Friday, June 12, 2020

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Final Roster Layouts

We should be getting closer to the first Challenger Pack from the 2nd Fighters Pass for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and things are certainly exciting. Who will it be? Is it Min Min? Or Twintelle? Or maybe Spring Man with a Ribbon Girl Echo Fighter? Or even a Hero type character? We'll see probably later this month.

In the meantime ThatOneMart1ni on Twitter has released some interesting images of how the character select screen(s) for the game will unfold, once the entire second Fighters Pass has been released.

For the stacked variant it creates a perfect rectangle of six rows and 13 columns, which looks pretty good overall and has all the Fighters Pass Vol. 1 and 2 characters in the last line:


If you display the Echo Fighters and different Mii Fighter types on their own, then this will add another row of 13 slots, which also looks quite good:


This variant has the original 12 fighters (together with Dark Samus) from the first Super Smash Bros. in the first line. The cast of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is occupying the last two rows and the ARMS fighter will be placed directly below the Inkling.

This is pretty nice as well and offers space for a total of 90 fighters, if you count it like on the official website. According ThatOneMart1ni, adding more icons at this point will make the game crash, which goes hand in hand with the 16 additional fighter slots that were discovered when the game got released.

But as you can see, four more slots are open. I don't think that we will be getting a third Fighters Pass, because otherwise they wouldn't have made it six fighters for Vol. 2. If there really was a third, we probably would be getting three Fighters Passes with five fighters each. In general I don't think that we will be getting any more full fighters beyond the 2nd Fighters Pass, because the second pass already seemed like a miracle and this would keep the stacked roster as pretty as it currently is.

Echo Fighters on the other hand? That would be ideal as some extra DLC, either paid or via free updates. And by adding four more Echo Fighters, you would end up with perfect rectangles for both variants of the character select screen. Alternatively, they could also add some additional Mii Fighter types, since those get stacked as well. We had a similar scenario after the launch of the game with three open Echo Fighter slots, but now with the full expansion of the roster there is one more to have...

Of course this doesn't have to mean anything, since the roster of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U also didn't end up in a perfect rectangle. It could finish things like Hyrule Warriors, where they just leave those glaring empty slot(s) as an eternal regret. But before the game is final, we should keep speculating and give Nintendo ideas.

My favorite candidates for filling these gaps would be the following:

  • 14ε Dry Bowser (Bowser)
  • 16ε Impa (Sheik) or 17ε Princess Hilda (Zelda)
  • 36ε Dixie Kong (Diddy Kong)
  • 63ε Jeanne (Bayonetta)

It would be nice to get a new Zelda fighter after all this time, even if it's just an Echo Fighter. Of course the 2nd Fighters Pass might offer one, like from the sequel to Breath of the Wild. But if it doesn't, an Echo Fighter will have to do, where Impa from Skyward Sword and Hilda from A Link Between Worlds seem like the best candidates. Otherwise they could also bring back the Link from Twilight Princess with his Gale Boomerang and Hookshot as an "Echo Fighter" for the current Link, but this would push Jigglypuff to the second row and add a fourth Link to the game.

Dixie Kong currently seems like the most glaring omission in the Nintendo cast and this could be fixed by making her a more interesting Echo Fighter for Diddy. All that really needs to change is her Up Special for the hair twirl. (Though, I certainly wouldn't mind getting a Tropical Freeze Challenger Pack with a fully unique Dixie...)

Finally, Jeanne is such an obvious Echo Fighter candidate, it hurts that this wasn't done already. But maybe they will save this as a promotion for Bayonetta 3, where they could even use Jeanne's design from that game. In the same sense, Impa could also be released as a promotion for Skyward Sword HD. But we've been over this a couple of times now...

It's also possible that one of the upcoming Challenger Packs will come with an Echo Fighter in addition, as an extra. The best example here would be Spring Man with a Ribbon Girl Echo.

So, let's see how this will evolve. Sakurai's team is still working on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate until the end of next year, probably even longer due to the Corona delays. In that time frame it shouldn't be impossible to add a few cheap clone fighters to entertain us and go for the full 90 to really make this the biggest Smash Bros. ever. At least for now.

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