NOTE: The original version of this article stated there were 2 stage slots left. This is incorrect, there is only one left. The count is now fixed. Sorry for the confusion.
September 30th 2015 is finally upon us. After nearly two whole months since the previous Smash update, Nintendo confirmed 2 weeks ago that a new stage based on the recently released Super Mario Maker would be releasing for both Wii U and 3DS version of the game today. Of course, with this update everyone expected more than just a stage to be confirmed. It had been 3 months and a half since the mega June update that added Roy, Ryu and Lucas and there is no way that Sakurai and his team had only been working on the Mario Maker stage since then. Everyone got hyped for this update and we at Source Gaming even had a roundtable discussing what we think would be added. Now that the day is here I can confirm the news that there is indeed NO characters along with this update, however there is something unusual for sure.
Characters:
n/a
Stages
Super Mario Maker: alone: $2.49/£2.29; bundle: $3.49/£3.19
Pirate Ship: Wii U exclusive: $1.99/£1.79
Duck Hunt: 3DS exclusive: Free with update!
Mii Fighter Costumes
Business Suit: alone: $0.75/£0.69; bundle: $1.15/£1.09
Toad Hat + Toad Outfit: alone: $0.75/£0.69; bundle: $1.15/£1.09
Viridi Wig + Viridi’s Outfit: alone: $0.75/£0.69; bundle: $1.15/£1.09
Hunter’s Helm + Hunter’s Mail: alone: $0.75/£0.69; bundle: $1.15/£1.09
Rathalos Helm + Rathalos Mail: alone: $0.75/£0.69; bundle: $1.15/£1.09
Fox Hat + Fox Outfit: alone: $0.75/£0.69; bundle: $1.15/£1.09
Captain Falcon Helmet + Captain Falcon’s Outfit: alone: $0.75/£0.69; bundle: $1.15/£1.09
Bundles
Mii Fighter Costume Bundle #4: alone: $5.25/£4.83; bundle: $8.05/£7.63
Collection #4: Wii U: $9.73/£8.91; 3DS:$7.74/£7.12; bundle: $13.53/£12.61
So there you have it, Super Mario Maker was not the only thing we got as we also got an exclusive stage for each version and some new Mii Fighter outfits based on other popular fan-requested characters like Toad, Viridi and the Monster Hunter. Interestingly, this is the first time we have had exclusive version DLC with both Pirate Ship and Duck Hunt. It seems likely that Duck Hunt was only given to 3DS owners because they could not get Pirate Ship working on the 3DS. The question remains, will this be the only exclusive DLC we see or not. According to the leaked data files from last April, we have 2 characters and 1 stages left to receive. With the Smash Ballot ending this Saturday, it is looking increasingly likely that these were always reserved for Smash Ballot winners and appropriate stages to launch alongside them. This may mean we will see no more returning characters like Wolf or stages like Great Bay, however this is all just speculation on my part. So, let us know what you think of the DLC in the comments below. Did it underwhelm you or was what you expected? Do you think all we have left now is post-ballot DLC or not? Until the next update.
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Personally, I don’t think this rules out pre-Ballot characters at all. Considering it takes a while to create any characters from scratch, there’s a pretty good chance we won’t see any Ballot characters until January or later. And if they started work on a couple more non-Ballot characters after E3, it’s pretty reasonable for them to not be ready until October or early November.
That, and it seems too unreliable to assume those placeholders are all we’re getting. That’d imply they were locking in an exact amount of content they’d pull from it six months before it even closed, which seems extremely risky when they wouldn’t have known exactly what the situation would look like by now. Plus, it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense to hold such a massive deal as the Smash Ballot is only to pull just two characters from it. And when they can add more placeholder data whenever they want…I still think they’re all for pre-Ballot content.
Personally, I’m thinking we’ll still see a couple new characters some time this fall. Isn’t there a rumor going around about a Direct on October 14th?…
Yes there is a rumour. It is meant to tie into the Octolings which are also arriving on the 16th according to it. The rumour does not say if it is a general direct or a splatoon focused one though.
Though it’d have to be a massive Splatoon update to qualify for its own Direct. I guess we’ll have to wait and see?
Quite a while, probably, considering they’ve made a habit of announcing Directs less than 48 hours beforehand…
I hope that more placeholder slots are going to be added to the game’s data. It seems rather illogical to include only 2 characters from the Smash Ballot, based on the sheer amount of hype that generated.
The ballot (or survey) supposedly released in Japan during Brawl’s developement only lead to Sonic’s inclusion. Besides, I think people are being either too optimistic, too greedy, or too naive. Mario Kart 8’s DLC didn’t go on too long after the game’s release. The NX should be released soon. How many characters do people expect at this point? I feel like Sakurai will be working on Smash DLC until it’s time to develope the next freakin’ installment, based on people’s expectations. I believe we will get two and only two new characters that will be based on the results of the ballot. They will not be highly requested but safe choices like Wolf. That’s what pre-ballot DLC was for. Instead we will see two new major newcomers. I can be wrong, but I’m pretty certain about this.
Shouldn’t there be only 1 stage left according to the 3ds data? IIrc, the Mewtwo patch added 7 placeholder slots, and we’ve gotten 6 on the 3ds including Duck Hunt.
Personally, I’m infuriated. We’ve been waiting for 3.5 months for character info, and we’ve been completely let down twice in a row. It cuts really deep for people who want veterans back, like Wolf! At this point, I’ve completely lost respect and have given up on those responsible for supplying DLC. We don’t want Mii Fighter outfits, we want characters.
Sakurai never said we’d be getting characters over the summer. He never even implied we’d see anyone before the ballot’s results. Has he been on vacation? No. The stages and Mii Fighter costumes are evidence of this. Has he been working on fighters? Probably, but I doubt safe choices like Wolf will be worked on for something like this.
The Mii Fighter costumes don’t exist to troll fans. They’re there so fans of a particular character (like King K. Rool) can still have some sort of desired representation. It may imply that the character isn’t being worked on as DLC and that this is an alternative, or that the character IS being worked on but isn’t finished, so they produced the Mii costumes in the interim.
What I find most intriguing is the Duck Hunt stage, because this now opens the door slightly for the possibility of more cross-game ports. I’d love to see more Wii U stages on 3DS and vice versa. While there are obviously some that will never happen (eg. Orbital Gate Assault on 3DS), I’d personally love to see Balloon Fight, Mute City, Warioware and Prism Tower on Wii U and Mario Galaxy (graphically toned down a bit), Pilotwings, and Wuhu Island on 3DS.
Pirate Ship is a nice surprise since in my understanding, it was the single most requested stage for revivals. This *hopefully* means that Smash team is paying attention to what fans want.
I love the 3DS stages, particularly Duck Hunt (never got to play the Wii U version, so it’s new to me.) I love the transitions in the SMM stage, especially how the music changes (if it’s not the SMM theme playing.)
The Mii Fighter costumes were a mixed bag for me this time. I’m a supporter of them, considering it allows us to have some characters we otherwise wouldn’t. The Viridi one is definitely my favorite of the bunch, and the MonHun ones are pretty amazing as well (I’m glad MH got some representation too, considering how associated with Nintendo it’s been.)
The Toad outfit looks weird with legs for obvious reasons, but it looks like I could possibly re-purpose it a little to make Doki Doki Panic characters. The Business Suit let me make a pretty good looking Agent J (Elite Beat Agents), so no complaints there.
The Fox and Falcon outfits kind of annoyed me. I’ve been trying to make the best of the playable character-based outfits (like making Young Link and SA-X), but usually it’s a stretch to think of something. Falcon I can at least put on Kent Akechi from Maximum Velocity, but what the heck am I supposed to do with the Fox outfit?! x_x
Actually, I take back what I said in the last paragraph… the Falcon and Fox outfits are pretty awesome in motion (but then again, I’ve found that’s the case with pretty much all Mii Fighter outfits.)
I ended up not using the Fox hat and just made a Mii version of James McCloud, who looks pretty good aside from having a flat face. 😛
To be honest here, I’m quite disappointed to have a same DLC just like the previous one. I mean the stages are fine enough as it still hyped us up, but the Mii costumes are one disappointed things to have for a DLC update, although we pretty much knew it was gonna come anyways. But I do think these costumes proves us that certain characters won’t be playable as DLC due to lack of uniqueness, some things that’s already impossible to change (like having TWO Viridis while one is being shown in a background of 3DS’s Reset Bomb stage), and avoid unfairness to other reps (like having 3 Capcom reps while Sega and Namco have only 1). So maybe fan favorite characters like K.Rool and Inklings may not have a chance at this point…but as everybody says, nobody knows the result yet.
The stages were quite interesting to see how different it was than the previous DLC. I’ve predicted that the Pirate Ship would return to Smash as being Toon Link’s home stage, but didn’t know its gonna be a Wii U exclusive like Miiverse. On the other hand, although it’s not my favorite, Duck Hunt stage has added to 3DS ver., which is quite interesting that this is the first stage they brought the Wii U exclusive stage to 3DS. So maybe they’ll plan to bring other stages to each other, which I would like to see Magicant in Wii U.
I wouldn’t think the future DLC character will last up to 2 remainings. I know April’s leak showed that there are 2 more characters left to be added, but before that, there was a leak of character select screen’s page arrow button found in the 3DS ver. after the 3DS ver. was released. I don’t know if that leak’s still effective but I do think there might be more DLC characters to be added, but probably up to 3 to 5 more characters in my guess. I know making a new character from the scratch will take a long time, but possibly there will be clones too since that’s much easier to create, which I’m thinking of Impa (Shiek’s clone) and Medusa (Palutena’s clone) to be playable. I hope they’ll announce something more before the end of the year, but I still have this belief that Sega and Namco should bring a 2nd character to balance with Capcom…
Wolf