these days thanks to the inclusion of characters like Cloud and Joker, I should go over this anyways. While Tekken is mostly known for being on the PlayStation, it did have its fair share of games on Nintendo consoles. These include Tekken Advance on the Gameboy Advance, Tekken 3D: Prime Edition on the 3DS and Tekken Tag Tournament 2 on the Wii U. Tag Tournament 2 was even given exclusive content in which every character is given an alternate costume based on a Nintendo character.
WHY HEIHACHI?
Now to talk about the old man himself. One thing you may have noticed is that I referred to Heihachi as the “main antagonist” rather than say protagonist. This may make you wonder “Wait, if this guy is the villain then why would they pick him?” Despite not being the main protagonist, Heihachi is still one of the most recognizable characters, and tends to be the one used for cross overs. These games include Soul Calibur 2, Namco x Capcom, Pro Baseball Famista 2011, Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale and in Smash itself (though only as a mii costume in 4 and a cameo in Ultimate). When Sakurai was considering different options from Bandai Namco, he has stated there were a few in consideration and naming Heihachi specifically as one of them. Heihachi also happens to be the favorite of the series director, Harada.
Now while I do think Heihachi would be the one picked for Smash, I would still like to go over the other potential candidates. Namely Kazuya and Jin. While not the face like Heihachi is, they are still major characters as well, with Jin being the main protagonist of the series starting from Tekken 3. If for some reason they do not pick Heihachi, these two could easily end up being the rep instead.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST HEIHACHI
Now it’s time to counter some common arguments against Heihachi.
“Sakurai tried to make him work but couldn’t!”
If you remember, I did mention Heihachi was considered for Smash 4 among other Namco characters, so what happened? Basically, Sakurai stated that “implementing his movement would be quite difficult.” Many people have taken this quote the wrong way however, and stretched it to different meanings. I will now clear things up.
Heihachi was not developed at all. They did not actually attempt to work on him. This is an important clarification as some people think they did attempt to make him work even though Sakurai only stated that he was “considered.”
The main thing that was considered difficult is movement. While we don’t have a definite guess on what he meant by this, the most likely answer is Tekken’s 3D movement, in which characters are able to move around in 3D, unlike in 2D fighting games. With Smash being a 2D fighting game, implementing such movement would be difficult, yes. However, Heihachi has been implemented in 2D fighting games, such as Street Fighter x Tekken and PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. Heck, even the first 2 Tekken games didn’t have the 3D movement the franchise has nowadays.
While this is a legitimate concern, Sakurai has been able to make things that he deemed difficult in the past work in later games such as Villager and Ridley. Like I said, they never actually attempted it before. Things may be different than back then.
“His voice actor passed away!”
For those unaware, Heihachi’s most recent voice actor named Unshō Ishizuka (Who is also the Japanese voice of Incineroar) had passed away in 2018. The main issue people bring up is that Japan tends to retire characters if their voice actors pass away. An example of this happening is with Colonel Roy Campbell from Metal Gear Solid. When his Japanese voice actor passed away, Kojima retired the character. This even affected Smash, as no new Codecs were done to respect Kojima’s wish. Seems like a big hit against Heihachi, right?
However, there are many issues when using this argument against Heihachi. The big issue being that Ishizuka was only his “most recent voice actor.” That’s right, Heihachi has had multiple voices over the years! His previous voice, Daisuke Gōri, had also passed away. However, instead of retiring the character, Heihachi still continued to appear in games. So what can they do about this? There are two options.
Reuse voice clips. Many characters in Smash such as Banjo reuse voice clips from their own games. The same can be done with Heihachi, who ended up appearing in a King of Fighters mobile game with reused voice clips and everything.
Recast. If they don’t want to just reuse voice clips, getting a new voice actor is always an option. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be a brand new one as Heihachi’s original VA, Banjō Gingais actually still alive and doing roles with his most recent video game role being in Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
Basically, while on paper it is a good argument, Heihachi has many things that cause this argument to fall apart.
THE RUMOR
Now for the last part of this blog post, I will go over some recent rumors.
Recently, a DM that is supposedly from Vergeben has showed up with multiple details on upcoming games.
Now it is a lot of stuff, but the one I am here to talk about is the “Heihachi guest staring in something.” part. Now of course, Smash isn’t the only game in existence, so let’s look at all the upcoming fighting games or fighting games with DLC.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Street Fighter V
Soul Calibur 6
King of Fighters XV
Mortal Kombat 11
Guilty Gear Strive
Now we can eliminate some of the options here. Obviously he isn’t going to be in a game like MK11, and we can probably rule out a game like Guilty Gear as well. Soul Calibur 6 for its current season already had its guest character along with the remaining two characters data mined and neither of them are Heihachi, so we can potentially rule out that game as well. For Street Fighter V, there has been stuff pointing to several characters being the remaining 5 for the final season (such as in here and here) and none of them are Heihachi. Besides, the closest Street Fighter has ever had to guest characters are the multiple Final Fight characters that appear throughout the series. This leaves us with two remaining options, KOF XV and Ultimate.
Of course, this should be taken with a grain of salt. Not only has Vergeben not been as active with the DLC fighters compared to base game, but it’s important to keep in mind this in a private message that was not meant to be public. Vergeben tends to only make public info he is confident in and we aren’t sure where Vergeben’s specific source on this info comes from.
CONCLUSION
With all of this, I think Heihachi has a very good shot for Ultimate. With Tekken’s legacy and having already been considered for Smash before, many things go in his favor. Of course, there is a possibility of Nintendo going for Bandai Namco’s other IPs. If you want to learn more about them, check out Kagura’s post on Lloyd by clicking “here“. I hope you all enjoyed this, and feel free to check out the other blogs on this site as well!
Almost three months ago, it was revealed that a character from Nintendo’s newest franchise, ARMS, would open Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s second fighter pass. Naturally, everyone has theories for every single character in the ARMS roster, and why they’re the one entering the fray. Being the three year anniversary of ARMS’ release, the character’s reveal is fast approaching. Let’s go through some of the more believable theories, ending off on why the clear choice is none other than the Silver Screen Queen.
The pickings are already slim when a game has just 15 characters (16 if you count Biff!) and general consensus has narrowed down the options even further to just 7, as most of the roster has nothing in particular to potentially propel them to the top of the pack.
Being the mascots of the game, Spring Man and Ribbon Girl were relentlessly pushed as the faces of the game at launch, but the game has evolved since those prerelease days, and they’re simply no longer the focus; there are characters far more fitting for the “shill” pick.
As the game has gone on, its lore has been fleshed out to include proper heroes and villains, those being Max Brass and Dr. Coyle. If the Smash inclusion is meant to advertise future content, or even a future title, plugging the main focus of the story is a reasonable choice. Max in particular is the champion and head of the ARMS League, and thus the final character players face in the Grand Prix. This universality gives him a feel of true representation of the series. That being said, neither Max Brass nor Dr. Coyle were playable at launch, and thus missed the peak hype wave of the game; most people aren’t nearly as familiar with the post-launch characters as they are with the original ten.
There are clear picks for the most popular characters in ARMS. Min Min, winner of the game’s final fan contest, is also the favorite of art director Masaaki Ishikawa, viewing her as “the most relatable out of all the characters”. The developers have repeatedly fawned over Ninjara, going so far as to say they were most confident in his design of all the launch characters. “We know ninjas”, affirmed series director Kosuke Yabuki. Developer support carries huge weight in Smash roster choice, best demonstrated by the inclusion of Greninja and Incineroar almost solely because they were the favorite starters of the Pokémon team.
A year after ARMS’ initial release, Nintendo dropped a free ARMS demo in which just five characters are playable, half that of even the game’s launch roster. The first four slots are, naturally, filled by the four fighters revealed in the original ARMS Direct, but Twintelle, who appears later in the game’s character list, fills the fifth slot. This means a conscious decision was made by the ARMS team to ensure she specifically would be playable in the demo, to promote Twintelle over any of the other 10 characters not in the game’s original presentation, and to ensure that the new favorite of countless Smash fans would be playable for free to maximize their first impressions of the game.
Note that most characters in the demo are unplayable, as shown by their darkened pictures. Twintelle stands alone, on the right, surrounded by grayed out characters.
Most new Smash characters reuse assets from existing characters to save time in development, but this workaround seems to cause bugs in the base character prior to the launch of the new one. Because of this, most DLC characters so far have been leaked by these glitches, some more obviously than others. You may remember a glitch in Ver. 3.0 of the game in which Mii Swordfighter and Duck Hunt both frequently corrupted All-Star Mode save data, an early indication of Hero and Banjo’s later reveal. Simon and Richter had a visual bug in their forward smash charging animation in Ver. 6.0 despite not having received any patch notes, a clue that they were used as a base for the later revealed Byleth. These bugs immediately disappeared when Hero and Byleth were released, respectively, further adding fuel to the theory’s fire.
discovered a glitch with bayo. if you're hit then immediately smash attack the first opportunity you have, bayonetta's outfit doesn't disappear. this lasts until you lose a stock and it looks really messy lol. ANY character can do this to bayo btw, not just the ditto. pic.twitter.com/eAU1MJfkSS
Smash 4 PGR player CaptainZack first found the glitch on stream on January 29.
The next character to receive an unexplained visual bug is Bayonetta, whose hair animations no longer function properly despite being otherwise unchanged from the previous patch (other than a shield buff that applied to most characters). This would indicate the next character has used Bayonetta assets. For those unfamiliar with ARMS, Twintelle has a mechanic very similar to Bayonetta’s Witch Time in that it slows down attacking enemies while charging on the ground, and thus likely borrows from the existing version of it in Smash. Of course, the more obvious and more likely reason is that both Twintelle and Bayonetta fight with their hair. The two reasons combine to make Bayonetta a perfect base on which to build Twintelle.
More importantly than anything else in this article, a lot of people seem to dislike talking about diversity, but it matters. Bluntly, Smash has zero black characters right now. Some try to argue that Ganondorf technically counts, being a Gerudo; this is a massive stretch, and regardless, the fact that we have to reach for technicalities in the first place is sad. There’s a very real likelihood that Nintendo, particularly Nintendo of America, pushed Twintelle for the sake of better representing a large portion of those who play their games.
Series director Masahiro Sakurai has pushed for representation in the past when the demand is there; two of the biggest complaints Sakurai received about the original Smash 64 roster were the lack of villains (having only DK, who hardly counts after his multiple protagonist roles), and the lack of women (having only Samus, who never exits her Varia Suit in Smash 64 and thus is never seen). Sakurai has commented that he made it a priority to fix these roster holes for Melee, leading to Peach, Bowser, the Ice Climbers, and Zelda being the game’s first revealed newcomers. Similar demand exists for minority representation, and it’s very possible that the demands have finally been heard.
We know how significant developer opinion is in character choices, and Twintelle made the director’s cut. Yabuki has repeatedly made decisions that further push her into the limelight, and both he and Sakurai want to bring more diversity to Nintendo’s character repertoire. It’s time to take center stage.
It’s officially been 2 years since Smash Ultimate was revealed, and Version 8.0 is nearly here! Because of this, I thought it’d be fun to use the data I’ve been gathering since release to take a walk down memory lane, and see how the meta has changed, starting from prerelease prediction tier lists all the way to the final tier lists of 7.0.
Note: all the data mentioned in this post, plus much more, can be found in this spreadsheet; this post is just the highlights.
Prerelease
If we go all the way back, then we’ll see some really weird stuff. Diddy, Marth, Mewtwo and Sheik in top tier? Fox, Pokemon Trainer, Snake, Isabelle, Palutena, Jigglypuff, and Wario all mid tier? Bowser and Yoshi low tier? Of course, there were bound to be some weird inconsistencies in a prerelease tier list, but I still think it’s interesting to look at. That being said, this is the least important part of the data, so we’ll move on quickly.
Ver. 1.0
Immediately, Peach and Inkling are identified as the best of the best, and Mii Brawler, Kirby, and Little Mac as the worst, something that’s mostly held true to this day. We see a lot of the top tiers of today shoot up drastically in the tier list from prerelease, including Palutena, Wario, and Chrom, and we watch as the most overhyped characters freefall, including K. Rool and Zelda (sorry). We also see some of the preconceptions from Smash 4 start to fade away, as its top tiers start to fall as well, including Sheik, Diddy Kong, Bayonetta, Rosalina, and Ryu.
Fighter
Prerelease Placement
Change
1.2 Placement
Sheik
11.29
↓ 43.04
54.33
Diddy Kong
4
↓ 32.29
36.29
Bayonetta
21.86
↓ 30.21
52.07
Mii Swordfighter
70.33
↑ 30.15
40.18
King K. Rool
18.29
↓ 29.85
48.14
Yoshi
57
↑ 29.29
27.71
Palutena
41.33
↑ 29.04
12.29
Wario
52.43
↑ 26.76
25.67
Chrom
35.67
↑ 26
9.67
Rosalina & Luma
29
↓ 24.77
53.77
Falco
57.67
↑ 22.13
35.54
R.O.B.
44.29
↑ 21.16
23.13
Ryu
24
↓ 20.46
44.46
King Dedede
65.5
↑ 20.23
45.27
Zelda
33.43
↓ 17.86
51.29
Ver. 2.0
Piranha Plant enters the fray as a low tier (62.94). We see the modern top/high tier start to emerge, as characters like Greninja, Pac-Man, Wolf, Mario, ZSS, and Wario are all skyrocketing. K. Rool and Ryu continue their freefall, as do some of the other overhyped characters that haven’t caught on as much as many thought they would, including Mewtwo, Simon, and Incineroar.
Fighter
1.2 Placement
Change
2.0 Placement
Greninja
34.8
↑ 19.92
14.88
Mewtwo
22.71
↓ 19.9
42.61
Pac-Man
53.08
↑ 18.87
34.21
King K. Rool
48.14
↓ 18.51
66.65
Wolf
22.8
↑ 17.41
5.39
Ryu
44.46
↓ 15.68
60.14
Isabelle
45.64
↓ 14.47
60.11
Mario
38.73
↑ 13.84
24.89
Simon (Richter)
25 (24.73)
↓ 13.79 (↓ 14.01)
38.79 (38.74)
Zero Suit Samus
35.53
↑ 12.3
23.23
Incineroar
51.4
↓ 11.95
63.35
Luigi
36.93
↓ 11.07
48
Wario
25.67
↑ 11.06
14.61
Ganondorf
58.53
↑ 9.88
48.65
Dr. Mario
46.64
↓ 9.6
56.24
Ver. 3.0
Joker enters the fray as a high tier (19.58). Incineroar bounces back from his freefall in the last update, while Mewtwo and Bayonetta continue to fall. The decline of Ryu in the tier list begins to rub off on Ken, who follows him down. Some of the more underrated characters like Mr. Game & Watch, Robin, Duck Hunt, ICs, Wii Fit Trainer, and the Miis begin their rise, while DK’s reign as the best heavy comes to a close as he falls below Bowser.
Fighter
2.0 Placement
Change
3.0 Placement
Mii Brawler
62
↑ 24.25
37.75
Incineroar
63.35
↑ 19.49
43.86
Donkey Kong
33.05
↓ 16.09
49.14
Mr. Game & Watch
52.88
↑ 16
36.88
Mewtwo
42.61
↓ 13.68
56.29
Robin
55
↑ 13.14
41.86
Duck Hunt Duo
54.21
↑ 11.71
42.5
Lucario
34
↓ 11.29
45.29
Pit (Dark Pit)
44.94 (46.75)
↓ 9.56 (↓ 10.39)
54.5 (57.14)
Ice Climbers
57.18
↑ 9.3
47.88
Ken
52.6
↓ 8.9
61.5
Wii Fit Trainer
45.38
↑ 8.71
36.67
Bayonetta
47.8
↓ 8.49
56.29
Cloud
22.62
↓ 8.26
30.88
Marth
23.45
↓ 8.22
31.67
Ver. 3.1
Diddy Kong, Ryu, and Ken all start to recover from their previous drops. People also begin to realize how much they underrated Joker on release. The Miis begin to fall back to where they were before their previous rise. Nerfs hit Olimar and Pichu. This list highlights a flaw in my methodology, though; Toon Link shoots up for no reason other than that I included more Japanese players, a meta that considers him the best Link.
Fighter
3.0 Placement
Change
3.1 Placement
Ryu (Ken)
58.5 (61.5)
↑ 22.09 (↑ 33.74)
36.41 (27.76)
Mii Brawler
37.75
↓ 21.17
58.92
Joker
19.58
↑ 14.97
4.61
Mii Swordfighter
41.25
↓ 14.75
56
Rosalina & Luma
60.14
↑ 13.69
46.45
Diddy Kong
45.86
↑ 11.86
34
Olimar
2.92
↓ 11.52
14.44
Toon Link
49.43
↑ 11.24
38.19
King Dedede
39.38
↓ 19.91
50.29
Robin
41.86
↓ 10.87
52.73
Pichu
3.69
↓ 9.46
13.15
Lucas
41.57
↓ 9.29
50.86
Captain Falcon
47
↑ 9.21
37.79
Luigi
47.29
↑ 9.08
38.21
Mii Gunner
51.75
↓ 7.25
59
Ver. 4.0
Hero enters the fray as a mid tier (44.83). The smallest patch so far, almost nothing significantly changed otherwise, other than Hyrule falling (Toon Link fell for the reasons mentioned earlier, and Ganondorf fell alongside him).
Fighter
3.1 Placement
Change
4.0 Placement
Ganondorf
51.96
↓ 9.66
61.62
Toon Link
38.19
↓ 8.02
46.21
Mii Swordfighter
56
↓ 6.89
62.89
Mr. Game & Watch
34.96
↑ 6.49
28.47
Diddy Kong
34
↓ 6.29
40.29
King Dedede
50.29
↓ 6.17
56.46
Sheik
51.29
↓ 6.09
57.38
Marth
38.5
↑ 5.8
32.7
Incineroar
49.14
↓ 5.32
54.46
Bowser Jr.
62
↑ 5.31
56.69
Mewtwo
56.4
↑ 5.02
51.38
Dr. Mario
57.76
↓ 5.01
62.77
Zelda
55.45
↓ 4.93
60.38
Ryu
36.41
↓ 4.92
41.33
Robin
52.73
↓ 4.73
57.46
Ver. 5.0
Banjo enters the fray as a mid tier (36.82). Top players give Sheik a fair shot again, and suddenly discover that she was actually pretty good the whole time! Mii Swordfighter and Toon Link recover from their fall in the last patch as Donkey Kong continues to plummet, as he’s done uninterrupted since launch day. Mr. Game & Watch continues his rise.
Fighter
4.0 Placement
Change
5.0 Placement
Sheik
57.38
↑ 12.38
45
Donkey Kong
55.21
↓ 8.27
63.48
Mii Swordfighter
62.89
↑ 8.07
54.82
Bowser Jr.
56.69
↓ 7.79
64.48
Mr. Game & Watch
28.47
↑ 7.43
21.04
Incineroar
54.46
↓ 7.39
61.85
Mii Brawler
55.67
↓ 6.77
62.44
Bayonetta
49.93
↓ 6.39
56.32
Corrin
55.77
↓ 6.28
62.05
Robin
57.46
↑ 5.99
51.47
Sonic
44.62
↑ 5.57
39.05
Toon Link
46.21
↑ 5.39
40.82
Shulk
17.56
↑ 5.37
12.19
Cloud
31.57
↓ 5.2
36.77
Ridley
54.69
↑ 5.19
49.5
Ver. 6.0
Terry enters the fray as an upper mid tier (33.83). You’ll notice that almost all of the biggest movements for this patch were characters moving up in the list (the only major exceptions being Meta Knight and Luigi). Buffs to Jigglypuff, K. Rool, and Robin generated a lot of hype, and top players are starting to get solid results with characters like Sonic and Rosalina, leading to their rise in lists as well.
Fighter
5.0 Placement
Change
6.0 Placement
Jigglypuff
69.5
↑ 12.06
57.44
Samus (Dark Samus)
46.78 (46.83)
↑ 9.56 (9.66)
37.22 (37.17)
Mii Brawler
63
↑ 8.82
54.18
Lucas
52.61
↑ 6.94
45.67
Meta Knight
45.67
↓ 7.08
52.75
Robin
51.59
↑ 6.9
44.69
King K. Rool
72.37
↑ 6.84
65.53
Sonic
38.56
↑ 6.4
32.16
Rosalina & Luma
45.58
↑ 6.19
39.39
Luigi
36.55
↓ 5.98
42.53
Ver. 7.0
Byleth enters the fray as a lower mid tier (52.44). Breaking the pattern of the last patch, the biggest movements in this patch seem to have a good balance of upward and downward movement. After the hype from Robin’s 6.0 buffs died down, he immediately fell back down the list. After Gunner’s popularity spike and subsequent tech discovery after the release of the Cuphead costume, Swordfighter was cemented in the public eye as the worst Mii, and they fell dramatically due to this perception. There were major buffs, though, to Ryu, Cloud, and Sheik, which is reflected in their placement shift.
When Ultimate first launched, u/SubtleTypos on Reddit created this chart as a loose guideline to help new players figure out where each character falls regarding core gameplay archetype. Though its creator clearly stated “these are my personal views on the character and you can easily debate who falls where”, the chart quickly spread and led to a lot of debate regarding both the placement of each character and the organization of the chart itself.
u/SubtleTypos’ archetype triangle
One of the most common criticisms I’ve seen is that it’s not a proper ternary plot (presumably the intention); what constitutes a character being inside or outside the triangle doesn’t seem to really have any consistent pattern or reasoning, and u/PandaranQ made their own version that actually kept all characters inside the triangle. I much preferred this core concept, but felt it added too many subcategories, many of which had no real distinct meaning – what constitutes a trickster as opposed to a setup character? – so I wanted to make a simplified version, taking the best of both.
u/PandaranQ’s archetype triangle
For the most part, I very much liked u/SubtleTypos‘s categories, I just felt they needed to be better organized. Read the “determine your playstyle” section on their full post for explanations of what each category means, mine are largely the same. The following is his summary:
For the sake of simplicity, let’s break down the characters into three different categories: rushdown, zoning, and bait and punish.
Rushdown refers to characters that apply pressure at a relatively close distance, utilizing fast, lagless moves to force the opponent into a less than favorable position.
Zoning refers to characters who apply pressure from a set distance, preferring fat disjoints or a projectile-heavy game to limit an opponent’s options. It relies on controlling an opponent’s available space and limiting their options at a distance.
Bait and punish characters lack strong approach options and rely on finding openings to open up a heavy punish, either in the form of a hard hitting, high damage move/string or a high octane, hard to escape combo. They typically don’t want to open the approach and will try to find ways to apply safe, tricky pressure that comes off as unsafe but ultimately is.
Within these three major categories fall other subcategories that can further define a character’s playstyle. These subcategories are as follows:
Zone breakers, characters capable of playing various playstyles and heavily pressuring opponents while maintaining a relatively safe approach.
Mix-up characters have a relatively versatile moveset, often lacking the safety to properly contest opponents the way rushdowns can but are able to switch from a bait and punish/zoning playstyle to a more aggressive one.
Footsies characters rely on their strong ground game, more often than not relying less on “low damage/high combo” but more so on their explosive power.
Hit and Run characters have the speed and toolkit capable of rushing in, getting a few hits in, and getting out before things get sticky. They’re typically quick enough to maintain a safe distance from an opponent’s pressure and still be able to punish easy openings.
Half-Grapplers are characters whose toolkits have a heavy emphasis on what they can get off of a grab. Smash Ultimate has no true grapplers as there’s no character whose moveset completely relies on getting one grab, so the characters who get a good amount off a grab live in this subcategory.
Trappers have an extremely heavy projectile game, relying on “trapping” their opponents in their extensive web of projectiles, disrupting the opponent’s available space to move and making an approach all the more treacherous for the opponent.
Turtles are heavily defensive with long range tools made to poke their opponent from afar, less so for the purpose of “trapping” an opponent but more so of building a wall simply to keep them out until the moment for the kill is presented to them.
Dynamic characters have something unique to them that defines their playstyle and how you play them. The only two dynamic characters are Shulk, whose playstyle is reliant on which Monado is active at the moment, and Pokemon Trainer, where each Pokemon fulfills various needs.
Something that u/PandaranQ added in his version was a “true zoner” category as opposed to the original’s trapper corner, which I personally feel is worth adding. He also added a brawler category, which I think is an important archetype to mark but wasn’t in the right area – a brawler is more rushdown than bait-and-punish in my opinion – so I moved it. Finally, I scrapped the “dynamic” concept; it’s valid and I’m not saying mine is a better way to do it, I just think having a full category for two characters isn’t as organized; feel free to disagree because I think both ways are perfectly valid.
Having simple charts like this, even if they’re not perfect, helps new players because, to be frank, new players don’t want to read theory like more serious players do. Giving them a good starting point is all I want.
For those of you who don’t play video games, Ninja Gaiden is a series of games by Koei Tecmo in which you play as a ninja named Ryu Hayabusa. The series started as a 2D side scroller on the NES. These games became well known due to their difficulty, and the use of cutscenes in order to tell the story (which was special for the time). Later, the series would be revived on the Xbox as part of the hack and slash genre, though still retaining the difficulty the series is known for. Hayabusa himself has appeared in games outside the franchise; including armor in Halo 3 based on him. So why would he get in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch system?
Arguments Against Hayabusa
Before we get into that, I will go over some points people may have against the ninja.
“He hasn’t had a game in a while!”
Now, this statement by itself is true. The last Ninja Gaiden game was Yaiba:Ninja Gaiden Z, released in 2014. This game was not well received at all, and Hayabusa was not even the main protagonist.
This argument falls apart however when you see that Banjo & Kazooie was in a similar position. Their last game was in 2008, and no one liked the game. Of course, they still got in. Even then, Hayabusa still appears in the Dead or Alive franchise as a playable character, with the most recent entry being this year. He also essentially acts as Koei Tecmo’s mascot.
“He wasn’t requested that much! People are only talking about him because of leaks!”
Another history lesson: back in January a post on 5ch (which is basically Japanese 4Chan) was discovered, detailing the final 4 fighters as Erdrick, Steve from Minecraft, Doomguy and Hayabusa. While how it got so much traction is a mystery to me, it did bring Hayabusa into the spotlight. Though you have to keep in mind that stuff like this also brought Erdrick into speculation as well. Besides, Joker and Terry weren’t major requests in the community, and Hero’s requests mostly came from Japan, but all of them still got in.
“We already have Sheik and Greninja! What could Hayabusa possibly bring to the table?”
Remember when Hero was just a generic swordfighter, or how Banjo was a Duck Hunt echo, or how Terry is just Hat Ken? Yeah, this argument is just all of that worded differently. Hayabusa has many tools to separate him from the other ninjas, such as use of a katana, Windmill Shurikens, Flame Shield, and some techniques such as the Izuna Drop. If you still don’t think that would be unique enough then uh I can’t help your imagination.
“That one guy who works at Koei Tecmo said he wanted Kasumi so it would be her who gets in instead!”
A while back there was an interview in which Yohei Shimbori stated if they had to pick someone for smash, it would be Kasumi from Dead or Alive.
“-Speaking of Smash Bros, if you could take a DOA character to implement it in the Smash cast, who would you choose? Shimbori: “I never spoke with Mr. Sakurai (Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of the Super Smash Bros series), but if I had the chance to do so I would ask him with pleasure, and I would probably choose Kasumi.””
Some people decided this meant that Hayabusa wouldn’t be the one chosen but there are 2 main issues with this. The first issue is that the one who decides the characters for DLC is Nintendo, as stated by Sakurai on Twitter dot com and in a Famitsu column. It wouldn’t really be up to Shimbori on who gets in. The other issue is that Shimbori is only the producer for Dead or Alive, and was talking about Dead or Alive characters. He wouldn’t have input on if Hayabusa could join or not. While Hayabusa does appear in the games, he is still a Ninja Gaiden character first.
While we are on the topic of this interview, back when the 5ch leak I mentioned was heavily speculated, insider Imran Khan stated he had interviewed Shimbori in December. Here, Shimbori seems to have given a different answer than the other interview. He says that he wants Christie instead of Kasumi. A bit suspicious, but probably doesn’t mean much.
“Koei Tecmo hates Capcom!”
You may be wondering where this comes from. What happened is that KT got into a lawsuit with Capcom, due to using features that Capcom had patented. It isn’t too much of a stretch to say there is bad blood between them due to this. You may wonder why this may be an issue. As you probably know, Capcom already has 3 playable characters, and many other kinds of content in the game. Koei Tecmo may not want to have their stuff in the same game as Capcom (I heard about it being a company policy to not do so, but I haven’t seen proof of it.) All of this may sound somewhat convincing, but there is one major flaw with it. This flaw I will cover in the next section.
Arguments for Hayabusa
Now I have some valid arguments in his favor. First up I will now own the previous argument forever.
Koei Tecmo already has content in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Yep, they are already in Smash in a way, with none other than Fatal Frame. Fatal Frame not only has some spirits, it also has an assist trophy in the form of Yuri Kozukata. Now you may say “But Nintendo co-owns Fatal Frame so they should be able to use it just fine.” However, Koei Tecmo is listed in the credits, among the companies that have non playable characters in the game.
So despite supposedly hating Capcom, they were still willing to have their stuff in Ultimate.
Koei Tecmo’s Relationship with Nintendo
Now for my main argument. Koei Tecmo has supported Nintendo for a very, very long time, starting with the first Ninja Gaiden and the other 3 games, which were all on the Nintendo Entertainment System. These games would later be released on the Virtual Console for the 3DS and Wii U, along with the first game being on the Nintendo Switch Online service. In the modern games, we didn’t see much released on Nintendo consoles, but we did get one for the DS and the third game on the Wii U. Beyond releases on Nintendo consoles, KT has worked with Nintendo’s own IPs before. For example, Takamaru from The Mysterious Murasame Castle appears in Samurai Warriors 3 for the Wii. Dead or Alive Dimensions for the 3DS (which I will mention was published by Nintendo in some regions) featured Samus and Ridley as part of the Geothermal Power Plant stage, which is also from Metroid (though it is Other M, which is not well liked. By the way, I will also mention that Other M was developed by Team Ninja, who worked on the modern Ninja Gaiden games).
We also have games like Pokemon Conquest, which is a crossover between Pokemon and Nobunaga’s Ambition, a franchise owned by Koei Tecmo (which, by the way, is one of the few times that Pokemon has crossed over with a franchise, other examples being Smash and Mario Maker), Hyrule Warriors and Fire Emblem Warriors which has characters from Zelda and FE respectively in a Warriors type game, and most recently we have Fire Emblem: Three Houses having Koei Tecmo’s help in development.
Now you may be wondering “why does any of this matter?” One thing that seems to be prevalent in the Fighter Pass is that all companies in the pass have supported Nintendo in some way. ATLUS has developed games for them and had a crossover between their own IP (Shin Megami Tensei) and Fire Emblem (though said game turned out to be less of a crossover than anticipated), Dragon Quest XIS is being published by Nintendo, Microsoft has ported their games to the Switch (games such as Minecraft, Cuphead and Ori) along with being willing to put Banjo in smash for a while, and SNK has a huge amount of games on the eShop. A good relationship with the company who owns Smash and is picking the characters definitely can go a long way, and I believe Koei Tecmo’s relationship is more than enough for them to be included.
Now I will end this article with one more thing.
Shifty
As some of you may know, someone by the name of Shifty has claimed that Ryu Hayabusa will be one of the DLC fighters for Super Smash Bros Ultimate. While they originally claimed he would be the 4th character, this changed when SNK’s copyright was found on the website.
So what does this mean? My opinion is that we should keep it in consideration, but not take it as confirmation. Despite his good track record, he still got Hayabusa being DLC 4 wrong, and people with good inside information have gotten things wrong in the past. I do not think we should discard it entirely, as Vergeben also got the Square Enix’s character timing wrong, but we still got a character from that company (which also ended up being the ones he said was most likely to be it, that being Luminary and Erdrick).
One more thing I will mention is that people have assumed his sources mistook Hayabusa being in Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate as him being in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Not only is this what people said about Erdrick (that insiders mistook Dai in Jump Force for Erdrick in Ultimate somehow?), but from what I heard, his sources wouldn’t know anything about that game. While it is technically possible something happened, I find that to be the least likely scenario.
Conclusion
I am not sure how much this affected your thoughts on Hayabusa, but I do hope I achieved something. For my personal opinion on the character, Hayabusa isn’t someone I want but I do think he would be a cool character despite that. We also get some good tracks such as this one.
Lloyd Irving is the main protagonist of the Nintendo GameCube game Tales of Symphonia, the fifth installment in Namco’s popular RPG series Tales Of.
Once a simple country boy, Lloyd is thrust into the outside world following a raid on his village. The Chosen of Regeneration is one of his closest friends, and after being exiled from his hometown of Iselia, Lloyd joins her on the Journey of Regeneration. Although the young warrior himself plays no part in the prophecy, he is still a strong optimist and a fair leader.
The Tales Series and Its Importance
The Tales series is considered the 3rd most popular JRPG series in Japan, being cited frequently alongside Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. It all started in 1995 with Tales of Phantasia on Super Famicom releasing on December 15th, 1995 and it introduced multiple elements that would become staples of the Tales series after Phantasia. The series has spawned 16 core series titles, 11 escort titles, 5 anime series, 5 spin-off games, 6 mobile games, one MMORPG, two radio shows, and well…..the list goes on and on! The Tales series is still going and the mobile games and Nintendo Switch ports are helping increase recognition of it.
If that wasn’t enough for you, it’s even got its own annual convention called Tales of Festival with the attendance records reaching as high as 20,000 people! It’s so big it’s even posted in soccer stadiums!
The series has been gaining popularity in the west ever since the release of Tales of Symphonia, which is still considered one of its most popular titles. As of May 2019, the series as a whole has shipped over 20 million units worldwide.
Tales of Symphonia
Tales of Symphonia was featured on Nintendo GameCube and was released in North America on July 13, 2004. The game was published by Namco (now Bandai Namco).Symphonia can be considered the Final Fantasy 7 of the Tales games for the western fanbase as it made the Tales series more popular in the west due to help from Nintendo’s promotion, and it shaped the Tales series. The sales of this game in 2004 went above and beyond, and it garnered generally positive reception from critics. Over 100,000 copies were sold in the United States during the first two weeks after its release, even beating out major titles like Paper Mario, Persona, and even Kingdom Hearts!
The game has appeared on many top game rankings and received a Japan Game Awards in 2003 for excellence. It became such a phenomenon that it even has its own exclusive GameCube bundle and it was pushed aggressively during the Nintendo GameCube’s life cycle.
Symphonia is notable for a complete and memorable cast of characters, an amazing soundtrack, expanded environments to explore, and an immersive story that still stands to the test of time as of today! Overall, Symphonia is an instant classic and one that has earned a spot in gaming history.
Lloyd x Super Smash Bros.
Why would Lloyd get in?
As I said earlier, The Tales series has been wildly impactful. Tales of Symphonia, Lloyd’s game of origin, is arguably the most iconic, and Lloyd is the most recognizable character from his series; no other entry has ever managed to replicate Symphonia’s success to the same extent. He is, without a doubt, the one Tales character that most people would recognize.
In addition, Lloyd has appeared in over a dozen games, seven mangas, seven drama CDs, three animes, and two novels. He has also had multiple figurines released. This dude even got a guest appearance in Soul Calibur Legends, a good example of how versatile and open-ended Lloyd Irving can be!
Lloyd and Smash Bros. Support
Lloyd himself received massive support during the Brawl & the Wii U era, so much so that on August 5 2012, Tales producer Makoto Yoshizumi said in the Kingdom of Tales Interview he wanted to push Sakurai to add a Tales character after Sakurai took one of Namco’s developers (Yoshito Higuchi, director of Tales of Symphonia/Vesperia) to help him produce Super Smash Bros for 3DS and Wii U.
“KoT: Now, let’s talk about Yoshito Higuchi! (T/N: Tales of Vesperia producer) Y: Yes, Higuchi-san! As you already know, he’s working on the next Smash Bros game. It’s a loss for us and the Tales series for the next few years. KoT: Few years? Y: Yes. You know, Sakurai-san is an acquaintance. He went to see me and asked “Let me borrow Higuchi-san” and I said “Ok.” *laughs* KoT: Many fans are dying to know: now that Higuchi-san is working on the next Smash Bros game, can we expect one or several Tales characters in it? Y: This is a difficult question! Maybe if we beg Sakurai-san, it will happen! I know Higuchi-san would love it, but the decision is Sakurai-san’s. I think it’s still too early to talk about it. KoT: Smash Bros Melee introduced Marth and Roy from the Fire Emblem series. Those characters were very popular in Occident, and resulted in the Fire Emblem series being localized for the first time in America and Europe. I’m sure Tales characters in the next Smash Bros would be excellent advertising for the series.Y: That’s true. But we need to keep in mind that a character can only appear in a Smash Bros game if he already appeared on a Nintendo console. This is one of the conditions, and many Tales characters do not fulfill it. Of course, some do, like characters from Tales of Symphonia or Tales of the Abyss.”
Makoto Yoshizumi seems to be carrying the same mentality, though Yoshito Higuchi would apparently “love” to see a character or two included.
Yoshizumi has said that getting a Tales character into Smash Bros may prove to be difficult since a character can only appear in a Smash Bros game if he already ap uppeared on a Nintendo console.” This rule limits the selection to a few titles such as Tales of Symphonia, Tales of the Abyss, and Tales of Hearts.
But Sakurai’s ruleset seems to have changed recently after Cloud Strife himself got in as DLC as you don’t necessarily need to be on a mainline Nintendo console to get in (although Final Fantasy 7 did get a Switch port, this was well after Cloud’s Smash debut).
Speaking of DLC’s lifecycle…
The Smash Ballot
Nintendo released the Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot, where Nintendo would gauge their audience on who their favorite characters were to make it into the game. This allowed the chance for players to present with a small form where they add the character’s name and game of origin, as well as a reason to justify why they want that character. Players could enter their suggestions until October 3rd, 2015, And the characters with the most support got either confirmed as a fighter or Mii Costumes.
Such characters with the highest votes were turned into characters added via DLC like Ryu, Bayonetta, Cloud, while the runner ups were added as costumes for Mii Fighters. Such characters include Isabelle, Geno, Zero, Monster Hunter, Chrom, King K Rool, Inkling, Akira, Knuckles, and Black Knight! Did you know that many of these characters that got Mii Outfits in Smash 4 are now playable in Ultimate?
Not only that but some characters like Zero, Akira, and Rathalos got upgraded to Assist Trophies.
Wow! This is probably one of the strongest signs that characters that received recognition are more likely to make it in either as a fighter or an assist, as it shows not only that they did receive fan demand but also that they were considered commercially viable.
Now what does this have to do with Lloyd you might ask?
Lloyd Mii Costume
Well, since one of those costumes was dedicated to Lloyd, we know that he did fairly well on the ballot. Not only that but Sakurai said he saw Lloyd as the definitive Tales rep when talking about his Mii Outfit.
“—The Tales series has 20 years of history, how did you decide on Lloyd for the costume? Sakurai: I’m not sure if there was any other appropriate choice? —For example, how about the protagonist of the first game, Cress? [TN: From Tales of Phantasia] Sakurai: I really think it has to be Lloyd here (laughs). I could have gone down the route of choosing from the first entry in the series, but for old games it’s somewhat common for the editorial supervision from the original creator to make the process difficult.”
And that’s not all, Sakurai had considered characters that are later included in Smash Bros, most notably 5 characters considered or planned in Melee. Snake, Banjo-Kazooie, Sonic, Wario and Lucas, all of them are later included in later Smash games. One would ask, what character was casually brought up in any interview that was later included in Smash?
Most importantly, one would be inclined to ask, if Lloyd wasn’t the most likely Tales rep to join the roster, why would they have teased him, of all people?
Worth noting is that every single Namco Mii costume from Smash 4 – Heihachi, Lloyd, and Gil – has yet to be shown in Ultimate. This could very well be to save them for an eventual Lloyd reveal.
Smash Leaks
On October 8, Bandai Namco filed trademarks in Europe for two Tales of icons, ones that look suspiciously like the “full logo and icon” pairing that Smash franchises get in-game. It’s now been over a month now since the filing, yet the icons have never surfaced in a Tales of official release. It’s worth noting that Tales of Arise and its logo is already known so this would be either a collection, a non-mothership game or possibly Smash Bros, and only one of those would require that icon.
Other Bandai Namco Reps
What about the other “Bandai Namco” reps? Do they have a chance to get in over Lloyd Irving? Let’s find out.
We have Yuri Lowell who is the main protagonist of Tales of Vesperia; the arguments in favor of him is that he’s the most popular character within the Tales fandom, and would be a better promotion for the switch port of Vesperia DE (Definitive Version), Now, the problem here is that Sakurai doesn’t always pick characters based on how new or modern they are. In fact, if you look at most of the 3rd parties in Smash, they tend to be older iterations.
Historically speaking, whenever there has been a choice between a newer rep and an older rep in a third party franchise, Sakurai has picked the older ones: he picked Solid Snake over Raiden for a reason, he picked classic Megaman’s design over X’s design for a reason, he picked Cloud over Noctis for a reason, Banjo got picked over Steve for a reason, and Banjo is an older character that EVERYONE has been requesting to get in. Lloyd is the oldest Tales character that is actually famous enough to incorporate. It’s all about who is more iconic. As for the Tales fandom being more familiar with Yuri, that MAY be true but that didn’t stop Simon from being the main character while Richter is the echo, and it won’t stop Lloyd from being picked over Yuri.
“A lot of players would probably be most familiar with Alucard, but fans would probably prefer one of the Belmonts—even though they’re unrelated to the later games in the series”
As you can see, he went with what the actual fanbase would prefer, “the Belmonts”, despite more people knowing Alucard; while Yuri Lowell is slightly more well-known than Lloyd in the Tales fandom, the fandom is not where the core Tales of fanbase resides.
This doesn’t just apply to Alucard though, many characters from Smash has are ones that most are unfamiliar with.
Ice Climbers during the Melee era
Roy during the Melee era
Marth during the Melee era
Erdrick during the Ultimate era
Captain Falcon during the N64 era
Ness during the N64 era
As for him being a better promotion for Vesperia, literally any Tales rep would do a good job of promoting it. All that matters is that people are introduced to the series, similar to Joker who introduced the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series to many fans.
The arguments in favor of him is that Heihachi is the face of the Tekken series, he had a Mii Outfit for Smash for Wii U DLC, and he was considered for Smash Bros for 3DS and Wii U; Smash Bros already has a Namco rep (Pac-Man) but a 2nd one was considered for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS, Heihachi Mishima from Tekken. Sakurai ultimately decided against this for two reasons:
Heihachi has actually been killed off in his home series, although there are other characters that have been canonically dead such as Dark Samus and Erdrick, both of which are canonically dead and were both added to Smash Ultimate, so I highly doubt this is a factor considered in the character creation process.
Sakurai: There were none. We basically thought of all the characters at the start of development. We decided on characters we knew we could make. However, there were a few in consideration, such as Heihachi from “Tekken.” Interviewer: Heihachi! Sakurai: That’s right. However, implementing Heihachi’s movement in Smash would be difficult…
Fast forward to Ultimate, we get this: Heihachi appears as a part of Pac-Man’s taunt. Some people argue that him being in a taunt does not deconfirm a character; while Heihachi being in a taunt may not stop Nintendo from adding Heihachi as DLC, there are other issues that could come up.Heihachi’s voice actor, Unsho Ishizuka, who also voiced Incineroar, passed away on August 13, 2018, and if Heihachi was added as DLC, it would be a disrespect to his late voice actor! Sakurai said that if he’d add another Namco character it would’ve been Heihachi but with his VA’s passing, that’s not happening. This isn’t the only time Nintendo respected someone’s memorial; back in 2012, Campbell’s Japanese voice actor Takeshi Aono passed away, and the voice actors from Metal Gear Solid wanted to replace Campbell’s Japanese voice with another one to add the CODECs for Ultimate, but due to Kojima respecting Takeshi’s memorial, they decided not to.
“How come we don’t have the new CODECs recorded for Smash Ult.?” “So, Campbell’s Japanese voice actor Takeshi Aono passed away back in 2012, which, normally wouldn’t be an issue of just “replacing” the voice, but due to the wishes of Hideo Kojima wanting to retire the character after his passing, we’re pretty much here.”
Arguments for Agumon often include that Digimon is Bandai’s current biggest and best selling IP other than PAC-MAN; the issue here is that sales DO NOT MATTER! A game selling well doesn’t mean it will be a lock for Smash, and a game selling poorly doesn’t mean it would never get into Smash. I mean, CoD sells ridiculous amounts of copies all the time, but the idea of a character from CoD making it to Smash is never seriously discussed despite discussion of Crash Bandicoot, another Activision-owned character, and of Master Chief and Doomguy, two other FPS reps.
Do you think that Ice Climber broke records in sales? It’s the 43rd best-selling game on the NES and was never seen again until Melee! Excitebike was considered and was the 9th best-selling game on the NES, but they went with Ice Climbers.
Minecraft is considered to be the best selling game in video game history, yet they went with Banjo-Kazooie due to the fan request, and culture impact for N64.
High sales is usually a result of people liking your game, normally because it’s a good game, but it’s the fan request, history with Nintendo and culture impact that determines a character’s possibility…not just the number of sales.
KOS-MOS is from the Xenosaga series on PS2 that was released in Japan and North America. You might or might not know who she is because Xenosaga needs more popularity worldwide. You might recognize her from Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Project X Zone, Mugen no frontier: Super Robot Taisen OG Saga, Namco X Capcom, cameos in Tales games, and even as a CAS in the Soul Calibur series.
She is someone who seems to me the most possible Namco rep apart from Lloyd, to be honest. KOS-MOS is Namco’s baby and she is put in any crossover game that deals with Namco, but all bias aside, it doesn’t hold up to the mountain of evidence for Lloyd.
For DLC? I think they’d rather not pick an obscure Namco rep if they’re gonna make one DLC. Not saying KOS-MOS is obscure, obviously, but she is probably lesser known than Lloyd, although that didn’t stop Banjo to be picked over Steve…
That leaves us with Lloyd, who is arguably still kicking because Sakurai took note of his popularity back in Smash Bros for 3DS and Wii U.
Arguments Against Lloyd Irving
This is the part of the show where I’m going to dig into the meat and potatoes of some common arguments and reasons for believing that Lloyd is NOT is going to be in Smash Ultimate via DLC.
“Hero and Joker are already representing JRPGs, we don’t need another JRPG character!”
I fail to see how this is an obstacle…. That’s like saying we don’t need more fighting game characters because we already have Ryu and Ken. Genres have never been a deciding factor for Smash Bros and never will be, plus, Smash 4’s DLC wave definitely wasn’t different in 3DS and Wii U since 5 DLC characters out of 7 were from RPGs (toss out the veterans viewpoint). The reason why I am tossing out the veterans viewpoint is that, while they were past characters, they’re still PAID characters nevertheless, so if you took away the veterans for 4’s DLC Wave, Half of the DLC characters would still be from JRPG’s, that being Cloud and Corrin. Roy, Lucas, Mewtwo, Corrin and Cloud so why should it be any different here?
“Lloyd is just another Swordfighter! There’s nothing unique about him!”
Lloyd Irving actually has a variety of weapons that he can pull from for his Smash moveset. The Tales series is known for categorizing its special abilities with Base Artes (basic moves) and Arcane Artes (more advanced) and combos are based Base Artes -> Arcane.
In the case of the Symphonia it goes from Lvl1 -> Lvl2-> Lvl3.
That’s not all, Lloyd has a DUEL sword that he can make specials, Tales of Graces battle system included a rather unique and fun basic attack system. There are 4 lvl techs here as seen here. Tales of Graces doesn’t use mana. It uses what’s called the Chain Capacity Cores which puts a limit on how much you can combo. A common easy combo is a Lvl1-> lvl2 > lvl3 > 4> B Move.
That’s not all either, There are regular attacks and special attacks, and there’s even a special “final smash” type of attack for every character. This all means that Lloyd’s original move-set can be imported into Smash very easily.
“Reggie said at the Game Awards that the characters would be new to the Smash franchise!”
That could’ve been a fair counterpoint if Reggie hadn’t said something along the lines of “characters brand new to Smash”; he just meant they’re not adding Mario as he’s already in the game, it was just PR talk.
Plus, Lloyd isn’t even in Ultimate in ANY shape of form. Not a spirit, nor a Mii outfit, NOTHING about Lloyd nor his series is represented in Ultimate.
Finally, even assuming Reggie meant what some assume, this would only apply to fighter pass characters, not post-pass, meaning existing Smash costumes and spirits are fair game.
“Katshiro Harada asked fans to not ask about Smash! This deconfirms Bandai Namco characters!”
Two videos on the subject of NDAs from ObeseROB and HMK are a very good watch for any people out there, as HMK has actually been under multiple NDA’s for Nintendo, Square Enix, and Disney.
Interestingly enough, Scott Menville; Lloyd’s voice actor in the GameCube version, is apparently under NDA over a secret project they’re not allowed to talk about. This could either be a new Teen Titans property or Lloyd in Smash or it could be something else entirely.
“Unsho Ishizuka’s passing didn’t stop Incineroar from joining the game!”
That’s because Sakurai wanted a wrestler and Incineroar seemed like a good fit from him. It’s also a different scenario all together. With Heihachi, he CONSIDERED him but decided against him, there’s a difference between considered and wanted.
“Eventually after some consideration, they went with Incineroar. Sakurai says he wanted to try making a pro wrestler.”
“When asked about Namco candidates, Sakurai said that ‘there were none!'”
In that same paragraph he actually contradicts himself, saying “there were a few in consideration” and even mentions Heihachi. One person is NOT a few. Also, things could have changed since then and it’s not unreasonable to think Sakurai would change his mind; you could look at the argument against Ridley with the infamous “he’s too big” to be in Smash but that clearly changed.
“Yuri is more popular than Lloyd!”
When people say this, they often point to this poll that he’s banned from because they know he’ll be in the 1st spot. The assumption people make is that this poll of who is the most popular “Tales of” character gives Yuri a good shot, but there is something to consider. Before Lloyd was announced as a Mii costume back in Smash for Wii U, many people had expected Yuri Lowell to be the first Tales rep. People can expect characters without wanting them.
In addition, even if Yuri was popular, it didn’t stop Sakurai from adding Lloyd as a Mii outfit and it wouldn’t stop Sakurai from adding Lloyd anyway, look at the majority of the fan-requested characters that made it into Ultimate. Both Base and DLC rosters. Not only were they the focus of recent titles but they were also from the old titles in due to the cultural impact and fan demand. The same is entirely possible for Lloyd Irving from Symphonia.
In Conclusion
Lloyd Irving is one of Namco’s poster boys, one of the most popular and iconic characters in the JRPG genre, the protagonist of the most successful and popular entry in his series, and he would be a good fit in many ways. Plenty of the necessary stars have aligned, and the connection between the Tales series and Smash Bros has finally been made by way of both the ballot and the confirmation of co-development.
I imagine most of you know about the franchise, but for those who live under a rock or never played Doom (which knowing the smash community is a lot of people), Doom is a first person shooter developed and published by iD Software, released in 1993 for the MS-DOS. It is known for pioneering the First Person Shooter genre. Doom became extremely popular when it was released, with more people in the United States using it than Windows. Currently, a new title known as Doom Eternal is in development.
Who is Doomguy?
Doomguy (also known as Doom Slayer or simply Marine) is the main character of the series. Doomguy fights hordes of demons from Hell using weapons such as a pistol, shotgun, chainsaw, and more. Doomguy would be a heavy, fast zoner with powerful attacks, an archetype we don’t really have at the moment. He has two designs that would most likely be used as alts; the classic Doomguy design (left) and the modern Doom Slayer design (right).
Now there have been many arguments as to why Doomguy would not join, some more valid than others. I will go over each one before going over why he will join.
Arguments Against Doomguy
“He would be too violent!”
This is one of the main arguments you will see against the demon slayer. The idea that he would be too violent comes from the fact that the reboot has him brutally killing demons in ways such as ripping them apart with his hands. They will try to say that since Sakurai likes representing characters to be as accurate as possible, it wouldn’t be possible to have Doomguy stay true to his origins. While it is true that Sakurai does like to stay true to the source material, how true he stays to it does vary. For the fortunate characters, you have Ryu who not only has his moveset taking entirely from Street Fighter, but also Street Fighter inputs such as quarter circle forward and always faces his opponents in 1v1. Then you have characters like Ganondorf. Remember when he Falcon Punched Link in The Legend of Zelda? A pretty good moment that never happened. Even characters like Bayonetta who while is very faithful to her origins, still does not use some of her more violent attacks and was toned down in how much clothing she loses. Also, remember how I said specifically in the reboot? Doomguy did not brutally kill demons in many of his earlier titles like he does in the reboot. Doomguy does not need to rip Pichu apart to be violent as seen with Ridley’s attacks. His attacks just need to hit hard and feel good doing so.
“He can’t have guns in Smash!”
This argument comes from Sakurai stating that firearms aren’t allowed back in Brawl, which is why Snake uses explosives. However, that was back then. In Smash 4, Bayonetta retains her guns which still shoots bullets. Ultimate also has Metal Gear Solid spirits that feature realistic firearm in them. You may argue that Bayonetta can get away with it since her guns don’t look that real, which would have been valid until…
For his neutral special, Joker wields a gun. Not much to say, it’s a fucking gun. Before you say “but it’s a fake gun in Persona 5 lore!!” there is nothing in Smash that suggests it is fake. To someone who has not played Persona 5, that is a real gun that shoots real bullets. The only way to tell is to actually play Persona 5, but when you use said gun it still acts like a real gun. Even in the unlikely scenario where they have a problem with some weapons Doomguy uses, he comes with some sci-fi weapons as well.
“He isn’t popular in Japan!”
I haven’t seen any proof that he isn’t popular. What I do know is that every Doom game has been released in Japan. Doom does seem to do well enough that they can afford to sell it in Japan. Even if he is more popular in regions outside of Japan, that shouldn’t stop him. We have gotten characters who are more popular in the west than in Japan, such as Little Mac and Ridley. Even in terms of third party, Sonic the Hedgehog is a more popular character outside of Japan (and the best Sonic game in recent years was not made in Japan).
“They would go for Vault Boy or Dovahkiin instead!”
Now this is an interesting argument. There are people who will try to argue that they would pick characters from more popular games instead of Doom. While Fallout and The Elder Scrolls are very popular, Doom does beat both of them out in terms of legacy. Though if I’m going to be honest, we don’t really know how they are picking DLC exactly. The only one who is confirmed is Joker. Persona 5 did win Best RPG at the Game Awards 2017, but is still a relatively niche game. What we do know is that Nintendo does want to try to bring in new audiences, which all three can do. However, as I said, Doom does have a greater legacy which is what puts it ahead of the other two.
Why would Doomguy be in Smash?
With all of that out of the way, you may be wondering why Doomguy should be in Smash. I’ll go over things that are in his favor.
Importance
DOOM, as I stated, is very influential with it pioneering an entire genre of games. Back then, other FPS games would be called “Doom clones”. PC Gaming as a whole was solidified as a market thanks to Doom. A port of Doom known as Doom 95 lead to many opportunities for Microsoft (such as the Xbox) and even gave Gabe Newell himself the connections to make Valve. Importance, while not a requirement, can take you a long way, as seen in Smash 4 DLC in which we got big hitters such as Ryu from Street Fighter and Cloud from Final Fantasy.
Bethesda’s Relationship
Bethesda (the company that owns the rights to DOOM at the moment) does have a good relationship with Nintendo. Bethesda has supported the Switch since the reveal trailer with Skyrim being one of the games shown on the system, a port of DOOM 2016 that ran surprisingly well, and the latest entry, DOOM Eternal, is releasing on the Switch at launch. Todd Howard himself also appeared on the January 2017 Switch Presentation. A Doom-themed Switch was shown as well. It may not be something like with Microsoft’s relationship, but they certainly don’t hate each other to say the least, which would allow them to work together.
History with Nintendo
Doom’s history with Nintendo does run longer than the recent titles launching on the Switch. The original Doom was ported to the Super Nintendo making use of the Super FX chip. While it was worse than the PC version, it is still impressive. There is also a Nintendo exclusive Doom game titled Doom 64 (I wonder which system that came out for). Having history with Nintendo isn’t important as seen with Joker and Cloud, but it is still worth noting.
Google Theory
Okay, now before I move on with this one, please take this with a very small grain of salt, nothing is confirmed or disconfirmed with this one.
Now, how this theory works is that, if you live in Europe and you use Google with very specific search terms, an ad for the Fighter Pass will be shown to you. This of course happens with Joker. However, it turns out there are 4 other characters that this happens with as well and among them is Doomguy (though in this theory it only works with Doom Slayer specifically), with the other 4 being Banjo & Kazooie, Ryu Hayabusa, and Artorias the Abysswalker. The most interesting part of the theory is how it only works with these 5 characters. Many other characters (Erdrick, Steve, Crash, Leon, Thanos, every Pokemon, etc.) has been tested and yet they did not have the ad shows up. About a week later, the keywords changed; the characters part of this theory is now negative, meaning the ad will never show up regardless of other keywords.
Doom Today
Some of you may be wondering how Doom is doing today. Not only are the original games still remembered fondly, the 2016 game is also highly praised and sold very well. Doom 2016 has been nominated for and won multiple awards, including some at The Game Awards 2016 in which Doom won Best Action Game and Best Sound/Music Design while also being nominated for Game of the Year. Doom Eternal is coming soon, which many fans are looking forward too.
Bethesda Talks About Smash
One last thing before we end this. There was an interview in which Pete Hines who is Bethesda’s vice president of PR and marketing, talked with a news site called Metro about single player games, along with Bethesda’s relationship with Nintendo. Right before the end of the interview, Hines was asked about whether or not Bethesda talked to Nintendo about Smash and responds with “Oh yeah.” Now you may be thinking “but wouldn’t that be breaking NDA?” My answer to that is not really. While he did say they talked about Smash, that’s all he said. Hines did not mention what they talked about specifically, for all we know it was something as simple as “We really like Super Smash Bros video games”. While it does not confirm or disconfirm anything, it does show Bethesda and Nintendo are able to chat and negotiate with each other about Smash.
Recently, Hines was talking about DOOM in a Nintendo Power podcast for E3. During this podcast, he makes an interesting comment in which he states “It’s pretty cool to be in the midst of shipping a new DOOM game, while we’re also in the 25th anniversary, and we’ve got a lot of stuff planned at QuakeCon and uh… who knows, maybe some more surprises for Nintendo fans along the way.” Now, I will say that this could just be some sort of Nintendo exclusive content for DOOM Eternal, or ports of old games. However, I don’t think the latter is something that would be exclusive to the Switch, and if it was done it would be on the PS4 and Xbone as well. What does it mean? We will have to wait and see. While ports of older DOOM games have been released, they aren’t Switch exclusive.
The End
And that is all. While Doomguy is not a lock for the Fighter Pass (no one, not even Erdrick or Banjo, who are now playable), he has very good chances. While I am not the biggest fan of Doom, Doomguy would be a cool addition and would bring some really good tracks as well. I don’t have strong feelings either way on him joining Ultimate (Brawl is better anyways), but all we can do is wait. Credit to Grapevine and MintPepsi for helping me with the document. The Importance of Doom 95 and Bayonetta: Punish & Torture Attacks HD are owned by UtterSpartan and qwerasdf011 respectively.
There’s a lot of misinfo floating around about Banjo, and Microsoft in general, so I’d like to address those first.
Many seem to believe that Banjo is the datamined “Brave” character found within the game’s code. We don’t believe this to be true, simply because of the extreme likelihood of Erdrick, as discussed in a separate article.
There’s a very popular poll from Inside Games that gets spread around a lot as evidence of what Japan wants in this game, often used to show that Banjo isn’t really relevant anymore, as he barely places in the top 20. The major issue with using this poll in such a way is that the question asked is not “who would you like to see most in Smash”, as the official ballot was, but rather “who do you believe is most likely to appear in Smash”.
Two Rare titles (Blast Corps and Jet Force Gemini) were datamined from a text file listing all the game series that appear in Smash; this is the file that spirits pull from to display the series title in splash screens. While many have pointed to this as proof that Rare is involved in Smash, both of these games are actually still partially owned by Nintendo, not in content but in name; the Japanese titles are still Nintendo property, as proven by the fact that the Japanese release of Rare Replay does not use them. A dev was likely confused regarding the rights to the names and included them in error.
Many claim that Grant Kirkhope, creator of the soundtracks of Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, and Perfect Dark actually owns the rights to these soundtracks, and this belief has been implied even by some news publications. However, he himself has confirmed this not to be true. Sakurai has confirmed in a Famitsu column, though, that he does reach out to original composers regardless of ownership: “After we had picked the songs out, I left it up to the original composers from there. A lot of the back and forth was between the composers and the sound team, but I’d also perform checks here and there to make sure there was nothing that needed fixing. After all, I wanted the songs to suit Smash Bros. while retaining the energy of the original games they were from; in that way, some songs required a bit more direction.” It is unknown whether Kirkhope would have been informed by now of Banjo’s inclusion in Smash, so any evidence involving him is weaker than one would expect. Regardless, though, info involving him has been included in our document; just be aware.
Many seem to use the rumor of “Xbox Live coming to Switch soon” as evidence of a Microsoft character. In actuality, Xbox Live has been on Switch for a while now, in Minecraft; you can sign in free and get achievement support. Xbox Live being supported in more games simply means more Xbox games coming to Switch, which is a separate point.
With those out of the way, let’s get into the real reasons for the bear and bird.
Banjo x Nintendo
Banjo-Kazooie is among the top 10 best-selling Nintendo 64 titles of all time, #6 of non-bundled releases, surpassing even renowned titles like Pokemon Snap, Majora’s Mask, and Mario Party. Banjo and Kazooie were so deeply connected to Nintendo that official advertising for the console itself often featured them. They were even featured in cross-promotional deals between Nintendo and companies like Keebler and General Mills! Bundles for Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, and Goldeneye were all pushed aggressively during the N64’s life cycle.
Rare items appeared as trophies in Smash Melee, and Banjo was even seen on boxes together alongside Nintendo’s best: Link, Mario, Donkey Kong, and – sometimes – Ken Griffey Jr. While Griffey’s games were quite popular, we think it’s fair to say we won’t be seeing him playable in Smash any time soon.
Trivially (though still relevant), Banjo made an appearance in a Japanese-exclusive entry to the Mario Paint series alongside Link, Fox, Yoshi, and other new-at-the-time heroes Pikachu and Mew, and included an exclusive render of Gruntilda, making it a Mario game with original Banjo content.
The point I’m getting at here is that Banjo was considered as much of a Nintendo icon at the time as any of their greatest, both in Japan and in the west.
Microsoft x Nintendo
As you likely know, the series began to die off after the purchase of Rare by Microsoft, especially after the infamous release of Nuts & Bolts, a vehicle building game that insulted many dedicated fans. This has begun to turn around sharply, however, in recent years, as these same fans see the fire in Microsoft’s eye lately regarding exclusive titles for their upcoming console, hoping that Banjo will soon return to the spotlight. Yooka-Laylee’s Kickstarter and eventual success proved that there is a demand for this type of game, and that people are willing to put their money behind them; Microsoft should be able to see the long-term benefit of pushing Banjo back into the mainstream, especially among an audience they seem to be struggling with.
Phil Spencer, head of Xbox and executive vice president of Gaming at Microsoft, would like to see Banjo appear within Smash Bros, and has stated as such multiple times. He’s confirmed that he met with Nintendo in a meeting at E3, and that they’ve been a great partner. It’s been heavily rumored that Sakurai was involved in this meeting. Spencer spent some time in Japan in early October, less than a month before the fighters’ pass was finalized, “visiting studios and publishers […] to talk about games in development”. He later visited again in late March for “talking about E3 and getting input on future plans”.
In the Spring 2019 Nindies Showcase, Cuphead appearing on Switch was specifically mentioned as a direct result of working with “our friends at Microsoft”. This may sound minor, but it’s a reflection of the strong relationship between Microsoft and Nintendo developing over the past year or so.
As for modern releases, merchandise is still produced by manufacturers including First4, Stubbins, and Totaku. The most prominent of these deals, a promo box with Lootcrate, was mysteriously pulled after a now-deleted tweet from the company was put out asking fans how they felt about Banjo’s potential inclusion in Smash. The company has yet to comment on the issue, but has been offering refunds due to the change.
Banjo x Smash
Banjo was considered an obvious inclusion back in the days of Melee, and was seemingly excluded mainly due to rights issues: “Incidentally, including a character from Rare in Smash would be difficult for various reasons. I know there are some people who think that Banjo & Kazooie are an obvious inclusion, but that’s unlikely for a variety of legal and financial reasons.”
A very specific glitch existed in Version 2.0.0 of Smash Ultimate involving Mii Swordfighter and the Duck Hunt Duo, in which the Mii Swordfighter uses a Gale Stab against the Duck Hunt Duo’s gunman, crashing the game (thanks to FlamingOranges’ post on Reddit for a detailed report on this). There were also many reports of these two characters, along with Piranha Plant, destroying save data when used in single player modes. These reports all add up to these characters being very bugged upon release of 2.0.0, potentially due to DLC. Piranha Plant, of course, is DLC in itself, but the other two could be bases for future DLC; some characters have used existing ones as bases to save development time (Ike was used for Cloud, Zero Suit Samus was used for Bayonetta, etc). Our belief is that Erdrick – Chrono/Sora if you’d prefer – is the cause of Mii Swordfighter’s problems, and Banjo of the Duck Hunt Duo’s.
A journalist known commonly only as “someone who Phil Spencer follows on Twitter” (and whose identity we’ve chosen to keep unlisted for his sake), leaked that Steve would not be appearing in Smash, and that he’s heard Banjo’s name mentioned. He later clarified that this isn’t concrete, but the fact remains that he seems decently confident in his sources.
Grant Kirkhope is the composer of the soundtracks of Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, and Perfect Dark, and has been more than happy to make them as easily available as possible, even making them free to download online.
As of recent Kirkhope has been less than vocal on their inclusion compared to last year, a time at which he was quite outspoken about the character’s potential. His comments are now far more vague, and his only major Banjo-related production has been a metal cover of the Final Battle.
Cuphead, Master Chief and Steve have all been deconfirmed to varying degrees by high-up employees.
Cuphead’s co-creator, Jared Moldenhauer, spoke in detail of his desire to see his creation in Smash, generally considered a sign that this is not already the case. Unrelated to our argument, though interestingly, he claimed he would most want to see a 2v2 battle between Cuphead, Mugman, and the Ice Climbers.
Frank O’Connor, director of the Halo franchise at 343 Industries, has been known to tease fans asking him about Master Chief’s potential inclusion. One would think he would ease back a bit if it was going to happen. The official Halo Twitter account has tweeted April 2 in favor of Master Chief in Smash, again implying that this is not the case, as it means there are no NDAs.
Aubrey Norris, senior manager and head of community for Minecraft, seems to be… shall we say, far from the biggest fan of the potential for Steve in Smash. She’s apparently also been keeping up with the community, uh, “civil debate” between Banjo and Steve fans. She later clarified that these are purely her opinions, and declined to comment about any potential Smash inclusion, but her thoughts on the topic are fairly clear.
Summary
Banjo was, for a time, considered as much an icon of Nintendo as anyone in the original Smash 64 roster, to the point where Sakurai saw him as “an obvious inclusion” for Melee despite not having the rights to him, and Xbox has more reason than ever to bring him back with the recent success of indie collectathon releases like Yooka-Laylee and A Hat in Time. Xbox seems very interested in working with Nintendo as of recent, and Nintendo has been quite open with fans about this budding relationship. Phil Spencer has specifically and openly stated his desire to see Banjo in Smash, and he’s been visiting Japan more than usual lately, confirmed to have met with Nintendo at E3 and presumably also meeting with them in October and March to talk about in-development games and plan for E3 2019. A relatively major marketing scandal occured recently when Lootcrate pulled Banjo from their crates after a tweet they made about Banjo in Smash went viral and was swiftly deleted. Bugs and datamines within Smash have shown evidence of a quadruped-bird tag team likely existing as DLC, as well as Rare Replay titles already existing in code. Multiple prominent journalists with known connections have openly confirmed that Banjo is likely, though they’ve had to do so anonymously. The composer for Banjo-Kazooie has gone nearly silent on the topic recently, though he’s still tried his best to implicitly show some love for his character through cover songs and vague tweets of joy. Any other prominent Microsoft characters have been soft-deconfirmed by Microsoft executives and character rights owners. With all this stacked up, it seems rather obvious to us who the E3 reveal is most likely to be.
Erdrick (Loto/Roto in Japanese) is the main protagonist of DQ3 and is the most recognizable and iconic protagonist from the Dragon Quest series. They have two notable designs: the Famicom design (left) and the more commonly used, older Super Famicom design (right) which illustrates the female variant. While many characters are rewarded with the title of “Erdrick”, including both the DQ3 and DQ11 protagonists, the DQ3 hero is often accepted as the “true” Erdrick. He’s basically the one people are referring to when they say Erdrick.
Dragon Quest and Its Importance
Dragon Quest laid the groundwork for all future JRPGs. While it isn’t technically the first JRPG, preceded by games such as Bokusuka Wars, it popularized the genre and introduced many mechanics that made the genre what it is today. It is a cultural phenomenon in Japan unlike any other.
The first Final Fantasy could even be considered a Dragon Quest clone. There used to be somewhat of a rivalry between the two series before Square (creators of FF) and Enix (creators of DQ) merged. FF1 on NES even pays reference to Dragon Quest as there is a gravestone in Elfheim that read “here lies Erdrick.”
It inspired Shin Megami Tensei, the franchise that spawned the Persona games. A monster in SMT, Jelly Man (left), shares the JP name with a DQ monster and you can clearly see Jelly Man’s design was inspired by said DQ monster (right).
It’s also possible Dragon Quest influenced The Legend of Zelda as there is an easter egg in the Japanese version of Zelda 2 that makes reference to DQ. There is a grave that reads “Here lies Loto, the hero.” As previously stated, Loto is Erdrick’s JP name.
DQ3 is still one of Japan’s most beloved and favorite games despite it releasing decades ago. It’s launch became notorious as many children and adults across the country of Japan skipped school and work just to get a chance of buying it. It’s because of this that Dragon Quest games no longer launch on weekdays. This was such a big deal in fact that it was rumored that the Japanese government outlawed the release of DQ games on weekdays.
Many Japanese “best game ever” or “favorite game” surveys have DQ3 very high up in the ranking. Very often in the top 3 or sometimes even the top of the list.
DQ3 is also notable for expanding on the previous DQ games greatly. While DQ3 keeps the same core combat mechanics, its world and its new additions were revolutionary. DQ3 featured a more open-world experience than the previous entries that while technically non-linear, were not to the same degree of DQ3’s vast landscape. It also introduced a class system which was quite impressive for NES standards. Overall, DQ3 was highly popular and successful while also pushing the series forward.
In Smash Brothers??
The Datamine
On November 28th 2018, a few weeks after Ultimate’s dump had been going around online, fighter param data was found. Two new hashes were found, fighter_kind_packu and fighter_kind_jack. The first was immediately deciphered to be Piranha Plant, the second was a bit harder to figure out. Those who knew about this decided to stay quiet and not tell the public.
December 5th, 2018. Smash Ultimate has gotten a patch to prepare for release. The stats for fighter_kind_jack were changed among other things. The most notable thing to come from this was a new DLC hash for “fighter_kind_brave.” Like before, it was decided to keep this private.
December 7th, 2018. Ultimate launched on that day and to go along with its release, Joker was revealed at The Game Awards. The mystery of who fighter_kind_jack was had been solved, it was Joker. As for how Joker ties into the codename, it’s often speculated that it’s either meant to represent “Jack of all trades” which makes sense as Joker as the ability to use a variety of Personas. Another theory, however, is that it’s a reference to playing cards as there is the “Joker” card and the “Jack” card.
On January 3rd 2019, “fighter_kind_brave” became known to the public. I won’t go into how or why as it’s irrelevant, all you need to know is that the secret got out. Speculation became wild and crazy almost immediately. Just who could this “brave” be?
The Stats
The stats for “fighter_kind_brave” are as follows: Hash: 0x12a733f9e8 Weight — 101 • Pure middleweight • Closest to Mega Man (102) and Cloud (100) Max Walk Speed — 1.28 • Very fast walk speed, top 15 in the roster • Closest to Toon Link (1.288) and Squirtle (1.281) Max Run Speed — 1.74 • Middling run speed, 35th place across roster • Closest to Young Link (1.749) and Kirby (1.727) Air Speed — 1.2 • High air speed, 17th place across roster • Between Mario/Sonic/Inkling (1.208) and Mr. Game & Watch (1.176) Fall Speed — 1.9 • Fast faller, top 5 in the roster • Same Fall Speed as Pichu Fast Fall Speed — 2.88 • Fast faller, top 15 in the roster • Same as Mega Man/Young Link/Wolf Gravity — .09 Height — 13 • Same height as Lucas & Ness • Toon Link is 12 and Mario is 14 Shield Size — 11.8 • Same size as Snake’s shield Jumps — 2 Wall Jump — False Wall Cling — False Crawl — False Tether — False
As a side note, while many originally thought the height stat had meaning, it actually doesn’t. Its purpose is unknown as of now. One look at this chart and you’ll see just how inconsistent the height stat is. Ridley having a lower height stat than K Rool is certainly interesting. Brave has a height stat close to Ness but it also has a shield size stat close to Snake. This means Erdrick could use either of his designs in Smash.
Then there’s the slide. When Mizumi put Brave’s stats over Ike’s, there was a noticeable slide when turning during gameplay. While this could just be a result of Ike already having a slide, it’s also possible that this slide movement is entirely a result of Brave’s data. Would Erdrick even have a slide though? There’s two explanations for Erdrick having slide.
Why not? Not everything has to be a reference to a game. Ike has no real reason to slide, why would Erdrick need a reason to? It could just be for balancing purposes or just to make him stand out more from other swordfighters.
Erdrick, the Brave
Erdrick is the most likely candidate to be “fighter_kind_brave.” Why? Yuusha, a Japanese word often translated as “the brave” or “hero”, is the title of many of the earlier DQ protagonists. Yuusha is also the only noun form of “brave” in Japanese, meaning that “brave” is the proper translation of Yuusha in certain scenarios.
Why Would Erdrick Get In?
As previously stated, Dragon Quest has been wildly impactful and successful. DQ3, the game where Erdrick is playable, is one of the most iconic games from the series. In addition, Dragon Quest is a series that Sakurai loves; Dragon Quest 3 especially is a game he has nostalgia for. He spent his most recent holiday break playing nothing but Dragon Quest Builders 2. He celebrated with Yuji Horii and others during Dragon Quest’s 30th anniversary.
Now you may say to yourself, “Sakurai wouldn’t add a character just because they’re from a game he likes.” To that, I say Joker.
Bahamut: Persona 5’s Joker have been announced to join the roster in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, so what’s the opportunity to contribute Joker’s addition to the roster? And what do you looking forward to Joker’s addition (to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate)? Hiraoka: Joker joining the roster in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is mainly due to invitation from Masahiro Sakurai (Sora Ltd.), and thus contributed the collaboration. Because Mr. Sakurai likes Persona 5 very much, and I happened to like Super Smash Bros. very much. So, when (we) received the invitation, the first thing we thought is “Great!”, and we are very happy to build mutual corporation.
Joker’s main reason for being included was Sakurai’s love for Persona 5. Who says he won’t have similar reason for Erdrick’s inclusion?
A Genius Business Move
Dragon Quest has always performed poorly in the west with few exceptions. Erdrick in Smash would be great promotion for the series in the west while also pleasing millions in other parts of the world. Why would Nintendo want to promote Dragon Quest though?Simple, Nintendo actually often publishes DQ games in the west including the upcoming DQ11S. In fact, there are actually 5 DQ games releasing on Switch this year. Those being DQ Heroes 1&2, DQX, DQXIS, and DQ Builders 2. Overall, Dragon Quest’s success would only benefit Nintendo.
Other Contenders for Brave
While Erdrick does have the strongest connection to the codename, there are two other notable contenders for “fighter_kind_brave” that people speculate to be more likely, the first being Sora from Kingdom Hearts.
Arguments for Sora often include how he fits the stats. The issue with this is that you could make an argument for many other characters fitting those stats. In addition, his connection to the codename is not all that strong either. People often point to his Valor Form from Kingdom Hearts 2, which could be translated as the Brave Form from Japanese. The issue is that this is just one form from one game which likely wouldn’t even be involved in his moveset.
There’s also currently nothing related to Kingdom Hearts coming to Nintendo Switch. The closest you get with that is rumors that ports of the older games are coming rather than the new KH3. KH3 simply cannot run on Switch. Now, this isn’t necessarily a deal breaker but it certainly does not help. Joker may not currently have any games on Switch but Persona Q2 was recently released on 3DS and a Persona 5 port has been heavily rumored and possibly even confirmed thanks to a Best Buy leak.
Sora also has the issue of Disney. Disney owns the rights to Sora. Disney and Nintendo have not had a good relationship lately due to Nintendo favoring Disney’s competitors. Nintendo chose Universal Studios as the location for their Nintendo theme park. Nintendo also chose Illumination to create the Mario movie as opposed to picking Disney. But what about those Disney games on Switch? Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 and Disney Tsum Tsum Festival do not change Nintendo’s relationship with Disney. Disney technically owns Marvel but they usually let Marvel do their own thing. Disney Tsum Tsum Festival is a small title from Namco that would make Disney a quick buck. Just because their games are on Switch doesn’t mean they do not have a bad relationship with Nintendo.EDIT:While it is true that Nintendo and Disney have no problem working with each other, there are other issues that could come up.
If Nintendo were to ask Disney for Sora, it’s likely Disney would try to milk them for everything they could. Sure, Sora in Smash would benefit them but wouldn’t Disney want their iconic mouse in more? Or would they only hand Sora over if Nintendo starts distancing themselves from Disney’s competitors? If Nintendo says no to these offers, Disney could just not give them Sora. Disney is a multi-billion dollar corporation, they could easily turn down the request for Sora and not miss out on much profit relative to how much money they’re making right now. There’s a chance negotiations for Sora with Disney could fall through considering these factors.
Even assuming Disney would allow Nintendo to use Sora, that still doesn’t mean they would pick him. You can argue that Sakurai is a fan of KH and while that is true, judging by how much love he seems to have for Dragon Quest and how much he writes about the series, he would likely choose DQ over KH.
Furthermore, there could potentially be issues with KH’s close association with a non video game brand. Perhaps Sakurai would rather keep things relating to other media outside of Smash. Sora wouldn’t have to bring Disney stuff with him into Smash but Sora himself is still a Disney-owned character with strong ties to non video game material. There’s also the possible problem of Sora with no Disney being an incomplete representation of the character and his series. Sakurai always puts as much as he can into making third parties accurate to their source material. In the case of Sora, he can’t really take full advantage of his series and what it’s known for without including more things relating to Disney properties. I’d think Sakurai would rather have no Kingdom Hearts in Smash than an incomplete representation of Kingdom Hearts in Smash.
The only thing Sora has over Erdrick is hardcore western fan demand but would that be enough to sway Sakurai? Sora has only recently become highly requested, it’s possible DLC was decided before demand for him became clear.
Next up, everyone’s favorite bear and bird.
While I do believe Banjo is likely to be in, he most likely isn’t Brave. The only real arguments for him being Brave are the stats and the save data corruption glitch. I already explained why stats are not a strong argument so let’s go over the save data corruption glitch. When the 2.0.0 update first released, there was a glitch that would corrupt your save data if you used certain characters in certain modes. The characters were Piranha Plant, Mii Swordfighter, and Duck Hunt. This was not the first instance of Duck Hunt and Mii Swordfighter causing a glitch either.
The theory from some is that Mii Swordfighter was used as a base for Joker and Duck Hunt was used as a base for Banjo. Characters sometimes use other characters as a base in order to save development time. This theory would imply that Banjo is Brave. However, it’s entirely possible Joker had no base used for him. When characters are extremely unique, they often don’t use a base. This was seen with Ryu in Smash 4 who, unlike Cloud (based on Ike) and Bayonetta (based on Zero Suit Samus), had no clear base. Joker’s short dagger and many Personas would make him too different from every character currently in the game for him to be based off of one of those characters. So what character was based off of Mii Swordfighter then? Erdrick. Mii Swordfighter makes much more sense as a base for Erdrick than Joker. This still leaves Banjo who while not Brave, is still likely to be in.
Other DQ Reps
What about the other potential DQ reps? Do they have a chance to get in over Erdrick? Let’s find out.
First off, we have the Luminary who is the main protagonist of the newest DQ game. The arguments for him are that he is newer, would be better promotion for DQ11S, and is slightly more well-known in the west. The problem here is that Sakurai doesn’t pick characters based on how new they are. He picked Cloud over Noctis for a reason. It’s all about who is more iconic. As for the west being more familiar with the Luminary, that is somewhat true but that doesn’t mean Sakurai would pick him over Erdrick.
Despite more people knowing Alucard, he went with what the actual fanbase would prefer. While the Luminary is slightly more well-known than Erdrick in the west, the west is not where the core Dragon Quest fanbase resides. Sakurai is going to favor the more iconic and beloved protagonist over the one that’s only notable for being newer. As for him being a better promotion for DQ11S, literally any DQ rep would do a good job of promoting it. All that matters is that people are introduced to the series.
Luminary could, however, be an alt or echo for Erdrick. They are the two DQ protags to receive the “Erdrick” title officially in game, and much of the Luminary’s story is connected to his implied blood relation to DQ3’s Erdrick.
And now, Slime.
The argument for Slime is that more westerners are familiar with it and that it’s the mascot of the series. Slime being somewhat known in the west does not really matter as while they recognize them, most have no connection to him. As for him being the mascot, that does not make him an optimal representation of the series. Slime is just one enemy type who became popular through merchandise due to his simple and cute design. Dragon Quest is not about Slime, Slime is not a character and does not represent the series well. The difference between Slime as a mascot and, say, Pikachu, is that Pikachu can be both an enemy and a teammate, and is often shown as a hero character, particularly in the anime; Slime, however, is always an enemy, except in certain spinoff titles. Pokemon is about the Pokemon, Dragon Quest is not about the monsters. Slime is perfect assist trophy material but for him to get in as a playable character before a DQ protagonist would be odd. Erdrick or any other DQ protagonist would represent the combat, the many weapons, and the multitude of spells that Dragon Quest is known for. Slime only represents an enemy that you beat up a lot. He’s more of an easy way to sell merchandise than a character.
Leaks and Rumors
I’d like to start this section off by saying we’ve gone this far without once mentioning leaks. Nearly 11 whole pages and not a single sentence about a rumor or insider. Now, the beginning of the Erdrick rumors go months back… back to when Vergeben began making his claims of a new Square Enix rep being added. For months, he remained vague, only willing to say a Square Enix rep was coming and not elaborating, most likely due to him being hesitant of having incorrect info as Square Enix is known to push leakbait. This does not mean it is impossible for Square Enix things to leak out but rather it takes more time and thought in order to find out what exactly is the truth. As the months went by, Vergeben began to say that it’s possible that the Square Enix rep could actually be DLC. This was around when box theory began to become popular. Near the end of November, a list of 7 Square Enix reps that were being heard among insiders leaked out publicly. This list consisted of Sora, Geno, Sephiroth, Crono, Slime, Luminary, and Erdrick. Sora was a name that went around only because sources specifically said he wasn’t the character. A similar situation happened with Geno, insiders heard about Geno but were told not to take him too seriously. Erdrick was one of the names Vergeben and other insiders heard about the most meaning multiple Square Enix sources were backing Erdrick. In addition, there are supposedly multiple Nintendo sources backing Erdrick as being the Square Enix rep.
Recently, Vergeben has been confident in Erdrick being the Square Enix rep. Some of you may be hesitant to trust Vergeben due to his recent missteps, but Vergeben being wrong outside of Smash is not news; his non-smash sources have been known to be inconsistent for quite a long time. When it comes to Ultimate, he’s been right on everything outside of the minor details of Isabelle being an echo and when the Square Enix rep would be revealed. But what about the Minecraft boss he claimed? Turns out that Rathalos is referred to as EndDragon in the files. Vergeben made that Minecraft boss claim when Smash Ultimate’s dump was floating around online. What most likely happened is that dataminers told him a Minecraft boss was in because they genuinely thought there was one. As a reminder, Vergeben got many things right about Smash: everyone from Sm4sh returning, Ice Climbers and Snake being brought back, Ridley, Simon, Incineroar, Grinch leak being fake due to Isaac being an assist, and Isabelle are the most notable examples. Only real thing he seems to have gotten completely wrong is Minecraft content in general but for all we know, we could see a Minecraft stage as DLC.
Vergeben does have credible sources, that’s undeniable. His confidence in Erdrick is definitely something in Erdrick’s favor.
Tansut has been particularly adamant about Erdrick being in. Considering he’s someone who successfully managed to leak the previous Square Enix rep, we should at least consider his claims on Erdrick.
Arguments Against Erdrick
“He is owned by multiple parties making him difficult to obtain the rights for.”
This is simply not true. Many people assume Armor Project, Bird Studios, and other studios own some of the rights to Dragon Quest due to them being credited in many DQ games when in reality, Square Enix often just outsources Dragon Quest’s development to these studios. They don’t actually own anything.
Polygon: Was that when you split off onto your own company, Armor Project? Yuji Horii: Actually, I had Armor Project from the very beginning. Back in the day, Enix didn’t have an internal development team so I started Armor Project. It’s like the relationship between an editor and an artist; that’s how it was back then. For a while after the merger, that didn’t really change much since Dragon Quest had this pre-established system of “outsourcing its development.” And Final Fantasy was developed internally [with its own staff], so there wasn’t much of a change for quite some time.
“Square Enix is greedy! Final Fantasy only has two music tracks and only a few spirits! They wouldn’t give us another character!”
Square Enix doesn’t even own the rights to Final Fantasy music. In fact, Final Fantasy music rights are a complete and utter mess. So many people have a slice of the FF music rights pie. We only got two FF tracks because of how many people need to be paid to license a FF music track worldwide. Dragon Quest does not have this issue as all of DQ music is owned by one person worldwide. It would be significantly cheaper and easier to license.
As for Square giving us only four spirits, it’s not like this is unique to them. Namco gave us only 6 spirits, all of which were characters and objects already in Smash in some form. One was Pac-Man, one was the Mother Fairy who was already featured in the Pac-Land stage, one was the bonus fruit present in Pac-Man’s moveset, one was the Ghosts who are also an assist trophy, one was TURN-TO-BLUE which is just a variation of the ghosts, and the final one was Galaga which was already an item. Square Enix actually gave us more than Namco if we’re just looking at spirits new to Smash and not represented in other forms. Also, don’t forget that we got a good amount of FF summons on the Midgar stage. I’d also like to bring up the possibility that Square Enix spirits were saved for when Erdrick would be released.
“The Dragon Quest composer is a racist, Nintendo wouldn’t associate with him!”
Hideki Kamiya, creator of Bayonetta, is also somewhat controversial. He often refers to westerners as “insects” on his Twitter (right). He has a habit of being excessively rude to fans online as well. He blocks any westerner who replies to him and makes a point of doing so as well (left).
“The Dragon Quest composer is greedy! We would only get MIDI tracks!”
The DQ composer knows how valuable and profitable it would be for him to have his music in Smash, he wouldn’t pass on the opportunity to show his best work. In addition, the Switch-exclusive DQ11S has the fully orchestrated soundtrack worldwide. He appears to have a bias in favor of Nintendo.
The reason why DQ games often don’t have their orchestral soundtrack in the games themselves appears to be that the orchestral covers are owned by a separate party known as NHK. NHK is Japan’s national public broadcasting organization, they also happen to be the ones behind the orchestral renditions of the DQ soundtracks. DQ games often don’t get the orchestral soundtracks since the royalties for these covers are too pricey for Square Enix to pay. DQ11S likely has the orchestral soundtrack because Nintendo helped pay some of it, in exchange for exclusivity maybe. We’d likely get multiple orchestral tracks in Smash.
“A higher-up at Disney of Japan said he’d be fine with Sora in Smash!”
That’s just one higher-up at Disney of Japan. His words do not reflect all of DoJ. It’s also important to note that Disney of America would also be more crucial in negotiations as Disney is predominantly western.
“Kumazaki tweeted about Erdrick recently and referred to him as ‘the brave’. This would break NDA!”
Kumazaki is actually no longer involved with Smash Brothers. He’s only credited in Ultimate as the “original game director” meaning he was the director for 64 and that’s it. While the post itself doesn’t hint anything or break NDA, it does show “Brave” being a legitimate translation of Yuusha.
“Slime is more requested than Erdrick!”
When people say this, they often point to this poll. This poll placed Slime at #15. The assumption people make is that this is a Japanese poll of who people want in Smash Ultimate when it’s actually a poll of who people expect to get in. Big difference. Before Cloud was announced, many people had expected Black Mage to be the first FF rep. People can expect characters without wanting them. In addition, even if Slime was wanted then that wouldn’t stop Sakurai from adding in Erdrick anyway based on the previously stated reasons of Erdrick being the better representation of the series.
“If Erdrick was in, why didn’t they announce him last Direct when they were talking about DQ11S?”
They literally said at the end of that segment that “There will be more new information to share in the future. Please look forward to learning more.” This means we’re likely to get more DQ news in future directs. It’s also possible they’re saving his announcement for a Smash direct since that would be the best time to announce any Smash character.
This is a totally fair counterpoint to be honest. But considering that Disney has many different divisions and it’s just the television programming one who would be involved with this, it doesn’t hold up to the mountain of evidence for Erdrick. In addition, Nintendo and Disney’s relationship doesn’t really exceed the boundaries of necessity. Nintendo wants to promote their product towards kids so they have no choice but to use Disney. YouTube and Netflix are already competing with Disney for children’s watch time. Disney is also the only one of the three that does kids game shows. Nintendo had no choice.
“Brave’s stats are floaty! Erdrick wouldn’t be floaty!”
These jumps look floaty to me. Besides, Brave’s stats aren’t even that floaty. Brave, despite having a gravity stat of 0.9, is still a fast faller. Don’t forget that these stats are subject to change as well.
“Erdrick is just another swordfighter! There’s nothing unique about him!”
Erdrick actually has a large variety of weapons which he could pull from for his Smash moveset. Axes, whips, lances, shields, sickles, clubs, daggers, and boomerangs are all weapons he has in his arsenal. While his main weapon in Smash would be his sword, I can easily see Sakurai choosing to have moves like his smash attacks or aerials use some of his other weapons.
That’s not all either, Erdrick actually uses magic as well. He can use fire magic, lightning magic, buff and debuff magic, sleep magic, and more. These would obviously be used for his specials. It’s also possible he could use Slime for some of his attacks. Overall, he has great potential to be one of the most unique swordfighters in Smash.
Credits
Written by MintPepsi, @MintPepsi1 Edited and revised by Grapevine, @Grapevin_e Height and shield size chart by snmario128, @snmario128 Credit to gale from the Mimique Valley Discord server for the list of brave’s stats Reviewed by starb, @TheStarbDude Reviewed by Supirorguy, @supirorguy Certain links and sources provided by @let_smash
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