Solly

I think what people are saying is that his new Final Smash could functionally similar to his old one. Removal of the silhouettes or a change in animation would fall under the blanket of a cosmetic change. It's certainly possible, given that we know actual transformation Final Smashes (Wario Man, Super Sonic) are being replaced. Whether or not that's the case remains to be seen.

Came here to post this and to also say that this means the music theory is outright dead. :V Sakurai mentioned that Fire Emblem would be getting quite a few tracks this time around. I hope we see some remixes from Ike's games. The Tellius duology has some amazing music.

Gonna be honest and say that I hadn't been putting a lot of stock into the music theory these past few months, since it could wind up debunked on any random weekday, but it's one of those rumors that has survived long enough to be at least worth considering. It precludes a Pokemon newcomer, which is interesting. Even ignoring the fact that Incineroar has been heavily-rumored, I'd reckon most people have been expecting a new fighter from that franchise.

I'm taking that as a "no" to my initial question, then. It's one thing to expect a surprise, but it's another to baselessly tell people to "count on" a character appearing. Doesn't it make more sense to keep expectations in-check rather than set yourself up for potential disappointment? You missed my point. I'm saying that there was, in all likelihood, literally not enough time for the Mario & Rabbids sales to be a factor. That game came out late last year, while the roster was probably finalized in late 2015-early 2016, based on what Sakurai has stated about the design document. Granted, this isn't infallible as there have been exceptions to this sort of "rule" (if you want to call it that) in the past, but there's a reason you aren't seeing a lot of people currently predicting ARMS or Xenoblade 2 characters, as nice as they would be.

It seems doubtful that the Mario & Rabbids Kingdom Battle sales would factor into Rayman's inclusion, given that the roster was decided quite some time before that game even came out. Rayman would be neat, but you sound strangely confident in this. Is there really any concrete reason to expect him?

On Ken's shading: yes, it's a little odd. I don't think that means it's fake, though-- not in the face of everything else. As for the fourth character status image being pushed to the side... I assume you mean Ken's icon? It's (somewhat conveniently) transparent because Pacman's in the way, but comparing the distance between the health percentage reveals that they aren't really spaced out. Those lines are all the same length, give or take a few pixels, and they get slightly shorter going from left to right, which is consistent with the viewing angle of the monitor. There are two things creating the illusion that they're spaced out, though. One is the fact that, as mentioned, Ken's portrait is translucent. The other is all of the debug menu junk on the screen that's in front of Pacman and Pichu's portraits making things hard to judge. And this is just my two cents, but if this were a fake, making a simple spacing error like this doesn't make a whole lot of sense when any image editing software would let you see the exact pixel count when lining up the portraits. As for Pichu's ear being cut off... That's another thing I think is a point in the leak's favor because it means that the Pichu image couldn't have been lifted from any E3 footage. Furthermore, it couldn't have been made using his official art from the site, because that art is just slightly different (note the mouth). Honestly, the comparison image with Ryu only has me more convinced that this is real. In both images, you can see that Pacman (as well as Ryu and Ken's feet) doesn't cast a shadow on the piece of metal paneling he's standing on (which I brought up in a previous post). If this were a fake image, why would the creator know about that? Why would he go through the trouble of making a version of the stage that doesn't have ink on it? How did he get an image of the stage and characters at this particular angle? None of the evidence against the leak has me convinced. I guess we'll see in due time.

If this was somehow faked, I'm not even gonna be mad. Just impressed.

So a character seems to have been leaked (spoilers?). You probably already know about this if you've been following any other gaming forum today, besides this one. https://nintendowire.com/news/2018/09/21/rumor-a-new-smash-character-may-have-been-leaked-spoilers/ Dunno if this warrants spoiler tags or not. People have been debating its legitimacy all day, but I'm personally 100% convinced that it's real.

DQ11 is on 3DS in Japan, and coming to Switch both there and the west. Not gonna comment on what I think is more likely, just pointing that out.

FF7's music situation is unfortunate, but there's probably a lot more to it than meets the eye. It's not a matter of Square not wanting to play ball; the rights to game soundtracks, sometimes even individual songs from games, can belong to multiple different parties. Getting the rights to more songs may not have been feasible. You're definitely not alone! Give us Erdrick/Loto or some other Dragon Quest hero. Dragon Quest is far and away one of the most significant franchises not represented in Smash-- and easily Square's biggest. It's the grandfather of the JRPG genre, and its influence can be seen in everything from Final Fantasy to Pokemon. Hell, the Mother franchise is a spoof of DQ specifically. Only concern is just how much legal red tape there is surrounding DQ, even if it's crossed over with Nintendo before.

Agreed. We don't know anything for certain, but it is very odd that Sakurai would be so vague and indefinite about the number of remaining characters, but so specific about the number of stages. 103 was the number given in the Famitsu article as well. Not only is CoroCoro the only source suggesting that there are 108 stages, that's the only piece of information in their article that could be considered "new." Everything else was covered in the 8/8 Direct. It really could be wrong, as disappointing as that may sound.

Looks like we may not seen every stage after all? If this is true, there's another 5 stages TBA. Are you all ready for the return of POKEFLOATS?

You're not alone. I'm excited she made it in, and surprised to see so much negativity, but it wouldn't be Smash discussion without salt, I guess. And I'm glad she's not an echo fighter. Plus her being a fighter means this is possible now.

Sonic getting two stages is nice, but Green Hill and Windy Hill are so thematically similar that it's a little redundant. I'm also not a huge fan of how GHZ plays, but walk-offs in general aren't really my cup of tea. If Sonic were to get a third stage through DLC or something, I'd love to see one based on a different locale. Casino Night Zone would be the obvious choice for me. Hazards could include flippers and bumpers, as well as those little multi-colored "safety net" platforms that bounce you back up when you're about to fall off the board. Casinos are also a recurring theme throughout the series, and therefore appropriately Sonic-y.