Tangentially related take, but if the
Smash series were to go on, one thing I'd like to see is a more modern format for character customisation when it comes to costumes, alts, and so forth. Here's an (edited) mockup I threw together a while back;
Essentially...
- You select a "costume" and a "colour" seperately.
- Each "costume" can have minor unique elements as needed beyond just a different model - things like voicelines, appearances of attacks, and victory animations could change too. This wouldn't change gameplay elements, though - that's reserved for echo fighters.
- Obviously some of these costumes would be entirely different characters, some would be alternate costumes... and some could literally just be made up for the sake of looking cool, or references to entirely other things.
- Each "costume" also has 12 default alts designed by the dev team with different references in mind - or just to look cool. In this example, Mario's "Modern" costume has a Fire Mario alt.
- Additionally, they'd have four more custom alts you could put together with a colour wheel. For each character, it wouldn't go much deeper than just being able to select a "colour" prominent on them and change it - so for Mario, you could change the blue of his overalls, the red of his shirt and hat, and maybe his skintone. (This works as a form of customisation that wouldn't need moderation, so you don't need to worry about Mario calling you a slur every time he does a forward smash or something.)
This would go really hard, honestly. One additional thing I'd recommend - y'know how when characters walk or run in Mementos, there's that effect around their feet? I think it'd be cool for Dark Link to have a unique thing where when running or walking, he has a splashing water effect around his feet - as in, calling back to his boss fight in
Ocarina of Time. I can't imagine it'd cause too many headaches balance-wise, right?