The element of surprise, Custom Movepools

Well, after the Nintendo Direct today, we learned of a new feature that is being implemented into Smash 4, Custom move pools. From what we’ve seen, it appears to be changing the stats of some moves with the main example being Mario’s fireball attack. If it’s bigger, it would do more damage but travel slower and not as far, but if you make the attack smaller, than the attack travels further and faster. I came up with a similar idea for Fan Disagreement but it takes this concept one step further.

My idea for Customisable move pools can actually completely change the characters attacks and even designs. Take Kirby for example, if you equip him with some sort of Fire sticker (yes this concept uses the stickers for now) then he become Fire Kirby, most of his attacks are Fire Kirby’s attacks including Fire Breath to replace Inhale and a Fire boost to replace his sprint B. Another example is Sonic, if you give him a Sword Sticker, then he has the ability to use Caliburn. His regular A attacks use Caliburn to attack and even his Homing attack gets a stat change, it does less damage in the first attack but while you’re close, you can do quick slashes with Caliburn to deal more damage. The Stickers would also change the Final Smashes: In these examples, Kirby’s Final Smash would be Monster Flame from Return to Dreamland and Sonic’s would be Excalibur Sonic.

In regards to the Smash Direct, I will be posting my opinions on the direct on my reviews Blog latter today so check it out to see my full opinions on what Sakurai revealed today.

The Pokemon Fighters

As you know from the Characters post, there are several Pokémon fighters in this design document. While balance hasn't affected Pikachu, Jigglypuff and Lucario, There are proposed changes to Mewtwo and enough changes to Pokémon Trainer to warrant him being a new character (i'll explain why latter).

As for Mewtwo, a lot of aspects of Mewtwo would be inspired by the Mewtwo in the Adventures Manga. Using a psychic spoon for melee attacks and several psychic and ghost moves for ranged attacks including Shadow Ball, Psychic and Confuse Ray. Mewtwo wouldn't have as good of a recovery as the flight characters but would act as a mid tier fighter in terms of strength, players would be able to use moves quickly for little damage or charge them for stronger attacks. His defult Final Smash would be Psystrike but there aren't a lot of details to discuss about it yet. As for the Mega Forms, that's for a latter time :)

Now for the two Pokémon Trainers, Pokémon Trainer M and Pokémon Trainer F. At first glance, they appear to be clone characters but at this moment, that's not the case. The gimmick for the Pokémon Trainers is that, depending on the skin chosen will affect what Pokémon they have access to. On top of that, each of them are getting a 4th Pokémon and the removal of the Stamina System in exchange for something a bit harder to use. Using the Stock system, each Pokémon's percentage affects their ability to fight and, should they be knocked out, then they won't be able to fight again for the duration of the fight. When the Pokémon get in the deep percentage (at the moment, this is over 400%) their standard attacks will also do damage to themselves, but their special attacks get stronger (exact details depend on the Pokémon in question). This is to make the combat similar to the main games. As for the 4th Pokémon, the intention is to make the 4th Pokémon reflect a feature that was implemented in that generation (the exception to this is generation V)

Now to the fighters themselves, who will use the names that they have in the adventures manga (but I will include their official names as well for clarification)
Red (Red): Charizard, Bulbasaur, Wartortle and Kabutops
Blue (Leaf): Blastoise, Charmander, Ivysaur and Alakazam
Gold (Ethen): Typhlosion, Chikorita, Croconaw and Umbreon
Kris (Lyra): Meganium, Tododile, Quilava and Espeon
Ruby (Brendan): Swampert, Torchic, Grovile and Minum
Sapphire (May): Blaziken, Treecko, Marshtomp and Plusle
Diamond (Lucas): Torterra, Piplup, Monferno and Gallade
Platina (Dawn): Empoleon, Chimchar, Grotle and Froslass
Black (Hilbert): Emboar, Snivy, Dewott and Zoroark
White (Hilda): Serperior, Oshawott, Pignite and Emolga
Xavier (Calem): Greninja, Fennekin, Quilladin and Mawile (To change at a latter date)
Yvette (Serena): Delphox, Chespin, Frogadier and Sylveon (To change at a latter date)

There are other features about the Pokémon trainers, but that is for latter

SSE Replayability Idea

I think we all know about the infamous Subspace Emissary and how... tedious it was. A lot of levels had no significance on the plot, the plot itself had a lot of BIG plot holes and then there is the infamous Great Maze (ugh...). When designing Fan Disagreement, one of the things I wanted to do was redo the concept of SSE because to me, it has potential but was poorly executed (like a game I would rather not review *inset bad memories of that f^%$*&^ billiard puzzle...).

For this idea, I would like to divert your attention to the LEGO games, each of the levels in those games can be played and completed by any of the characters, like how SSE was trying to do, but in the games, the more characters you have, the more rooms you can get into in said levels and the more collectables you can find. This is pretty much the idea I would like to implement into SSE. Each character would have a ability that is shared between other characters and, depending on what characters you bring into a level, the more collectables like stickers and trophies you can find.

Singleplayer

I know that it has been a while and I apologies for that. Aside from my other blog "Blaster's Reviews", to which I am currently writing a review of Digimon Tamers for, other things came up that I needed to prioritize.

As for the information, there are two things I want to discuss that relate to the single player aspect of Fan Disagreement. The first is the modes. There will be two separate singleplayer campaigns on top of the usual, a Melee inspired adventure mode (pretty self explaining) and also a Brawl inspired story driven mode.

The other thing I want to talk about is the points and smash tokens that you could get in Brawl, for SSBFD, you can use them to play mini games along with the ability purchase trophies, stickers, and characters (including special characters that cannot be unlocked in any other way).

The elephant in the room

Something that should come out sooner than later is, probably, one of the most important aspects of Super Smash Brothers. The Character Roster. As a warning, this roster is MASSIVE.
I'll start with the returning characters. All of these characters have appeared in the official franchise (this includes Smash 4, so far)

The returning characters are as shown
1. All Super Smash Brothers 64 characters
2. Peach
3. Bowser
4. Zelda/Shiek
5. Gannondorf
6. Falco
7. Mewtwo
8. Marth
9. Nana and Popo
10. Game and Watch
11. Wario
12. Zero Suit Samus (plays like she did in Brawl)
13. Wolf
14. King Dedede
15. Meta Knight
16. Diddy Kong
17. Lucas
18. Ike
19. Olimar
20. Pit
21. Snake
22. Sonic
23. Villager
24. Mega Man
25. Rosalina and Luma
26. Little Mac
27. Lucario
28. R.O.B
29. Wii Fit Trainer

And now the new characters that are apart of the plot for Single player.

1. Pokémon Trainer M (Red, Ethan, Brendan, Lucas, Hilbert, Calem) (Pokémon)
2. Waluigi (Super Mario)
3. Kat and Ana (Wario Ware)
4. Vaati (Zelda)
5. Dark Samus (Metroid)
6. Anthony Higgs (Metroid)
7. Krystal (Star Fox)
8. Samurai Gordo (F-Zero)
9. Pokémon Trainer F (Leaf, Kris (her actual name escapes me), May, Dawn, Hilda, Serena)(Pokémon)
10. Sirica (Kirby)
11. King K Rool (Donkey Kong)
12. Kumatora (Earthbound)
13. Duster (Earthbound)
14. Lyn (Fire Emblem)
15. Louie (Pikmin)
16. Palutena (Kid Icarus)
17. Medusa (Kid Icarus)
18. Issac (Golden Sun)
19. Saturos (Golden Sun)
20. Jenna (Golden Sun)
21. Saki Amamiya (Sin and Punishment)
22. Miles “Tails” Prowler (Sonic)
23. Blaze the Cat (Sonic)
24. Doctor Julian “Ivo ‘Eggman’ Robotnik” Kintobor (yes, that is his real name)(Sonic)
25. Big Boss (Metal Gear)
26. Gray Fox (Metal Gear)
27. Dr Albert W. Wily, OBE, Ph.D (Mega Man)
28. Simon Belmont (Castlevania)
29. Shanoa (Castlevania)
30. Rayman (Rayman)
31. Phoenix Wright (Ace Attorney)
32. Steel Samurai (Ace Attorney)
33. Professor Layton and Luke (Professor Layton)
34. Lara Croft (Tomb Raider)
35. Banjo and Kazooie (Banjo andKazooie)
36. Ryu (Street Fighter)
37. Chun-Li (Street Fighter)
38. Sephiroth (Final Fantasy)
39. Lightning (Final Fantasy)
40. Cecil Harvey (Final Fantasy)
41. Ezio Auditore Da Firenze (Assassins’ Creed)
42. Gordon Freeman (Half Life)
43. Mickey Mouse and Oswald the Rabbit (Disney)
44. Tai Kamiya and Agumon (Digimon)
45. Kari Kamiya and Gatomon (Digimon)
46. Koushiro “Izzy” Izumi and Tentomon (Digimon)
47. Yomiel (Ghost Trick)
48. Near sighted Jeego (Ghost Trick)
49. Maxwell (Scribblenauts)
50. Steve (Minecraft)
51. The Heavy (Team Fortress)
52. The Pyro (Team Fortress)
53. The Spy (Team Fortress)
54. Chell (Portal)
55. Ulala (Space Channel 5)
56. Bayonetta (Bayonetta)
57. Neku Sakuraba and Shiki Misaki (The World Ends With You)
58. Sora (Kingdom Hearts)

There are other characters, but I'll explain them latter

Item changes planned, Pokéball and Assist Trophy

One of the ideas that came up during the concept phase of Fan Disagreement was two changes to the Pokéball and Assist Trophies. While these are more balances, they might make fights more interesting.

The Pokéball change: the Pokémon that would come out of the Pokéball would be limited to Baby Pokémon. Before people start attacking this idea, there is logic to my madness. The reason behind this would be the implementation of Premier Ball, Great Ball, Ultra Ball and Master Ball. Premier Ball's would have Basic Pokémon and is as common as Pokéball's. Great Ball's would be rarer then Pokéball's and Premier Balls (the exact percentages for these and the latter ones is to be decided) and Stage 1 Pokémon would come out. Ultra would contain Stage 2 and Master Ball's would contain Legendry Pokémon. The reason for this change is to limit the randomness of the Pokéball. While the exact Pokémon would still be random, if you get a Ultra Ball, you would be guaranteed a Stage 2 Pokémon. Like with the games, the stronger the Pokémon, the stronger the attacks.

The Assist Trophy: The only change would be the chances of specific characters. In order to explain, I will use a example. One of the planned characters for the Assist Trophies is Tiff From the Kirby Anime, Right Back At Ya. In the series, she can call the Warp Star to assist Kirby. In Fan Disagreement, she would do the same, call upon a few Warp Stars. Under Normal conditions, Tiff would have the same percentage as other characters but there is a way of increasing the chances. If you play as Kirby or a Kirby character, the chances of Tiff increase, Play on a Kirby stage and the chances also increase, the best percentage boost you can get is if all players are playing as Kirby characters on a Kirby stage. However, there might be other Kirby Assist Trophies so the chances would also increase.

What are people's opinions on these features? Is there something that you would recommend to be added or removed? Let me know.