If you've been religiously following the Smash Dojo updates, much like I have, you'll have noticed that each respective character series has gotten its own icon which would appear in the header of each of the new posts. For instance, Sonic's icon is the hedgehog head:
The URL being http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/images/icon/world_b_20.gif.
Now if we take a look at the URL itself, you'll notice that sonic franchise has been designated as "World B 20." Not exactly earth-shattering news, but bear with me for the time being.
Okay, so now we do the same the other characters, putting each world in its numerical order and we get the list that follows:
01

- Smash Emblem
02

- Donkey Kong Series
03

- Starfox Series
04

- Kirby Series
05

- F-Zero Series
06

- Metroid Series
07

- Mother Series
08

- Pokemon Series
09

- The Legend of Zelda Series
10

- Mario Series
11

- Yoshi Series
12

- Fire Emblem Series
13
NONE
14

- Ice Climbers Series
15

- Animal Crossing Series
16

- Wario Series
17

- Metal Gear Solid Series
18

- Kid Icarus Series
19
NONE
20

- Sonic The Hedgehog Series
Great, but whats with the missing numbers 13 and 19? The URL doesn't show anything so obviously they haven't uploaded anything to it yet, but still why the gaps? Lets take another look at this.
Excluding world 01 since it isn't technically a series, we look at 2 through 12 and 14 and note that each of these series are representative of a veteran character from Melee. But 13 is missing... and what is the only series that hasn't been shown here but was in Melee. Mr. Game & Watch. Makes perfect sense to me.
All that remains are 15 through 20 and the mysterious absence of number 19. Animal Crossing, Wario Ware, Metal Gear Solid, and Kid Icarus, all of which are new series to Brawl. It would be safe to assume that 19 will be a new series as well. Hmmm... from the looks of it, it doesn't look like we'll be able to discern any predictions from first glance. BUT WAIT! Let's take those series and change them to their translated Japanese names, giving us:
Animal Forest (literal translation from Dobustu no Mori)
Made in Wario
Metal Gear Solid
Myth of Light: The Mirror of Palutena (literal translation from Hikari shinwa: Parutena no Kagami)
???
Sonic The Hedgehog
What does this show us? The names are in alphabetical order. Which would mean that the next series would fall somewhere between M and S. The candidates: NiGHTS, Pikmin, Pac-man, Punch-Out, and Rockman.
Interesting, yes?
*[Edit]*
Yikes, I actually had no idea this was already deduced on Smashboards. The whole concept behind the clog post was inspired from regular discussions between a friend and myself, both of us are large Smash fans and avidly look for dojo posting patterns. I may have ended up unintentionally reinventing the wheel, but I certainly didn't steal the idea. Just so we're clear, 'kay?
I wouldn't find it necessarily hard to believe that multiple people could find patterns in image urls since it isn't exactly rocket science. Either way, it is not as though I'm profiting from this in any way, nor did I attempt to spread this anywhere beyond the D-toid community. Besides, speculating whats coming next is half the fun of the Smash Dojo.
Also, regarding the content of some parts of the theory itself. Many people keep trying to say that Captain Falcon is #13, which isn't true as the F-zero series is represented by #5. Odds are, the G&W series is still #13, just be sure to note that just because a series has an icon doesn't necessarily mean that that series also has a character included in Brawl, (ex. Pictochat) although I wouldn't discount the possibility.
As far as the alphabetization of the new series, I realize that in Japanese syllabary starts with was s. However I know that Japanese websites still use Roman characters when using scripts online. Rather than listing the names phonetically in English from Japanese, I explored the idea that Kid Icarus could have been translated as seen above. Since it fit the english pattern, I figured it would be worth mentioning. Take it with a grain of salt if you must, just realize that it still means we're getting another character from a new series. (Pictochat obviously disrupts this theory, its however worth noting that 19 was probably skipped for a reason so we could still be seeing a major stage or character from a new series.)
Take a look at this! This could be pretty big if this is true.
In which case it will put a hole in this whole icon debate!
http://blogs.ign.com/phoenixdragoon/2007/10/20/69450/
World 22 is Advance Wars! http://blogs.ign.com/phoenixdragoon/2007/10/20/69450/#comments Also, 13 is much more likely to be captain falcon than mr. game and watch.
Lol, someone beat me to the link I guess.
@Curly @DarkShadow
You're retarded, you're going to trust some random blog post saying "I FOUND DIS MYSTERIUS SIT AND IT WAZ IN JAPANESE, LOLOL DIS IZ AN ICON I FOUND LET M UPLOAD IT 2 MY FOTOBUCKET ACCCOUNTS, LOOK ITZ SO REELZ!11!1"? That's such bullshit, the image was clearly made in MSpaint and his story of 'mysterious hidden japanese Smash Bros site" is the biggest crock of shit
Hope it's Pac Man.
Mega Man makes the most sense. He is a classic character that was established on the NES and SNES consoles, while his most recent popularity has largely come from the Battle Network series of games on Nintendo portables. Also, he has an established projectile move which could charge like Samus's shot (Mega Buster), he could change colors and gain new projects through a wide series of different gameplay mechanics. He honestly makes a whole lot of sense in the SSB universe. Especially since Nintendo has allowed third party characters into the game and reached a new level of awesome possibilities.
Also, I would love to see Bonk in the game. He would make a lot of sense too; but that is just my wishful thinking.
It's Mister Destructoid
Misutaa Desutorokutoido
just to be hopeful but streetfighter lends into the letter frame
with clasic SNES franchises lending themselves over to Brawl streetfighter could
yes Ryu
Well, where does the new PictoChat logo fits on your theory? No.21...
"You can look at it and see that they're in Alphabetical order. That's either the biggest fucking coincidence in the world, or that's the way they're being ordered."
It's no surprise that they order correctly, because they were tweaked to fit with the facts as they were known then. Now my memories not perfect, but I believe this was coined after the Fire Emblem update, so whoever dreamed up this nonsense had to make sure that everything that was known then also fit. This is also why it randomly switches between series names and character names.
"I'm 99% sure that that isn't true. I go to both Smashboards and Gamefaqs very frequently, as well as pretty much every other site, and this was on Smashboards way before it was anywhere else."
Well, I definitely remember a topic on GameFAQ's that went up shortly after the Mario and Link update that posed the question of why the numbers in the links were 9 and 10 as opposed to something else. While I think the general "Maybe it's SSB > SSBM > SSBB" idea didn't come about until after the Pit update, that's still earlier then the date in the thread that got linked to earlier.
Wow this is all way too informative for me... *leaves*
wasnt game and watch logo the smash bro's one on melee??
freeman: flogen, the Nintendog is an assist trophy.
Pfft; I much prefer the idea of them mauling and biting Mario so I refuse to accept your point. :D
"Megaman or Viewtiful Joe"
Man, both would be so great for this game.
Yeah, I gotta say that Pictochat being #21 throws your idea outta whack.
Well its the DS logo not picto chat, so maybe theres something else coming from there. For instance there are only two GIFs in that series that have no characters associated with them. thats numbers 21 and (15? i think) animal crossing and the DS logo so i'm hoping for tom nook, don't know what it could be from the DS as a system though.
Oh and its got to be pikmin cause that would be so amazingly sweet.
is it just me, or am I the only one hoping that Chrono or Magus get put into this game? Tell me that wouldn't be hot, Iunno what the hell nintendo is waiting for but Chrono Trigger is one of the greatest game of all time....how are they gonna exclude the protagonist/antagonist of this game...
Id like to see megaman. Anything from capcom would be great because then other developers will see the trend and start begging nintendo to have their characters added.
Rockman? Oh my Gawd.
COMMENT 71
Clearly Chrono and Magus would be amazing, but if I'm not mistaken they belong to Square Enix so its doubtful.
I want Simon Belmont in there whippin' it up. I'd almost buy a Wii just for that.
I'm afraid, this is no longer valid, on your second claim at least. World 21 is the DS, there is no alphabetical order in that...
its pikmin
It's NOT pikmin.
Pictochat is World 21
Pikmin is World 22
13 and 19 still don't show anything. nor does 23 but that could change.
It might still be Rock man!