Glen-i

If you did have one, you would've already done it.

It's no coincidence it got dropped the moment Mario Golf went online. In the first two games, you always had the option of punching your friend in the arm if they went overboard.

Nope. Entries closed ages ago!

A reminder that those screenshots are all from the NES titles. So they would look better then those games. It doesn't look so great compared to the SNES titles though. And compare them to some of the other Remasters and it gets worse. Mediocrity is not good enough for some of the most important retro RPG's in gaming history! And Square can do better, in fact, they have done better! On a mobile game, no less!

Fixed that for you.

As far as I see it, I don't think any third party company is getting 2 characters in one pass, so I wouldn't put money on Namco, Square or Microsoft getting that last spot. This idea of ending on something huge is always amusing to me, because Smash is notorious for ending on a character that's not exactly groundbreaking. Brawl's last character revealed before release was Olimar. For 3DS/WiiU had Shulk, with the DLC ending on Corrin + Bayonetta, and Ultimate ended on Incineroar + Ken. And then Fighter's Pass 1 ended with Byleth. When niche little series Bayonetta (Which came about from that vote) is the biggest finisher to date, I wouldn't expect that to change much for this. Out of every character not in Smash, Sora is probably the biggest one that would make me go "Wow, they actually pulled it off!" There have been rumours going around that Nintendo have actually tried getting Sora in the fourth Smash somewhere, but Disney wouldn't cut a deal. Don't know how true that is, but it wouldn't surprise me. And James Bond breaks the only rule Sakurai has actually stated (Character must have originated from a video game), so that's not gonna happen while he's working on it. Good, you don't want those floodgates opening. Trust me on this. And Waluigi is still an assist trophy. If Spring Man couldn't get past that, I don't see Waluigi getting through.

Thanks for the heads up to never visit.

OK, fess up! Which one of you edited that Wiki page?

If anything, sending out constant sale flop F-Zero would only fuel that narrative!

I mean, aren't we kinda seeing your second way of safe content after Iwata already? When was the last time we had a Nintendo Direct transition that consisted entirely of someone just contemplating a bunch of bananas?

See, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. The concept of unifying the styles for a collection like this is fine, in theory. The problem is that 5 of them don't look better than either the original game or any previous remake. The only game in this that can even claim it's the best looking 2D version is III. And that's because it's only competing with the Famicom version. Anyone who's actually trying to justify this with some BS CRT argument is woefully ignorant of the fact that Square are perfectly capable of doing better than this. Just have a look at Record Keeper for how a "unified" art style can look quite good!

Nope, welcome to the internet!

It mostly is. Lots of the big franchises reference at least a few spin-offs somewhere. (Piranha Plant has a very subtle Paper Mario reference, for example) Pokémon is just a very weird outlier in that regard. Throughout all of Smash, the only things that acknowledge Pokémon Spin-offs are the Zero-One trophy in Melee and the first PMD game being in the list of games in the Masterpiece section in Brawl. And that's it! I don't know if it's just Sakurai's team being relatively uninterested in Pokémon or The Pokémon Company being strict with how the games are represented, but something very odd has been going on in that regard.

So, we now have confirmation that Kazuya will be out by Thursday. Which means, New Character Night! And boy! This one is complicated! Getting to grips with him is going to be full of mistakes, which means so much more comedy! Like usual, I'm planning on making a highlight vid after, so I encourage anyone taking part to claim and stick with one costume, so they are easily identifiable in said vid. White Trousers - Red Trousers - S.C.G Blue Trousers - Glen-i Black Trousers - Black Suit - Silver Suit - LazyBoy Purple Suit - BowserBasher Gold Suit - Of course, everyone is welcome, even if they haven't bought the second pass. If you're one of these people, I insist you choose a character from the following list that have some connection with the Tekken series. Namco Character Pac-Man - Mii (Namco Costumes Only) - Fighting Game Rivals Ryu - RedShell Ken - Terry - Pokken Characters Pikachu - Pikachu (Libre Costume) - Mewtwo - Lucario - Charizard - Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Costumes Mario (Builder and Wedding Costume not allowed) - Link (Classic Costume Only) - Fox - Luigi - Captain Falcon - Peach - Bowser - Sheik - Zelda - Ganondorf - Zero Suit Samus - Kirby Kirby - Yeah, I know. Let me explain. Charizard is in Pokken, but Squirtle and Ivysaur aren't. If you do decide to go with Charizard, I must insist that you try to force yourself to only fighting with Charizard. That means switching back to Charizard as soon as you can after getting KO'd. And yes, I know Min Min counts as a Fighting Game Rival, but if you have her, you already have Kazuya, so choose him instead. Anyway, Thursday at 8pm is when this will start.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon is one of the best-selling spin-off series for Pokémon, and that can't even get one song into Smash! Not even a PMD style scarf for Pikachu! Yes, I'm still bitter! I've long accepted that Smash just ignores Pokémon Spin-offs. Although I have to object to Phoenix Wright being uninspired. You don't think a moveset consisting of lawyer shenanigans (No, Kazuya doesn't count) would be anything but hilarious? That series is too weird to have a boring moveset!

Welp, it's definitely time for a long-needed trip down the Avenue of Crushed Dreams. Minus points for anyone predicting these near misses. Shantae - @Ugh first aid Lloyd Irving - @Nintendo Fan Yeah, we're not ResetEra, so no-one was gunning for Dante. They're not exactly pleased with that. It's funny! The writing was clearly on the wall for Lloyd once Kazuya was revealed. Tekken was always gonna be the biggest obstacle there, but I guess the Heihachi Mii costume did provide a glimmer of hope there. I can't be upset with the Shantae one though. It's a smaller series in the grand scheme of things, and a Mii Costume (With music!) is a pretty good win there! Still a minus point for that though. But here are the scores now. With awful phone formatting! 1. Fused King - Minus 12 points 2. Ugh First Aid - Minus 14 points 3. Julius - Minus 15 points 4. Glen-i, Mandalore, markderoos - Minus 18 points 5. RedShell - Minus 19 points 6. Jonnas - Minus 20 points 7. Nintendo Fan, Vileplume2000 - Minus 21 points 8. S.C.G - Minus 22 points 9. Dcubed, Nicktendo - Minus 23 points 10. Ashley, Aperson - Minus 28 points 11. Artmediocre, bob - Minus 30 points Remember, everyone but Dcubed lost a point when we learned that we got an extra character thanks to Pyra/Mythra. And I mentioned Fused King for Heihachi a while ago, but I already took a point from him when he got Mii Costume'd, so his score wasn't affected by that background cameo. Sakurai himself has confirmed that there'll be no more characters after the next one, which means this long journey is almost over! And it'll soon be time to pay that minus point piper. You see, there's still a lot of predictions that are agonisingly stuck in the limbo of being neither confirmed or deconfirmed. But the moment we know who the last character is, there will be an avalanche of Crushed Dreams and mostly everyone is going to see their score plummet! And then we'll finally have our winner! I'm looking forward to it!

So it's the next day, and I'm gonna go update the Prediction thread soon, enough time has passed. And there are definitely some crushed dreams this time. But before I do, I was talking with @Dcubed about the subject of the last character, he's going with the "shameless promotional" pick of the protagonist of Shin Megami Tensei V. I think that game is coming out far too late for that. As for me? I see this going three ways. This is based on nothing but gut instinct, mind you, so I'm ready to be proven completely wrong. It could end with a first party pick. That would balance the second fighters pass to be half and half between first and third party. If that's the case, I'm sticking with my "It's gonna be a Pokémon" guess. Sword/Shield is still the biggest title that released before fighter's pass 2 was announced, so it's defo in for the running. Of course, whether I'd be OK with it depends on the actual Pokémon they choose. Toxtricity is my hope there, but Inteleon would also be acceptable if we have to have another starter. Anyone else and I'll probably feel it as a wasted opportunity, but the last two Pokémon in Smash have been Incineroar and Greninja, both excellent choices, so I hope that good taste continues. My second guess would be a Capcom rep. They've been absent as far the DLC has gone. The one I wanted had a lot of stiff competition from more popular Capcom franchises, but they've been steadily dwindled away since Smash was released. Resi Evil got a post-launch Spirit Event, and Monster Hunter and a certain other series have been Mii costume'd. Quite frankly, I think Phoenix Wright is now the biggest Capcom IP that has a shot. Strong ties with Nintendo consoles and a ridiculously wacky and fun choice for a fighter. Also timed pretty nicely, with Great Ace Attorney coming out soon. Or, Sakurai could go for one final middle finger to PS All-Stars Battle Royale, in that case, Crash Bandicoot is still the big PlayStation-related character there. But yeah, there's my likely to be wrong guesses.

It's not quite as amazing as High School Love, but it's not a bad substitute! Very good candidate for the BGM of the inevitable Smash highlight reel this Thursday.

Presentation begins at 3pm GMT.

Oh man, that really cheered me up over breakfast. Thanks!

@BowserBasher is right. But keep in mind that if you join a person online who has set their preference to button controls for whatever reason (Drifting Joy-Cons, in my case), you have to use the same control scheme. My guess is to make sure everyone is on the same level field. Motion controls add a level of realism that I'd imagine make shots more difficult.

Sajid Javid. If I remember right, he's the guy who quit the Chancellor role after Johnson told him to fire his aides. Johnson has some nerve, claiming Hancock did a good job not long after being shown to call him "f***ing useless"