Oh. My. Shatner.
They did it. They finally did it!
During Nintendo’s E3 Direct, it was revealed that Banjo-Kazooie will be joining the Super Smash Bros. roster sometime this Fall, complete with music by Grant Kirkhope and a Spiral Mountain stage.
Oh yeah, the Dragon Quest “Hero” was announced for a Summer release as well. But he’s not Banjo-Kazooie so he kind of got overshadowed.
This is… This is amazing! For years I (and so many others) have wanted, and hoped, and dreamed that this could be a possibility. Now our patience has paid off, and this dream has become a reality.
With the exception of Super Mario RPG’s Geno, I don’t think there’s another character left who has been so strongly requested for so long as Banjo-Kazooie. And now, after all this time, the bear and bird tandem finally join their rightful place among the Super Smash Bros. roster.
Now if we could just get Geno…
Here is the Banjo-Kazooie reveal trailer (admittedly, it is a little bit of a bummer it’s mostly a tweaked version of King K. Rool’s trailer, but I’m not about to let that dash any of my excitement).
Wizard Dojo 
We made it! It actually happened!
I’ll also give credit that the DQ reveal was a lot better than I expected, not my Square pick, in fact I’m sad this pretty much kills any chance Crono had of happening, but I understand why they’re there.
The question is, what follows after this? We got probably the most important JRPG franchise alongside Final Fantasy and the long awaited return of Banjo today, two of the most requested things on each side of the world, how do they plan to surpass it with the next 2 challengers? There’s speculation over another Namco and Capcom character given the return of some missing mii costumes with the Joker update, but I’m not sure if there’s that many characters that had this level of demand. Maybe Geno might actually happen as some sort of closure? I guess time will tell, I just doubt we’ll get any 1st parties after todays reveals.
I don’t think I could ask for much more in terms of newcomers after Joker and Banjo (Crono nonwithstanding due to my earlier comments), but I’ll be hoping for a Capcom newcomer more than anything else, more especifically Amaterasu, Phoenix Wright or Dante (the latter mostly as it’d be pretty hysterical in contrast to PSABR roster, but DMC is a pretty big series when you think about it and it actually finally debuted on a Nintendo system recently).
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Yeah, the DQ character was handled better than expected, but as soon as they revealed Banjo-Kazooie, I kind of forgot about him…
You are right, we are in a strange place where we can really ask “who’s next?” It’s hard to imagine who it could be. My guess would in fact be another Capcom character, and Geno. I know some people will say they already have two Square reps now, but clearly that doesn’t mean anything anymore given that Capcom already has three. Maybe a Resident Evil character and Geno (who really would be the perfect closure at this point). Let’s hope.
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I’d normally put the idea of Namco above Capcom due to the fact they’re actively helping develop Smash Bros and they only have Pac-Man as a rep in contrast to everyone else (barring Microsoft), but they don’t have that much more in terms of iconic characters, there’s Heihachi and maybe someone from either Soulcalibur or Dark Souls (some might say Tales but I’m not buying it), but when compared to Capcom, I think the latter just looks like the far more profitable option of the two.
Geno is in a weird position, they’re definitely among the few leftover highly requested characters now that Ridley, K. Rool, Castlevania, Dragon Quest and Banjo are in, but the idea of spirits disconfirming characters feels more convincing as time goes by, I guess if the mii costume returns whenever the Hero drops that’d be a bad look, but who knows, they didn’t drop the Chrom and K.Rool costumes after they joined Ultimate.
I’m not feeling any other currently unrepresented 3rd party studios to consider them among the possibilities either, most of Japan biggest studios are already in and western ones seem like a nearly miraculous occurrence if Banjo is anything to go by, although I suppose I can see the argument for something like Crash given his return and unusual popularity in Japan despite not originating there.
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I still don’t buy that Spirits deconfirm characters. As much as I like to joke and exaggerate on this subject, I don’t think Sakurai and company are lazy. And well, if they used spirits as an excuse not to include a character, that seems beyond lazy. Assist Trophies I understand, since they create a fully animated character model. But spirits are just stock promotional images from yesteryear, I don’t see that as interfering with production of a new character. Some people (hilariously) claim that “if they add a character that’s already a spirit, they’d have to remove the spirit.” Ummm, no? They could just add the character and include new fighter spirits for them, while keeping the old spirit as is. When you unlock the Platinum trophy in a PS4 game, and then that game gets DLC and adds more trophies, you don’t suddenly lose the platinum. So many people seem to think because of how Ultimate is presented right now, that that’s the long and short of it. Which is silly, considering how games can greatly change post-release these days.
Long story short: I don’t think spirits deconfirm anything.
Honestly, I’d say Geno is as safe a bet as there is right now, given that, as you pointed out, he’s like the last long-requested character left. I certainly think he’d be a fitting “final” character. There’s some poetry right there.
As for the other remaining character, I’d say another Capcom or Namco rep are the best bets. I don’t see a “Tales of” character making it. Heihachi was heavily rumored at one point, so I wouldn’t be surprised (as monumentally disappointing as that may be). I still say the Souls-Borne games are still Namco’s most acclaimed titles of today, so someone from those games would make sense as well.
Hmmm, now I want to write a full blog on this. Thanks for the inspiration! 🙂 I’ll check out your blog later.
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I apologize if this is somewhat of a shameless plug, but I’ve just written a small post regarding the ocassion and speculating a bit further what I believe what might happen with our last 2 challengers. Maybe you’d enjoy giving it a read? It’s not that different from the commments I’ve written here but hey, they’re a bit better formatted (I think).
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I’ll check it out later. And don’t worry about the shameless plugs around here at Wizarddojo.com. At Wizarddojo.com, you don’t have to worry about shameless plugs. No sir, not at Wizarddojo.com.
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