Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Smash Bros: The Next Generation: Day 1

  There are 35 days until E3, so I thought now would be an interesting time to start talking about the future of the Smash Bros. series. For the next 35 days, I will lay out one veteran character, one potential newcomer, and one stage idea with a list of accompanying tracks. Hopefully this will lead up to some sort of Smash Bros. info dump that I can write on, but if not, well it's just for fun anyway.

  What is my goal by writing this? Well for one, I need to keep practicing, and this is a new challenge for me. 35 straight days of content. It's something I'm passionate for, so I'm hoping it'll work. Beyond that, I'm hoping that this information gets out into the zeitgeist, and somehow enters Masahiro Sakurai-san's mind through some sort of psychic osmosis, and then becomes a reality. We'll see how well that works.

  And just so you know how this works, I have scrambled all of the franchises up so that nothing is in a predictable order, and no one day focuses on a particular group. I could have just done "Mario Week!" and "Random leftover shit!" week, but this sounded more interesting to me. Let me know how you like the format and I can consider revising it for the rest of the way. Also, please note that I do not think about tiers, and I do not think about "Final Destination: No Items." I think like I'm making a Smash Bros. game. Sorry if that bothers you ahead of time, but not really.

Veteran: Fox from Star Fox



One of the original Smash participants, Fox has seen a few ups and downs to his system, but nothing has changed dramatically. In fact he's only been cloned three times, making his general style repeated a few too many times. I think he needs to stay relatively the same, I mean we shouldn't go breaking the wheel here, but we need to start breaking his clones. I'll get to those when their time comes.
I'm a huge fan of this design not because of it's associated game, which was horrid, but because it's a bit unique for Fox. It looks more rough and tumble, and I always kind of pictured Fox as a Captain Kirk kind of captain. Also, I just like the more vibrant palette, and the lack of weasel head. I want alternate costumes for everybody as unlockable goodies in the next Smash, and I think borrowing from his Assault design would be a great second costume.

The Landmaster was a terrible Final Smash, in that it was retarded over-powered. I think this time should include something a little more kind, like a sniper bullet to the head. Something more akin to a high powered weapon upgrade from Slippy dropped down to Fox would be more my flavor. Or a Call of Duty style aircraft assault where his Arwing just lowers and shoots at people on the field periodically.

Potential Newcomer: Geno from Super Mario RPG



   Geno comes to us with a wide array of special moves from his only main appearance in Super Mario RPG. From shooting his fingers as bullets to shooting rockets out of his elbow, the dude is packed with firepower. Throwing discs of destructive energy, calling down laser beams from orbit... Potentials for special moves and Smash Attacks are numerous. I for one believe a Geno Whirl is on order for his Final Smash. If the Whirl would connect at the moment it's thrown with only one enemy, that enemy is pretty much assured being knocked out. However, if it hits multiple targets, it's effectiveness at knocking out thins exponentially. Thus, if the opponents are all weak, you stand to gain something by hitting them all, but if you're in a one-on-one scenario, your victory is all but assured.
  I have no really good idea for an alternate costume for Geno, other than slapping on a different outfit. Perhaps some pants could be on the table for discussion.

Stage: The Faceship from Mario Galaxy 2.



"More like Faceship!"

   The Faceship from Mario Galaxy 2 is somewhat of difficult idea, but bear with me. Turned to be a profile view, you have a fairly flat boat-like surface with the hat frill and Mario's nose to catch on, and a towering smoke stack in the back to provide some terrain. Blow the size of the face ship up for proportion if you need too, and consider adding a planetoid or two hovering around it for extra fighting room. Alternatively, it could be a -really- weird stage if it rotated in different degrees, but the perspective and gravity remained the same for the players. At that point, I'm thinking we're a bit too complex, however. I like the idea of the ship traveling through space, showing different galaxies in the background, similar to Lylat Cruise from Smash Bros Brawl. There could be some great opportunities to mix other Nintendo franchises too, with Samus's ship or Olimar's ship flying in the backgrounds. Spaceman Tatanga could make an appearance zipping around while being chased by Deoxys. Also, any random other thing could show up in the background, like one of the Spacebattle scenes from Star Fox, or stages from Super Mario 3D Land.

Music for The Faceship could include:

 Super Mario Galaxy - Purple Comet Challenge

  All the fun of Gusty Garden Galaxy, with a more dire and intense sound to it, suitable for conflict.

 Super Mario Galaxy - Gusty Garden Galaxy

  All the fun of Gusty Garden Galaxy. Done.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Yoshi's Star Galaxy

  The swanky sounds of Yoshi's Star Galaxy will have you tapping your toes while smacking your foes.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Glider

  Another more high-energy, albeit overly peppy, tune.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Bowser's Galaxy Generator

  A much more appropriate Smash Bros. tune. With the right remix, this could be turned into an amazing theme to thrash by.

Super Paper Mario - Brobot Battle

  And just to make sure we had at least really awesome battle theme in here, I wanted to make sure to include one of my favorite tracks from Super Paper Mario, a series that direly needs to be represented in the next Smash iteration.

  And that's one down, 34 more new characters, old characters, and stages to go.

  What do you think of my selections so far? Feel free to discuss these ideas or your own down below!

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