Could Smash 6 be a "reboot"?

[Lord_Brand]

I've been pondering the possibility of Smash 6 taking the series back to the beginning and rebuilding Smash from the ground up.

The Starting Roster

If Smash were being made for the first time today, the starting roster might look a little different from how it did back on the N64. Back then, they were using the most relevant characters at the time, primarily those who had gotten a major release on the N64: Mario (Super Mario 64), Donkey Kong (Donkey Kong 64), Link (Ocarina of Time), Kirby (Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards), Yoshi (Yoshi's Story), and Pikachu (Pokemon Stadium). Samus Aran was also on the starting roster since Super Metroid was still popular, though she herself didn't get any N64 releases.

Nowadays, half these characters aren't quite as relevant as they were back then, while others have risen to supplant them as Nintendo's big moneymakers. The two that come to mind right now are Fire Emblem and Splatoon. Fire Emblem has made an incredible climb from a niche Japan-only series to one of Nintendo's A-list franchises, standing alongside the likes of Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon today. Splatoon has proven to be a smash hit (in more ways than one), moving on to its third game in two console generations. So, it would make sense to include at least one fighter from both of those series on the new starting roster.

But, should there be any characters trimmed from the starting roster? Either moved to unlockable or removed from the game altogether (at least until DLC adds them back in)? While outright removal might sound like a bad idea, there is a benefit to starting with a reduced roster: development resources. If the developers have fewer characters to worry about in the initial stages of development, that makes development for the game as a whole a lot faster and allows the game to get onto shelves sooner while promising more to come in the form of DLC.

For sure, I think we can count on the following fighters to make base roster:

• Mario
• Donkey Kong
• Link
• Samus Aran
• Kirby
• Pikachu
• Marth
• Inkling

The Unlockables

Smash 64 had a paltry four unlockables consisting of some interesting choices: Luigi, who was beginning to bloom into his own and was due for his own spinoff soon; Ness, whose oddball SNES outing was still somewhat fresh in the minds of fans; Captain Falcon, who had seen his own N64 release in the form of F-Zero X; and Jigglypuff, who was popular in Japan (literally the only reason she made it in over the 100-odd other better Pokemon to choose from including Charizard and Mewtwo).

Safe to say, nowadays Smash would have a more robust selection of unlockable characters. At the very least, I'd include notable villains like Bowser and Ganon, along with some supporting characters like Peach and Zelda, and maybe leads for series not on the base roster like Pit, Captain Falcon, and possibly even Fox McCloud.

Third Parties?

I've no doubt that this proposed Smash 6 would include third-party fighters; they've been a staple since Brawl and most fans do not want them to go. The question is, should there be any included in the base game, either as starting fighters or as unlockables, or should they be DLC-only? I'm leaning personally towards DLC-only.

DLC

A Smash 6 that is strictly smaller than Ultimate will be in a tricky situation, to say the least. A smaller roster means less development time, but it also means fewer fighters and unhappy fans of fighters that get cut. As such, I feel DLC will be a good way to compromise, not only adding removed fighters back in but also adding new fighters with them. Only, where Ultimate's Challenger Packs added one new fighter at a time, my proposed DLC packs for Smash 6 would add, on average, four fighters to the game at a time, including fighters who were removed from the base roster but are being added back in along with some friends (and foes) of theirs. New stages, music, and even bosses are added as well.

Allow me to give some examples:

Ocarina of Time Pack

Spoiler

Fighters

• Ocarina Link
• Ocarina Zelda & Sheik
• Saria, Darunia, & Ruto (the Sages tied to the Spiritual Stones)
• Ocarina Ganondorf

Stages

• Hyrule Castle
• Lost Woods
• Death Mountain
• Gerudo Valley

Music

• Saria's Song
• Boss Battle
• Goron City
• Middle Boss Battle
• Dodongo Boss Battle
• Zora's Domain
• Song of Storms
• Gerudo Valley
• Horse Race
• Forest Temple
• Spirit Temple
• Ganondorf Battle
• Ganon Battle

Boss

• Ganon

Sonic the Hedgehog Pack

Spoiler

Fighters

• Sonic the Hedgehog
• Tails
• Knuckles the Echidna
• Dr. Eggman

Stages

• Green Hill Zone
• Angel Island
• Egg Carrier
• Station Square

Music

• Green Hill Zone
• Final Zone
• Boss Battle (Sonic 2)
• Final Battle S2
• Angel Island Zone
• Final Battle S3
• Sonic Boom
• Boss Battle (Sonic CD JPN/PAL)
• Open Your Heart
• Militant Missionary
• Live and Learn
• City Escape
• E.G.G.M.A.N.
• Suitable Opponent
• Sonic Heroes
• What I'm Made Of
• HIS WORLD
• Reach for the Stars
• Windy Hill Zone Act 1
• Fist Bump

Boss

• Death Egg Robo

Mega Man Pack

Spoiler

Fighters

• Mega Man
• Roll
• Proto Man
• Bass

Stages

• Besieged City
• Wily Castle

Music

• Mega Man 2 Theme
• Wily Castle 1
• Mega Man 3 Theme
• Intro Stage (MM7)
• Theme of Bass
• Kaze yo Tsutaete

Boss

• Wily Machine

Final Fantasy VII Pack

Spoiler

Fighters

• Cloud Strife
• Tifa Lockhart
• Aerith Gainsborough
• Sephiroth

Stages

• Midgar
• Northern Crater

Music

• Bombing Mission
• Let the Battles Begin
• Still More Fighting
• Aerith's Theme
• Crazy Motorcycle
• Cosmo Canyon
• City of the Ancients
• One Winged Angel
• Due Recompense
• The Most Muscular

What if some DLC fighters were added as "secret" fighters that you can unlock in the game? Like, each time you buy a DLC pack, you get one fighter right away and the rest are kept secret and added as additional unlockables to the game, with maybe hints as to how to unlock them. The downside is that you can't promote the new fighters with a trailer showing them all off, at least not right away.

I'd like to see more novel fighter unlock conditions like what Smash 64 and Melee had; ever since Brawl it's been pretty much just "unlock through story mode" or "unlock by fighting a certain number of battles in versus mode". And Smash 4 didn't even have that. A Smash reboot is the perfect opportunity to implement conditions like "Beat the game quickly to unlock Captain Falcon" or "Eat enough food items to unlock King Dedede".

Bosses

Naturally, I'd want bosses to return, and in light of the default roster being smaller, there should be room and time for more of them.

Customization

If we start with a smaller roster, that will make implementing customizable fighters easier. Costume pieces could be collectibles or in-game store purchases. Custom Specials could return as well.

Modes

A "Classic" mode won't be necessary here since it's a reboot, and thus a new "beginning" for the Smash series. However, there could be Arcade and Adventure Modes, with Arcade being more like Classic Modes in past games while Adventure plays a role analogous to Subspace Emissary and World of Light. All-Star, Boss Rush, and Smash Run would be welcome returns. Smash Tour could be replaced with a superior board game-style mode, perhaps one where you pick a starting fighter and race to collect the most fighters by defeating them on the board. I could also see a Strategy Smash mode inspired by series like Fire Emblem, where the fighters are units that move around the board and engage enemy units in quick battles lasting around 10 seconds. I'd like to see more flexibility for tournaments. I recall that Melee had a maximum of 128 fighters per tourney, and I'd like to be able to assign teams in tournaments as well. For example, a tournament of two-fighter teams, or even as many as four to a team.

Collectibles

Not sure if I'd want Spirits to return, or to replace them with some other collectible. I'm sure some fans would like Trophies to return, though I could also see, say, collectible Cards that combine the functionality of Spirits with the flavor of Trophies.

Gameplay

In the past, I've been a proponent of exploring more Shield Specials as well as the concept of an Action Button. Smash 6 could be a good place to explore those concepts, especially if the base roster is smaller and thus easier to test and balance.

What are your thoughts?

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Okay, bringing back some old modes and characters, add some new ones, taking away others, maybe adding a visual customization element to characters. What's the 'reboot' here? Come to think of it, what even is a reboot in the context of a fighting game? I've never seen or heard of one. Most fighting games don't have a coherent narrative game to game, and Smash is no exception. Mortal Kombat 9 was called a "reboot" at the time since it reset the narrative and dropped the number from the title. However, in a series that regularly deals with time/dimensional travel and brings back dead characters, it's not a consequential shift and they even picked up the old numbering scheme with the very next game. When people say Smash Reboot, I assume they're suggesting it ought to be a 3D fighting game, or maybe not a fighting game at all. Like rebooting Smash into a kart racer, or Mario party like game. Small mechanical tweaks can change up the gameplay, sure, but every fighting game sequel has those. 

[Etrurian emperor]

Yes. They can't get more ultimate then ultimate so I think this is the last ''original style'' Smash game we'll see. Sakurai even hinted he won't be able to bring everyone back next time around several times. 

[Florete]

No. "Everyone is here" happened specifically because of how important the roster is to Smash. It's no accident that the DLC is heavily character focused. People often bring this idea up because Sakurai said Ultimate could have been a reboot, but it wasn't, and it wasn't for good reason. There's really no benefit to rebooting Smash; you lose the appeal of the giant roster, if you alter the gameplay you risk it just being a worse version of what is basically a perfect formula, and what do you get for it? The people who want a smaller roster for the sake of it are the minority. It would be more beneficial if Smash 6 was just a direct port of Ultimate with more content added on (and fixed online), even if some 3rd party characters had to be removed.

4 hours ago, Lord_Brand said:

Safe to say, nowadays Smash would have a more robust selection of unlockable characters.

Unlockables are a dated concept that shouldn't exist at all anymore in a game like Smash. It was fun in the 64/Melee days when internet usage was uncommon and you could actually be surprised at what you were finding, but that doesn't work anymore.

[King Marth 64]

I still don't think the next installment after Super Smash Bros. Ultimate would lead into a Reboot since Ultimate is heavily focuses on getting every veteran fighters in the game. I still think the next installment would have get more next gen console debut characters similar to like Byleth, Min Min, Pyra, and Mythra were the Nintendo Switch Debut fighters in Ultimate along with more requested characters that didn't appear in Ultimate.

Edited June 14, 2021 by King Marth 64

[vanguard333]

Yeah; the next game is almost-certainly going to be a reboot (though I think the more accurate term in the case of something like a fighting game would be "relaunch" rather than "reboot"). You can't go past "Ultimate" after all, so the next thing for continuing the series would be to re-evaluate, re-organize and rework the series almost from the ground up. 

This would also give them full freedom with both the roster and the characters' abilities. For example, the old explanation for why Ganondorf has kept being a semi-clone of Captain Falcon has been that that's basically the expectation; that they can't change him too much without upsetting those who actually use him. With a reboot, however, they could rebuild Ganondorf's moveset from the ground up and the context of a relaunch would be enough cover to avoid criticisms along the lines of, "They changed it; now it sucks".

It would also make work easier for Sakurai and the team. Contrary to popular belief, just adding more characters to the roster actually takes more work, since each new character multiplies the amount of work (as said character then has to be tweaked and balanced in the context of the rest of the roster, has to be given their own version of classic mode, etc.) instead of adding to the amount of work. Sakurai even said as much in an interview about Smash Bros. 4. Since we're currently looking at a roster of over 80 fighters by the time all the DLC for Ultimate is done, going back to the foundations of the roster and rebuilding from the ground up would probably be easier and less time-consuming than trying to just add more characters to the roster at this point.

Extending from both of these is the issue of the abundant echo fighters & semi-clones in Smash Bros. I learned recently that these were never originally supposed to be a thing in Smash Bros.; they were a product of the rush that Melee went through. But now they've become a huge part of the series and have presented multiple dilemmas for both the fans and the dev team. Now, they could be cut out or completely reworked to no longer have derivative movesets without too much complaint.

 

11 hours ago, Lord_Brand said:

Collectibles

Not sure if I'd want Spirits to return, or to replace them with some other collectible. I'm sure some fans would like Trophies to return, though I could also see, say, collectible Cards that combine the functionality of Spirits with the flavor of Trophies.

I'm not sure either. For me, trophies were great not because of "flavour" but because of their function as both rewards and as something of a digital museum. Thanks to trophies, I found out about so many games and franchises that I previously didn't know existed, with Fire Emblem being one of them. Apparently, trophies were replaced with spirits because trophies were too much work for the devs; fair enough, but spirits don't have that "digital museum" aspect; they don't actually tell you what game or franchise a character is from or anything about that character. I like the Cards idea, as having the function of spirits while actually having the character's game, franchise, and info would be a good combination.

[lenticular]

It's inevitable that at some point Smash will need to start cutting back on its roster. Having it always grow from game to game just isn't sustainable, and at some point there absolutely will come a point where they have to say that enough is enough. Whether that's in the next game in the series or several games down the line, I don't know. And I don't have a problem with that. There are plenty of characters that could easily be cut without losing too much from the game. Yeah, there'll always be a few hardcore fans who will be sad about any removal, but I can't exactly see a deluge of angry letters arriving at Nintendo offices if they cut -- for instance -- Roy or ROB, Pichu or Palutena.

The one thing that they have to do, though, is justify the removals by also adding something else at the same time. If it's just "here's a cut-down version of what went before that is objectively worse than the game you already own; please give us $60 now and then more money over time as we drip-feed in DLC which sells back to you what the previous game already had" then that'll be a hard pass from me. They'd probably make truckloads of cash if they did, but the longterm cost in terms of reputation and brand value would be too great. Given that this is Smash, the new stuff would probably be new characters (removing 20 less popular characters but adding 10 new ones, for instance) but it could be anything, really. There just has to be some hook that people are excited by and not only cuts.

8 hours ago, Florete said:

Unlockables are a dated concept that shouldn't exist at all anymore in a game like Smash. It was fun in the 64/Melee days when internet usage was uncommon and you could actually be surprised at what you were finding, but that doesn't work anymore.

Agree with this. It was already on shaky ground by Melee, honestly. I remember looking up the unlocks online for Melee, and leaving my Gamecube on overnight to satisfy a "number of hours played" requirement for one of them. I think it was Mewtwo, but I might be misremembering. It didn't really add anything to the game even then. If there are going to be unlockables, then they shouldn't be for something so important as characters. Most people are just going to look up how to unlock their favourite character if they aren't available from the start. If the developers want to include unlockable easter eggs again, it should be for smaller stuff like music tracks or trophies, stuff that will still be nice to find but that people aren't going to just immediately look up.

13 hours ago, Lord_Brand said:

Fire Emblem has made an incredible climb from a niche Japan-only series to one of Nintendo's A-list franchises, standing alongside the likes of Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon today.

Fire Emblem isn't remotely on the same level as Mario, Zelda or Pokémon. Not in terms of sales figures, fan-base, overall cultural recognition, anything. It's much bigger now than it was when the original Super Smash Bros came out on N64, but that isn't saying much. At best, it's now in the tier of franchises that sit a rung or two down the ladder like Kirby, Donkey Kong and Metroid. Still a pretty good place for it to be, but far from the top. If you're looking for a new behemoth IP that didn't exist at the time of the original Super Smash Bros, then look to Animal Crossing which is legitimately huge in a way that Fire Emblem can only dream of being.

[King Marth 64]

3 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

You can't go past "Ultimate" after all, so the next thing for continuing the series would be to re-evaluate, re-organize and rework the series almost from the ground up.

Wouldn't the next installment's title after Ultimate is possibly going to be "Super Smash Bros. Beyond" or "Super Smash Bros. Penultimate" to make it more sense? I know that Sakurai did put all the veterans back in Ultimate to keep every fans who liked the cut characters return to the franchise back due to the Fighter Ballot had alot of requested veterans to return.

Edited June 14, 2021 by King Marth 64

[vanguard333]

2 hours ago, King Marth 64 said:

Wouldn't the next installment's title after Ultimate is possibly going to be "Super Smash Bros. Beyond" or "Super Smash Bros. Penultimate" to make it more sense? I know that Sakurai did put all the veterans back in Ultimate to keep every fans who liked the cut characters return to the franchise back due to the Fighter Ballot had alot of requested veterans to return.

I wasn't really talking about the title or naming; I just meant that you can't really market something on being the biggest and most ambitious installment in the series yet, and then market the next thing as being that but bigger and more ambitious; it kind-of undercuts things.

It's kind-of like how a lot of movie sequels and such go, "You thought that villain was threatening? This villain is that, but even more threatening than the old villain!" and it doesn't work because it's less interesting than a new villain that's threatening on their own terms and it undercuts the previous villain, which naturally audiences aren't going to like if they liked that villain.

 

By the way, what did you think of the rest of what I said?

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, King Marth 64 said:

Wouldn't the next installment's title after Ultimate is possibly going to be "Super Smash Bros. Beyond" or "Super Smash Bros. Penultimate" to make it more sense?

I was thinking "Super Smash Smash Bros Ne Plus Ultra", which translates out of Latin as "Nothing Beyond This". The "Ult" shared by both titles would make for continuity.

Penultimate would make no sense, since it means "second to last". It'd be going in the wrong direction.

 

---

Speaking seriously, Smash could probably afford to reboot itself. Clear the slate and start anew, the bigger it gets, the more burdensome the beast. I'm open to a reset.

And yet, Smash isn't like Samurai Warriors, which is in the process of attempting a reboot -whether it actually works will be seen this summer.  Smash is actually popular, unlike Musou, and because it is popular, there will be many devoted fans who will fly into death-threats rage if their favored characters get snipped out.

 

I'm thinking a Smash spinoff could be a partial solution- create a petri dish to where you can experiment with some new ideas you might want to consider for reconstructing mainline Smash. But Smash is a herculean task and spinoffs don't seem plausible with it, even if the spinoff shrinks the roster down to purely Nintendo characters to cut back on licensing fees.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

There is no way to "reboot" Smash Bros. unless they actually change the style of fighting itself, otherwise it's just Smash Bros. with a different and/or smaller roster. That said, there is absolutely no way in heck that they'll reduce the base roster to anything below the size of Melee's complete cast. Not a chance, no way, no how. I can see them reducing the roster size for Smash 6, simply because it'll be hard to maintain all of those third-parties, but it won't be a "reboot" (even if they call it that, it isn't, unless the fundamentals of gameplay in the franchise itself are changed) and it won't have a 64-sized base roster.

The base roster would likely look at least like this in terms of size:

• Mario
  • Dr. Mario
• Luigi
• Peach
  • Daisy
• Bowser
• Yoshi
• Wario
• Donkey Kong
• King K. Rool
• Link
• Zelda
• Ganondorf
• Samus
  • Dark Samus
• Ridley
• Kirby
• King Dedede
• Meta Knight
• Marth
  • Lucina
• Ike
• Robin
• Byleth
• Fox McCloud
• Pikachu
• Mewtwo
• Pokemon Trainer
• Incineroar
• Ness
• Captain Falcon
• Pit
  • Dark Pit
• Palutena
• Olimar
• Inkling
• Villager
• Isabelle
• Little Mac
• Ice Climbers
• Shulk
• Pyra/Mythra

And that's without third-party characters and without any new characters they might introduce. Some cuts, that's feasible and, honestly, could be likely, but it won't be anything SUPER drastic.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Fire Emblem Fan

[Lord_Brand]

9 hours ago, lenticular said:

Agree with this. It was already on shaky ground by Melee, honestly. I remember looking up the unlocks online for Melee, and leaving my Gamecube on overnight to satisfy a "number of hours played" requirement for one of them. I think it was Mewtwo, but I might be misremembering. It didn't really add anything to the game even then. If there are going to be unlockables, then they shouldn't be for something so important as characters. Most people are just going to look up how to unlock their favourite character if they aren't available from the start. If the developers want to include unlockable easter eggs again, it should be for smaller stuff like music tracks or trophies, stuff that will still be nice to find but that people aren't going to just immediately look up.

And then there are folks like me who actually still enjoy unlocking new characters, even if I do have to look it up. I hated how Smash 4 just gave us everyone from the get-go.

9 hours ago, lenticular said:

Fire Emblem isn't remotely on the same level as Mario, Zelda or Pokémon. Not in terms of sales figures, fan-base, overall cultural recognition, anything. It's much bigger now than it was when the original Super Smash Bros came out on N64, but that isn't saying much. At best, it's now in the tier of franchises that sit a rung or two down the ladder like Kirby, Donkey Kong and Metroid. Still a pretty good place for it to be, but far from the top. If you're looking for a new behemoth IP that didn't exist at the time of the original Super Smash Bros, then look to Animal Crossing which is legitimately huge in a way that Fire Emblem can only dream of being.

It just got its own smartphone game, a Warriors crossover, a SMT crossover, priority rep selection in Super Smash Bros., and in time I wouldn't be surprised if they started making action figures and other merch. It's definitely ahead of Metroid at this point.

No denying that Mario and Pokemon are still far and away Nintendo's top two franchises in terms of merch and promotion; I'd go so far as to call them their two S-List franchises. And yes, Animal Crossing is undeniably a behemoth now too looking at the sales figures of New Horizons alone (over 30m copies). Splatoon has also proven quite a success at over 12m sales just for its sequel alone, and with a third entry on the way in the same console generation.

But after the success of Awakening, Fates, and Three Houses, I think it's safe to say that Fire Emblem has become one of Nintendo's safe series, too. We know there will be another Fire Emblem in the future, at least one for every console Nintendo produces from here on out, just like we know there will be another Zelda. By the time Fire Emblem first hit our shores, the series already had more installments than Star Fox, F-Zero, and Metroid put together, so evidently it did well enough in its home country. It struggled to find its footing here at first with Blazing Blade, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, and Radiant Dawn, and was even in danger of being discontinued altogether due to flagging sales, but once Awakening hit, everything changed.

Fire Emblem is a success now, enough that Nintendo's going to start incorporating it into their line of regular releases alongside Mario and Pokemon. Just watch as over time it starts catching up to Zelda and quite possibly surpasses it in sales since Zelda is a quality-over-quantity series while Fire Emblem seems to be headed in the quantity direction like Mario and especially Pokemon. It may still need time to catch up with series that have enjoyed similar success for over two decades longer, but mark my words, it will catch up.

Quite honestly, Donkey Kong is nowhere near Mario's level in terms of sales nowadays. How many new DK games have we had in the last ten years? I count Returns and Tropical Freeze. Fire Emblem? Awakening, Fates, TMS#FE, Echoes, Heroes, Warriors, and Three Houses. Where DK had to settle for a rerelease of a rather fine Wii U title for Switch, FE got two brand new games for the system. DK is in the same tier as Metroid and Star Fox, in that it's become one of those interesting little B-List series that gets a new game now and then, but you don't know for sure if it will get a new game in the next few years, certainly not a new core entry. During the GCN and Wii days, the highest-profile releases DK had were Jungle Beat, Konga, and Barrel Blast. Meanwhile FE was already blazing trails with Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. Metroid's been trying to get Prime 4 going since the Wii U launched, and its last entry thus far, Samus Returns, sold rather poorly due to being on the 3DS. Where FE is rising, Metroid has been falling since Other M, and if Prime 4 doesn't revitalize that series soon, Samus Aran may just end up retiring altogether.

If Fire Emblem qualifies as B-List, then that B-List also includes Kirby and maybe Donkey Kong, in which case Star Fox and Metroid are now on C-List, along with F-Zero, Kid Icarus, and EarthBound.

If a Smash "reboot" or "relaunch" does happen, Fire Emblem will be part of it, and it will be a higher-priority franchise than many others in Nintendo's lineup. Quite fitting too, since Fire Emblem owes a huge part of its success to Smash.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Lord_Brand

[lenticular]

25 minutes ago, Lord_Brand said:

Quite honestly, Donkey Kong is nowhere near Mario's level in terms of sales nowadays. How many new DK games have we had in the last ten years? I count Returns and Tropical Freeze. Fire Emblem? Awakening, Fates, TMS#FE, Echoes, Heroes, Warriors, and Three Houses. Where DK had to settle for a rerelease of a rather fine Wii U title for Switch, FE got two brand new games for the system. DK is in the same tier as Metroid and Star Fox, in that it's become one of those interesting little B-List series that gets a new game now and then, but you don't know for sure if it will get a new game in the next few years, certainly not a new core entry. During the GCN and Wii days, the highest-profile releases DK had were Jungle Beat, Konga, and Barrel Blast. Meanwhile FE was already blazing trails with Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. Metroid's been trying to get Prime 4 going since the Wii U launched, and its last entry thus far, Samus Returns, sold rather poorly due to being on the 3DS. Where FE is rising, Metroid has been falling since Other M, and if Prime 4 doesn't revitalize that series soon, Samus Aran may just end up retiring altogether.

If Fire Emblem qualifies as B-List, then that B-List also includes Kirby and maybe Donkey Kong, in which case Star Fox and Metroid are now on C-List, along with F-Zero, Kid Icarus, and EarthBound.

Let's compare sales figures a moment. Going off sales figures from Wikipedia (Switch list, 3DS list), with caveats about how they may be out of date, etc. but taking them as rough estimates, for the Switch we have Star Allies at 2.93 million, Three Houses at 2.87 million and Tropical Freeze at 2.65 million (only counting Switch sales; it also sold about 2 million on Wii U). All of them are pretty comparable, and all of them are behind games like Mario Tennis Aces, Clubhouse Games, and 1-2-Switch. On the 3DS, FE Fates has 3.00 million, DKC Returns 3D has 2.87 million, and Kirby: Triple Deluxe has 2.61 million. Again, they're all pretty comparable. And they're all extremely solid numbers that are plenty high enough to make sure the sequels keep coming. But none of them are setting the world alight. They're not exactly Breath of the Wild or New Horizons, are they?

Metroid is in a bit of a weird situation because of the lengthy delays to Metroid Prime 4 and it could easily go two ways now. If all of the delays have been to make sure that they release an excellent game then it has the potential to sell really well and launch the franchise up to the next level. On the other hand, if it gets caught in still further development hell, takes forever and isn't very good when it finally does come out, it could effectively kill the series. Time will tell.

58 minutes ago, Lord_Brand said:

Fire Emblem is a success now, enough that Nintendo's going to start incorporating it into their line of regular releases alongside Mario and Pokemon. Just watch as over time it starts catching up to Zelda and quite possibly surpasses it in sales since Zelda is a quality-over-quantity series while Fire Emblem seems to be headed in the quantity direction like Mario and especially Pokemon. It may still need time to catch up with series that have enjoyed similar success for over two decades longer, but mark my words, it will catch up.

I just don't see that happening. Even if you add together the sales from Three Houses, FE Warriors and TMS, all of them together are less than a quarter of the sales of Breath of the Wild. And I don't agree with your assessment that Zelda is a quality over quantity series. Just for the Switch, it already has Breath of the Wild, Link's Awakening, Hyrule Warriors, Age of Calamity, and Cadence of Hyrule. There's also Skyward Sword coming out next month and the sequel to Breath of the Wild looming on the horizon. I would also say that Zelda is a much more popular genre than Fire Emblem. No matter how good Fire Emblem gets, the market for tactical RPGs just isn't as big as the market for action adventure games.

[Etrurian emperor]

7 hours ago, Lord_Brand said:

Quite honestly, Donkey Kong is nowhere near Mario's level in terms of sales nowadays. How many new DK games have we had in the last ten years? I count Returns and Tropical Freeze. Fire Emblem? Awakening, Fates, TMS#FE, Echoes, Heroes, Warriors, and Three Houses. Where DK had to settle for a rerelease of a rather fine Wii U title for Switch, FE got two brand new games for the system. DK is in the same tier as Metroid and Star Fox, in that it's become one of those interesting little B-List series that gets a new game now and then, but you don't know for sure if it will get a new game in the next few years, certainly not a new core entry. During the GCN and Wii days, the highest-profile releases DK had were Jungle Beat, Konga, and Barrel Blast. Meanwhile FE was already blazing trails with Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. Metroid's been trying to get Prime 4 going since the Wii U launched, and its last entry thus far, Samus Returns, sold rather poorly due to being on the 3DS. Where FE is rising, Metroid has been falling since Other M, and if Prime 4 doesn't revitalize that series soon, Samus Aran may just end up retiring altogether.

If Fire Emblem qualifies as B-List, then that B-List also includes Kirby and maybe Donkey Kong, in which case Star Fox and Metroid are now on C-List, along with F-Zero, Kid Icarus, and EarthBound.

Donkey Kong is definitely a very curious franchise. Its never quite out of Nintendo's mind but there are also very long stretches of time where Nintendo just doesn't want to do anything with it. Like Metroid Donkey Kong occasionally disappears for a generation before showing up again. Its not as bad as Metroid but I think its safe to say Donkey Kong isn't very esteemed by Nintendo and that Fire Emblem has long surpassed it in that regard. 

-Mario, Zelda and Pokemon are of course the big three. I don't think any Nintendo fan will ever have to worry about those franchises. 
-Below that comes Kirby , Splatoon and I think we can put Fire Emblem into Nintendo's ''B tier'' category as well. They won't ever get the same sort of love as the big three but their fans can feel very secure about these series. Oh, how Fire Emblem has grown.
-Donkey Kong and Metroid are on the C tier. Nintendo might have some ideas and they don't actively try keeping these series down but they also don't get much esteem from Nintendo. 
-Star Fox and F Zero are effectively dead franchises for the time being. And I'm sad to say that Kid Icarus is on that list too. Though I'd give Kid Icarus a higher shot than either F Zero or Star Fox. 

[Lord_Brand]

5 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Donkey Kong is definitely a very curious franchise. Its never quite out of Nintendo's mind but there are also very long stretches of time where Nintendo just doesn't want to do anything with it. Like Metroid Donkey Kong occasionally disappears for a generation before showing up again. Its not as bad as Metroid but I think its safe to say Donkey Kong isn't very esteemed by Nintendo and that Fire Emblem has long surpassed it in that regard. 

-Mario, Zelda and Pokemon are of course the big three. I don't think any Nintendo fan will ever have to worry about those franchises. 
-Below that comes Kirby , Splatoon and I think we can put Fire Emblem into Nintendo's ''B tier'' category as well. They won't ever get the same sort of love as the big three but their fans can feel very secure about these series. Oh, how Fire Emblem has grown.
-Donkey Kong and Metroid are on the C tier. Nintendo might have some ideas and they don't actively try keeping these series down but they also don't get much esteem from Nintendo. 
-Star Fox and F Zero are effectively dead franchises for the time being. And I'm sad to say that Kid Icarus is on that list too. Though I'd give Kid Icarus a higher shot than either F Zero or Star Fox. 

Considering Star Fox got a new game only a few years ago and got a notable crossover with Starlink as well, I would beg to disagree on that one. Especially on giving Kid Icarus a higher shot than Star Fox.

But it looks like Metroid Dread will pull the Metroid series out of its rut.

[Etrurian emperor]

10 minutes ago, Lord_Brand said:

Considering Star Fox got a new game only a few years ago and got a notable crossover with Starlink as well, I would beg to disagree on that one. Especially on giving Kid Icarus a higher shot than Star Fox.

Yeah but that was the first game Star Fox got in ages and it was widely deemed to have failed. Starlink was indeed a nice break for the series though.

[Lord_Brand]

4 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Yeah but that was the first game Star Fox got in ages and it was widely deemed to have failed. Starlink was indeed a nice break for the series though.

Still doing better than Kid Icarus. Though considering today's E3 changed my mind about Metroid, maybe they'll reveal a new Kid Icarus game one of these days as well. And hey, crazy idea, maybe they'll reveal a new, exciting Star Fox as well?

[lenticular]

5 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

-Star Fox and F Zero are effectively dead franchises for the time being. And I'm sad to say that Kid Icarus is on that list too. Though I'd give Kid Icarus a higher shot than either F Zero or Star Fox. 

Star Fox and F-Zero both have the same problem. They were both initially conceived as little more than tech demos (for Mode 7 and the Super FX coprocessor respectively). Once the tech moved on and they stopped being visually impressive, there just wasn't that much left for either series. Star Fox has just taken longer to die.

[Interdimensional Observer]

8 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Star Fox and F-Zero both have the same problem. They were both initially conceived as little more than tech demos (for Mode 7 and the Super FX coprocessor respectively). Once the tech moved on and they stopped being visually impressive, there just wasn't that much left for either series. Star Fox has just taken longer to die.

F-Zero has a niche as a highly technical, challenging racing game. -But the problem is Nintendo caters to a wide audience, which Mario Kart does but F-Zero does not. The Big N investing major graphical and processing resources into a hardcore-only racer is lopsidedly unlikely. They could add an easy mode and maybe try to load up on characterization events for the big, wacky, yet underdeveloped F-Zero cast, thereby adding a non-gameplay appeal, but why would they?

Nintendo needs to find a co-developer willing to put in the heavy amounts of elbow grease and love necessary to make F-Zero shine again -but they won't.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Interdimensional Observer

[Lord_Brand]

On 6/15/2021 at 10:19 AM, lenticular said:

Star Fox and F-Zero both have the same problem. They were both initially conceived as little more than tech demos (for Mode 7 and the Super FX coprocessor respectively). Once the tech moved on and they stopped being visually impressive, there just wasn't that much left for either series. Star Fox has just taken longer to die.

That's why I think they could use some new identities, Star Fox in particular. I think they could adopt a Star Wars-esque "gritty sci-fi adventure" feel where you travel to different planets and fight criminals for cash. Spaceship combat can still be part of that, but it no longer needs to be all there is to it. Say what you will about Star Fox Adventures, but at least it tried something different.

Spoiler

Myself, I thought of a story set back in time called Star Fox Origins that would focus on James McCloud and show how Star Fox came to be. I would also offer a possible alternate origin story for Krystal, that she and Fox would meet in Corneria Flight Academy. Cerinia would be destroyed during Krystal's stay on Corneria, leaving Krystal without a home and possibly her family. After suffering a bout of crippling shock and depression, which Fox does his best to help her get through, she recovers and rallies her fellow Cerinian refugees to join the Cornerian Fleet with her and fight to protect their new homes and loved ones. Thus, she'd become an ally like Bill and Katt, battling Andross' forces alongside Star Fox. Once Andross is defeated, Krystal and Fox prepare to settle down on Corneria only to be called to a remote planet by a Cerinian distress signal...

 

On 6/14/2021 at 9:17 PM, Fire Emblem Fan said:

There is no way to "reboot" Smash Bros. unless they actually change the style of fighting itself, otherwise it's just Smash Bros. with a different and/or smaller roster. That said, there is absolutely no way in heck that they'll reduce the base roster to anything below the size of Melee's complete cast. Not a chance, no way, no how. I can see them reducing the roster size for Smash 6, simply because it'll be hard to maintain all of those third-parties, but it won't be a "reboot" (even if they call it that, it isn't, unless the fundamentals of gameplay in the franchise itself are changed) and it won't have a 64-sized base roster.

Unless it lets them get the game out sooner, and then they can add on to the game over time with DLC. Each DLC pack can be a mix of old and new fighters.

Edited June 21, 2021 by Lord_Brand

[Fire Emblem Fan]

On 6/15/2021 at 3:19 PM, Lord_Brand said:

Unless it lets them get the game out sooner, and then they can add on to the game over time with DLC. Each DLC pack can be a mix of old and new fighters.

Not happening. You see how long we've gone without getting any actual Metroid Prime 4 news? Breath of the Wild went how long before we got a first look? They're not rushing Smash like that. No "unless" about it, it's just not happening.

[AnonymousSpeed]

I might actually buy the next game if it goes that direction. Smash really should have cut its roster size by at least half. That's the sort of problem with the series, though- the main thing people seem to care about is "having" the character in the game. It's a franchise more about the all-star flavor than anything else.

[Lord_Brand]

On 6/29/2021 at 5:57 PM, AnonymousSpeed said:

I might actually buy the next game if it goes that direction. Smash really should have cut its roster size by at least half. That's the sort of problem with the series, though- the main thing people seem to care about is "having" the character in the game. It's a franchise more about the all-star flavor than anything else.

Which fighters do you feel should have been cut?

[AnonymousSpeed]

Just now, Lord_Brand said:

Which fighters do you feel should have been cut?

Well, I think the better approach would be to go the opposite directly, what elect few are kept? Whichever ones contribute something immediately unique. Consider how the first game, with its mere 12 character roster, gave us DK with his cargo throw and Kirby with his copy abilities. You don't see as much differentiated add in the later games- 4 and Ultimate have added some other mechanics, but they are mostly gauges at the bottom of the screen.

Definitely don't cut Ganondorf in fact make the Warlock Punch deal 100% damage and hit half the screen.

[Lord_Brand]

On 7/1/2021 at 11:32 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:

Well, I think the better approach would be to go the opposite directly, what elect few are kept? Whichever ones contribute something immediately unique. Consider how the first game, with its mere 12 character roster, gave us DK with his cargo throw and Kirby with his copy abilities. You don't see as much differentiated add in the later games- 4 and Ultimate have added some other mechanics, but they are mostly gauges at the bottom of the screen.

Who would you pick?