Official Next Smash - Speculation & Discussion Thread

[IronWarrior94]

So, what kind of hopes do you all have for the next Smash Bros. anyhow?

I know it's unlikely because 1) We got Ridley and 2) Dread will be irrelevant by the time a potential next Smash comes out, but I'm hoping for Raven Beak as a newcomer.

 

[ninjahmos]

If Scorpion and/or Sub-Zero ever gets into Smash and includes his own stage, I feel like it has to be from the original Mortal Kombat trilogy.

Maybe the Courtyard, the Pit, the Portal or Shao Kahn's Arena...

I want Shao Kahn's Arena so you get to be ****talked by Outworld's Kahn himself.

They should also include this guy

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Sure, but it's still accurate. That's why it never really mattered much nor was it a priority to actually pay extra money to voice them. They are still known for those voices due to the DKC Trilogy being a massive hit. That's why it actually works. It's less so with Bowser since he was changed to be closer to the newer games, whereas DK and Diddy were not. They still are mainly based upon their DKC design. So unsurprisingly they present it more than later games.

I wasn't saying that the "voice" wasn't accurate, but it does feel like a symptom of the problem of Donkey Kong's characterization being less than ideal. His personality is filtered through the lens of him being an ape, and so much is done to make him believable as one that the more personified traits he has in other games fall to the wayside. Donkey Kong is a himbo: A goofy athlete with a love for bananas and brawling. In Super Smash Bros., he's pretty much just an angry ape. I don't think he even captures his portrayal in the original Donkey Kong Country all that well.

Also, Donkey Kong Country voice acts its characters now. The only real reason to keep Donkey Kong this way is money (which is more of a priority thing since they've shown they're willing to overhaul the flavor of characters to upgrade or update their appeal), and "that's how it's always been".


Back to Bowser, I think the voice is more of a problem for him because it's just not very expressive. The updates they made to him are quite good (though why his pretending to trip taunt is still there is beyond me), but his personality still doesn't quite shine through, even with him drop kicking players into next week. I think his victory animations show off the problem the best, as roaring in celebration is something Bowser does a lot, but here it reads like its supposed to be scary or intimidating even though it's really not.

On another note, assuming Mario isn't going to be reusing his old Brawl clips again, I wonder if they're going to update Mario's personality from the weirdly serious one he's got now.

 

[JOJONumber691]

Possibly, though that depends on if Sakurai likes the new va for Mario given the precedent ZSS set not using her Other M voice.

 

[Opossum]

You know, it doesn't get brought up nearly as often as with DK and Bowser, or even Olimar or Isabelle, but if there's one character whose voice, and entire presentation for that matter, is so far from being remotely accurate...it's .

Imagine if Marth got into Smash and was given a voice and personality that clashes with literally every canon portrayal of the character in existence, and to top it all off he wasn't even called Marth, but "Fire Emblem Lord," and his personality was made up to reference what "the general idea of a Fire Emblem Lord is."

That's what happened to Red. Poor guy doesn't even get his name.

 

[DarthEnderX]

One of these things is not like the others
One of these things just doesn’t belong

Oh no!

the dude from Hydlyde

THAT'S a pull.

One of the 3 times as a kid that box art tricked med into buying crap.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

That's because... it's not Red. It's a generic Trainer loosely based upon him. He doesn't have a proper voice in canon. It's purely generic lines because he's a general player representative. He has barely a personality either. Various Manga and Anime do give him a personality, though.

The lines are presented even the same way as general lines throughout Pokemon's normal history for the player character. They could've had any design too, it's just Red was a more prominent one thanks to the anime having his counterpart in Ash(who actually does get mentioned in Smash). It also doesn't help Ash is a bit more known worldwide due to the Anime also appearing first in some countries.

Whereas some are outdated, Pokemon Trainer is one of the ones who kept being accurate due to being a Player Insert Character design here. He was the first proper Avatar character playable in Smash(where 4 added more, as did Ultimate). It would've been more interesting if he was actually Red, though. But sadly that's not the direction it went with. It's also much harder to go with a generic design visually when it requires a new model, and isn't a recognizable design. At least the one will make them think "this is Ash" or "this is Red", the most notable Pokemon Trainers in general. They did drop the ball in making it clear it's meant to be more of an Avatar, though. Which is unfortunate. The Trophies do make it pretty clear it's not a specific character(hell, they do the same thing with other protagonist trainers among the Trophies too, not even bothering with their names). Notably Leaf is the only one to actually get properly mentioned going into Ultimate. Red is still not used as a name even then, for whatever reason(likely due to the Avatar factor).

Trying to do both is detrimental, though. It just creates more pointless confusion. Despite being designed around the generic player avatar aspect, it doesn't fully act clear on it.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about the timing; Red didn't get personality till after Brawl. That could've worked having him properly be a non-Avatar if he came into Ultimate first, but the way it's designed works too. I would love to have more costumes based upon other Protagonist Trainer designs, though. 4 males and 4 females works wonderfully, and keeps the aspect of being an Avatar better than the current model. You don't really need new voices either, but that's because they're general voices anyway.

 

[DarthEnderX]

So, what kind of hopes do you all have for the next Smash Bros. anyhow?

Smash Ultimate Deluxe.

Barring that, changes I want for Smash 6:

Character Changes
-Give Ganondorf a completely unique moveset based on Hyrule Warriors Trident Ganondorf.
-Make Black Shadow the Echo of Captain Falcon and give him Ganondorf's old moveset.
-Give Chrom a new unique moveset. Make Lucina his Echo. Make Roy Marth's Echo.
-Give Falco the Sniper Rifle and Wolf the Machine Gun from StarFox Assault.
-Replace Mario's FLUDD with Cappy.
-Give Young Link and Toon Link different subweapons so they aren't just using the same Bow/Bomb/Boomerang combo as Adult Link.
-Make each of Pokemon Trainer's Pokemon a separate Fighter, give every Pokemon except Mewtwo a trainer.
-Make Mythra into Pyra’s Echo.
-Expand the definition of Echo to include Dr. Mario and Pichu.

Gameplay Features
-Rollback netcode.
-Make Hazardless versions of stages selectable from stage select the same way Omega and Battlefield versions are.
-Remember my last color selection for each character. Smash 3DS did this. No idea why Wii U and Ultimate don't.
-Actually balance FS Meter FSes so that people will actually use them in competitive play.
-Kirby style Boss Rush mode.
-Bring back the Smash Run map as a Battle Royal. (64 players teleport in. Players run around killing creeps and collecting upgrades. Map shrinks over time. Last 4 surviving players have a Smash match.)

Additional Content
-More Characters, Echoes, Bosses, obviously. Preferably from my dream roster.
-Mii Mages.
-Bring back any missing Stages and Assist Trophies that didn't already return.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

You know, it doesn't get brought up nearly as often as with DK and Bowser, or even Olimar or Isabelle, but if there's one character whose voice, and entire presentation for that matter, is so far from being remotely accurate...it's .

Imagine if Marth got into Smash and was given a voice and personality that clashes with literally every canon portrayal of the character in existence, and to top it all off he wasn't even called Marth, but "Fire Emblem Lord," and his personality was made up to reference what "the general idea of a Fire Emblem Lord is."

That's what happened to Red. Poor guy doesn't even get his name.

Red getting a voice makes a little bit of sense since without it he'd probably just get lost in the background, and his quotes are modeled after his implied battle quotes from the game. Ironically, he's exactly how he is as a player character, but the joke of him not having written dialogue other than "Yes" and "No" was taken to an extreme when he became a recurring NPC, making him extremely stoic, and mute by choice. You might be able to add the stoicism back in through some of his victory animations and stuff, but overall I think he was portrayed about as well as he could have been, ending up kinda like Hero, but with less trainers as fan service...

...Think they'll add Chase and Elaine as alts if the character comes back?

 

[Swamp Sensei]

You know, it doesn't get brought up nearly as often as with DK and Bowser, or even Olimar or Isabelle, but if there's one character whose voice, and entire presentation for that matter, is so far from being remotely accurate...it's .

Imagine if Marth got into Smash and was given a voice and personality that clashes with literally every canon portrayal of the character in existence, and to top it all off he wasn't even called Marth, but "Fire Emblem Lord," and his personality was made up to reference what "the general idea of a Fire Emblem Lord is."

That's what happened to Red. Poor guy doesn't even get his name.

Honestly, ever since Leaf was introduced, I think the name "Pokemon Trainer" works. I guess they could just switch the name from Red to Leaf like other alts but, it's a little better now. I'm willing to bet that if Pokemon Trainer was included today, we'd have a bunch of different trainers like with Leaf.

That said, Red didn't have a ton of characterization when he was included in Brawl. Most of Red's characterization comes from the Alola games, and Masters. At the time of Brawl, all we had were the text box reactions (like "Argh! Almost had it.") and the iconic, "..." Unless we wanted to take inspiration from the manga and anime, or give him no voice at all, I think Brawl was acceptable. Heck in Brawl, his dialogue matched the in battle text boxes damn near perfectly. ("Just a little more, Charizard!")

The issue with Red is more of Smash's issue of not updating characterization of veterans to fit with the times. Bowser shouldn't have waited until Smash 4 to stand up right. And Olimar's silence might have been acceptable for Brawl (where I think his only audible vocalization was just saying his name in Pikmin 2), but he never got updated once Pikmin 3 gave him a noticable and distinct voice. And Red himself now has more characterization than just being silent when he's not the player character.

We really do have to update veterans.

 

[DarthEnderX]

Now, some more stage variety for DKC? That is vastly needed.

WINDMILL HILLS!

That's because... it's not Red.

But it should be.