3 labels that should get the Smash Bros treatment

I’ve written about Super Smash Brothers a few times here on Rice Digital; however, something I think we need to talk about is other possible Smash-like games we might just see in the future.

We’ve just had our first proper look at Warner Brother’s upcoming Multiversus, which manages to differentiate itself from Smash in a really nice way with its emphasis on 2 vs 2 team-based matches. Similarly, we’ve seen Nickelodeon All-Stars borrowing liberally from the Smash formula as well.

So today let’s talk about some of the series I would love to see get Smash-like spinoffs! 

Smash Bros Clones That We Need!

Shounen Jump Versus!

This is the one I want the most — the number one. The most frustrating part about this one is that it feels like it could be one of the more impossible games to actually have. We had J-Stars Victory VS back in 2014 and more recently we got the cursed Jump Force. J-Stars wasn’t actually all that bad, but in both cases we had all of the ingredients for some amazing games, and the opportunity was totally and completely flubbed. 

There is nothing greater in the anime and manga world than the roster of characters that this game could offer us, and there is no limit to how many characters we could potentially have in these games — Smash Ultimate has close to 90 characters, and people are still asking for more to be added even with the game’s DLC cycle supposedly being over. This means that we could get all of our favourite characters from numerous different Shounen Jump titles from past, present, and even future titles for DLC. 

Considering the sheer size of the Shounen Jump roster of characters, this game’s unique touch to differentiate itself from other Smash-like games could be that it’s a team-based game where each stock you have is a different character. For example, let’s say I have Luffy from One Piece, Killua from Hunter X Hunter and Yoruichi from Bleach on my team — if I’m starting as Luffy and I lose my stock, Killua comes in and then Yoruichi if I lose another stock. This would be such an awesome way to take advantage of the massive roster of characters that Shounen Jump has to offer. 

Please Shounen Jump, just give me a fighting game that isn’t shit, I beg of you.

Square Enix

This one is quite frankly the most puzzling as to why on earth it hasn’t happened yet: we already have two Final Fantasy characters in Smash, plus Dragon Quest’s Hero(es)! If the amount of people who love the FF characters and Hero isn’t enough of a sign to make a goddamn Square Enix All-Stars Smash title then I don’t know what is!

Final Fantasy is one of the most famous video franchises globally, and every single mainline game — by this I mean the numbered ones — has some of the most distinctive and fondly remembered characters in the world of video games. I didn’t grow up on this franchise, so I’m not speaking from a place of nostalgia when I say this — Final Fantasy VII is my favourite game of all time, and it has my favourite cast of characters. I would throw money at Square Enix to have a game where I can play as Tifa in Smash. (Someone needs to introduce Conor to Ehrgeiz in the meantime, I feel – Ed.) 

Everyone that has gotten into the FF franchise has in some way or another fallen in love with their favourite entry in the series and its cast, and I think that the passion that fans have for these characters alone is reason enough to make this game happen. I don’t think Dissidia is what the people want anymore — and with the rise of the Smash-like, it’s time for Square to capitalise on some of their most beloved characters. 

Playstation All-Stars Battle Royal – REBORN!

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen — it’s time for the original Super Smash Bros clone to rise again and deliver an up-to-date, more refined game featuring the growing cast of characters that Sony has managed to acquire since the game’s original release back in 2012. A new version could keep all of the characters it had back in its original roster, but update them to be the most recent versions of them, such as Nordic Kratos. 

There are so many more characters now to include that the roster could make for a genuinely great playable cast. Characters from the Last of Us games could be included, and Raven from Gravity Rush 2 to accompany Kat. Spyro and Crash Bandicoot made their remake debuts not too long ago and I think people would love to see these characters. Heck, they could potentially even get either one of the Miles Morales or Peter Parker Spidermans (Spidermen? – Ed.) in the game thanks to Sucker Punch being a first-party developer. 

The original game, while it certainly could have done with a bit more time in the oven, was still a great game to mess around with if you had some friends along for the ride. It also included a really cool way for players to remove stocks from one another that made it feel notably different from Smash. Instead of blast zones or percentages, players would build up a super meter to perform a super attack — and it was by landing super attacks that scored players the kill.


So there’s three picks from us — what about you? What are some of your favourite franchises and companies you’d love to see get the Smash treatment? Let us know down in the comments, via the usual social channels or with a letter for the Rice Digital Friday Letters Page!

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Conor Evans
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