Super Smash Bros 4

Of course my shitternet won't let me open the eshop. >_>

Edit just as I post that it opens. Go figure.

 

What do you all think of the DLC? While Mewtwo was never my best character to play as by any means, there was always something that just felt cool about being able to control him, so I'm glad that he's back. I'm really looking forward to the Miiverse stage DLC and hope that it comes with more stages down the road, especially if those rumors regarding Ryu are true. It'd be weird to have a character from an iconic third party series without their own stage! (And yes, I do think it'll end up being true. E3 will probably be highly telling, either way.)

 

Mewtwo is fun, just wished they swapped out his Down B for something a bit more useful...

But speaking of DLC, Lucas's supposed to be released next month! As a Lucas main from Brawl, I can't wait to pummel people with the power of PK Love!

 

I was never a huge Mewtwo player in Melee/Project M, but it is certainly comforting (in a weird, fanboyish way) to have him back in the roster. It just feels like what he deserves! It's nice that Lucas will be back in business, as well. More adjustments would have been nice, but seeing those slick PK Love graphics in HD is something to rekindle that sweet Smash flavour.

More stages! That's what I look forward to the most. I've always been a big fan of seeing these classic Nintendo environments come to life in Smash Bros, reimagined in a way that best suits fighters. I feel like some of the 'Smash flavour' I mentioned before was lost on this batch of stages -- there are still glimpses of it (i.e. the 3DS' Magicant stage, which I so badly want to see as a Wii U option in the future), but there are almost too many stages that are crippled/have their gameplay too deeply affected by a huge gimmick. I don't want every stage to be a basic three-platform arrangement, but some visually interesting but not too disruptive versions of classic Ninty locales is what I seek in Smash, personally.

I'm still a little disappointed by the lack of a dedicated 'Adventure' mode. It seemed like such a shoo-in for the new version of Smash! I would like to hold out hope for them to patch it in at a later date, or offer it as a DLC option. But that's somewhat unlikely.

 

I get what you mean. Stages, in general, feel a bit disjointed this time around. An overabundance of retro stages and rehashed tracks keep this iteration of Smash from being the home-run it could've been. Even though it actually plays like a much better version of Brawl, and I love the roster more than any past one even with the (current) exemption of Snake, it doesn't have the epic feel that Brawl had when you first took it out of the box for me - largely because of the lack of adventure mode (SSE or Melee-style - wouldn't have mattered if it were just there), as well as the stage debacle. Both can be solved with future updates, in theory, and at least one of them probably will be with downloadable stages on the way. Are there any in particular that you might be hoping for?

I'm personally all for broader Donkey Kong representation in general. Give us K. Rool! Give us Dixie! Give us the Gangplank Galleon as a stage and Rambi as a ride-able AT like Gogoat. That would be neat. I'm also all for Ryu and hope that that particular rumor is true. Bonus points if we get Roy as well, though I wish he would get a revitalized moveset. As cool as it would be just to bring a fuller roundabout to the Melee generation, having 3 Marth clones would be a little overabundant - even for me. (I've also envisioned a Lucina moveset that is completely uncloned too... The Awakening as an FS should've been obvious.)

The big rumor circulating around Smash-oriented boards right now is that we'll get around 10 DLC characters total, including two ballot winners. I'll just list my hopefuls/pseudo-predictions for if that were the case...

1. Mewtwo (Released)
2. Lucas (Confirmed)
3. Roy (Highly rumored)
4. Ryu (Highly rumored)
5. Wolf 
6. Ice Climber (Popo/Nana as a singular Ice Climber, alternating) or Ice Climbers, if they somehow worked that out
7. King K. Rool (Ballot winner)
8. Isaac or Chibi-Robo (Ballot winner)
9. Dixie Kong
10. Snake

As far as actual votes go, I think that King K. Rool has got this locked for first place and will henceforth finally be heavily considered by Sakurai and his team, if not just ultimately added. Isaac seems obvious for a character with high votes, too, though I'm going out on a limb and saying that maybe we'll get something more Japan-oriented to help balance the heavily western-orient K. Rool, which may be Chibi-Robo - especially given news of the 3DS platformer coming out in the east sometime this year. Dixie Kong compliments K. Rool and is someone who Sakurai has considered in the past. With the amount of news going on about the Ice Climbers when development first started and fan disappointment over their exclusion, it would seem plausible that Sakurai has been working on a solution to his initial issues with them. Wolf would work well for Star Fox U promo and brings back a veteran who was probably cut purely due to lack of time like Lucas, and Snake just seems like a great surprise to top it all off.

 

Well, dataminers doing their thing with 1.0.6 and the accidentally released 1.0.8 definitely confirm Roy and Ryu as DLC characters.


EDIT: Again with these screenshots...

 

Oh yeah, I completely agree. I don't know... maybe it's that I got the 3DS version first, and I had to download it out of the sheer eagerness I was experiencing that it had finally launched (or the slight apprehension that it'd be sold out if I went to the stores), but I just feel like it was rather... bland in comparison to the labour of love that Brawl felt like. Sure, I don't think that Brawl is the best game ever designed, but the hype for it was feverish. The nightly waits for the DOJO!! updates, the rampant speculation on the final roster, the overall atmosphere that Brawl constructed... And finally getting to play it was just something to behold. Subspace wasn't perfect, but it was definitely a worthwhile experience. I am genuinely dismayed that Sakurai seemed to have taken the hype for people to share his story mode's cutscenes as such a negative thing.

As far as stages go... well, I seem to have gotten my wish for Dream Land 64 to make a return. Unfortunately, though, they didn't bother to upgrade it beyond replacing Dedede in the background with a Bronto Burt if King Triple-Dee is in battle ("Leave it to me!"). Graphically, there is just so much that they could have done better with it. On the side of 'competitive' things, I'd be thrilled to see some more viable stages such as Fountain of Dreams, or Yoshi's Story (ideally revamped in muh aych dee grafixxx). Give me the "Battle Stage" or the Glitz Pit from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door! Give me an interesting stage like Flash 2's Hylian Skies! Bring the classic Ninty locales back to life; don't just import models from the newer games and call it a day. I really just want to see some more love and less manufacturing come out of these stages.

And hey, maybe a few new songs to play in combat. Gourmet Race is a great tune, but I know I could totally go for some diversity - there are some great Kirby tracks from the more recent games that I would certainly love to see given some Smash OST lovin'.

Now, while I said I couldn't really vouch for the hype of Mewtwo's inclusion, I was a huge fan of the Ice Climbers. My love for Smash's dynamic duo extends back into the days of Melee, and deep into Brawl's heyday as well. I definitely would consider them one of my 'mains' of the franchise.
And being such a big fan of the ICs in the other games, I absolutely cannot vouch for the idea of them apart. I can't! I think it would be entirely lame. I was (and continue to be) one of the fans who was super disheartened at the news that they would not receive an "invitation" to the fray for the 3DS/WiiU iterations of Smash, but I would much sooner have no Climbers than a solo Climber. There's scarcely a point to the character without the cooperative effort for the player and the 'deny the Nana' win condition for the opponent. Completely neuters the spirit of the character.

And hit me up with some Isaac from Golden Sun! I thought for sure he was going to be a lock for the final roster when he wasn't revealed as an Assist Trophy, but apparently it was not meant to be. Yet. I would be perfectly okay with shelling out money for a neat playstyle with swords and Psynergy. For now, I suppose I can settle for salivating over how Flash 2 is going to handle him... murrrrr

 

@Eebit - After thinking about it for a few, it really wouldn't make sense to bring in a solo Ice Climber. It would completely destroy the purpose of why they were ever implemented to begin with. I think that, between the 3DS in general and 8-player Smash on the Wii U, they just weren't able to make Nana work for various reasons, which is a darn shame. We shouldn't get a half-assed compromise, though; one certainly wouldn't go for half-cooked chicken!

I also agree with you on the N64 stages. I think there's a certain charm that they have being largely the same as they were upon first debut, but with Temple having gotten a revamp, it makes less sense than it would have otherwise, and the Project M interpretation of Dream Land is seriously impressive, on top of all of that. I'm in agreement on you again with all of your other musings on stages. There's multiple great ones that I play on, but not to the same ratio as in past games due to the unwarranted amount of ridiculous hazards. While I'm a fan of Delfino Plaza, I agree that more could be drawn out as far as the tour stages go. Skyworld would've benefited from a day/night system reflecting the (small!) hazards present there at night within its origin game alone, and a certain demon popping up as a backing cameo would've been a joy to see, as well. What I'd like to see, though, is a Great Sea Tour, as far as those types of stages go and as has been a common theme amongst our Smash conversations going on 8 years now... If I were director, I'd probably make the Great Deku Tree stages and Dorrie Ride a reality, too, as more profound tour or altering stage type bases of play.

What I've been asking around lately is, "If four characters were left for us to download into SSB4, who do you THINK they would be, and who would you WANT them to be?" Some interesting answers have arisen all over that have been far more varied than I'd've thought they would be!

For me, it's:
THINK: Wolf, King K. Rool, Chibi-Robo, Isaac
WANT: King K. Rool, Snake, Simon Belmont, Vaati

I think that the "think" section is largely obvious, with my Chibi-Robo explanation being largely enveloped in a previous post here. Like so many others, King K. Rool is my most-wanted by a strong margin. I believe that Snake could still come back in realistic fashion as one final gift and surprise for Smash fans this go-around, but as the drama unfolds further and further between Kojima Productions and Konami, the less likely his return will ever seem to be; doesn't stop me from loving his games and the character as he is in both MGS and Brawl, though. A glorious return he'd make. Simon I just feel is the most deserving now that Pac-Man, Mega Man, Sonic, and Ryu are all in as far as third parties go; Castlevania's history with Nintendo speaks for itself! Plus, I love the series to bits. Lastly, I feel Zelda is in utter need of representation. We've missed the boat on Skull Kid, Midna, and Ghirahim since they're all assist trophies, and Impa, while cool... Well, I just think Vaati's cooler and represents a greater sum of Zelda history than modern day Impa does. The 'idea' of Impa greatly predates Vaati, but her current iteration is fairly new, so I'd argue seniority, but mostly the humongous wind-gusty eye thing that his FS could be.

 

I feel like I recall that they really touted the fact that they intended to give some sweet, next-gen updates to the Past Stages in both Brawl and Sm4sh during the DOJO!! updates and daily screenshots, respectively... and in the end, it has only been Temple that really saw a major facelift. There is a certain nostalgic charm about it, sure, but barring that, I would have rather seen a reimagining of the stage than just a straight port. The same goes for such stages as 75m, or Duck Hunt. The 'retro port' element is getting a touch played out for me. I would sooner see fewer "semi-retro" stages and more with the Wrecking Crew-esque treatment!

Also, Great Sea Tour would have been a fantastic replacement for Pirate Ship... although with that said, I don't mind terribly the gameplay on that stage, either!

Something I've been musing about in my own head lately is

 

CLOUD IN SUPER SMASH BROS

THIS IS NOT A DRILL GUYS

 

this is silly, why cloud of all people. why not represent the whole series with a moogle or something. ffvii has never even appeared in a nintendo console! #salty

 

If it were up to me, I'd have even chosen a Black Mage to represent the series, but I do suppose Cloud is the overall arguably the most iconic character of the franchise... and I feel like that's really what Sakurai is going for and has been talking about -- the most iconic video game characters putting up their dukes in the Smash Bros. ring.

What does excite me is the possibilities in the future. Geno, for instance -- everyone has been hyping it up for so long, and the most major argument against it is "well SE owns the rights and won't ever collab with Ninty on Smash Bros, so don't count on it". Well, there's no such excuse to hide behind now...!!

 

Lmfao Cloud got confirmed

 

...



Ok Geno pls

 

There's an Enterprise's worth of considerations to take into account when assessing what the heck just happened today with the Smash reveal, so I guess I'll start with saying that I'm far more positive about this than I am negative. Actually being a longtime fan of Smash itself, maybe that's saying something since so many people seem to be miffed and puzzled above any sort of excitement within our walls. Outside of the walls, though? Everyone's extremely excited.

If anything proves that SORA and Nintendo are businesses and Sakurai is in it for profit at least almost as much as he is for the passion of this project, it's this; Cloud is a HUGE gaming icon, although not so much within the confines of the specifically Nintendo-inclined gamer. The pop culture impact that this has is major, though, and I applaud them for breaking the wall once again. I'm all for breaking limits. :5 Commercialization has its benefits; if you don't like a big pop hit, that's fine, but that it's being sold gives its label's subsidiaries more cash to advertise that sparkly indie star that you're into and give them a lucky break. Cloud being in is contributing to giving this new Nintendo era a break in a multitude of ways.

The Wii U/3DS era, and gaming at large this era, has been largely stale in terms of sales. This sort of shocking reveal is more wide-encompassing than us who are exclusively Smash fans are giving it credit for. Cloud is extremely well-known; he's one of the most major pipe dreams had by overall gamers for Smash this side of Goku. He represents a large market share of gamers who may not have been turned on towards Nintendo for years or haven't ever been, let alone the tens of thousands of people outside of our bubble who don't fuss so much over pre-ordained "laws" that Sakurai can break at any time he wants, know him as an icon, and just think it's damn awesome that he's jumping into the fray.

I'm not Cloud's biggest fan. Heck, VII is, by today's standards, a poorly-translated mess of a contrived storyline, in my opinion - and that's with my thinking that Crisis Core kicked ass. That might not be its fault, directly, of course; the storyline, right down to character archetypes and types of locales, been done so many times after VII (and by Square Enix, at that) that I've just developed an anxiousness towards that kind of thing. I think that Black Mage, Mog, or Cecil would've been the technically better characters, and I would've personally championed either before Cloud. To discredit his relevance as a gaming icon or to bash him without considering a greater good is silly to me; it's the same entitlement that every establishment ever has and it's just disheartening.

I'm also tired of these "too many anime-styled swordsmen" topics popping up because of (and prior to) this. Come next game, Toon Link needs to be decloned and Dark Pit and Lucina need to step out of the scene (at least as main game additions; if they are decloned as DLC, that'd be kinda neat maybe), but other than that, you have Marth, Ike, Robin, Roy, Pit, Shulk, Link, and Cloud. Big deal. People zealously preach the names of Isaac, Takamaru, and Lloyd Irving by the droves, and they have swords, too C'mon. Although, I would introduce characters like Aqua and Bandana Dee in a theoretical Smash 5 (and give Ike the Urvan for his Down B) before considering most swordfighters myself, but that's neither here nor there in regards to the sheer amount of flaming butthurt billowing out of the Smash community right now.

I'll buy Cloud and I'll enjoy him. He will never be my main, but I'm sure he'll be cool to use. I would make a similar argument if Goku or Mickey Mouse made it into the game. I'd be excited for just about anyone Sakurai can come up with. It promotes Nintendo, it makes headlines, it sells. And it's awesome. That Midgar stage looks genuinely kickass by the way, and I'm just happy that we'll be getting some more Nobuo Uematsu in our Smash 4. 

I'm excited about where this'll take us as far as potentially repairing bridges with main series Final Fantasy on Nintendo consoles, where this may take us in regards to Geno and Mallow, Super Mario RPG, and heck, maybe even Mother. This is all a little weird, but in an overall great way, in my opinion.

 

Representation in Smash Bros is something Jonno and I have talked a shitton about together and for the most part we tend to agree. (Except that one time he was on some weird kick to add in Mickey Mouse.) Whenever the subject of Square-Enix reps has come up I've always been of the opinion that they'll come from the Final Fantasy series. Sorry Chrono, and Dragon Quest fans but when people say Square-Enix most people will respond with Final Fantasy. But then it's a question of who do you choose from Final Fantasy? Unlike most of the other franchises in Smash there is no one central main character. It's similar to Fire Emblem in that respect. Which is another series that Jonno and I tend to argue about but that may also be because he's more knowledgeable about it than I. (Seriously though Lucina get a new moveset or gtfo) 

Most people over time suggested Cloud as the Final Fantasy rep. I always rejected that because while sure he is the poster boy his only appearances on a Nintendo console were in two spinoff Kingdom Hearts games where it wasn't even the real Cloud from that series. (data in Re:Coded and a memory in Chain of Memories) and then there were the two Theatrhythm games. I always felt that if we got a rep from Final Fantasy it should be either the OG Warrior of Light, Black Mage, Cecil Harvey, a Moogle, a Chocobo, or a Moogle riding a Chocobo. Now while Moogles and Chocobos may sound silly, they have been in more games than any other character and therefore have huge recognizability. Almost every game has included them. No moveset potential you may say? I say that argument is invalid. My time in the Smash Bros speculation community and with SSB Mercurious, the site where Jonno, Eebit and I all originally came from has taught me that just about any character has moveset potential. You just have to apply your mind and THINK! 

But we didn't get those characters. We got Cloud. And I for one am not disappointed. Was it who I wanted? No. But I will still have a fun as fuck time playing as Cloud. The Smash Bros. fan community as a whole needs to realize that the game isn't just being marketed to us. If it was being marketed to the loudest voices we would have Shrek, Spongebob and Goku in this game. Are suggestions like King K. Rool and the Inklings as ridiculous as that? Of course not. But Sakurai is going to add in the characters that Sakurai wants to add in. The Ballot wasn't a contest. Nobody is going to "win." It was a poorly worded suggestion box that they'll use to get an idea of who might be good inclusions both for the last few pieces of DLC in this game and in Smash 5. Will the top 10 characters all make it in? Highly unlikely. 

Cloud is a great choice. He's by far one of the most recognizable characters in all of Final Fantasy whether you like him or not. And he would be sell far better than one of the other characters I mentioned. Warrior of Light is the OG, but Cloud pushed the series into the Playstation era. Is it strange to have a character who's primary games have not been on Nintendo consoles and who's upcoming remake probably won't ever come to a Nintendo console either? Absolutely. But we had Snake in Brawl. How many Metal Gear games came to Nintendo after that? We got Ryu in the last DLC update and we're not getting Street Fighter V. Clearly that's not something Sakurai cares about. 

Past Smash games have had a bit of a pattern where you could kinda see what might be coming next. But with Smash 4 and the DLC it's gotten if there's one thing I"ve learned it's that we can't predict Sakurai and if he wants something in he's going to do it. Sakurai has more power than many think. Namco wanted Pac-Man to have his Ghostly Adventures design but Sakurai told them no. He said he wanted the older design or Pac-Man would not be in Smash. Guess who got their way. Sakurai.

 

@Flamezone Figured I'd just tag you here to continue the Smash talk instead of cluttering up your AMA thread with it.

For the most part I agree that Smash tends to get better with each release though I do think each version has had it's own missteps. Tripping in Brawl being one of the big ones and how OP is Meta Knight is. We really do have a massive as fuck roster. Some of the characters are to me an odd choice such as Wii Fit Trainer but they've grown on me and like many others I'm not a big fan of clone characters yet at the same time I can understand that they are essentially a bonus and do not in any way take the slot of any other characters. The big thing that bothers me about clones is when they get brought back for subsequent titles but are largely unchanged. If you're going to bring a clone back then they should do their best to de-clone them for the next release. Hell, I'd pay for DLC that de-clones the ones we have in Smash 4 even if it delays any other new DLC we would get. I also don't see why we got Dr. Mario back. Sakurai was considering separating Alph from Olimar but instead went with the other three clones. But separating Alph would make more sense than the Dr. who is just Mario in a different outfit! Most likely it was only done because he was a Veteran Fighter but still. It bugs me.

The Loss of Subspace didn't really bother me though I would have liked some kind of Adventure Mode. Melee's was fine but imagine if there were multiple paths one could take to go through different stages. I definitely agree with you about Classic Mode. It's really unrecognizable from how it once was. The 3DS version is alright, but the Wii U one is just strange. I would also prefer it if we could set how many lives we wanted to have available to us throughout the whole mode instead of just having 2 on each stage. 

I like the idea of custom moves but I think they could have been implemented better. Why is it that only the Mii Fighters and Palutena have legit MOVES and everyone else has alterations on what they can already do. I understand that some characters are difficult to come up with something for but are you really going to tell me that you couldn't have come up with some new moves for Mario? How about an Ice ball instead of a Fire ball? A Hammer as a reference to the SMB3 Hammer Bros. Suit? C'mon. Equipment can go to hell. Seriously. I play a lot of random matches against CPUs but I always do it with Customs off. If Equipment wasn't a thing though I'd have it on. Fuck equipment.

Ugh. The redundancy. Smashville & Town and City have no place being in the same game. Same with the Pokemon Stadiums. Big Battlefield replacing OG Battlefield in 8-Player Smash would have made a lot more sense. For the Mario Kart stages they could have either dropped the Brawl one, given us a MK8 Rainbow Road, or picked a different basic stage like Toad Harbor or Shy Guy Falls! (Speaking of does anyone else get a Snow White vibe from that track or is that just me?) At least they had the right idea with Flat Zone and combined the aspects of 1 & 2 together to create one new stage. I don't know why they couldn't have done that with Pokemon Stadium. It'd take a bit more work than the Flat Zones but it would still be doable. Pac-Land, Palutena's Temple and Great Cave Offensive are definitely among my least favorite stages. I also hate how obtrusive the "bosses" are in their stages. It's especially bad with the Yellow Devil. Though we did also get some really great stages. Halberd was my top choice for a returning Brawl stage along with Luigi's Mansion and Pirate Ship and we got all three! And there were several good new stages as well like Mario Galaxy and Kalos League. (Fuck Registeel though)

If I could add any character I'd have to say King K. Rool. I know he's a popular choice but come the fuck on. There is no reason for the Donkey Kong franchise to be stuck at two characters and while some may say Dixie Kong I would rather have K. Rool. Stage-wise though there is only one option for me. Bowser's fucking Castle. How the hell has this not been a stage yet? I mean really. It's one of the most iconic and revisited locations in the Mario franchise. It's a damn travesty it hasn't been used yet. I just hope Sakurai doesn't make it massive as shit like Palutena's Temple and Great Cave Offensive... 

Banjo-Kazooie would be a great choice as well. Many have said it's not possible because why would Sakurai promote a character that's not going to be on a Nintendo console and is much more closely associated with a rival console but the inclusion of Cloud proves that Sakurai doesn't give a shit about that and if he wants Banjo-Kazooie then by the power of almighty Sakurai Magic he's going to get fucking Banjo-Kazooie! I'd also bet on Banjo-Kazooie being a high vote getter on the ballot. While I don't think that there will be a "winner" of the ballot I do think it's more of a suggestion box and they'll look at it to see what people like and then see what they can do with like the top 25 choices for both the remaining DLC and Smash 5. 

Zelda definitely deserves another rep as well. Swap out Young Link for Toon Link and the franchise hasn't seen a chance in characters since Melee and there is just something wrong about that. My top choices for a new rep would be Skull Kid, Vaati or classic Pig Ganon.

 

I was going to quote Zantok's last post in my response, but I guess it's pretty unnecessary. Just scroll up a little bit. I wanted to add comment point by point. ^_^'

Thanks for moving it here. It wouldn't have been a big deal if it stayed in the thread, but it makes sense to move it over here.

I actually totally forgot about the clone characters. I mean, Smash has always seemed to have them, even since the first iteration. It didn't click with me as a problem that Smash 4 has because clone characters have like...been a staple. But they do feel kinda unnecessary, but I'm not against having Dr. Mario, Lucina, and Dark Pit. Sure it skews with Random a little bit, basically giving the same character a 2x bonus for getting selected, but I'd rather have them than not have them. I understand that they are bonus characters, but if Marth lost half his skins and Lucina lost half her skins, it would feel kinda lame, especially since Lucina has some really cool ones. I feel like Smash has done a better job with differentiating old clones, however. Even though Fox and Falco feel quite similar, they are still way different from eachother today than they were at Melee. And also look at Roy's new iteration, I feel it is quite unique, especially when compared with Marth/Lucina. My biggest gripe is that after three versions of Smash, they STILL did not decide to make Ganondorf have a non-Captain Falcon moveset. Even though he does feel different than Falcon, they should really incorporate a different base set, and actually use his magic powers, and his giant sword. It feels like they should definitely have removed him from Falcon by now...

I'm glad my nitpicking actually wasn't met with, "You're just a whiner," haha. Yeah, this is definitely the weakest classic mode yet. I also am not a fan of Smash Tour. And to be honest, I haven't played the 3DS version in so long, I hardly remember the differences between them. I don't recall it's stages well, and I don't remember Smash Tour all that well, besides remembering it would have been preferred if that mode were in the Wii U release. I mean, I really just wish the Wii U and 3DS shared the same modes and stages. Or atleast just bring them over to the Wii U. Ever since the Wii U release, I just CAN'T play the 3DS version anymore. It's like another plethora of stages that I'm missing out on. Like why doesn't the Wii U replace Mario Circuit (Brawl) with Rainbow Road, and one of the Smashville stages with Tortimer's island? That would definitely have been better.

Yeah, I don't even know what the custom moves are like in game because I do my absolute best to never have customization options on. I hope they decide to not bring back equipment, but keep the special moves for the next game. Also, all my Miis have no equipment at all. I didn't want to completely neglect three, unique characters, despite them not being an option for Random. This also reminds me that I should post my "Random Character Switch" rant on here somewhere.

And I definitely agree with you there. I forgot about Palutena's temple. Which makes me really glad for the Omega options. I remember being skeptical, but now I absolutely love the decision. You can play any level at all without ever letting out a groaner, and you can enjoy the unique music and atmosphere that every stage provides. It's genius.  And yeah, absolutely, some of the bosses, and just hazards in general are definitely a detriment to the players who like the different layouts of the stages, but get annoyed at the obstructive bosses that kind of kill the balance of a stage. Some people quite like it, and I'm glad that they exist (because Ridley is just really cool), but having a Hazards option in the options menu seems like it should have been a no-brainer. Also, I noticed you mentioned there is two copies of Pokemon Stadium, but I don't believe 4 has both stages? Just Kalos and Pokemon Stadium if I recall correctly (which reminds me that Spear Pillar would be awesome DLC), but I'm guessing you are actually referring to Brawl.

Yeah, Bowser's Castle is DEFINITELY a stage that should exist. It's crazy it doesn't. Villains in general don't seem to get stages dedicated to them at all. I can only really think of Halberd, if Meta Knight is even considered a villain? But yeah, villains actually need more rep in Smash Bros in general. No wonder people are rooting for Wolf, King K. Rool, and Vaati. There are hardly any villains in Smash! But I agree with you, King K. Rool is definitely one that I really hope makes it. I don't think Sakurai would release a Mii Outfit and say, "Good enough." I think he'll deliver.

Skull Kid is definitely a cool one! I just don't see him for this Smash, since he's an assist trophy (Poor Waluigi). I hope for the next iteration (please let there be a Smash 5 eventually), Waluigi and Skull Kid pull a Little Mac and become playable characters. Young Link would actually be a great addition, IF they made him a completely unique Majora's Mask moveset. He would be a returning character (fans love that from what I gather. All the people begging for Mewtwo, Roy's, and Wolf, and Dr. Mario's inclusion at all), and he wouldn't be sporting a cloney-moveset, but rather one where he does either quick-animated transformations for certain attacks, or partial transformations for basic attacks. Think of a double Zora-fin slash for a Forward Air, a flower twirl as Deku Link for an up tilt, and a Goron ground pound/back slam for a down air. Then Fierce Deity Link as a Final Smash. I feel like that would be the best incarnation of Young Link.