Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - DADDY SAKURAI'S WILD RIDE HAS CONCLUDED

[Teoskaven]

Not gonna lie, this Direct was a disappointment for a couple of things, but i think the major point of contention to me was the characters distribution. First, Ken and Incineroar are not a good choice to conclude your roster reveal in terms of hype, they really should have had them for the August Direct and instead have the Belmonts and K.Rool for this one.
Second, Sakurai wasted time to talk about really pointless things (the brightness option? Really?) and some that he explained were way too convoluted or badly translated turning out to not be very comprehensible.
Third, only 5 DLC characters spread through an year and a quarter? And you choose to start things up with fucking Piranha Plant? Are you kidding me?! And people complained about the DLC schedule of Dissidia NT, it's gold compared to this. Especially since at this point the list of non-joke characters that can be eligible as playable is very thin. And keep in mind, this leads to believe after those it will be it, no more, and with Piranha Plant now there's the risk a fan favourite cannot get in but another generic mook can. it just doesn't bod well in general.
Fourth, yes, World of Light looks cool, but initial cutscene aside how does it unfold? Will it be like a proper story mode with at least text dialogues here and there or the only other major cutscene will be at the end?

Spirits mode did not impressed me in general, the whole gacha angle and the replacement of trophies in general feels odd for a game like Smash.
Not everyone in my wishlist was crossed out, but seeing Isaac as an AT again hurted. Would have preferred for him to skip the base game again, at least i would have had hope for DLC.
Definetly not the way to sell me on the game on the final stretch.

[The Deleter]

With the $25 price of the DLC pass, 5+ characters seems like a guarantee at this point. I don't particularly like the idea of how annoying that could get with the character begging for... basically every single direct after this, but it's cool to know we'll get that much with how basic the roster is at this point.

I hope it ends sometime soon though...

This man. Needs. A break.

 

Edit: Oh, it's confirmed that it's just 5 characters?

Well that's kinda... redundant...

[Dash Speed]

8 minutes ago, Candescence said:

I don't know why you're whining about Sakurai when it's been stated that his team's hands are tied with basically doing more with Sonic due to Sega.

 

6 minutes ago, Zaysho said:

This thread was getting along just fine without this fanboy whining, enough.

And I really wanted Shadow.

Well it doesn't matter anymore, I just wanted to vent my opinion and accept Shadow will never be a top star for Sonic anymore or any sonic related media.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Well that was a supremely lame direct. I'd really hoped they'd saved the best for last instead of scraping the bottom of the barrel. Oh boy, let's show off the options. Brightness control hype.

I don't feel extremely strongly about the characters. Ken is okay, I don't care about more Pokemon, and showing off Piranha Plant who apparently isn't even finished yet just plainly tells me they didn't plan for things to go this way. I didn't really care about the Grinch leak, but it would have been nice. I never wanted Shadow either, I wanted Eggman.

Other than that, World of Light looks...potentially not boring. It needs to be more than just arcade progression. Give me more of those cutscenes. They're letting the cast actually speak, so let's see some character interactions.

Also, devs, stop revealing your main themes without lyrics beforehand. Everyone's going to be weirded out after hearing them instrumental for months only to suddenly have vocals sprung on them. This is an even worse case than Fist Bump.

So, still hyped for the game, but they should have ended on a bang and...this was nothing.

[LongcrierCat]

Wow, Sakurai really does need a break. It's fine to pass the torch to another creative director, right? 

I mean, I'd love to say I'm looking forward to World of Light but with it being a glorified Events Mode with who knows how many cutscenes and rehashed Brawl Bosses? Yeah, that's kind of a huge letdown. 

If you were going to try to sell someone who was a huge fan of Brawl on this game, that wasn't it. 

Also, Spirits Mode is weird and the light RPG elements aren't doing this party fighting game any favours. As fun as Smash Run and Kirby Air Ride's City Trials are, stats haven't really mattered that much in Smash besides what character class your main is in. 

So yeah no. I don't know who this is for anymore but I guess it's not for me now. It's a real damn shame too. I guess I'll wait to see who gets announced in the DLC packs but I'm not holding my breath anymore. And while the level design of Subspace Emissary isn't the best level design, it's still something that tried to be a cohesive experience. I have no idea what they're thinking with World of Light given the lack of levels. 

And I'd love to like Piranha Plant as a joke fighter but... This character count and roster being hindered by the whole "Everyone is Here" gimmick that's being sold on Smash nostalgia for Melee and  having very few of any new fighters is just putting me off something strong. I mean, at least it looks like the team wasn't overworked like a regular Rockstar dev team, but really? This is what we're getting? I kind of hoped for more. It's been a few years since Smash 4 and most of the fighters in this game were in that game too. It's a real shame too when the game wasn't free to ditch the characters that are unneeded baggage like Young Link, Dr. Mario, Marth, and Dark Pit. If there's egregious examples of characters that feel unnecessary that I'm forgetting, I'm sorry. But even with these characters here, it feels like there should have been more? Again, most of this stuff was in Smash 4. Why is this so lacking? 

It feels like not enough went into this and I just can't justify buying this game until the DLC packs come out so I know all of what I'm getting now. Sakurai needs to pass the torch to someone else because I can tell he and his team are tired and I'm just generally not feeling any passion in this game. Best overall content in Smash was ten years ago. It's a real shame given how the gameplay has only improved since too. I want a Brawl 2 on the current engine but it doesn't look like this is it. 

Where Mario Odyssey was good at weaponizing our Mario 64/Sunshine nostalgia to make a new game that went above and beyond, this just fell flat on its face. I have never been less excited for a Smash game. And this is sad. I don't usually wake up early, but I did for this. For forty minutes of mostly advertising features I didn't care for to talking about the Options Menu, this is what we got. I'm a little upset, alright. 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

The prodigal assist Trophy son,  Skull Kid is back.... still as an assist.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Missed the direct, but then again from what I hear, I didn’t exactly miss much.

I don’t play either Street Fighter or Pokemon so I really don’t particularly care about our last reveals. I didn’t particularly care about Castlevania or K Rool either but I at least knew how heavily requested the latter was (and honestly having the main villain for Donkey Kong missing was strange) and how big the former is for not only the NES but just Konami allowing another rep in general.

Here, it’s just like “Oh yeah, Pokemon’s a thing, here’s another one”. I mean, not to put down the series and it’s fans for having the new one in there, I’m sure he’ll be fun if you’re looking forward to playing him but as someone not interested in the series, I swear it feels like Pokemon has to be tied with Mario as having an oversaturation of reps in the game. So having our last big reveal just be another Pokemon is kind of lame IMO.

On another note, Piranha Plant. Absolutely lame in my opinion, especially as the first DLC character. Like, it’s a good WTF pick, but I also don’t particularly enjoy having characters with about fifty times more potential being locked behind as a stupid assist trophy while the immobile generic mook plant that pops out of pipes gets a full unique character. I know it’s not the case because of how long it takes to develop characters and he would’ve been in the pipeline for ages, but fuck does it feel like Nintendo dug it out for a quick and easy troll for those who wanted to hold out hope the Grinch leak might’ve been DLC or something. Not to mention said Plant also got in before Waluigi is kind of ridiculous.

The Adventure mode has given me a mixed feeling. I like how it’s attempting to have more stakes and time put in, with a full map and cutscenes. But that said, if they don’t put dedication into it, I likely won’t care. I don’t just want that intro cutscene, I want more, let it be cutscenes or just dialogue boxes, let’s see the characters actually interact with each other and actually get to show some personality this time around.

Also, I don’t know how I feel about Kirby. Honestly feels like Sakurai let his Kirby bias get ahead of him this time and that’s why he out of everyone survived. I mean, I like playing as Kirby in Smash, but for the grand finale Adventure mode, wouldn’t it have made more sense to at least have Mario, Link and Kirby survive the encounter and you can choose which of the three you play as to begin with, like how Brawl started? I don’t know, it feels weird to have Kirby make a grand getaway and that’s it. 

Also, Shadow being an assist trophy is pretty lame and a total missed chance. I have no idea how you skip over someone who is probably as close as you get to perfect for being Sonic’s echo fighter and still make him an assist. The only justification I see is maybe they see his chaos abilities and such more deserving as a full fighter and didn’t have time for him or something.

So yeah, really disappointing IMO. They really should’ve swapped this direct with the one that announced K. Rool.

[TheMultiverseTraveller]

21 minutes ago, Teoskaven said:

Third, only 5 DLC characters spread through an year and a quarter? And you choose to start things up with fucking Piranha Plant? Are you kidding me?! And people complained about the DLC schedule of Dissidia NT, it's gold compared to this. Especially since at this point the list of non-joke characters that can be eligible as playable is very thin. And keep in mind, this leads to believe after those it will be it, no more, and with Piranha Plant now there's the risk a fan favourite cannot get in but another generic mook can. it just doesn't bod well in general.

 

Sorry if I'm misinterpreting what you wrote here, you're saying that Piranha Plant is part of the season pass, right? Because I think what the Sakurai said in the Direct was that none of the first 5 are yet known and all of them will have their own stage and songs, Piranha Plant is just a bonus pre-order character for a little while, then paid. Not actually part of the  Season Pass. 

Even so, I don't think the other 5 DLC characters will be mooks or other kinds of minor characters . Besides, Piranha Plant is just a fighter because Sakurai wanted a big WTF character.

[tailsBOOM!]

New Music! https://www.smashbros.com/en_US/sound/index.html

The vocal theme and Battle! Wild Pokemon (Sun & Moon)

[Wraith]

1 minute ago, Ryannumber1Scarer said:

 

Also, I don’t know how I feel about Kirby. Honestly feels like Sakurai let his Kirby bias get ahead of him this time and that’s why he out of everyone survived. I mean, I like playing as Kirby in Smash, but for the grand finale Adventure mode, wouldn’t it have made more sense to at least have Mario, Link and Kirby survive the encounter and you can choose which of the three you play as to begin with, like how Brawl started? I don’t know, it feels weird to have Kirby make a grand getaway and that’s it. 

Kirby's 5 jumps make him one of the easiest characters to play in the game so it makes start with him.

He also represents Sakurai's start at Nintendo in a thematic sense. He hasn't worked on the series in over 10 years so I always find the little nods he gives Kirby in these games pretty heartwarming.

[Marcello]

1 hour ago, Candescence said:

Trophies being gone sucks, but I'm not surprised. The increasingly escalating number of trophies is just way too much high-quality modelling work for one game.

1

Most trophies just used the models from the games they were from.

[Detective Kaito]

1 hour ago, Tornado said:

It's almost as if Sonic isn't a main character in a series built around Nintendo properties beating the hell out of each other.

I would be saying that if Simon and Ryu didn't get Echo Fighters.

Sonic has been in Smash since Brawl and Shadow is heavily requested, there was literally no reason not to add him as an Echo Fighter. And to add salt to the wound, they intentionally kept Shadow's Assist Trophy from us for all these months, leading 99.99% of people to assume that he will be an Echo, especially after Richter became a thing.

[Shadowlax]

46 minutes ago, Candescence said:

I don't know why you're whining about Sakurai when it's been stated that his team's hands are tied with basically doing more with Sonic due to Sega.

I actually never heard of this?

What's sega doing

This like a cloud situation?

1 hour ago, Tornado said:

It's almost as if Sonic isn't a main character in a series built around Nintendo properties beating the hell out of each other.

Simon and Ryu

Try again

[Teoskaven]

3 minutes ago, TheMultiverseTraveller said:

Sorry if I'm misinterpreting what you wrote here, you're saying that Piranha Plant is part of the season pass, right? Because I think what the Sakurai said in the Direct was that none of the first 5 are yet known and all of them will have their own stage and songs, Piranha Plant is just a bonus pre-order character for a little while, then paid. Not actually part of the  Season Pass. 

Even so, I don't think the other 5 DLC characters will be mooks or other kinds of minor characters . Besides, Piranha Plant is just a fighter because Sakurai wanted a big WTF character.

The fact that at some point people will have to pay to play as Piranha Plant shows fully how this move is insane under any aspects.
Also, here's a good series of pics that would have fitted better as a big WTF character and would have not been another Mario character:
*Captain Rainbow
*Qbby
*Mr. Saturn
*Excitebiker
*Grace
*Kyle Hyde
*Ricky Winterborn

All pure Nintendo stuff, no third parties involved.
Also also, i'm gonna quote you again if one of the DLC characters ends up being Bandana Waddle Dee.

[Rowl]

C'mon you guys. You are just way to hard on Sakurai. I mean, sure. It sucks that Sonic didn't got an echo fighter or a second character in general. But so do many other series as well. Mega Man, Pac Man, Snake, Cloud and Bayonetta all didn't got their own echo fighters as well. 

I'm also a bit salty, that I did not get Dixie Kong, but... at least I got King K. Rool and you guys at least got Sonic. It's better than nothing. 

[Shadowlax]

Just now, Rowl said:

C'mon you guys. You are just way to hard on Sakurai. I mean, sure. It sucks that Sonic didn't got an echo fighter or a second character in general. But so do many other series as well. Mega Man, Pac Man, Snake, Cloud and Bayonetta all didn't got their own echo fighters as well. 

I'm also a bit salty, that I did not get Dixie Kong, but... at least I got King K. Rool and you guys at least got Sonic. It's better than nothing. 

I don't hate sakurai or anything, made one of my favorite series ever. Kirby. At least i'm not saying he's a bad person or anything. But for me its nothing?

Like i'm not buying the game now. None of the new roster really interests me, and everyone being back doesn't really do anything for me. I do hope that those who enjoy this game, really enjoy it though. I'm not one to try and capitalize on people feeling sad for my own enjoyment. Like Nibelrock

[Detective Kaito]

3 minutes ago, Rowl said:

I'm also a bit salty, that I did not get Dixie Kong, but... at least I got King K. Rool and you guys at least got Sonic. It's better than nothing. 

"DK fans got a new character but you guys still have the same character that was in 10 years ago."

Eh, it doesn't really even it out. I will stop bitching now.

[Rowl]

Yeah... to be honest, if it wasn't for KKR I would also not buy the game either. Sounds really stupid, I know...

[blueblur98]

the final pre-launch smash direct was, in my opinion, not an underwhelming way to end.

ken is probably the perfect echo fighter. glad one of my predictions was correct!

incineroar looks pretty cool as well. his final smash is spectacular!

sad trophies are gone, but spirits aren't a bad subsitute.

shadow's an assist again... dangit.

the online looks good. glad they're trying to fix the god-awful lag issues SSB4 had!

DLC confirmed! CRASH BANDICOOT STILL HAS A CHANCE!!!... maybe.

world of light looks cool. wish there was more than just fighting, but smash battles are fun, so i'll have fun with WOL.

piranha plant may be the most hilarious fighter in the series. i was laughing through his whole trailer.

i was pretty pleased with the final direct.

[Rowl]

1 minute ago, Detective Kaito said:

"DK fans got a new character but you guys still have the same character that was in 10 years ago."

Eh, it doesn't really even it out. I will stop bitching now.

Well... to be fair, is anyone of Sonic's friends really that relevant nowadays? OK, the same thing I can say about King K. Rool, but do people outside of the Sonic fandom really care much about Sonic's friends as much as we do? 

[Shadowlax]

7 minutes ago, Rowl said:

Yeah... to be honest, if it wasn't for KKR I would also not buy the game either. Sounds really stupid, I know...

Its not. 

You don't owe nintendo anything. Example , I didn't buy street fighter V untill a character I liked came out. I wasn't interested in the roster that much and how it looked and I waited , and then they came out and you bought it. Yes there will be some people who are like those waluigi fans who threatened sakurai's life, but not buying a product doesn't mean you are them. Smash is a product made by a corporation. If you don't like it, don't buy it. And if someone, or anyone tries to make you look silly for not being interested in a product because you don't like something about it unless they are company shareholders they are just stanning a corperation. And that's just...really dumb. And on the flippedidy flip, don't let people try to make you not buy or a game or make you feel bad for buying a game because it doesn't meet their standards 

And on the flippedidy flip, don't let people try to make you not buy or a game or make you feel bad for buying a game because it doesn't meet their standards. ( Obviously there are exceptions to that like if the game is purposefully problematic in a way to puts down a people like that brazil game steam got in trouble for hosting ) but outside of those problematic outliers enjoy what you enjoy

Also live and let live

Also you know don't threaten to kill or tell people to kill themselves because of a character not getting into a video game, always bad it already started, not great. I feel like I need to remind people of that, this happens way to often, stop. Not talking to you, anyone who happens to read this message and was thinking about it, fucking don't. 

[MetalSkulkBane]

1 hour ago, Dash Speed said:

Sakurai can just kiss my ass. He fucking hates Sonic. Probably hates Shadow even more. Shadow at this point is not that popular, and I'm just going to accept it. Sonic Channels poll is a huge example of a vocal minority being overly vocal, not a whole representative on whats more popular for sonic fans in general. If Sonic Team had a hierarchy of noble ranks on characters the franchise would always use in games, Only Sonic and sometimes Eggman get treated like High Kings of the series, Tails is the prince and the ultimate main sonic representative of the company after Sonic and Eggman, Knuckles and Amy are also big enough to be more important over everyone making them at least regents of the Sonic Kingdom, Shadow and Rouge are just the duke and duchess of the entire series.

 

So yeah, it's Sega fault that Shadow isn't in this game, because obviously they won't care for him in a meaningful way beyond a quick side games and filler.

Thanks Dash, I can't even sulk without feeling like idiot. Thanks

No one 'hates' Shadow. I know it's surprising, but Shadow isn't center of the universe. Some people love him, some hates, but majority is just indifferent. STRANGE, ISN'T IT?

EDIT: Also, I don't mind Kirby being the main hero. He's popular, but not overused, like Mario/Pokemon/Zelda. Easy to play, seems like a good choice. Only weird part is that he escaped when everyone else failed, that's silly.

[Shadowlax]

1 minute ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Thanks Dash, I can't even sulk without feeling like idiot. Thanks

No one 'hates' Shadow. I know it's surprising, but Shadow isn't center of the universe. Some people love him, some hates, but majority is just indifferent. STRANGE, ISN'T IT?

In this case the issue is sega not people being indifferent. Which , should make him feel better. 

But its Dash Speed so, Why am I trying 

[Detective Kaito]

4 minutes ago, Rowl said:

Well... to be fair, is anyone of Sonic's friends really that relevant nowadays? OK, the same thing I can say about King K. Rool, but do people outside of the Sonic fandom really care much about Sonic's friends as much as we do? 

You can say the same about any character from any series. I'm pretty sure no one cares about Richter or Daisy.

[KoDaiko]

*Is reminded of me wanting Protoman OR Bass as echo but ends up seeing them both as props in Megaman's final smash, and Zero that was heavily requested by fans as a new fighter end up as assist trophy* 

27 minutes ago, Detective Kaito said:

I would be saying that if Simon and Ryu didn't get Echo Fighters.

Sonic has been in Smash since Brawl and Shadow is heavily requested, there was literally no reason not to add him as an Echo Fighter. And to add salt to the wound, they intentionally kept Shadow's Assist Trophy from us for all these months, leading 99.99% of people to assume that he will be an Echo, especially after Richter became a thing.

"Shadow is heavily requested" by Shadow fans. But that goes for countless other characters. Also, "99.99%"? Seriously????

I mean, we don't know if it's Sakurai/Nintendo or the other companies/Sega making this decision (I'm sure they're working and discussing these things together, but). IDK how the whole process workds, but maybe Nintendo is open but isn't moving until Sega specifically asks them. Maybe Sega does want him in but Nintendo can't see as iconic enough. (I'm on the "if they add another Sonic fighter it'll be Tails" crowd) Maybe Nintendo is more focused on including obscure references that didn't have a chance than adding another representative from a series they already did. Maybe the other companies gave a better deal. Maybe Nintendo is focused more on what's unexpected, wacky, and fun instead of what the fans "expect".

 

Who knows. It's okay to be upset/disappointed (for something that they did not bait or tease, I guess) and not buy the game, just don't treat the creators like shit for not doing something they didn't promise/is obligated to do.