Topic: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Don't forget that ARMS released much earlier than Xeno2 and FE Three Houses, but Min Min was added later.
For me it's not about when games release but how quickly Sakurai can make them work in game. And you know Sakurai played a beta for Three Houses long before its release while he seemingly had no access to early versions of ARMS and Xenoblade 2 during Ultimate's development.

Bomberman has a mii costume and it looks perfect! Travis made it into the game too! Also, the Gil costume is back finally, which is nice.

I cant wait for this I wish it would come sooner but I wee is fine I want it to be at its best.

Steve is great! Sakurai managed to get me to like my least favorite character ever.

Also RIP Travis fans

Steve is a literal love letter to Minecraft in like every way

I love how they actually incorporated stuff like the Crafting table and weapon durability without it coming off as pace breaking

@SKTTR Yeah but ARMS and Xeno also shared development periods with Smash based on when this project plan for Ultimate started, so DLC totally opened the door for Rex to be slotted in somewhere especially in the first pass, but Byleth and Min Min were both chosen instead.

I still think Rex is likely because we got Min Min (both ARMS and XC2 were games that couldn't appear in Smash Ultimate due to announced too late).

So it seems there are only 5 missing DLC Mii costumes from Wii U/3DS (we're getting Gil back in the Steve wave of Mii Fighter costumes):

• 2 Monster Hunter outfits (Hunter and Rathalos)
• Chocobo Hat
• Geno outfit
• Lloyd outfit

Because of this I'm swapping Fire Emblem character out for Lara Croft in my predictions (Square Enix only seems to have Mii costumes alongside Square Enix fighters), so:

February 2021 - Monster Hunter (promotion for Monster Hunter Rise)
May 2021 - Lara Croft (part of the Tomb Raider 25th anniversary celebrations)
September 2021 - Crash Bandicoot (promotion for Crash Bandicoot 4)
December 2021 - Rex (ending the pass on a very strong note)

Tomb Raider is Square Enix's 3rd biggest franchise after Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest so Lara would make most sense as the next Square Enix character after Cloud and Hero.

@status-204 I mean if Joker, Cloud and Snake can get in despite their incredibly sparse Nintendo appearances I don't think that's much of a factor anymore, nor is the personality argument because Nintendo gets away with having characters with zero personality, in addition to reps in the roster like Joker, Hero, Byleth and Steve.

Tomb Raider is definitely an iconic series and she's easily the poster child for every female protagonist in gaming as a whole. She's also definitely appeared in more than a handful of stuff on Nintendo handhelds in addition to the GameCube, which is a lot more than I can say for Snake's 4 or 5 Nintendo appearances, Cloud appearing in like one Kingdom Hearts spinoff and FFVII being released on a Nintendo system 32 years after its original release, and Joker being the sole playable character in the entire roster whose main series of games isn't playable on any Nintendo hardware.

Also if they pull from the reboot series Lara with some classic elements like her dual guns and acrobatic abilties she can be pretty fun to play as hypothetically speaking

@status-204 Lara is more iconic than a lot of the other third party fighters and being a prominent Ninty friendly series hasn’t be applied for other fighters also. I’d be happy with her especially against some of the other predictions floating about.

Here's the complete list of Tomb Raider games on Nintendo hardware:

• Tomb Raider (GBC) - 2000
• Tomb Raider Curse of the Sword (GBC) - 2001
• Tomb Raider The Prophecy (GBA) - 2002
• Tomb Raider Legend (GC/DS) - 2006
• Tomb Raider Anniversary (Wii) - 2007
• Tomb Raider Underworld (Wii/DS) - 2008

Thanks for pointing that out. This is truly something that can be used to speculate with.

1. Another Capcom fighter, possibly Phoenix Wright or Monster Hunter, reintroducing the SSB4 costumes. I prdedict one will be a fighter, the other will be a Mii costume.

2. Another Square Enix fighter, with the possibility of Geno being still open. If it's not Geno, his Mii costume will certainly be back.

3. A Bandai Namco fighter. With Tekken out of the race, it's possible it could be Lloyd. If it's not Lloyd we'll get his costume back. There's the old argument that BN is developing the game and that they deserve a new character for all that great work which would only be fair. (A SoulCalibur one would be dope.)

This leaves room for just one more which is... unfortunately not Travis.
There was an argument about great partnerships which I can get behind:

On one hand there's Koei Tecmo who made their latest three Project Zero games Nintendo exclusive, they let Nintendo publish Ninja Gaiden III: Razor's Edge on Wii U, they produced Hyrule Warriors 1&2 and Fire Emblem Warriors, and generally developed 100+ Nintendo games since the NES days.

On the other hand there's a growing relationship with Ubisoft and them lately putting out Mario+Rabbids and Starlink feat. Starfox. They've also a very long history with Nintendo.

PS. I see Rayman's and Lara Croft's inclusion in Brawlhalla as a sign for them not coming to Smash.

@SKTTR I'm pretty sure Ubisoft is out of the running since they have not one but TWO Mii costumes with Altair from Assassin's Creed and the Rabbids

It'd be one thing to have a single Mii Costume from a completely different franchise and then a fighter associated with another franchise but something about two Mii Fighter costumes kinda screams deconfirmation to me

At least when Bethesda got showcased it was just the Vault Boy and not anyone major like Dragonborn or DOOM Slayer

Biggest roadblock for Lara Croft is that her series has never had a big hit in Japan and doesn't seem to be a very requested character over there either (unlike other Western picks like King K Rool, Banjo Kazooie, or even Steve). Also Sakurai doesn't have any documented interest in the series unlike with KoF (Terry).

After all Sakurai (naturally) is biased towards what he's most familiar with and what the fans in Japan want, there's a reason why it took so long to get a Western third party character with Banjo.

I do think Crash and Monster Hunter are very likely. Both big hits in Japan (though with Crash its only the PS1 era ones that did huge numbers) and both very requested.

Yeah Lara is iconic and all but I feel like she's not like, an... Actually popular video game character?

This might be just me, but the first thing that comes to mind when she's mentioned is "Hollywood action", instead of "fun piece of gaming history".

If she did get added, I'd argue she'd feel more out of place than Steve himself. She is like, a big notch above Snake in terms of "realism". At least in her current form, that is.

@Eel I don't think Lara's that iconic tbh. She doesn't really have any redeeming or notable qualities aside from being the "Female Indiana Jones" as some say.

I'd also bet that some people found out about Lara from the movie, and then later found out about the game series.

@DarkRula I like that. that would work well I think. Gives players the ability to say, yes it says I can do this this way, but I think I can find another solution

@Apportal well there’s people who don’t realise that Resident Evil is a video game rather than just a rubbish bunch of movies but that has nothing to do with the HUGE impact both RE and TR have had on games.

@jump Once again, that's not what I'm saying. I didn't say TR didn't impact games, which I'm willing to admit that they did. I simply said the games aren't very popular, which they aren't. Resident Evil is albeit a MUCH more popular franchise, but the same is true for it.

@Apportal Since when did a game being popular with a very specific crowd mean it was eligible for Smash

I love franchises like Persona and Fatal Fury but I will be the first to openly say Persona was not popular at all until very recently with P5, especially around the time I was getting into the series around 2010/2011 with Persona 3 Portable and the P1/2 PSP remakes. In fact part of the popularity probably has to do with Joker's Smash inclusion in the first place.

Fatal Fury by itself also isn't nearly as popular as other series like King of Fighters or even Capcom vs. SNK. Smash isn't really a popularity competition