Ultraguy's hopes and dreams for a Smash Bros Switch port

Well in case you're not aware, one of the recent rumors for the upcoming Nintendo switch console is that it's going to be getting a port of Smash brothers 4. Basically the idea is that said switch version will combine the content of the 3DS and Wii-U games, while adding in a few new features and characters.

….well seeing as I love smash and have made speculations blogs on the series before, I thought given my thoughts on what i would like to see in Smash switch port would be a cool idea.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with ALL my thoughts, but hopefully you'll enjoy reading about my speculations and possible chime in with your own in the comments.

General hopes for additions and modifications in Smash Switch

All 3DS and Wii-U exclusive Stages on one system

This is a pretty obvious desire, but I going to state it anyway.  I want to have all the stages that were originally 3DS exclusive, available alongside the Wii-U ones on the switch version of the game. It’s a great way to artificially bolster content, and all you would need to do is give those stages a graphical facelift, so it would probably be fairly easy to do as well. Additionally I prefer to play smash bros on a large TV with a more traditional controller, which I think is a common sentiment that tends to make players drop the 3DS version for the Wii-U version if they have both games. Considering that keeping those stages exclusive to the 3DS, seems like a bit of a waste in my opinion.

All previous character, stage, and costume DLC available on disk

Another obvious desire. Smash 4 had A LOT of DLC and while I’m sure many of the more dedicated fans probably decided to pay for at least the extra characters, I guarantee almost nobody shilled out for every stage and costume that was made available by Nintendo. I mean really the bundles for just all the characters DLC was already around 40$ for a cross 3DS/Wii-U system buy. When you add in all the costume bundles and stage bundles that’s easily another 40-50$. That’s about 100$ total and most people aren’t going to pay for all of that given it’s a higher price tag than the game itself. Considering that having all the DLC from the get go on the switch would be considered a steal to a lot of people. Additionally much of said content will probably be a fresh experience for a lot of fans, just because most wouldn’t have been exposed to it yet.

Consolidate all gameplay modes and revamp their features

Yet another obvious choice. Bring modes that where exclusive to the 3DS and Wii-U versions of the game together on the switch version. This includes 8 player smash, special smash, smash run, smash tour, tournament mode, the sub-game modes, ect.

Additionally for the most part I think most of these modes can probably stand on their own, though I think at least a few could be modified, which I’ll elaborate on below.

Smash run

Smash run is basically the smash brother’s version of something called the “city trial” from an older Nintendo game called Kirby’s air ride. In both of these modes you basically run out onto a field map and have to collect various power-ups to prepare your character for some sort of end game competition, all while dealing with various random events throughout said collecting phase. It’s a decent premises for a game mode and one that worked well in city trial. However smash run sorta misses the mark, and lacks some of the nuance that caused people to remember the original city trial fondly.

Firstly city trial had all the participating players exploring the same map, while smash run does not. This is a problem because part of the fun of city trial was being able to interfere with other players or just screw around with friends in the field map.  Next city run had a lot more customization options, with people being able to change a matches time limit, CPU difficulty, how likely certain random events were to occur and what end game competitions could potentially happen.Smash run doesn’t really have any of this and instead runs off pre-set parameters the player can’t control. This is frankly an annoyance, as many players like being able to choose settings they prefer for multiplayer games, rather than being rail roaded by the system.

Of course both of these problems have simple solution. Just let people share a single field map and let people customize matches more.

Additionally outside those small fixes there's are also a few other additional features I think could make the mode more fun.for example smash run on 3DS didn’t have an online mode, which I think was a missed opportunity.  Having  an online mode for a sub game like this would add a lot replayablity to it, as you could constantly fight against random strangers online or play against friends who can’t gather locally. I also think having multiple maps for smash run, rather than just one, would be cool way to increase the replay value as well. Finally the 3DS version of smash run had a cap of 4 players at once, but something like that could easily be raised to 8 in a more powerful switch version.

Smash tour

I’m going to be honest I have barely any experience with smash tour. That being said even from just a few minutes playing it and some online commentary I can see the whole mode is pretty badly designed. You see smash tour is basically supposed to be a miniature version of Mario party. The basic premise is you travel around a game board with mii avatars, and you collect smash bros characters (instead of stars like Mario party) that you can use in various sub-events. You also need to gather various power-ups scattered across the board to power up said characters and can collect items to cause various supportive effects(giving your characters an added ability in a sub-event or altering aspects of the game board itself usually). At the end of a match you take the characters you’ve collected and you use them in a final fight against the other players with the power-ups you’ve acquired.

It all sounds like a decent idea on paper, but it doesn’t work all that well in practice. Smash tour takes a lot of the more negative qualities of Mario party up to 11 and  quite frankly becomes too chaotic to understand most of the time. For example unlike old school Mario party games each player rolls, moves and uses items all at the same time. The player can also go in any direction on the board, including backwards. The boards have tight web like designs, which typically encourage players to double back on each other. The spots on the board and the power-ups are constantly changing and there’s random events sprinkled throughout a session that effect gameplay as well. Individually most of this stuff wouldn’t be overwhelming, but add it all together and you get a chaotic system where so much is happening at once, that most people can’t manage or adapt to it.

Another complaint besides the chaotic nature of the mode, is how the winner the final match is determined. After you’ve collected your fighters, and all the turns have run down, you have a final smash battle using the characters you have collected as lives. You would EXPECT the final fight to be a stock battle, thereby giving the advantage to the players who collected the most characters. However instead it’s a time battle, which throws a wrench into the whole point of collecting characters in the mode in the first place. In a time match characters get points based on who actually causes a KO, so it’s possible for a person with one stock to win against a person who has 10 just because they happened to steal a kill at the right moment. Likewise the match ends if everyone but one player losses their stocks, so one person can be in a situation where they have multiple more stocks than the opponent, but can’t win the match because the fight will end before they can get the Ko’s they need to turn the tide.

It’s all a really weird mish mash of mechanics and it doesn’t really work. Luckily however the solutions to the problems are simple (and to be honest most of them just amount to ripping off Mario party wholesale).

Make players roll the dice, move and use items one at a time. This makes things less confusing as people can make calculated plans based on the others movements without getting overwhelmed by tons of stuff happening at once. Make game boards that are larger and frankly more linear, giving the players more space to breath and potentially ensuring everyone has to go around a basic loop. Make icons and items on the board less variable and tone down random events.

FINALLY make the final fight that decides the winner a straight stock fight with no time limits.

There’s also a few other nitpicks. Sub-events during the collection phases are only initiated by two characters landing on the same panel. I think having a consecutive sub-events after each rolling round (similar to mini-games in Mario party) instead of that would suffice better. Likewise you can’t chose which of the characters you’ve collected to control or use in sub matches or the final match, which seems like a weird limitation. Doing away with that would probably be a good idea.

System data transfer from 3DS and Wii-U versions

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD please let us transfer some of our trophy and game data from the 3DS and Wii-U if the switch version is real. I’ve played and unlocked tons of stuff on the 3DS version. Then I played an unlocked a little less stuff on the Wii-U again from scratch. I do not want to play through what is essentially the same game a 3^rd time to unlock the same exact stuff all over again. Trophies for the single player modes and custom moves specifically.

Make a shorter classic mode more akin to the 3DS game and a more reliable way to get custom moves

I’m not sure if this is just my opinion but the classic mode in the wii-u version of the game is too long in comparison to the amount of characters in the roster. The 3DS mode of having 5 fights and then master hand is much more palatable, and takes less time to finish in my opinion. Additionally I prefer how the classic mode in the 3DS version is more akin to past versions of the mode, as the Wii-u version tends to have less variety in the types of matches it gives you, and has too many fights with 5 or more characters that can devolve into luck.

I also think I speak for everyone when I say custom moves REALLY need to have a more reliable way of being found. Grinding for them in classic mode, or various mini games drives people insane. It’s even worse given you can get repeats. At the very least being able to buy them with in game currency would be nice. Taking out the possibility of getting repeats would also cut down on the frustration immensely.

On that note change how difficulty is determined in classic mode and rebalance all-star mode

This is probably a nitpick but I don’t like how difficulty is forced to lower if  you get a game over in classic mode in addition to losing some of the loot you’ve acquired. The latter is enough of a detriment in my opinion and frankly Smash has enough lucked based elements that it’s too easy to see a 9.0 run ruined by some random bullshit.

Additionally as the cast continues to grow, all-star mode really needs to be rebalanced to accommodate for it. Specifically more healing items should be added in accordance to number of characters, which was something Nintendo chose not to do for some reason even if you increased the roster size by 7 through DLC in the 3DS and Wii-U versions.

Custom moves for previous DLC characters

As some of you may or may not know DLC characters did not have any custom special attacks upon released. Given the extra time and the fact they would probably be on disk this time, going back and adding some customs to them would be greatly appreciated.

Some sort of adventure mode (probably integrated with Amibo figures for that matter)

A lot of people knocked melee’s adventure mode and brawl’s subspace emissary when they originally come out, but in hindsight I think a lot of people found themselves missing these modes when smash 4 rolled around. From what I can see a lot of people would LOVE to see some variation of a story mode come back in smash switch, and I think it would almost be appropriate given there should be at least one more major new mode on top of the old ones to entice players who already have the 3DS and Wii-U versions.

……..That being said both melees adventure mode and the subspace emissary had their issues. I personally enjoyed the subspace emissaries longer stages, complexity, actual story and plethora of bosses, but I have to admit in hindsight the actual environments where pretty bland. It also dragged on at the end due to unnecessary padding (the great maze). In contrast Melees adventure mode stages were more true to the settings of Nintendo franchises, but the mode overall was frankly kind of short.

Personally I think a mix of the two for the switch would be good. Just make a story mode similar to the subspace emissary, but make the stages based on actual video game properties. Likewise don’t overdo it on padding. A great game mode that lasts 3-5 hours is better than a mediocre one padded to last 10-15.

On another note I think a potential story mode would work great with amibo integration. I would love to play through stages with an amibo partner. Not to mention raising their stats or customizing them with specific skills for an adventure would add a lot of replay value.

….. In fact Amiibo could honestly be used in a similar way to figurines in Skylanders. You could use and scan amiibo to unlock extra areas in an adventure mode. Granted I know some people would dislike the idea, but I think it would make amiibos more relevant over the long term.

Bring back character specific break the targets, board the platforms and race to the finish

We’ve gotten a lot of decent sub-games in the last two smash instalments, but I still yearn for some of the more personalized content from 64 and melee. Specifically the break the targets and board the platform sub-games. For those of you who don’t remember break the targets was basically a series of test stages for various characters where you needed to break floating targets, often with the requirement that you master a characters moves/abilities to get to them. Board the platforms was a similar concept, though instead of breaking targets you needed to jump to different floating platforms scattered across an area. Both were widely enjoyed for being fun little tutorials for a characters moves, and in some cases having some puzzle like elements. But alas as the roster grew these modes were either scrapped or significantly watered down.

Another fan favorite mode I’d like to see come back is race to the finish. In this mode characters needed to run down a linear obstacle course and reach its end within a time limit. It wasn’t tailored to specific characters like the other two modes (though if it could, or if there could be multiple maps for it that would be cool), but it’s still fondly remembered enough that I’d like to see it return.

Misc extra content

It hasn’t been that long since smash 4 came out, so there’s not exactly a lot of extra content I think most people would want outside the previously mentioned stuff. However I think perhaps a few extra stages, more trophies, ect would be fairly decent expectation.

The primary character additions I want for Smash Switch

Smash has always been about the characters and I can’t see a switch port launching without at least a few new ones under the hood. That being said It’s sort of hard to figure out exactly how many new characters we should expecting for a potential smash brothers switch port just because we don’t know anything about the scope of the development team and all information regarding it is just rumors. Of course looking at past situations we did get 7 characters worth of DLC in smash 4(3 vets and 4 newcomers) over the course of a year with what was probably a smaller team, working with minimal planning.  I can’t see what’s probably a larger porting team working over a larger time frame managing much less than 5 or 6 newcomers and a few vets, even if some rumors claim smash switch character additions are minimal.

Anyway without further delay let’s go onto the characters I think should be in smash switch.

Veterans

Ice climbers

Series: Ice climbers

The ice climbers are probably a given. As most smash fans know the they where already up and running on the Wii-U version of the game, but got cut from the final product because the 3DS couldn’t handle running their more complex AI and both models at once. I don’t think processing power will be an issues on a system as powerful as the switch however and given it won’t be held back by needing to maintain the same roster as a dated handheld, I can’t see the Ice climbers not being added back in at some point.

Wolf

Series: StarFox

To be honest I think the vast majority of people were actually fairly surprised wolf didn’t come back as DLC for the 3DS/Wii-U. It seemed like he would have had the perfect set-up given a new star fox game was coming out the same year. That being said star fox zero is still a somewhat recent game regardless and he is one of the more popular cut veterans. Given his pseudo relevancy and fan following I can see him coming back in a potential smash bros switch.

Snake

 

Series: Metal Gear

This is a bit of a long shot all things considered. Snake was more or less only added to smash brothers to begin with because metal gear series creator Kojima was friends with Sakurai and specifically asked if he could be added in brawl. Likewise given the insanity Konomi has gone through in the last few years in regards to Kojima leaving and mismanagement of many of their franchises, I’m not sure a if they would have the initiative to get involved with something like smash again on their own.

….That being said I feel Snake is a very important piece of smash history given he was the first ever 3^rd party character and likewise permanently losing his unique move set would be a waste. I think he deserves to come back and I’m hoping against all hope that Nintendo can work out some sort of deal despite the previous company drama.

Young link

Series: Zelda

To be honest I don’t really think we need young link back all that badly, BUTTT to be fair they’ve brought almost every other notable cut veteran at this point, so we may as well go the whole way. For what it’s worth though given his appearance in the ocarina/majora remakes on the 3DS and his appearance in Hyrule warriors he is at least somewhat relevant right now. He’d also be easy to re-implement given he’s a clone with an existing move set. His fanbase also isn't non-existent either. 

Newcomers

Alph and Pikmin

Series: Pikmin

Technically Alph is already in the smash bros U as an alternate model for Olimar, but I think upgrading him into a full character statues would be a good idea. Changing him from an alt model to a clone would be pretty easy and similar to what happened with characters like dark pit. In fact some website like source gaming claim that having him be a clone, rather than an alt model may have been the original plan from the get go anyway, and that plans only changed due to system/time restraints. Pikmin 3 is also still fairly fresh in the minds of most Nintendo fans and given we are going to be getting a 3DS Pikmin game and probably also a Pikmin 4 somewhere down the line, the series is definitely prominent enough to deserve two reps at this point.

Inkling

Series: Splatoon

Assuming we get any newcomers whatsoever, there’s pretty much no way we aren’t going to be getting inklings as at least one of them. Splatoon is probably the biggest new franchise Nintendo has spearheaded in the last 5 years and the series squid sisters in particular have been gaining idol fame ala Miku hatsune in japan. Splatoon also has an enhanced port/sequel coming to the switch already, so obviously the Inkling will have some relevancy during the year smash switch game is rumored to come out.

King K.Rool

Series: Donkey Kong

Frankly I am amazed K.Rool didn’t become a character during the whole smash ballot campaign. It seemed like virtually all major video games site WANTED HIM to be in the game, and frequently had him in the top 5, if not the winner of most user polls. I guess unfortunately he just narrowly got edged out by Bayonetta, or perhaps Bayo was determined to be more optimal for DLC cause she could sell more.

….well regardless there’s no doubt in my mind Nintendo at least noticed all his support, and will probably keep him on the short list of characters to add to a switch version. For that matter Donkey Kong series REALLY deserves more representation given it’s notoriety and smash is lacking villain characters. Adding K.Rool in just makes sense.

Dixie Kong

Series: Donkey Kong

If it comes down to it I’d rather have K. Rool than Dixie, but I can’t deny she’s fairly important to the Donkey Kong series as well. In fact she probably has just as many (if not more) reasons to be added to the roster. For one she’s actually served as the protagonist of a major Donkey Kong game before, specifically Donkey Kong country 3. Likewise while K. Rool has been awol for years, Dixie recently made a comeback in the semi-recent Donkey Kong tropical freeze game. She also actually DID almost make it into brawl as part of Diddy’s move set, so she does have a foot in the door so to speak.

Issac

Series: Golden Sun

Issac is another popular smash ballot character I’m surprised didn’t make the cut. Granted golden sun has sort of flown under the radar in recent years, but it did get another sequel on DS at the very least and plans for a 4^th title were apparently underway at some point. Additionally given Issac’s bizarre absence as an assist trophy after being one in brawl, I’m sure most everyone has made the assumption he was at least considered for smash 4 vanilla at some point.

 Decidueye

Series: Pokémon

Pokémon may have a bloated selection of characters on the roster already, but it’s still one to the biggest franchises in Nintendo and it’s hard to ignore the fact that the newest entry in the series just came out a month ago or so. Likewise several rumors have claimed sun and moon are going to have a follow up version on the switch called pokemon stars later this year, so I can see Nintendo wanting to take advantage of the situation with a new smash bros rep while people still have the franchise on their hype radar.

Considering that I would PROOOOBABLY say smash brothers for switch would have some sort of 7^th gen representative, most likely the final grass starter Decidueye. I haven’t played Pokémon sun and moon myself, but from what I understand it’s the most popular starter final evolution of said game and has gotten a decent amount of requests for smash brothers on various website.

It also represents a few typing we haven’t seen yet in smash (grass and ghost) and it sort of fills that grass starter lethargy a lot of people had previously hoped could be filled with sceptile. On another note in terms of overall size, number of appendages and body proportions, Decidueye is probably one of the few potentially popular 7^th gen Pokémon that fits within the parameters that would be required for a smash bros character.

Rayman

Series: Rayman

To be honest I actually don’t care much for Rayman. He’s always struck me as more of a Sony aligned character and I’ve never really thought of him as being on par with other 3^rd party bigwigs like Snake and cloud in terms of historical importance. THAT BEING SAID his developer Ubisoft has gotten a much closer relationship to Nintendo as of late given his last game was originally Wii-U exclusive. Additionally Nintendo did acknowledge his series with some trophies in smash 4 and rumors state that the switch is going to have a Mario/Rabbids crossover game at some point.  Considering that I think Rayman probably has his foot in the door more than most other potential 3^rd party characters, and he’s requested often enough by fans that I could certainly see his addition happening.

Phoenix wright

Out of all the 3^rd party characters, I don’t think any besides Phoenix has had such a long term devotion to Nintendo consoles. EVERY single ace attorney game, and spin off has always premiered as an exclusive on a Nintendo handheld going all the way back to the GBA in the early 2000s. That combined with the fact Capcom has already placed Phoenix in more battle oriented settings like Marvel vs and Project X zone, makes me thing he would work fairly well as a character in smash.  Phoenix himself is also actually fairly requested for smash as well and was probably a solid 3^rd choice after Megaman and Ryu.

Hopes for possible DLC Characters on Smash Switch

People are probably going to call me overly optimistic, but I’m holding out hope that we’ll get more DLC characters somewhere down the line for a switch version of smash as well. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch given Nintendo has shown they are willing to give even enhanced ports extra DLC content way after their release, as long as said content can be profitable. We saw this specifically the 3DS port of Hyrule warriors for example. Assuming a similar amount of characters could be added in comparison to last time, I think at least 4 newcomers and potentially some vets could be expected.

Veterans

Squirtle, Ivysour and Pichu

Art by final smash comic

Series: Pokemon

This might seem like a weird choice but hear me out. NOBODY likes seeing characters get cut. No matter how bad or irrelevant you think a character in smash is, every character always has fans somewhere, and it shows whenever you have character polls. Even a memic scrappy like Pichu can make it into the top 20 of things like that just because people didn’t like losing content from a previous game or had a soft spot for him. Likewise people hate it even more when original move sets are taken away, which very clearly did happen with Squirtle and Ivysour.

It’s really not that difficult to make a case for bring all 3 back as DLC(perhaps at the same time, as it would be harder to make them stand alone), and would most likely be incredibly easy to do given they already have move sets or in Pichu’s case are clones with similar models to current fighters(Pikachu).

Newcomers

Bomberman

Series: Bomberman

Bomberman is probably one of the few big old school videogame mascots left that hasn’t been added to smash yet. He’s owned by Konami, who Nintendo have worked with before in the past and he’s had a decent amount of games on Nintendo systems and fits in with the smash cast. Tons of people seem to desire his inclusion, so I could see it happening.

Simon Belmont

Series: castlavania

Simon Belmont is probably my most desired Konami rep outside Snake himself. I think he makes a lot sense given he’s one of the more famous characters in video game history and his home series is fairly well known for having loads of exclusive games on Nintendo hardware. Simon himself is also notable for having somewhat of an intense rivalry with Link, in a similar vain to Mario and Sonic, giving him that angle to work from as well.

Lloyd Irving

Series: Tales of

Ah yes my husbando Lloyd Irving from the “tales of series”. You might be wondering a bit about this choice, but allow me to explain.  The tales series is a pretty long running franchise and while not as popular in the west, it is actually A VERY big deal in territories like japan. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say it’s probably Namco's 2^nd or 3^rd best-selling property there and the games have even been known to push console sales in the region. Additionally the series as a whole has quite a lot of history with Nintendo. The first game tales of phantasia debuted on a Nintendo system and to this day Nintendo still gets ports and exclusive versions of their titles, including tales of the abyss for 3DS and tales of graces for Wii.

Considering those facts and the fact series bigwig Yoshizumi was one of the people that helped develop smash bros 4, I don’t think having a rep from the series is a huge stretch. Likewise Lloyd strikes me as one of the best tales protags to use if that idea came to fruition.  For one his home game Tales of smyphonia AND its sequel Dawn of the new world were also both Nintendo exclusive games when they came out (in the west for over a decade even). Lloyd has also made cameos in Nintendo exclusive games like soul caliber legends for the Wii.

Symphonia is also probably the best selling, widely recognized and important entry of the series on a world wide scale. Before tales of symphonia, the series more or less didn’t get translations in the west. Likewise the few that did flew under the radar pretty easily. However Tales of smyphonia made such a big splash and sold so well that it single handedly created the entire western fandom, and is the main reason why we’ve gotten consistent translations of the series ever since.

Finally Sakurai did give us a Lloyd Irving mii costume of all things, which at the very least means he does have him on his radar.

Sora

There are a couple of square Enix characters I could see coming to smash at some point but I personally  think Sora would probably make the most sense. He wouldn’t be redundant alongside cloud, as he’s technically from a series separate from final fantasy (though KH does have some cameos from it). Kingdom hearts has also had multiple Nintendo centric releases, including chain of memories for the GBA, 358/2 for the DS and Dream drop distance for the 3DS. Additionally while many gamers may correlate Sora a bit more with Sony, Sakurai already showed that general popularity and fan appeal can also factor into these kinds of decisions, as cloud got added in despite having far less significant ties to Nintendo than Sora does.

The only hiccup I can see is the fact Disney actually owns the rights to Sora. Not to mention KH is a very Disney heavy franchise.  Though I don’t think it would be impossible for Nintendo to work out some sort of deal on the matter and you could always place more focus on the KH original content if worse comes to worse.

Additional characters I want for Smash Switch(assuming we get a full size roster increase)

So I went into this blog being conservative and assumed we’ll only get maybe 5 or 6 new characters and perhaps some more DLC if the whole Smash switch thing is real.

….but part of me kind of wants to hope everyone is being way to conservative, and that we’ll probably see a normal character increase of around 10-15 newcomers total(not including clones).

Below are some periphery character choices I have if that ends up being the case.

Wonder red

Series: Wonderful 101

Good old Wonder Red. Contrary to popular belief while the wonderful 101 series was made by platinum games, it’s actually a property owned by Nintendo. This actually makes wonder Red a 1^st party character, so having him in doesn’t actually take up a 3^rd party slot. Anyway given he hails from what’s probably one of Nintendo’s more creative IPs in recent years I feel as if he would make a good addition to the roster.

Elma

Series: Xenoblade

I have not actually played Xenoblade chronicles X, nor do I actually know much about Elma. However I do know they were one of the major protagonists of said game, and Xenoblade is a series Nintendo seems to want to push. Additionally several rumors claim Xenoblade chronicles X may get ported to the switch, so I can see a representative from it being added to smash for promotional reasons.

Impa

Series: Zelda

Zelda really needs some more representation. Frankly the last time we had any real newcomers for the series was way back in melee with Zelda and Sheik (I don’t really count Ganondorf or Toon Link since both of them are technically clones). Given the potential choices, I think Impa is probably the best choice to fill that gap. In a series that’s a revolving door of heroes and villains, Impa is the only Zelda character to continually get a major role in almost every major game besides Link, Zelda and Ganodorf. Likewise she’s readily been established to have incredible fighting ability and if inspiration was taken from her incarnation in hyrule warriors, would almost certainly not become another clone.

Finally Breath of the wild does hit this year and shiekien technology (the race Impa is a part of) does seem to be playing a large role. No confirmation on her being in the game yet of course, but I could see it happening, boosting her relevance even further.

Paper Mario

Series: Paper Mario

I know there are a lot of requests for Mario characters, but in my opinion paper Mario probably makes the most sense out of the options we still have left. He represents a facet of the Mario series not yet represented, IE the rpgs. He stars in a series that’s been around for over a decade. He’s had multiple recent appearances including a crossover with the Mario & Luigi series and a recent game on the Wii-U. Finally the very nature of him being made out of paper and the abilities he uses in his games, make his move set potential much higher than most of the other potential characters from the Mario series.

Bandana dee

Series: Kirby

Bandana Dee has been steadily been gaining notoriety over the last couple years in the Kirby series. He started off as a side character in Kirby super star, but slowly upgraded himself to being a central supporting character in following games, and finally to being a playable character in games like Return to dreamland. It’s gotten to the point where he’s pretty much the only notable character from Kirby who hasn’t been added to smash yet. He also does well enough in character polls, so I say adding him in would probably be a good idea.

Krystal

Series: Star fox

I pretty much just want to add Krystal for the sake of fanservice…..no not that kind of fansevice.
She’s been a fairly popular suggestion for several years now, and has probably only been slightly beat out by fan favorite characters like K.Rool at some points. Additionally for what it’s worth while she herself did not appear in Star fox zero, said game did still come out recently, giving the franchise as a whole relevance.

Sylux

Series: Metroid

So hear me out on this. Most people want Metroid to have another rep and as most people know the ever popular Ridley has been shot down multiple times at this point. However Sylux while not CURRENTLY as popular as Ridley, at least has somewhat of a fanbase and is probably poised to take on a bigger role in the Metroid universe as a whole. Specifically at the end of Metroid prime 3 his ship is shown following Samus’s and at the end of the recent spin off federation force he’s shown in a secrete ending apprehending a Metroid. Considering these facts I think preemptively adding him to smash before whatever announced Metroid game Nintendo is obviously making, would make a lot of sense. It’s only a matter of time before his requests skyrocket anyway, so why fight it?

Professor Layton

Similar to Phoenix Wright, Layton has pretty much stayed exclusively on Nintendo handhelds ever since his series was first incepted. He’s also been subject talk smash rumors before in the past, and seems to be pretty popular 3^rd party character choice all things considered.  Additionally Nintendo has had a fairly big hand in bringing the Layton series worldwide, publishing every single main series game outside of japan. With most of the 3rd party slot competition gone, I could see him having a legitimate chance now.

And also a new Layton game happens to be coming out in 2017. Not saying it means anything, but it does help.

Honorable mentions and wildcard Character I want for Smash Switch, but don’t think have good chances

Geno

Series: Mario

Geno is a wild card in my opinion. I’m aware he’s pretty popular with smash fans, but let’s be honest,…………..this is a character who hasn’t appeared in a game in over 20 years. His exposer is INCREDIBLY limited because of that, and while he may be an ensemble dark horse even Sakurai has said he wanted to add at some point, from a business standpoint I can see him being sort of a hard sell. Likewise given he’s owned by square enix, adding him would require working out some sort of deal with them. Now to be fair I think a negotiation like that would be pretty easy, but at the same time I can’t see Nintendo going for a character like Geno, before trying to get someone bigger like Sora.

The chances of him being DLC doesn’t seem high to me either. Looking at past character DLC it seems like most of the content Nintendo put out was either easy to make returning vets, characters with promotional tie ins, or big name 3^rd party characters that were guaranteed to sell. Geno doesn’t really fall into those categories.

I think his best chances are if he could be framed as the “retro” character including from the initial release, or if a more prominent character like Sora is off the table due to issues with Disney. The latter case in particular is most plausible as his only other competition from square would be Black mage, which would be redundant given final fantasy is already represented by Cloud anyway.

Daisy

Series: Mario

Gamefaqs memes aside, I actually don’t think Daisy’s chances of getting in smash brothers are all that terrible. The problem is I see to many obstacles stacked against her for it to happen. For one even assuming we were to get another Mario character (which is already a controversial decision given the roster is packed with them), Daisy already has some major competition within Said franchise. You have Waluigi, various incarnations of toads, King boo and heck if you want to count them, Wario centric characters like Captain Syrup and Ashley. A lot of these characters have around the same amount of fans as Daisy, and all that inter-series competition sort of makes her being the one chosen kind of a toss up.

Additionally you also have paper Mario who’s popularity is probably slightly higher than the previously mentioned characters (if not more), and who would make WAAAAAY more sense given the details I already outline in his section(headlining an entire series for over a decade, better moveset potential ,ect).

All of this doesn’t even take into account Daisy would have to compete with other Nintendo characters and 3^rd parties, which is even stiffer competition comparatively.

The best way to get Daisy in the game would probably be……to make her an alt model for peach or a semi-clone. Though to be honest I don’t think most Daisy fans would want that.

Takumaru

Series: Murasama castle

Sakurai has gone on record saying that he thought about adding Takumaru in smash 4, but unfortunately his obscurity and lack of a US release for his home game held him back. Personally I think i don't agree. In my opinion Takumaru has actually been gaining some traction lately with smash fans, and is probably primed to become the front runner for the “retro” character of the next full fledged smash game. However that being said can’t see Sakurai flipping his opinion on him quickly enough for him to be in a smash bros switch, especially when he’s already been implemented as an assist trophy.

Banjo kazooie

Series: Banjo and Kazooie

If Nintendo could work out a deal with Microsoft Banjo kazooie would probably be a shoe in…. but I really don’t think that’s going to happen. It's one thing to promote a character found primarily on other systems or who’s having a game coming out on another system soon. It’s something else entirely to promote a character actually owned by the maker of a rival console manufacturer. Even if Microsoft themselves are up for the idea (why wouldn’t they be, it’s free publicity) I don’t think Nintendo would and that obliterates Banjo's chances of appearing.

Shantae or shovel knight

Series: Shantae and shovel knight

To be blunt I don’t think it’s likely we’ll ever get full representation from small indie game companies in smash(or at least not anytime soon). Even discounting the fact there’s a very obvious difference in weight class in regards to the legacy of these types of characters and the rest of 3^rd party smash roster, a lot of franchise like Shantae and Shovel knight just aren’t widely known on a global scale. I think fans are probably better off hoping for a costume or perhaps trophy at most.

Though that being said if you want to know my thoughts on the whole Shantae vs Shovel knight debate….well Shantae definitely deserves to be in smash more, but Shovel knight better represents  “indies” as a whole.  By this I Mean Shantae has been around a lot longer and has had way more exclusive games and history with Nintendo overall. However the fact Shovel knight eclipses her in popularity and the fact he has numerous connections/cross overs with other indie projects, make him more integrated in the culture as a whole and a better representative of an “indie” rep should really be. Shovel knight also did manage to get an amiibo and Nintendo did publish his game in japan, so he probably has more of a foot in the door comparatively.

Ridley

He’s too big. Get over it.

…..I’m kidding please don’t hurt me.

Misc thoughts

Just a nitpick but really hate how people make up imaginary rules in regards to how characters in smash are disconfirmed. Particularly I don’t think a character having a costume means they’re bared from becoming a fighter. Heck if anything it’s probably the opposite, as it means the character was popular enough to get noticed by Sakurai or was possibly even considered but couldn’t be added for some reason.

Likewise this is just a little hope of mine, but kind of wish Red could be added to show up in the results screen of Pokémon like charizard. Little mac already has something similar to that with doc Luis showing up in his and Red is probably the only character that can’t really return under normal circumstances.

Summary

• Have all 3DS and Wii-U stages on one system for a total of 84 stages(including DLC)
• All previous DLC characters, stages and costumes
• All modes from both version. Additionally re-balanced and altered versions of smash run and smash tour.
• Allow system data transfer from 3DS and Wii-U versions
• A shorter classic mode and an easier way to get custom moves
• Allow users to maintain difficulty levels after a game over and re-balance all star mode in accordance to the number of characters being added
• New custom moves for previous DLC characters or returning vets who were originally cut
• Story or Adventure mode
• Bring back break the targets, board the platforms and race to the finish sub-games
• Add more misc new content like more trophies, stages, equipment, ect
• Bring back 4 vets. Ice Climbers, Wolf, Snake and Young Link
• Add 7 newcomers. Inklings, K.Rool, Dixie Kong, Issac, Decidueye, Rayman and Pheonix wright. Also de-alt Alph and make him a clone.
• Add additional DLC characters. Returning vets Squirtle, Ivysour and Pichu. Newcomers Bomberman, Simon Belmont, Lloyde Irving and Sora.
• If time allows and the scope of the port is large enough, add 8 more newcomers. Wonder Red, Elma, Impa, Paper Mario, Bandana Dee,Krystal, Sylux, and Professor Layton.
• Final character count 77-85(This number sounds high, but keep in mind the character count already increased by about 20 between Brawl and smash 4. Likewise a port ensures we wouldn't get the normal 4-5 cuts that would keep the character count lower)
• Realize Ultraguy's hopes and dreams are unrealistic and he should settle for half this shit at best

Phew that blog ended up being longer than I anticipated.

.Anyway hopes you guys enjoyed it! What are your thoughts on a smash switch port?