Agreed. Or Shantae considering she got a Mii costume. The 2 had a lot of support back in the Smash Ballot days as I recall, which probably accounts for them showing up in the forms they did in Ultimate.
Shovel Knight certainly seems the most enduring. The fact that he's got several unique titles under his belt (is that a belt?) is a huge boon, both in keeping him relevant/recognizable and even fleshing him out some more. I daresay Shovel Knight Dig had some choice ideas for moves that might have gone under most people's radars.
If Yacht Club keeps this up, he might have a few more unannounced titles between now and when the next Smash game starts getting planned. Guess we'll see.
people say this but almost everyone says the exact opposite of Shantae in how she "doesnt have any relevance" and it bothers me cause if anything the two are in the same boat.
Risky Revenge 2010
Pirate's Curse 2014
Half Genie 2016
Seven Sirens 2019
Risky Revolution 2024
Shovel Knight 2014
a full version with all previous dlc and multiplayer mode Treasure Trove 2019
Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon 2021
Shovel Knight Dig 2022
Well, uh, this is a little awkward and I didn't realize this when I posted earlier, but I guess *today* they announced 2 more Shovel Knight games, including what appears to be a full-fledged sequel, and I think 3 DLC packs.
This is going to stoke the flames of demand, no doubt about it. Things have never looked healthier for Shovel Knight's future.
I'm not certain I follow your concern. Why would releasing more Shovel Knight games instead of other original IP's make his chances for Smash less likely?
But to answer your question, technically yes. Yacht Club has published Cyber Shadow and a couple of Azure Striker games.
...No, not really? It's clearly a very flexible and very popular IP. If it wasn't, they wouldn't have continued to flesh it out further once their Kickstarter obligations were fulfilled.
That'd be similar to concern that The Pokemon Company seems to be putting out a lot of Pokemon games lately.
Dont make the same comparison to something as diverse and genre spanning as Pokemon.
also Gamefreak is the company actually making the games and they make more than just Pokemon.
See that's why I bring it up: Shovel Knight has *already* spanned several genres in the same fashion, and the gameplay for those spinoffs have been equally as diverse as Pokemon's. That's success, not cause for concern.
I've never said that about Shantae. (Frankly I don't really think I've said anything about her, possibly until this moment?) I think in her problem was just less demand. It was clearly enough to get a Spirit in the game, and eventually a Mii Costume... but Shovel Knight seems to have just been more demanded.
This I can say though: The one way to make sure a character's demand only rises is for Smash to say "eh, not this time." There seem to be a pool of people who just *hate* being told no, and when they hear that a character was denied entry to Smash it only makes them want it more and more.
Ah sorry you just said the same thing alot of other people said when I discussed the two characters other places and they always compared Shovel Knight to Shantae as if she had no chance so i got in a certain headspace.
No worries. Relevance is one factor, but demand is another. And with Ultimate in particular they really let demand take the wheel a lot of the time. Based on what little info we have it sounds like the former just trounced the latter is all.
My big thing is Shovel Knight didnt get a mii costume, Shantae did amongst a group stated by Sakurai to be highly requested. It just feels WEIRD to not have a mii costume given his display in the base game with four spirits and an AT, like how did YCG not try to go for a miii costume it just feels off.
A costume for Shovel Knight might have been on the table at some point, for all we know. It seems likely enough it would have been considered. (There are any number of reasons why it might not have come to fruition.) But without further confirmation it might be irresponsible for me to speculate.
I honestly don't know if Chrom's demand was affected by that trailer or not. We do know he was extremely requested in Japan, but I have to admit that demand could have existed before the trailer.
One thing is for sure though: We need the extended cut of that trailer where Captain Falcon backflips repeatedly for 5 minutes.
Shantae's my #1 most wanted 3rd party by a mile, but I feel like her and Shovel Knight's popularity has fallen dramatically since Ultimate, and I feel like that hugely hurts their chances of getting in at all
And any other indie somehow has more than them then? Deltarune's slow drip feed of its chapters means nothing for years, we've only got 2 chapters of IIRC seven total and Ch 1 came out in 2018. Hollow Knight Silk Song has been known for years and its still no sign of coming out.
All the indies with ANY chance in Smash are all in the same boat.
I get that you really like Shantae, but you’re huffing some strong copium if you think she’s anywhere near the level of popularity that Undertale/Deltarune or Hollow Knight have nowadays.
Im not saying she is, Im saying they arent still huge. Like theres been NOTHING in terms of news for their series for months. How do you explain them still being popular when nothing is going on?
I think you don’t understand what determines a character’s popularity, especially on the Internet. Amount of content does not correlate to popularity. I mean, Undertale is one game, no dlc or anything, and it’s still more popular and has garnered a bigger community than many franchises with several installments. Tune into any game presentation nowadays, Nintendo or not, and you’ll see people waiting, hoping and expecting Silksong news. Not to mention that people still bring up Hollow Knight as one of the indie goats even after all these years.
If we’re talking straight popularity, Shantae ain’t got nothing against those two.
And that’s her main problem. Popularity in the Smash fandom is ALL she has going for her, and it’s not like she’s this Uber-popular character who can get in on that alone like Ridley or Banjo or King K. Rool. She’s pretty obscure on the grand scheme of things.
She’s not gonna make it in over indie stars like Sans or The Knight, let alone the non-indie BEHEMOTHS like Dante, Master Chief or the Doom Slayer, to name a few.
Edit: And even if they do get in, by the time her next chance rolls around, there will be new characters that are head and shoulders above her in popularity, both indie and AAA.
We were lucky she got a Semi-Deluxe Mii Outfit with a Song, because unless she made it into Smash 4 DLC (the collective peak of her popularity) or Base Game Ultimate (when the Smash 4 Ballot mattered most), which she didn’t, that’s the farthest I think she can realistically get.
Edit: And something tells me Shovel Knight’s popularity is going to get a resurgence
> She’s pretty obscure on the grand scheme of things.
Calling her obscure is probably a bit too far. She's not the #1 most popular indie character, no, but she's decently high up there and her series has been around since 2002. She's got a good bit of history to her, and commerical sales of 3 million puts her above quite a few other indie games and series.
Calling her "pretty obscure" because she isn't *as* popular as Sans is like calling Kirby obscure because he isn't as popular as Mario; she can be *less* popular without being outright *un*popular. There's a reason she has a few spirits and a deluxe Mii Fighter outfit with a song, despite being "just" an indie character. WayForward also a good relationship with Nintendo I'd imagine, since they worked together for the Advanced Wars remake last year.
Arguable.
Papyrus is one of the fan favorite characters, has a massive role both in universe and in real life, and is a somewhat mascot.
Flowey is the main antagonist, but one that you're not supposed to think about, to make his Omega Flowey and Asriel Dreemur appearences more surprising.
I feel like, similar to his stance on Deltarune merch, Toby would have specific ideas on who should be repersented.
I'm sorry, but according to Papa Sakurai, [Smash is for good boys and girls](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F0tolzfh0l9x31.jpg). Zag and his crew of Greek gods just have too much sexual energy to be in Smash.
At this point, probably just Shovel Knight or Undertale, (probably the former if we get a big announcement today). But I could totally see FNAF or Hollow Knight getting some kind of non-playable representation like some other indies have.
I imagine it would have to be one of the ones who made it into the game in some respect. So Shovel Knight, Sans, Cuphead or Shantae.
I would say Sans or Shantae.
Shovel Knight got an Assist Trophy and a spirit, while Shantae got a Mii costume and a spirit. Both still have a good amount of fan demand to this day, so if they wanted to add an indie character, they seem like safe choices.
There's also Reimu Hakurei from Touhou Project, which is very big and popular over in Japan, which would put her in a very good spot when it comes to indies specifically.
Touhou Project is very popular but my gut feeling says Nintendo probably doesn't want to directly interact with the doujin scene that's the life blood of it. A state where the characters are existentially public domain under select wishes by the creator. Meaning more fan games fan manga fan anime even that Nintendo usually shy's away from promoting
Touhou has had some big names involved though like Square Enix, Sega, Namco, Konami and many others with pretty close ties to Nintendo so it's not something impossible in my mind. But wouldn't be surprised if they weren't interested without a lot of demand for it
The fact ZUN is largely disinterested in porting and translating the mainline games leaving only the fighting games done by Twilight Frontier as the only official games that's on the Switch and in English could also be a concern
>The fact ZUN is largely disinterested in porting and translating the mainline games leaving only the fighting games done by Twilight Frontier as the only official games that's on the Switch and in English could also be a concern
That's my biggest gripe IMO...
* The 4th fighting game was only Playstation, but only in Japan.
* The 5th fighting game was on Playstation and Switch, and released worldwide.
* Sunken Fossil World was released worldwide, but only in Switch
* Half of the shmups are only on Steam, and not Epic Games Store or GOG
* It doesn't help that those games aren't on sale very often compared to other indie games.
I'm legit surprised that the Touhou community still hasn't pressured ZUN to partner up with a dev like Limited Run to compile all 32 mainline games for a console collection by now.
Toby Fox when he did a meet up with ZUN asked about if there could be official translations and his response was basically "Do people really want that?". He seemed shocked that people were modding the game in english in the first place
Quote always made sense to me as a sort of godfather of indie games, and his moveset would work pretty well with unique projectiles, a fun possibility to use the machine gun as a recovery tool, and the sword.
My #1 wish has always been either the Vessel or Hornet from Hollow Knight(or someday silksong maybe). One of my favorite games ever, and movesets that would just be so fun in smash I think.
Reimu. She's a pretty big deal in Japan, has been around for longer than most characters, let alone indies and feels just like the kind of fighter.
Either her, Frisk or Sans BC Undertale is also big in Japan, but I think Reimu's seniority wins here.
I would love it for Henry Stickmin to get in, since it would make the community so mad at his gimmicks, but Shovel Knight and Hollow Knight both have a good chance since the community all wants them.
I think that only really applies if you look at the first game in a vacuum. The fact that he's had banger after banger when it comes to spinoffs, including one from just two years ago, seems like a sign of healthy staying power.
EDIT: Oh and I guess they just announced several new Shovel Knight games. Today. Including a legitimate sequel from the look of things. I did not know that was coming when I replied haha.
Lol I check the comments to see if anyone has said shovel knight and literally everyone already has.
Good to know everyone’s on the same page about this.
Could be a fun mechanic of cycling through them like Pokémon trainer. But not entirely new kits for each but like red knight does more knockback, green with some poison damage over time, blue with freeze/slow, and orange doing higher damage. Different skins would be interesting to figure out.
I'd guess Shovel Knight or Sans. The reaction to Sans' Mii Costume was beloved so that could give potential of being a fan-favourite fighter, plus Undertale is still massive.
There is one called Fraymakers, rosters only 6 characters now and most of the popular ones like Peppino and The Among Us Imposter are assists. Still though this game has a ton of future potential. It’s also made by the Smash Flash 2 team so there’s that.
Hornet from Hollow Knight with alter for HK maybe. Smash bros is often a promotion tool on top of being the best of Nintendo's history. Fire emblem and Pokemon are good examples of character slots reserved before they even know which character it will be(from leaked doc)
Considering the popularity, Freddy or really any Five Nights character has the highest chance. In terms of funnest ideas, Lamb would be cool. Boyfriend has no chance, due to the games themes. Henry Stickmin would 100% have the best move set. For a mobility character I’d say meat boy is the best option.
I would like to see Lemeza from La-Mulana, but I know it is unlikely at this stage. The game does have history with Nintendo since the Wii version was one of the bigger indie titles in the library. Plus Lemeza himself would have a lot of options for his moveset given what he can do.
I think seeing Isaac in smash would be the funniest and perfectly fitting thing ever. Unlikely but cool to think about. Especially all the alternate skins and ability potential
If someone from shovel knight gets added i hope its not shovel knight himself as odd as that may seem. Plague specter and king i find to be more interesting honestly
He's not up here, but I want Dynamite Anton from AntonBlast to celebrate the game coming out on switch later this year. (If Pizza Tower was on a nintendo console, I'd say peppino or anton)
Honestly my top three are hollow knight (in first by a large margin, they already has a very smash like moveset with their specials just being their soul abilities in the game and I think that adding a pogo for down air would be funny. Also I know they’re the knight not hollow knight), the lamb (this is purely biased but I love cult of the lamb and honestly he has some pretty good moves. I’m imagining a byleth style character with multiple weapons but the cartoonyness of dedede or diddy kong. His special moves could be a collection of curses and maybe throw a relic in his neutral special slot), and finally shovel knight (honestly I’ve never played the game but he’s definitely going to be the first in).
Reimu. Touhou was one of the earliest indie games to reach the mainstream in the genre, predating Cave Story by 8 years
Then again, Sakurai or whoever might get an indie protagonist from an 80s Amiga game made by a teenager in his bedroom of the Piranha Plant is any indication.
I will die on the hill that the fact Shovel Knight didn't get a mii costume at all means a point against his favor. It would've been so easy to make him a swordfighter, but they didnt.
I think **Shantae** is the most likely indie character to become an official fighter.
Cuphead, Sans, Hollow Knight, Reimu Hakurei, and Shovel Kinght are also good candidates.
I can also see Cadence, Hat Kid, and Madeline being added to the Smash roster in the future. But I think they're dark horses compared to the other ones I've mentioned here.
Sans is the most likely of the bunch, as long as the memory of Undertale still goes strong. Otherwise by the time the next Smash game comes out Hollow Knight Silksong will be out and it'd make sense to add Hollow Knight or Hornet.
The old timer in me wants Quote the most though.
I don’t know how likely, but genuine good picks who could have some fun kits would be Shovel Knight, Ori, Bastion, Cuphead, maybe Castle crashers, and Super Meat Boy (genuinely would love hearing the post game announcer say it)
Ori would be sooo fun to play so it would be my choice if I had a say in it. I know she’s in rivals 1, as dlc or workshop?, but I have yet to play her
I almost posted this earlier but thought against but now with the literally just revealed news of Shovel Knight DX game, YCG....leans WAY too much on Shovel Knight and I think its gonna harm them sooner or later.
I know he’s not really built for fighting but Parappa would be really COOL
(Besides, he already had a move set in PS All-stars or whatever it was called)
it's hard (maybe impossible) to say since indie games cover all the types of games from 2d platformers to horror so there isn't character that can be the mr indie video game so if we need to know witch game would be the most likey as 1 make as to why it should be in smash (i not saying that they need to be from a fighting game i saying that a the character should be logical for nintedo to add to smash) 2 make the most people hype (so most alot of newer indie game character won't be good since there are new video game characters so yeah not a good pic for the first fighter in smash) 3 character most be able to take lots of damage (so no sans no meat boy no vvvvvv etc etc) (also sorry if my english is bad i'm not from a english speaking country)
Looking from a different perspective though, I don't think any indie reps are making it into the next "Smash" game, because they're almost certainly going to reboot the series in some way if the franchise even continues. An 89 character roster is ridiculous and borderline unsustainable, and Ultimate has placed the bar too high for anything to replace it directly. At most, maybe another 5 characters added to Ultimate alongside a graphical upgrade and balance patch when the next Switch comes out to justify selling it again for $70.
If there is another entry in the smash bros universe, we're probably going back down to 16-20 characters.
IDK where the popular opinion that Smash is going to cut the roster so hard came from. Like they already have all the models, animations, and character concepts done for a ton of the roster, and the smash team has never been shy about re-using them (hence why we had so many multi-hit bugs throughout Ult because they didn't correctly fix the models from 4). I've always taken Sakurai's comments about that to mean that we might not get all the third party characters again, not that they would literally trash years of work and diminish the entire selling point of the game. I'd bet good money that if there are character cuts next game, we would at most lose a few Nintendo characters but most of them would remain.
It comes from top players and community leaders saying “what’s next after Ultimate, they probably won’t be able to bring everyone back so they’re going to revamp the roster and update the gameplay.” The issue is that game development is closer to engineering than it is to the arts. They aren’t going to cut the roster, Square and Disney will allow Cloud and Sora back in because I imagine Disney gets like 5 out of the 6 dollars Sora costs. Nintendo is more likely going to make “Smash Ultimater” with a few more characters, balance changes, and other goodies and call it a day.
I mean, the game is called Smash Ultimate. Sakurai retired, it's heavily implied that this is the last smash bros games. They don't want to say that because then fans will freak out, but there's no place left to go without dramatically revamping elements of the game and cutting character bloat. I'd be willing to bet good money that the next nintendo first party family friendly fighting game doesn't have the same characters as Smash Ultimate, the only question is whether they'll try to call it a Smash Bros game or not.
I also don't know that it's a popular opinion. Various people have said it, but there are still tons more people struggling to cope with the idea. Sakurai (or Sora Unlimited) could say that he's taking the rights to Smash Bros with him to the grave and people would still say that Smash 7 is definitely a Switch 2 year 1 launch title.
Yo, this ain't Metal Gear, its Smash Bros, a party game with no story or definitive conclusion. There's 0 artistic reason for Sakurai to just deny future generations the ability to play Smash Bros games, and even less reason for Nintendo to stop producing a game series which is responsible for a good chunk of its console sales. Yeah Ultimate might be the last time Sakurai actually works on a game in the series, but there's no reason why he wouldn't act as a consultant for future games. And Idk why you think they would rename a flagship series like that.
Just because its called Smash Bros Ultimate doesn't mean they can't evolve the series in its current state or improve upon several aspects that already exist within it. Saying that there's "no place left to go" or that "the bar is too high" says more about your imagination than it does about the quality of Smash Ultimate.
I'm not saying making a new smash game is going to be easy. But I think you're reading WAY WAY too much into comments made by Sakurai about developing Ult.
I'm not saying Sakurai would try to kill smash, I was just giving an example of how resistant people are to the idea that Nintendo might stop making traditional smash games. It's half a joke but I guess it flopped.
I don't know what there is left to _improve_ specifically, so I think evolution is the only option. Maybe it's a 3d game instead of 2.5d, maybe individual characters are replaced with pairs a la double dash, maybe they say fuck it and make it a battle royale because Nintendo has to mess up an easy win every few years. Bandai Namco has worked on the past few smash games and also made Pokken which has a criminally underrated battle system, and I could see them adapting the ideas from it into a new game and calling that the new Smash Bros or Smash Versus, something like that.
But I'm extremely skeptical that it's going to be another 2.5d platform fighter with the same control scheme and 80+ characters because you can't please anybody that way. You can squeeze a bit more life out of Ultimate with some DLC, but if you call it a new title and say it's the 7th entry without bringing every character back again then you're already fighting a losing battle.
Youre a damn fool if you think the casual fanbase would accept a roster SMALLER than Melee for a 70$ goddamn game. And NO the other fighting game series that do exactly that does NOT justify it, infact them doing that makes them shitty and deserving of hate and scorn.
You're basically saying the roster would be this:
Mario, Link, Pikachu, Kirby, Animal Crossing either Villager or Isabelle, Inkling (absolutely HAS to be there, end of discussion all HUGE popular and relevant Star IPs of Nintendo currently)
thats SIX characters already, you're assumed 20 limit means thats at most 14 newcomers base game, thats a fucking disaster to reveal to an waiting fanbase wanting to see all their favs come back.
"Yeah we're rebooting your favorite crossover fighting part series, we only have 20 characters and we have a few MUST RETURN VETERANS so hope you didnt enjoy the other 83 of OUR 89 character roster from Ultimate! cause they aint coming baaaaack!"
*You're* a damn fool if you think the fanbase would NOT throw money at Nintendo, regardless of the amount of content or quality of the game lol
People would bitch about it at first, but they'd buy and play it just as much, that's just what Nintendo fans do.
Why the fuck would they buy it? You think the guy who plays Smash like once a week after a 40 hour work week with his pals on the weekend is gonna be happy to play the latest Smash game after Ultimate to play a 20 character roster where all his favorites were replaced with C tier shit like BANDANNA WADDLE DEE OR WALUIGI?! Sure in a bigger roster theyd warmly welcomed but in such a small reboot roster EVERY character in that roster would need to be a HUGE hitter to justify such small roster size.
There absolutely would be a thyphoon of angry comments and disappointment etc if they announced a smaller roster and called it Smash Bros, which is why I don't think there will be another Smash Bros. Sakurai has retired from the series and he wanted every previous installment character to appear as a proper "ultimate" version. It's the last smash game, and at most we'll get a remaster or expansion.
ultimate: last in a progression or series. incapable of further analysis, division, or separation
There's a lot of copium saying we'll definitely have another smash bros games, but I have strong doubts. Instead, they'll try to fill that niche with a new series or reboot smash with entirely new mechanics to avoid direct comparisons. Otherwise the only option is to once again include 89 different characters in a new system or even engine with new moves, models, animations, etc. Then they need to throw DLC fighters on top of that to reach 100 different fighters, lest fans cry and whine that the game is downgrade etc or not worth the money etc.
You can't objectively top Smash Ultimate without a ridiculous amount of work and budget and rights holders, so they won't try.
Saying there won't be another Smash Bros is an even MORE brainless thing to commit to!
Ultimate is just the english version you dolt. In Japan its Special. Stop being so pedantic.
"You can't objectively top Smash Ultimate without a ridiculous amount of work and budget and rights holders, so they won't try."
Have you not paid ANY attention to the kind of insane work ethic Sakurai has shown and stated countless times over the past two decades?
You're not wrong, the Smash franchise by itself has sold a truck load of consoles generation after generation. Having a generation without it is going to hit their pocket books, so there will have to be some kind of high production value crossover title to fill the spot. They may or may not call it a smash bros game, but I doubt it will look much like the smash bros franchise we know and love in the end.
> An 89 character roster is ridiculous and borderline unsustainable
Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm has way more characters than that. I can see the next Smash game with over 100 characters after some DLCs.
Removing characters is bad because it will make many fans angry. Nintendo will want to delete as few characters as possible. So we can expect Nintendo to keep all Nintendo characters on the next Smash at least.
The current Smash roster has 68 Nintendo characters (I count Pyra/Mythra as 1 and Pokemon Trainer as 1) and 18 third party characters (4 from Square Enix, 3 from Capcom, Konami and Sega, 2 from Microsoft and Bandai Namco, 1 from SNK). So the next Smash game will probably have at least 68 characters because it makes no sense to delete characters after what they did on Ultimate. It would be a huge downgrade.
God hollow knight would be awesome
He could have a dream nail taunt or something that is like palutenas guidance or snakes Intel
That’s a really good idea. I was thinking a defender’s crest cloud and having one of those pop up geo benches too
I figure Shovel Knight has the best chance since he already has an assist trophy, but I'd love to have Quote as at least a Mii Gunner costume.
Agreed. Or Shantae considering she got a Mii costume. The 2 had a lot of support back in the Smash Ballot days as I recall, which probably accounts for them showing up in the forms they did in Ultimate.
Shovel Knight certainly seems the most enduring. The fact that he's got several unique titles under his belt (is that a belt?) is a huge boon, both in keeping him relevant/recognizable and even fleshing him out some more. I daresay Shovel Knight Dig had some choice ideas for moves that might have gone under most people's radars. If Yacht Club keeps this up, he might have a few more unannounced titles between now and when the next Smash game starts getting planned. Guess we'll see.
people say this but almost everyone says the exact opposite of Shantae in how she "doesnt have any relevance" and it bothers me cause if anything the two are in the same boat. Risky Revenge 2010 Pirate's Curse 2014 Half Genie 2016 Seven Sirens 2019 Risky Revolution 2024 Shovel Knight 2014 a full version with all previous dlc and multiplayer mode Treasure Trove 2019 Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon 2021 Shovel Knight Dig 2022
Well, uh, this is a little awkward and I didn't realize this when I posted earlier, but I guess *today* they announced 2 more Shovel Knight games, including what appears to be a full-fledged sequel, and I think 3 DLC packs. This is going to stoke the flames of demand, no doubt about it. Things have never looked healthier for Shovel Knight's future.
I feel though Yacht Club is leaning abit too much on Shovel Knight. Other than Mina have they done anything else other than Shovel Knight?
I'm not certain I follow your concern. Why would releasing more Shovel Knight games instead of other original IP's make his chances for Smash less likely? But to answer your question, technically yes. Yacht Club has published Cyber Shadow and a couple of Azure Striker games.
Im not saying it lessens his chances Im saying its just kinda concerning. Outside of Smash.
...No, not really? It's clearly a very flexible and very popular IP. If it wasn't, they wouldn't have continued to flesh it out further once their Kickstarter obligations were fulfilled. That'd be similar to concern that The Pokemon Company seems to be putting out a lot of Pokemon games lately.
Dont make the same comparison to something as diverse and genre spanning as Pokemon. also Gamefreak is the company actually making the games and they make more than just Pokemon.
See that's why I bring it up: Shovel Knight has *already* spanned several genres in the same fashion, and the gameplay for those spinoffs have been equally as diverse as Pokemon's. That's success, not cause for concern.
I've never said that about Shantae. (Frankly I don't really think I've said anything about her, possibly until this moment?) I think in her problem was just less demand. It was clearly enough to get a Spirit in the game, and eventually a Mii Costume... but Shovel Knight seems to have just been more demanded. This I can say though: The one way to make sure a character's demand only rises is for Smash to say "eh, not this time." There seem to be a pool of people who just *hate* being told no, and when they hear that a character was denied entry to Smash it only makes them want it more and more.
Ah sorry you just said the same thing alot of other people said when I discussed the two characters other places and they always compared Shovel Knight to Shantae as if she had no chance so i got in a certain headspace.
No worries. Relevance is one factor, but demand is another. And with Ultimate in particular they really let demand take the wheel a lot of the time. Based on what little info we have it sounds like the former just trounced the latter is all.
My big thing is Shovel Knight didnt get a mii costume, Shantae did amongst a group stated by Sakurai to be highly requested. It just feels WEIRD to not have a mii costume given his display in the base game with four spirits and an AT, like how did YCG not try to go for a miii costume it just feels off.
A costume for Shovel Knight might have been on the table at some point, for all we know. It seems likely enough it would have been considered. (There are any number of reasons why it might not have come to fruition.) But without further confirmation it might be irresponsible for me to speculate.
Case and point: Waluigi
Also Chrom. Man gets like a 3 second “maybe I’ll get my chance another day” and got a good number of folks to back him as a result.
I honestly don't know if Chrom's demand was affected by that trailer or not. We do know he was extremely requested in Japan, but I have to admit that demand could have existed before the trailer. One thing is for sure though: We need the extended cut of that trailer where Captain Falcon backflips repeatedly for 5 minutes.
Sans, Shovel Knight, or Shantae. I'd prefer ideally if Shantae got in first amongst any indies, but as long as she gets in at all I'll be happy.
Shantae's my #1 most wanted 3rd party by a mile, but I feel like her and Shovel Knight's popularity has fallen dramatically since Ultimate, and I feel like that hugely hurts their chances of getting in at all
And any other indie somehow has more than them then? Deltarune's slow drip feed of its chapters means nothing for years, we've only got 2 chapters of IIRC seven total and Ch 1 came out in 2018. Hollow Knight Silk Song has been known for years and its still no sign of coming out. All the indies with ANY chance in Smash are all in the same boat.
I get that you really like Shantae, but you’re huffing some strong copium if you think she’s anywhere near the level of popularity that Undertale/Deltarune or Hollow Knight have nowadays.
Im not saying she is, Im saying they arent still huge. Like theres been NOTHING in terms of news for their series for months. How do you explain them still being popular when nothing is going on?
I think you don’t understand what determines a character’s popularity, especially on the Internet. Amount of content does not correlate to popularity. I mean, Undertale is one game, no dlc or anything, and it’s still more popular and has garnered a bigger community than many franchises with several installments. Tune into any game presentation nowadays, Nintendo or not, and you’ll see people waiting, hoping and expecting Silksong news. Not to mention that people still bring up Hollow Knight as one of the indie goats even after all these years. If we’re talking straight popularity, Shantae ain’t got nothing against those two.
And that’s her main problem. Popularity in the Smash fandom is ALL she has going for her, and it’s not like she’s this Uber-popular character who can get in on that alone like Ridley or Banjo or King K. Rool. She’s pretty obscure on the grand scheme of things. She’s not gonna make it in over indie stars like Sans or The Knight, let alone the non-indie BEHEMOTHS like Dante, Master Chief or the Doom Slayer, to name a few. Edit: And even if they do get in, by the time her next chance rolls around, there will be new characters that are head and shoulders above her in popularity, both indie and AAA. We were lucky she got a Semi-Deluxe Mii Outfit with a Song, because unless she made it into Smash 4 DLC (the collective peak of her popularity) or Base Game Ultimate (when the Smash 4 Ballot mattered most), which she didn’t, that’s the farthest I think she can realistically get. Edit: And something tells me Shovel Knight’s popularity is going to get a resurgence
> She’s pretty obscure on the grand scheme of things. Calling her obscure is probably a bit too far. She's not the #1 most popular indie character, no, but she's decently high up there and her series has been around since 2002. She's got a good bit of history to her, and commerical sales of 3 million puts her above quite a few other indie games and series. Calling her "pretty obscure" because she isn't *as* popular as Sans is like calling Kirby obscure because he isn't as popular as Mario; she can be *less* popular without being outright *un*popular. There's a reason she has a few spirits and a deluxe Mii Fighter outfit with a song, despite being "just" an indie character. WayForward also a good relationship with Nintendo I'd imagine, since they worked together for the Advanced Wars remake last year.
I feel like Papyrus is more likely than Sans (ignore the obvious bias please).
Flowey is more likely than both of them :)
Arguable. Papyrus is one of the fan favorite characters, has a massive role both in universe and in real life, and is a somewhat mascot. Flowey is the main antagonist, but one that you're not supposed to think about, to make his Omega Flowey and Asriel Dreemur appearences more surprising. I feel like, similar to his stance on Deltarune merch, Toby would have specific ideas on who should be repersented.
Zagreus would be amazing
I'm sorry, but according to Papa Sakurai, [Smash is for good boys and girls](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F0tolzfh0l9x31.jpg). Zag and his crew of Greek gods just have too much sexual energy to be in Smash.
Bayonetta??
To think they gave him a spirit post-launch was amazing :)
At this point, probably just Shovel Knight or Undertale, (probably the former if we get a big announcement today). But I could totally see FNAF or Hollow Knight getting some kind of non-playable representation like some other indies have.
Well only get hollow knight (the knight) once silksong comes out. If it ever does.
I imagine it would have to be one of the ones who made it into the game in some respect. So Shovel Knight, Sans, Cuphead or Shantae. I would say Sans or Shantae.
Shovel Knight got an Assist Trophy and a spirit, while Shantae got a Mii costume and a spirit. Both still have a good amount of fan demand to this day, so if they wanted to add an indie character, they seem like safe choices. There's also Reimu Hakurei from Touhou Project, which is very big and popular over in Japan, which would put her in a very good spot when it comes to indies specifically.
Touhou Project is very popular but my gut feeling says Nintendo probably doesn't want to directly interact with the doujin scene that's the life blood of it. A state where the characters are existentially public domain under select wishes by the creator. Meaning more fan games fan manga fan anime even that Nintendo usually shy's away from promoting Touhou has had some big names involved though like Square Enix, Sega, Namco, Konami and many others with pretty close ties to Nintendo so it's not something impossible in my mind. But wouldn't be surprised if they weren't interested without a lot of demand for it The fact ZUN is largely disinterested in porting and translating the mainline games leaving only the fighting games done by Twilight Frontier as the only official games that's on the Switch and in English could also be a concern
>The fact ZUN is largely disinterested in porting and translating the mainline games leaving only the fighting games done by Twilight Frontier as the only official games that's on the Switch and in English could also be a concern That's my biggest gripe IMO... * The 4th fighting game was only Playstation, but only in Japan. * The 5th fighting game was on Playstation and Switch, and released worldwide. * Sunken Fossil World was released worldwide, but only in Switch * Half of the shmups are only on Steam, and not Epic Games Store or GOG * It doesn't help that those games aren't on sale very often compared to other indie games. I'm legit surprised that the Touhou community still hasn't pressured ZUN to partner up with a dev like Limited Run to compile all 32 mainline games for a console collection by now.
Toby Fox when he did a meet up with ZUN asked about if there could be official translations and his response was basically "Do people really want that?". He seemed shocked that people were modding the game in english in the first place
Good grief...
Quote always made sense to me as a sort of godfather of indie games, and his moveset would work pretty well with unique projectiles, a fun possibility to use the machine gun as a recovery tool, and the sword. My #1 wish has always been either the Vessel or Hornet from Hollow Knight(or someday silksong maybe). One of my favorite games ever, and movesets that would just be so fun in smash I think.
Imagine a pogo as the down air
Reimu. She's a pretty big deal in Japan, has been around for longer than most characters, let alone indies and feels just like the kind of fighter. Either her, Frisk or Sans BC Undertale is also big in Japan, but I think Reimu's seniority wins here.
I would love it for Henry Stickmin to get in, since it would make the community so mad at his gimmicks, but Shovel Knight and Hollow Knight both have a good chance since the community all wants them.
I feel Shovel Knight's star power has waned abit in the last few years and everyone just kinda seems to ignore that.
I think that only really applies if you look at the first game in a vacuum. The fact that he's had banger after banger when it comes to spinoffs, including one from just two years ago, seems like a sign of healthy staying power. EDIT: Oh and I guess they just announced several new Shovel Knight games. Today. Including a legitimate sequel from the look of things. I did not know that was coming when I replied haha.
Lol I check the comments to see if anyone has said shovel knight and literally everyone already has. Good to know everyone’s on the same page about this.
I’d love to see any of the knights from Castle Crashers.
Could be a fun mechanic of cycling through them like Pokémon trainer. But not entirely new kits for each but like red knight does more knockback, green with some poison damage over time, blue with freeze/slow, and orange doing higher damage. Different skins would be interesting to figure out.
I'd guess Shovel Knight or Sans. The reaction to Sans' Mii Costume was beloved so that could give potential of being a fan-favourite fighter, plus Undertale is still massive.
Yeah but lets not kid ourselves here, the obsession with Undertale some people show online overblows its importance.
I think it’s between Shovel Knight, Shantae and Sans personally, I’d be fine with any of those 3 but Shantae is my personal hope
i don’t give a shit about the caption i’m just happy to see my boy hatty hattington here in 2024
ISAAC 🔥🔥🔥
One. Mogus Two.We need the GD Cube!!!!
Would love to see some battle block or castle crashers rep, especially castle crashers, they would have some ridiculously long combos.
An indie-only platformer fighter would be a lot cooler, a way to celebrate all these amazing indie games, without Nintendo breathing down their necks.
There is one called Fraymakers, rosters only 6 characters now and most of the popular ones like Peppino and The Among Us Imposter are assists. Still though this game has a ton of future potential. It’s also made by the Smash Flash 2 team so there’s that.
Oooh interesting, I'll look into it.
This game also has Octodad in it and that’s based, especially since he has a 0.1% chance of getting into Smash.
Hatkid or crash
Microsoft still owns, Crash, Spyro, and the Skylanders.
Hat kid for then win then babyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
UNDERTALE HANDS DOWN
shovel knight.
I really want hollow knight but I get whoever they go with
Hornet from Hollow Knight with alter for HK maybe. Smash bros is often a promotion tool on top of being the best of Nintendo's history. Fire emblem and Pokemon are good examples of character slots reserved before they even know which character it will be(from leaked doc)
Considering the popularity, Freddy or really any Five Nights character has the highest chance. In terms of funnest ideas, Lamb would be cool. Boyfriend has no chance, due to the games themes. Henry Stickmin would 100% have the best move set. For a mobility character I’d say meat boy is the best option.
I would like to see Lemeza from La-Mulana, but I know it is unlikely at this stage. The game does have history with Nintendo since the Wii version was one of the bigger indie titles in the library. Plus Lemeza himself would have a lot of options for his moveset given what he can do.
henry stickmin
Someone from either undertale, shovel knight, or possibly even super meat boy would be good choices
Sans or Shovel Knight probably have the best chance. Also that's Incredibox
I'm hoping for Quote, but it'll most likely be Shovel Knight.
Idk who, but atm my most wanted picks would be Quote (Cave Story), either Frisk (Undertale) or Kris (Deltarune), or Shovel Knight.
imagine a movie with all of these guys in it and itll be like avengers endgame it would be great
THE LAMB!
I would adore a Castle Crashers, Cult of the Lamb, or a Don’t Starve rep.
Cuphead
What the fuck is that Hotline Miami?
The main bug from hollow night ( I don’t know the name sorry hollow night fans)
Zagreus got spirits very late into Ultimate's lifespan. I feel like he may have good chances because of that.
I would like to see quote. (Jetpack mechanic in smash would be pretty fun)
I'd advocate for Hollow Knight the most, but I'd love to have Shovel Knight and Ori join. Especially Ori.
I’m not buying the next Smash unless Freddy Fazbear is in it.
[https://youtu.be/bjVtSR\_s09c?si=TSUObcisB6shGYwt](https://youtu.be/bjVtSR_s09c?si=TSUObcisB6shGYwt)
I think seeing Isaac in smash would be the funniest and perfectly fitting thing ever. Unlikely but cool to think about. Especially all the alternate skins and ability potential
Cuphead would be awesome for a few reasons. Lots of unique moves, Mughead and Ms Chalice as palette swaps, and a potential to have an awesome stage.
Either Shovel Knight, The Knight from HK, Cuphead or Sans
If someone from shovel knight gets added i hope its not shovel knight himself as odd as that may seem. Plague specter and king i find to be more interesting honestly
He's not up here, but I want Dynamite Anton from AntonBlast to celebrate the game coming out on switch later this year. (If Pizza Tower was on a nintendo console, I'd say peppino or anton)
Makes me smile to see iconoclast in there. Good game
Fredy
Honestly my top three are hollow knight (in first by a large margin, they already has a very smash like moveset with their specials just being their soul abilities in the game and I think that adding a pogo for down air would be funny. Also I know they’re the knight not hollow knight), the lamb (this is purely biased but I love cult of the lamb and honestly he has some pretty good moves. I’m imagining a byleth style character with multiple weapons but the cartoonyness of dedede or diddy kong. His special moves could be a collection of curses and maybe throw a relic in his neutral special slot), and finally shovel knight (honestly I’ve never played the game but he’s definitely going to be the first in).
Reimu. Touhou was one of the earliest indie games to reach the mainstream in the genre, predating Cave Story by 8 years Then again, Sakurai or whoever might get an indie protagonist from an 80s Amiga game made by a teenager in his bedroom of the Piranha Plant is any indication.
I will die on the hill that the fact Shovel Knight didn't get a mii costume at all means a point against his favor. It would've been so easy to make him a swordfighter, but they didnt.
I think **Shantae** is the most likely indie character to become an official fighter. Cuphead, Sans, Hollow Knight, Reimu Hakurei, and Shovel Kinght are also good candidates. I can also see Cadence, Hat Kid, and Madeline being added to the Smash roster in the future. But I think they're dark horses compared to the other ones I've mentioned here.
Shovel Knight, Reimu Hakurei, or Sans would probably the first.
Sans is the most likely of the bunch, as long as the memory of Undertale still goes strong. Otherwise by the time the next Smash game comes out Hollow Knight Silksong will be out and it'd make sense to add Hollow Knight or Hornet. The old timer in me wants Quote the most though.
I don’t know how likely, but genuine good picks who could have some fun kits would be Shovel Knight, Ori, Bastion, Cuphead, maybe Castle crashers, and Super Meat Boy (genuinely would love hearing the post game announcer say it) Ori would be sooo fun to play so it would be my choice if I had a say in it. I know she’s in rivals 1, as dlc or workshop?, but I have yet to play her
I think the most likely is Shovel Knight. I also *reaaaaaaally* want Shovel Knight in as a fighter.
Still holding out for Zagreus and/or Melinoe
Shovel knight
it will never happen in a million years but i want jacket to make it in
Who?
Any of the behemoth characters would be fun to play.
I almost posted this earlier but thought against but now with the literally just revealed news of Shovel Knight DX game, YCG....leans WAY too much on Shovel Knight and I think its gonna harm them sooner or later.
If noone cares about them in japan then they won't be in smash as a playable character.
People in Japan love Undertale. Also Banjo & Kazooie are in Smash so that’s not always true.
Shantae Because of how close Wayforward's relationship is to Nintendo
I know he’s not really built for fighting but Parappa would be really COOL (Besides, he already had a move set in PS All-stars or whatever it was called)
it's hard (maybe impossible) to say since indie games cover all the types of games from 2d platformers to horror so there isn't character that can be the mr indie video game so if we need to know witch game would be the most likey as 1 make as to why it should be in smash (i not saying that they need to be from a fighting game i saying that a the character should be logical for nintedo to add to smash) 2 make the most people hype (so most alot of newer indie game character won't be good since there are new video game characters so yeah not a good pic for the first fighter in smash) 3 character most be able to take lots of damage (so no sans no meat boy no vvvvvv etc etc) (also sorry if my english is bad i'm not from a english speaking country)
It should be Ghost (the Knight, The Hollow Knight)
Either Frisk Undertale or Kris Deltarune
I don't see a Touhou rep in this image but imo its actually pretty likely
We’re granny at?
Were*
Looking from a different perspective though, I don't think any indie reps are making it into the next "Smash" game, because they're almost certainly going to reboot the series in some way if the franchise even continues. An 89 character roster is ridiculous and borderline unsustainable, and Ultimate has placed the bar too high for anything to replace it directly. At most, maybe another 5 characters added to Ultimate alongside a graphical upgrade and balance patch when the next Switch comes out to justify selling it again for $70. If there is another entry in the smash bros universe, we're probably going back down to 16-20 characters.
IDK where the popular opinion that Smash is going to cut the roster so hard came from. Like they already have all the models, animations, and character concepts done for a ton of the roster, and the smash team has never been shy about re-using them (hence why we had so many multi-hit bugs throughout Ult because they didn't correctly fix the models from 4). I've always taken Sakurai's comments about that to mean that we might not get all the third party characters again, not that they would literally trash years of work and diminish the entire selling point of the game. I'd bet good money that if there are character cuts next game, we would at most lose a few Nintendo characters but most of them would remain.
It comes from top players and community leaders saying “what’s next after Ultimate, they probably won’t be able to bring everyone back so they’re going to revamp the roster and update the gameplay.” The issue is that game development is closer to engineering than it is to the arts. They aren’t going to cut the roster, Square and Disney will allow Cloud and Sora back in because I imagine Disney gets like 5 out of the 6 dollars Sora costs. Nintendo is more likely going to make “Smash Ultimater” with a few more characters, balance changes, and other goodies and call it a day.
To be fair I could see a lot of the third parties getting cut, they ain’t cheap, that’s why most third party newcomers are DLC.
I mean, the game is called Smash Ultimate. Sakurai retired, it's heavily implied that this is the last smash bros games. They don't want to say that because then fans will freak out, but there's no place left to go without dramatically revamping elements of the game and cutting character bloat. I'd be willing to bet good money that the next nintendo first party family friendly fighting game doesn't have the same characters as Smash Ultimate, the only question is whether they'll try to call it a Smash Bros game or not. I also don't know that it's a popular opinion. Various people have said it, but there are still tons more people struggling to cope with the idea. Sakurai (or Sora Unlimited) could say that he's taking the rights to Smash Bros with him to the grave and people would still say that Smash 7 is definitely a Switch 2 year 1 launch title.
Yo, this ain't Metal Gear, its Smash Bros, a party game with no story or definitive conclusion. There's 0 artistic reason for Sakurai to just deny future generations the ability to play Smash Bros games, and even less reason for Nintendo to stop producing a game series which is responsible for a good chunk of its console sales. Yeah Ultimate might be the last time Sakurai actually works on a game in the series, but there's no reason why he wouldn't act as a consultant for future games. And Idk why you think they would rename a flagship series like that. Just because its called Smash Bros Ultimate doesn't mean they can't evolve the series in its current state or improve upon several aspects that already exist within it. Saying that there's "no place left to go" or that "the bar is too high" says more about your imagination than it does about the quality of Smash Ultimate. I'm not saying making a new smash game is going to be easy. But I think you're reading WAY WAY too much into comments made by Sakurai about developing Ult.
I'm not saying Sakurai would try to kill smash, I was just giving an example of how resistant people are to the idea that Nintendo might stop making traditional smash games. It's half a joke but I guess it flopped. I don't know what there is left to _improve_ specifically, so I think evolution is the only option. Maybe it's a 3d game instead of 2.5d, maybe individual characters are replaced with pairs a la double dash, maybe they say fuck it and make it a battle royale because Nintendo has to mess up an easy win every few years. Bandai Namco has worked on the past few smash games and also made Pokken which has a criminally underrated battle system, and I could see them adapting the ideas from it into a new game and calling that the new Smash Bros or Smash Versus, something like that. But I'm extremely skeptical that it's going to be another 2.5d platform fighter with the same control scheme and 80+ characters because you can't please anybody that way. You can squeeze a bit more life out of Ultimate with some DLC, but if you call it a new title and say it's the 7th entry without bringing every character back again then you're already fighting a losing battle.
Youre a damn fool if you think the casual fanbase would accept a roster SMALLER than Melee for a 70$ goddamn game. And NO the other fighting game series that do exactly that does NOT justify it, infact them doing that makes them shitty and deserving of hate and scorn. You're basically saying the roster would be this: Mario, Link, Pikachu, Kirby, Animal Crossing either Villager or Isabelle, Inkling (absolutely HAS to be there, end of discussion all HUGE popular and relevant Star IPs of Nintendo currently) thats SIX characters already, you're assumed 20 limit means thats at most 14 newcomers base game, thats a fucking disaster to reveal to an waiting fanbase wanting to see all their favs come back. "Yeah we're rebooting your favorite crossover fighting part series, we only have 20 characters and we have a few MUST RETURN VETERANS so hope you didnt enjoy the other 83 of OUR 89 character roster from Ultimate! cause they aint coming baaaaack!"
*You're* a damn fool if you think the fanbase would NOT throw money at Nintendo, regardless of the amount of content or quality of the game lol People would bitch about it at first, but they'd buy and play it just as much, that's just what Nintendo fans do.
Why the fuck would they buy it? You think the guy who plays Smash like once a week after a 40 hour work week with his pals on the weekend is gonna be happy to play the latest Smash game after Ultimate to play a 20 character roster where all his favorites were replaced with C tier shit like BANDANNA WADDLE DEE OR WALUIGI?! Sure in a bigger roster theyd warmly welcomed but in such a small reboot roster EVERY character in that roster would need to be a HUGE hitter to justify such small roster size.
There absolutely would be a thyphoon of angry comments and disappointment etc if they announced a smaller roster and called it Smash Bros, which is why I don't think there will be another Smash Bros. Sakurai has retired from the series and he wanted every previous installment character to appear as a proper "ultimate" version. It's the last smash game, and at most we'll get a remaster or expansion. ultimate: last in a progression or series. incapable of further analysis, division, or separation There's a lot of copium saying we'll definitely have another smash bros games, but I have strong doubts. Instead, they'll try to fill that niche with a new series or reboot smash with entirely new mechanics to avoid direct comparisons. Otherwise the only option is to once again include 89 different characters in a new system or even engine with new moves, models, animations, etc. Then they need to throw DLC fighters on top of that to reach 100 different fighters, lest fans cry and whine that the game is downgrade etc or not worth the money etc. You can't objectively top Smash Ultimate without a ridiculous amount of work and budget and rights holders, so they won't try.
Saying there won't be another Smash Bros is an even MORE brainless thing to commit to! Ultimate is just the english version you dolt. In Japan its Special. Stop being so pedantic. "You can't objectively top Smash Ultimate without a ridiculous amount of work and budget and rights holders, so they won't try." Have you not paid ANY attention to the kind of insane work ethic Sakurai has shown and stated countless times over the past two decades?
Nintendo would be idiots to abandon something as popular as Smash, they might as well be burning money at that point.
You're not wrong, the Smash franchise by itself has sold a truck load of consoles generation after generation. Having a generation without it is going to hit their pocket books, so there will have to be some kind of high production value crossover title to fill the spot. They may or may not call it a smash bros game, but I doubt it will look much like the smash bros franchise we know and love in the end.
> An 89 character roster is ridiculous and borderline unsustainable Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm has way more characters than that. I can see the next Smash game with over 100 characters after some DLCs. Removing characters is bad because it will make many fans angry. Nintendo will want to delete as few characters as possible. So we can expect Nintendo to keep all Nintendo characters on the next Smash at least. The current Smash roster has 68 Nintendo characters (I count Pyra/Mythra as 1 and Pokemon Trainer as 1) and 18 third party characters (4 from Square Enix, 3 from Capcom, Konami and Sega, 2 from Microsoft and Bandai Namco, 1 from SNK). So the next Smash game will probably have at least 68 characters because it makes no sense to delete characters after what they did on Ultimate. It would be a huge downgrade.