Who would you want as the main villain in a new story mode/Subspace?

[thecrimsonflash]

3 hours ago, Etheus said:

Walluigi.

A wahpon to surpass metal gear.

Maybe the villain could be an amalgamation of villains from all represented series.

[Dragoncat]

On 7/19/2018 at 6:43 PM, thecrimsonflash said:

Maybe the villain could be an amalgamation of villains from all represented series.

That'd be neat! But probably extremely difficult to design without looking horrendous. But that might be the point.

[MacLovin]

i kinda want it to be a fallen hero! kirby that swallowed shadow the hedgehog and ganondorf

[Johann]

On 7/19/2018 at 10:16 AM, Dragoncat said:

I guess we'll agree to disagree here. I personally loved Subspace and how it "took itself seriously", because seeing heroes and villains from different franchises interacting like that was so awesome.

I should probably mention that I have a low opinion of most video game stories, and consider a majority of them to just be arbitrary excuses for plots (like Mario rescuing Peach again) or highly derivative of other fiction (Fire Emblem itself is pretty guilty of recycling its own plots). Game makers often have to write their own stories, but they're usually not good writers to begin with. As I see it, putting a serious plot in Smash is as silly as putting a serious fantasy plot to a baseball game.

There are some genuinely intriguing stories among a few Smash characters' home games though (especially Mother 3, which is one of the best written game stories ever).

[Dragoncat]

17 minutes ago, Johann said:

I should probably mention that I have a low opinion of most video game stories, and consider a majority of them to just be arbitrary excuses for plots (like Mario rescuing Peach again) or highly derivative of other fiction (Fire Emblem itself is pretty guilty of recycling its own plots). Game makers often have to write their own stories, but they're usually not good writers to begin with. As I see it, putting a serious plot in Smash is as silly as putting a serious fantasy plot to a baseball game.

There are some genuinely intriguing stories among a few Smash characters' home games though (especially Mother 3, which is one of the best written game stories ever).

Platformers in general have kinda sucky stories, classic Spyro is another example. I can see your baseball game point, but I still loved Subspace.

On the "source games that have good stories" thing, I haven't played Mother/Earthbound but I'll take your word for it. Also Shulk says hi. Seriously, his story has everything. Action, romance, comedy, tragedy...twists you didn't see coming, etc.

[Johann]

32 minutes ago, Dragoncat said:

Platformers in general have kinda sucky stories, classic Spyro is another example. I can see your baseball game point, but I still loved Subspace.

On the "source games that have good stories" thing, I haven't played Mother/Earthbound but I'll take your word for it. Also Shulk says hi. Seriously, his story has everything. Action, romance, comedy, tragedy...twists you didn't see coming, etc.

I actually just finished Xenoblade Chronicles just yesterday and it was definitely one of the better RPG plots I've played in a long time. I think my only major issue with the story is that the villains in the final act were very derivative.

Earthbound and Mother 3 were written by a renowned Japanese writer who just happened to want to make a few games for fun. Earthbound's plot is more of a simpler coming of age story that swims in humor and love while throwing nightmarish brilliance in every now and then. Mother 3 focuses on Lucas's family and community over time and generally more of a poignant staged comedic drama than the loose wacky adventure of Earthbound. What makes Mother 3 standout over Earthbound, specifically, is that there's a tremendous depth of humanity on display with every single character, whether it's through their faults or their virtues.

Smash just doesn't need a plot. Sakurai is the kind of creator who doesn't see the point in creating the same thing twice, so even if he could, I don't think he'd be interested in making anything like SSE again.

[Dragoncat]

25 minutes ago, Johann said:

I actually just finished Xenoblade Chronicles just yesterday and it was definitely one of the better RPG plots I've played in a long time. I think my only major issue with the story is that the villains in the final act were very derivative.

Yeah Egil just seems like evil for the sake of being evil. Mumkhar, if you use my headcanon that he was bullied as a kid with alcoholic parents who would smack him around and do nothing to help the bullying situation, becomes believable and you can see why he willingly followed Egil. He probably told him he'd live like a king and have power beyond his wildest dreams, which to Mumkhar, giving up his humanity for that would be a no brainer. Not sure what you mean by "derivative" but that's that.

29 minutes ago, Johann said:

Smash just doesn't need a plot. Sakurai is the kind of creator who doesn't see the point in creating the same thing twice, so even if he could, I don't think he'd be interested in making anything like SSE again.

Huh. Well Subspace was really well loved by fans so maybe? Maybe not? I agree that Smash doesn't NEED a plot, but having one is like the icing on the cake.

[Johann]

1 minute ago, Dragoncat said:

Yeah Egil just seems like evil for the sake of being evil. Mumkhar, if you use my headcanon that he was bullied as a kid with alcoholic parents who would smack him around and do nothing to help the bullying situation, becomes believable and you can see why he willingly followed Egil. He probably told him he'd live like a king and have power beyond his wildest dreams, which to Mumkhar, giving up his humanity for that would be a no brainer. Not sure what you mean by "derivative" but that's that.

I guess I should share my thoughts on each of the primary villains:

Spoiler

• Mumkhar: Loved him, he was an amazing villain. It was obvious that he was Metal Face well before the reveal, but that's not a problem since he's just too entertaining to watch. I think it's great to just have a villain who's simply a petty asshole who likes the power trip, and my only beef is that they killed him sooner than I would've liked. What's notable about him, too, is that he drives Shulk and Dunban to show greater depth by being consumed with blinding rage. The other villains get more of a "we will stop you!" response when confronted, but every time Metal Face pops up, he makes it extremely personal and the characters react with very powerful emotions.
• Egil: Expected to see a "leader of the Mechon who's not really the main villain", and I think overall he's fine. His change of heart and sudden demise was also expected, but at least he had interesting boss battles and his motivation was well done. I don't know how you got "evil for the sake of being evil" because he's clearly an extremist trying to defend Mechonis by any means necessary.
• Dickson: They drop waaaaay too many hints  throughout the game that he's not really your friend, so it's no surprise that he turns out to be a bad guy. I mean, he straight up says he's deceiving the party in one scene. He's an interesting character for most of the game, but then the "reveal" shows him to be pretty two dimensional. What wasted potential. They should have either made him more nuanced, or at least show that his motivation for siding with Zanza was about picking what he perceived as the winning side.
• Lorithea: Also clearly evil from the get-go. Was anybody even remotely fooled? Pretty bland, she's just another gloating evil villain who goes "this cannot be!" when killed.
• Zanza: I've seen the "god is evil" shtick way too many times to be impressed here. I'll grant that using the giant as a decoy was interesting, and that he was literally a regular ass human made for some intriguing backstory. Other than that, he's just another "I will destroy the world" villain that doesn't bring anything new to the table.
• Alvis: I know he's not a villain, even though he seems to be for most of it, but I just wanna add that I think they could have made him a more subtle character. The moment you meet him, it's painfully clear that he's the one who knows the entire plot and backstory, which meant he would either be the final villain or some kind of ultimate good guy. I figured the game's final twist would be him usurping power from Zanza and being the final villain, but I was cool with his true nature.

23 minutes ago, Dragoncat said:

Huh. Well Subspace was really well loved by fans so maybe? Maybe not? I agree that Smash doesn't NEED a plot, but having one is like the icing on the cake.

His approach to Melee fans wanting Smash to return to Melee's playstyle has been "go play Melee then", so I think he'd probably say the same for Brawl/SSE fans. That said, I'm sure he's thinking up some kind of (hopefully) satisfying single player/co-op experience, because people really do enjoy playing Adventure Mode/SSE as a means of going beyond the normal Vs matches.

[beepboop]

You would have to fight nintendog in Final Destination the true mastermind of all of smash bros

[thecrimsonflash]

15 hours ago, beepboop said:

You would have to fight nintendog in Final Destination the true mastermind of all of smash bros

(Silent Hill did it first)

[Cornguy]

Personally, I don't care for Tabuu, and the hands are more or less knockoff Kirby bosses(not that that's such a bad thing). I liked the SSBB SE, but I definitely would've preferred if Tabuu were absent, and it was more just the league of Nintendo villains taking over. 

If we got a "story mode" again, I'd like for the antagonists to just be a league of evil, comprised of the villain characters. It could be cool to have an option to play the villains and anti-heroes side of the story, but if not, you don't have to be able to use every character in a story mode. Or you can start your team with all the morally gray characters, i.e. Meta-Knight, Wolf, Dark Pit, R.O.B., G&W, and you can choose whether or not you team with the heroes or villains in the story.

But I think there are so many good Nintendo villains available, it's just sort of a waste to use Tabuu, or make up another OC. And if one villain ends up being the pseudo leader, I think that's okay as long as they all get a fair amount of screen-time. 

[Zangetsu]

Why isn't Master Core one of the options?

On 7/19/2018 at 12:52 AM, Etrurian emperor said:

I'd love Hades being the main villain. 

I agree with this. Sakurai bias be damned

 

On 7/19/2018 at 9:00 AM, TheGoodHoms said:

Bring in Carrie Keranen to do the sassy hype man computer from Blazblue Cross Tag Battle.

Seriously.

It is the best thing ever and I love her.

That really was well executed boss. Can't say the same about the actual fight.

[TheGoodHoms]

5 hours ago, Zangetsu said:

That really was well executed boss. Can't say the same about the actual fight.

Agreed. It was a pretty underwhelming fight for a character with so much personality.

[LucinaRobin]

Maybe this time, they will not use roster character as villian.

Maybe they will make new characters from super smash franchaise for a villian and make them playable.

If we complete story mode.

My thought.

[The_antithesis]

I personally would like to see the characters split into many factions based on some disagreement in the Smash universe. The final boss would involve the player picking a faction and fighting the other one in an insane 30+ stock 1v1 multi-character match!

[Jotari]

On 7/22/2018 at 6:43 AM, Dragoncat said:

Yeah Egil just seems like evil for the sake of being evil. Mumkhar, if you use my headcanon that he was bullied as a kid with alcoholic parents who would smack him around and do nothing to help the bullying situation, becomes believable and you can see why he willingly followed Egil. He probably told him he'd live like a king and have power beyond his wildest dreams, which to Mumkhar, giving up his humanity for that would be a no brainer. Not sure what you mean by "derivative" but that's that.

Huh. Well Subspace was really well loved by fans so maybe? Maybe not? I agree that Smash doesn't NEED a plot, but having one is like the icing on the cake.

It's highly doubtful Evil promised Mumkhar anything. At the start of the game Egil doesn't respect the life of the Homs in the slightest, viewing them as nothing but a food source for Zanza. Mumkhar was meant to be enslaved and brainwashed, but it didn't properly work because he actually accepted his role as traitor as it gave him the power he always craved.

On 7/19/2018 at 1:38 PM, Johann said:

It's not about whether they were bad or not, it's more that the time and money it takes for them to create these stories and cutscenes is a waste when they could be making even more modes, characters, etc instead. I doubt we'll ever get anything as overproduced as SSE again, and the time between Smash 4 and Ultimate's releases will have likely been too short to allow for such an undertaking.

Frankly, SSE took itself too seriously. The "story" could be as simple as something from Kirby Super Star, which had straightforward plots like "[villain] stole all the food, get it back" and "Kirby fell into a cave, find treasures and escape". If we get an adventure mode, I completely expect something equally simple, if not more so.

Waste of money, maybe, waste of time, no. It's not like the people that animate the cutscenes are the same people that design the characters and moveset. It doesn't work that way. A team dedicated to animation will animate. It just means hiring more people to work in the game. I'd, it won't detract from the amount of effort that goes into making assist trophies and stages etc.

On topic, my idea, bring back Zero Two as the villain if the story mode. It would work with the minamilistic story telling Smash would need to have and is one of the only series (along side a Mario villain) that could pull it off given Smash's history with Hal. Plus, just in general, Zero Two is cool.

Edited August 14, 2018 by Jotari

[Lord_Brand]

I could see various villain team-ups happening.

• Bowser, Kamek, King K. Rool, Captain Syrup - Classic cartoony bad guys who like to kidnap princesses and steal loot.
• Ganondorf, Medusa, Dracula, Sephiroth, Validar - Dark overlords raising armies of demons, zombies, and other underworld fiends.
• Andross, Mother Brain, Dr. Wily, Dr. Eggman - Crazy scientists out to take over the world!
• Giovanni, Black Shadow, M. Bison, Big Boss - Crime bosses coordinating their minions.

[Slumber]

The biggest problem with a SSE-type story is just the... WILDLY different tones of every series.

We had Ike and Marth, from worlds where they actually live with the possibilities that their friends will die right in front of their eyes. We had Snake, whose franchise is just a string of sadness and tragedy. We had Lucas and Ness, who were basically avatars for childhood escapism of the awful world we live in. We've got Samus, who seems to live in a world totally devoid of anything good. And there's Link, a character who's had tons of fun adventures, but also tons of adventures where everyone and everything he loves suffers, and his adventures in Termina alone would make Mickey Mouse depressed.

Then everybody has to stop and be amazed at how amazing Sonic the fucking Hedgehog is when he gets a totally unjustified big dick hero moment. And it's played 100% straight. This ain't SatAM Sonic. This was "I was kissed by a human girl for drama" Sonic.

So yeah. It might work with a light-hearted, comedic story. But trying what they did already would be just silly.

Edited August 17, 2018 by Slumber

[Zapp Branniglenn]

7 hours ago, Slumber said:

We've got Samus, who seems to live in a world totally devoid of anything good. 

Hmm, Samus' universe has very little conflict from what we see. The Prime series has the widest view of the greater human and alien communities. But the very idea that we humans will survive to a point of interplanetary travel with no remaining sense of nationalism is a very optimistic view of the future. And who are we fighting in the future? Not each other, not other sentient alien races, but space pirates, who are brainwashed, genetically mutated and bred warriors cooked up by Mother Brain (or Ridley, it's not clear). That's like Star Trek levels of optimism for the future. Even Metroids, our supposed mortal enemy in the series have saved Samus' life on multiple occasions implying that they are also capable of good despite being built for destruction. Samus' personal story is of course very tragic and finally put to screen in Other M, but at least she comes out of it with some friends even if they're all military men and fellow bounty hunters that also apparently have a heart of gold. 

Quote

And there's Link, a character who's had tons of fun adventures, but also tons of adventures where everyone and everything he loves suffers, and his adventures in Termina alone would make Mickey Mouse depressed.

Mickey Mouse has had his own adventures - in Kingdom Hearts. Goofy freaking dies and he immediately seeks revenge. He also crossed paths with all three characters in Birth By Sleep who are all either in a coma or brainwashed by the time traveling big bad of the series.

Edited August 17, 2018 by Glennstavos

[vanguard333]

On ‎2018‎-‎08‎-‎14 at 8:36 AM, Jotari said:

It's highly doubtful Evil promised Mumkhar anything. At the start of the game Egil doesn't respect the life of the Homs in the slightest, viewing them as nothing but a food source for Zanza. Mumkhar was meant to be enslaved and brainwashed, but it didn't properly work because he actually accepted his role as traitor as it gave him the power he always craved.

Spoiler

I agree, except it's heavily implied that Egil never resorted to brainwashing for the first batch of Faced Mechon. Xord mentions before dying that, when he was turned into a Faced Mechon, "the truth" (about the Monado, the conflict between Bionis and Mechonis, etc.) was revealed to him (presumably by Egil, if only so that his minions understood the mission). When the group gets to Galahad Fortress, Egil reveals that he can remote-control any Mechon, Face or otherwise, that tries to disobey him, and he demonstrates this with Face Nemesis, who had already acted out on her own earlier in the game; implying that he doesn't do this all the time; only as a last-resort against disobedience. It's only after Face Nemesis betrays him despite his control that he even decides that a Face's memories are even a weakness (which makes me wonder why Xord can't remember anything from before he became a faced mechon, since he's one of the first batch of Faces alongside Metal Face) and proceeds to brainwash and erase the memories of Jade Face. 

Of course, I only bought the game this summer, so if there's anything I got wrong, please let me know. 

[Interdimensional Observer]

27 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

Hmm, Samus' universe has very little conflict from what we see. The Prime series has the widest view of the greater human and alien communities. But the very idea that we humans will survive to a point of interplanetary travel with no remaining sense of nationalism is a very optimistic view of the future. And who are we fighting in the future? Not each other, not other sentient alien races, but space pirates, who are brainwashed, genetically mutated and bred warriors cooked up by Mother Brain (or Ridley, it's not clear). That's like Star Trek levels of optimism for the future. Even Metroids, our supposed mortal enemy in the series have saved Samus' life on multiple occasions implying that they are also capable of good despite being built for destruction. Samus' personal story is of course very tragic and finally put to screen in Other M, but at least she comes out of it with some friends even if they're all military men and fellow bounty hunters that also apparently have a heart of gold. 

We see little conflict, because Samus has never strolled into a lively intelligent lifeform city. Metroid games thrive on loneliness in an alien environment, and that be difficult to create if she was hired to fight in a battle between the Galactic Gorgonzola Group and the Provolone Piracy Pleroma, with the Expansive Edam Empire waiting on the sidelines for the right moment to strike them both.

We can't deduce much about the Metroid world, other than a few dead/uninhabited planets and couple of scientific research satellites/ships, there could be total peace, there could be total war, we just don't know.

[Lau]

If the mode is called Spirits, and is connected to everybody dying in the reveal trailers, then I'd like to see this:

The characters are trophies, right? This is seen in Melee, Brawl, and especially the SSE. In the SSE, when the characters are defeated, they return to trophy form. Sooo, what if, their spirits are pushed out of the trophies, and the trophies are hijacked by a dark force, kinda like Dark Bowser and Dark Diddy Kong from SSE. We have to somehow get the character's spirits back inside the trophies, maybe by playing with a handful of characters not being hijacked, so maybe the Original 8? This would unlock even more characters. So they keep running into the entire roster, and helping them. Then at the end, all the dark force gathers together and creates one giant abomination that they have to fight.

Idk, I just want some gorgeous cutscenes.

Edited August 17, 2018 by Lau

[Slumber]

2 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Mickey Mouse has had his own adventures - in Kingdom Hearts. Goofy freaking dies and he immediately seeks revenge. He also crossed paths with all three characters in Birth By Sleep who are all either in a coma or brainwashed by the time traveling big bad of the series.

To be fair, being in Kingdom Hearts would make anyone depressed.

But Termina's an extra level of fucked beyond being in some weird 40 year old Asian man's vision of an edgy 12 year old's idea of Disney.

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

  Hide contents

I agree, except it's heavily implied that Egil never resorted to brainwashing for the first batch of Faced Mechon. Xord mentions before dying that, when he was turned into a Faced Mechon, "the truth" (about the Monado, the conflict between Bionis and Mechonis, etc.) was revealed to him (presumably by Egil, if only so that his minions understood the mission). When the group gets to Galahad Fortress, Egil reveals that he can remote-control any Mechon, Face or otherwise, that tries to disobey him, and he demonstrates this with Face Nemesis, who had already acted out on her own earlier in the game; implying that he doesn't do this all the time; only as a last-resort against disobedience. It's only after Face Nemesis betrays him despite his control that he even decides that a Face's memories are even a weakness (which makes me wonder why Xord can't remember anything from before he became a faced mechon, since he's one of the first batch of Faces alongside Metal Face) and proceeds to brainwash and erase the memories of Jade Face. 

Of course, I only bought the game this summer, so if there's anything I got wrong, please let me know. 

Xord is batshit insane though. And he was by all (well one) accounts a normal guy. Just because someone who's been brainwashed says they haven't, doesn't mean they're not. I mean, unless Xord was a crazy cannibal pirate man before being captured. And considering Egil's plan is ultimately genocide and extinction of all homs, the first batch of face mechon would clearly need some form of conditioning to work. It's only after Mumkhar and Fiora got out of control did he decide to turn it up to eleven.

7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

We see little conflict, because Samus has never strolled into a lively intelligent lifeform city. Metroid games thrive on loneliness in an alien environment, and that be difficult to create if she was hired to fight in a battle between the Galactic Gorgonzola Group and the Provolone Piracy Pleroma, with the Expansive Edam Empire waiting on the sidelines for the right moment to strike them both.

We can't deduce much about the Metroid world, other than a few dead/uninhabited planets and couple of scientific research satellites/ships, there could be total peace, there could be total war, we just don't know.

There seems to be both total peace and total war. Total peace between official civilizations, but total war against the space pirates who true to their names attack and retreat making open conflict with them difficult most of the time.

Edited August 18, 2018 by Jotari

[Anomalocaris]

8 hours ago, Lau said:

If the mode is called Spirits, and is connected to everybody dying in the reveal trailers, then I'd like to see this:

The characters are trophies, right? This is seen in Melee, Brawl, and especially the SSE. In the SSE, when the characters are defeated, they return to trophy form. Sooo, what if, their spirits are pushed out of the trophies, and the trophies are hijacked by a dark force, kinda like Dark Bowser and Dark Diddy Kong from SSE. We have to somehow get the character's spirits back inside the trophies, maybe by playing with a handful of characters not being hijacked, so maybe the Original 8? This would unlock even more characters. So they keep running into the entire roster, and helping them. Then at the end, all the dark force gathers together and creates one giant abomination that they have to fight.

Idk, I just want some gorgeous cutscenes.

Mii Fighter! We get to rescue the Nintendo cast!