News has become little more than a fond memory for Wii’s Super Smash Bros. Brawl. However, this doesn’t mean that speculation can’t happen! Taking into account the history and recent actions of gaming history, here are some of my predictions what new characters have a chance to make it into SSBB, and I’ll start this series with my stabs at guessing what 3rd Party characters have a chance of sneaking into Brawl!With the addition of Konami’s Solid Snake, Super Smash Bros. Brawl has given other 3rd party characters a chance to stick their foot into the door and take on Mario, Link, Samus, Pikachu and other Nintendo legends. Here’s some more 3rd party characters that have a pretty good shot of making the leap along with Solid Snake in order of likelihood. Later on I may try to make a stab at a potential movelist for them, but for now here’s my reasoning:

Sonic the Hedgehog

Of course, Sega’s main mascot has one of the highest probabilities of making it into SSB Brawl. The rumors of him being in Melee are still floating around. :p Sonic has been a strong stalwart for Nintendo since Sega’s Dreamcast faded away - the two Sonic Adventure ports, Sonic Gems and the Sonic handheld games have all been Nintendo exclusives. I do have to wonder though if Sonic’s speed will be toned down to C. Falcon or Fox’s degree to make him more playable. If he keeps the sheer speed he has in his own games, he’ll be lost on the play field! Despite that, I think the only character who could rival Sonic’s likelihood of being in Brawl is…

Mega Man

Capcom’s Blue Bomber has made almost all of his appearances on Nintendo systems. Only Mega Man X 7, X 8, Mega Man Legends 2, The Misadventures of Tron Bonne, Mega Man Powered Up! (which is a remake of the original NES classic) and Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X (which as well is a remake of the SNES original) have not been on a Nintendo system (and two of those are mere remakes of Nintendo system originals like the Genesis/Game Gear games…and I may have missed some, I’m not perfect :p ). Out of all of his various spinoffs, the classic Mega Man and his Battle Network counterpart have the best shot at making it into the Brawl. I’d prefer the original myself.

Pac Man

Pac Man has a good chance thanks to Namco and Nintendo’s recent collaborations (Namco’s developed Star Fox Assault, Mario Superstar Baseball, Baten Kaitos Origins, Mario Kart Arcade GP [which has Pac Man in it] and the upcoming Wii title Disaster: Day of Crisis for Nintendo, while Nintendo’s mastermind designer Shigeru Miyamoto developed a special Pac-Man game for the Cube (which wasn’t a huge hit, but the significance is still there). His Smash Icon move could be gulping a Power Pellet and eating the other characters and leaving only their eyes, and his movelist could consist of some very different moves from his long array of appearances. His B move could be a rolling technique, or perhaps a slingshot from Pac Man 2. His Right + B could involve a doodle from pac Pix that could hurt or stun an opponent. Up + B could be a Firefox-esque move where Paccy chomps on some pellets in one of 8 directions, or perhaps being knocked upwards by a pinball flipper. His Down + B could summon a ghost to stun an opponent. These are just a few possibilites. Thanks to fryguy64 at NinDB for expanding my ideas of Paccy’s movelist!

A Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest Character

Yes, fairly nondescript, but there’s a strong chance a FF and/or a DQ character will jump into SSBB. Why?

1. Square Enix recently finished Mario Hoops 3-on-3, which was loaded with secret Final Fantasy characters pulled from the original FF, plus Cactaur and Moogle.

2. A bunch of Final Fantasy games have hit Nintendo systems as of late, with Nintendo publishing a high majority of them: FF Tactics Advance, FF Crystal Chronicles, FF 1 - 6 for Nintendo handhelds…plus new Crystal Chronicles titles are on the way for the Wii and the DS.

3. Along with FF, Nintendo has collaborated with Square-Enix on the development of two Mana games with Nintendo 2nd Party Brownie Brown (Sword of Mana for the GBA and the recently revealed Heroes of Mana coming to the DS). Front Mission is also coming to the DS.

4. It has been recently revealed that Square-Enix and Nintendo are working on yet another DS title together, this time a Mario Party-esque board game that’s called Itadaki Street DS, which will combine Dragon Quest characters like Slime and Jessica (the busty spellcaster from PS2’s Dragon Quest VIII) with the Mario universe.

5. Square-Enix is bringing over several games from the Dragon Quest universe to Nintendo: Dragon Quest Monsters: Rocket Slime has gathered solid scores and another DQM game, Joker, is on its way to the DS. Dragon Quest is also heading to the Wii with the sequel to standalone Kenshin Dragon Quest, and rumors are persisting that Dragon Quest IX may end up on the Wii.

That being said, I think for FF that one of the Crystal Chronicles cast has the best chance (that’s why I have art from that particular FF offshoot) because FF:CC has been a Nintendo/Square-Enix collab AND the series hasn’t branched onto a separate platform. Although someone from Final Fantasy III isn’t too far-fetched either. As for Dragon Quest, the adorable Slime is the most likely candidate.

Rayman

A few months ago, I probably wouldn’t have picked Rayman as a candidate for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but UBI Soft actually has been one of the more supportive 3rd parties Nintendo’s had the last few years. All of the Prince of Persia titles, all the Splinter Cells, Beyond Good & Evil, the Rayman titles, King Kong…all of these games have appeared on the Gamecube. Compared to some other PS2/Xbox only ports, this is rather impressive. But what really amazes me is that UBI Soft is hugely supporting the Wii with several launch titles (including Rayman’s latest as an exclusive for a while) and a few original properties (Red Steel, for example) on deck for Nintendo’s next console. It is because of this large amount of Wii commitment that I think Rayman has a solid chance to leap into SSB Brawl.

Leon S. Kennedy

If M-rated Solid Snake can become a SSB character, why can’t Resident Evil’s Mr. Scott Kennedy? In fact, Leon makes much more sense than Solid Snake does in some ways. Capcom and Nintendo made an agreement on keeping Resident Evil a Nintendo exclusive last gen (which did fall on the wayside with RE4, but was mostly maintained until that point), which gave rise to the Gamecube Resident Evil remake, Resident Evil 0, the somewhat shoddy ports of RE2, 3 and Code Veronica X, and the 10 month GC exclusive RE4. The fact that Capcom gave the DS a little RE love with the remake of the original RE and the new GC RE 10th Anniversary Collection (which bundles RE, RE0 and RE4) and the recent revelation of the Wii’s RE: Umbrella Chronicles helps give the RE heroes a solid possibility of being in SSBB. Of all of them, Leon’s got the best chance. His game reinvented the franchise for the better, and he’s got plenty of possible moves to pull from RE4 to use in SSBB.

Mitsurugi

Soul Calibur’s cocky samurai has a good enough shot to make it into SSBB thanks to two key things. First, Link made the plunge into the GC Soul Calibur II, giving rise to the best selling version of the game. Secondly, Namco and Nintendo have been quite chummy as of late (see Pac Man for the list). Mitsurugi is considered as one of the important characters of the franchise, so he’d probably have the best chance of joining up with Link in Brawl. Since Link entered his turf, why can’t he enter Link’s?

Bonk

Hudson’s classic caveman wouldn’t even have been considered a possibility until the Virtual Console. Thanks to Hudson pledging plenty of support to the VC and Bonk’s Adventure being a launch title, Bonk has a remarkably good chance to make it in. He’s the best retro choice on my little list, that’s for sure.

These following characters also have a chance, but in my opinion their movelists aren’t going to be very special OR their chances are pretty small.

Bomberman

Bomberman is also a good choice in terms of his relationship to Nintendo (Wario Blast, two N64 titles published by Nintendo, Hudson making Mario Party), but his movelist would revolve around bombs and not much else. Drop one, throw one, kick one, charge up one, etc. The Charaboms (sp) could change things up, but ultimately I think he’d be a bit boring compared to the more diversified Nintendo cast. Along with that, he popped up in Konami, Takara and Hudson’s Dream TV Smash Bros. clone, which may hurt his chances (since Solid Snake was in there as well).

Viewtiful Joe

VJ would be a fun fit, but compared to these other characters I mentioned above, he doesn’t have much of a chance. He has 4 games on Nintendo platforms, but only one is an exclusive (the DS Double Trouble). The original VJ had a few months of exclusitivity, but the PS2 got an enhanced port. Same with VJ:RHR; the PSP got more stuff.

Thanks for reading!  I’ll post up my guesses at future Nintendo characters in the near future!  Any comments or suggestions to expand the list are appreciated!