Could Smash 6 be a "reboot"?

[AnonymousSpeed]

21 hours ago, Lord_Brand said:

Who would you pick?

I don't know, depends on what resources there were and how development turned out. What you'd probably want to do is come up with gameplay roles first and then find characters to fill them, although simultaneously you'd want to look through a lot of characters (both new and returning) and consider what gameplay roles they could fill for inspiration. In the abstract though, I'd definitely like to include the following:

Spoiler

1. Donkey Kong, for the cargo throw. It's my understanding that DK actually has a fairly interesting layout where he's big and strong, but actually kind of fast, which is quite spicy.
2. Yoshi, for the weird shield and double jump.
3. Marth, for the tipper.
4. Captain Falcon, for the hype.
5. Ganondorf, for the ultimate hype.
6. Mega Man, for a character heavily focused on projectiles. I get that focusing on projectiles in a fighting game is, perhaps, extremely lame, but it might as well be an option. Having written this, I now realize a great number of characters in Smash Brothers have projectiles, which makes me a little sad.
7. Little Mac, partly for rushdown, but also because he's explicitly focused on the ground and not aerials. He'd need rebalancing but the core concept is cool.
8. Waluigi, explicitly for the purpose of spiting people.

Now, some might take issue with this. They might say, "Anon! You said you would only incorporate characters which add something new! Why do you have Captain Falcon and Ganondorf then?" This is a fair point, but I would counter by saying that Captain Falcon is so hype that I want two of him anyway, and Ganondorf is even slightly more hype because he's bad and can kill you at 12%. So that's my decision there.

[Lord_Brand]

Since this proposed game would be a "reboot" of sorts, I'd use the opportunity to rework Ganondorf's moveset so he becomes more weapon-focused and uses more of his magical abilities.

I'm not against including different versions of Link, Zelda, and Ganon either as base roster or as DLC. The "standard" Link and Zelda would be a combination of their NES, SNES, GB, GBA, and 3DS incarnations. The "standard" Ganon would be the pig man with the trident. Then you'd have Young Link, Ocarina Link, Sheik/Ocarina Zelda, and Ganondorf, representing the N64 games. Toon Link and Tetra/Toon Zelda represent TWW, FS, FSA, TMC, PH, and ST. Twilight Link/Wolf Link & Midna, Twilight Zelda, and Twilight Ganondorf would obviously represent Twilight Princess. Skyward Link and Skyward Zelda would represent Skyward Sword. And finally you'd have Champion Link and Champion Zelda representing BotW. That adds up to seven Links, six Zeldas, and three Ganons. Whew! Of these, I'd probably make the Twilight and Skyward versions DLC.

Given the opportunity, I'd put even more Zelda fighters into the game than that. Darunia would be a fun choice with the Megaton Hammer as his primary weapon. Ruto would be a water fighter in a series that's quite thirsty with only Squirtle and Greninja as dedicated water fighters. Zant and Ghirahim would be good villains to represent their respective games. The Four Champions would be interesting choices as well, using their Champion spells as one of their specials and maybe borrowing some material from their Age of Calamity movesets.

I realize that's a lot of fighters for one series, but dagnabbit, the Zelda series has some great fighter candidates and it's one of Nintendo's most significant franchises to boot. If you could only pick a handful of these, then I'd probably choose the "Classic", Toon, and Champion variants, as the first two cover the vast majority of the games in the series, "Classic" could be combined with the Ocarina, Twilight, and Skyward incarnations if necessary, and the Champion versions represent the most current entries in the franchise.

Of course, you could always include a custom fighter system that lets you mix-and-match costumes and moves, rendering the last three paragraphs moot.