User:PanchamBro/Sandbox

~~Vergeben leaks~~

The Vergeben leaks were a series of insider info from the user Vergeben, a well known leaker coming from a history of predicting fighting games, about Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Starting before E3 2018, Vergeben's leaks were undoubtedly infamous on which characters would make the cut for this new alleged game. While most people have argued over the legitimacy of these leaks, almost all of what Vergeben told was predicted right, with his only fault being that a Square Enix character would be the first one revealed as downloadable content.

E3 2018 leak

After the Smash reveal in March 2018, on March 16, 2018, Vergeben posted a thread on GameFAQs to shout that Ridley was a playable character and that the new Smash game would be an entirely new game but with reused assets.

On May 16th, 2018, Vergeben came back with another thread to deconfirm a previous source that he was given, as well as adding on to his original claim by saying Simon Belmont would be a newcomer and that the entire roster from Super Smash Bros. 4 would return with no cuts, with the Ice Climbers and Snake also returning after being cut from SSB4. Even more is that Vergeben also claimed that the popular Microsoft-owned indie game Minecraft would be represented in some form, and that Ridley would be revealed at E3 that year.

E3 2018 rolls around, and the lack of cuts from SSB4's roster, the return of Snake and the Ice Climbers, and the addition of Ridley were all confirmed during Nintendo’s E3 2018 Direct. With only Simon Belmont and the Minecraft representation unconfirmed at the time, Vergeben replied “Just be patient. There’s still things to be revealed before release”, suggesting that Simon would be revealed at a later date. He later claimed on Reddit that there were at least “half a dozen newcomers” left to be revealed, but he didn’t know who any of them were aside from Simon.

Post E3 2018 leaks

On July 28, 2018, Vergeben made a post on GameFAQs titled Disregard ALL people claiming leaks that don't have these two characters, which reiterates his earlier claim that Simon would appear and also added Isabelle to his list of claims.

Later, on August 3, Vergeben posted on a GameFAQs thread that a Pokémon from Generation VII would appear as a playable fighter, and that it would not be Decidueye, Lycanroc, or Mimikyu.

The Smash Direct on August 8 revealed Simon Belmont as a newcomer, confirming Vergeben's earlier claims that he would appear. [1] Adding in to the evidence was that Mimikyu was revealed to appear as a Poké Ball summon, corroborating his claim that Mimikyu will not be playable. Vergeben would return to post on a thread to say that Ken from Street Fighter would appear in the game as an Echo Fighter of Ryu, on August 16, 2018.

That same month on August 22, 2018, another leak by Vergeben claimed that a new third-party fighter owned by Square Enix would appear in the game. This lead some to believe that Vergeben was simply taking info from the NeoGAF Leak, but the next day he claimed in a thread that he did not know anything about the NeoGAF leak. He also states that the NeoGAF leak contradicts his own information, since it claims there will be no new Pokémon rep. In the time since his original claim of a Square Enix newcomer, Vergeben has stated that he has actually heard seven different names for the newcomer, as Square Enix is intentionally sending out multiple names to try to prevent the real one from being leaked.

Isabelle would later be revealed as a newcomer at the end of the September 13, 2018 Nintendo Direct, confirming Vergeben's claim that she would appear as a playable character. A few days later on September 16, 2018, Vergeben made another claim that his reliable sources have finally confirmed to him that Incineroar is the Generation VII Pokémon that will appear as a newcomer. He also addresses the popular "Box Theory", which states that there will only be two more fighters in the base game as the box art for the Special Edition of the game only has room for two more fighters. He states that he knows for certain that Incineroar and Ken will be in the game, and that the source for the Square Enix newcomer had never been wrong in the past. Furthermore, he also claims the game will have post-launch content, which could possibly include the Square Enix newcomer if the Box Theory turns out to be true.

On October 24, 2018, the Banner leak surfaced around in the internet. Vergeben denies the legitimacy of the Banner leak, whilst saying later on October 31, 2018, Isaac was an Assist Trophy instead of being playable. The final Nintendo Direct for Ultimate the next day validated his claims on Ken and Incineroar, while revealing Isaac to be an Assist Trophy, confirming Vergeben's earlier claims about them. It was also announced in this direct that there would be additional fighters as paid DLC, which could possibly include the Square Enix newcomer and the Minecraft content.

DLC leaks

The day after the direct, Vergeben made a post reiterating that he was confident one of the 5 post-launch DLC characters will be a Square Enix rep, and that it would be the first of the DLC characters to launch. He also reiterated that Minecraft content will be coming in some form.

However, Vergeben began to question this Minecraft content he has heard of. Originally, he stated that Senjougahara__Hitagi, another leaker he considers reliable, has heard that the Minecraft content will include Steve as a playable character. He also shared that Hitagi's sources claim that there have been talks of a Granblue Fantasy newcomer as DLC, most likely Katalina. Hitagi initially verified the Steve and Katalina claims, but she later retracted the Katalina claim, saying that the "deal" was not related to Smash Bros. On November 21, Hitagi again stated that Steve is definitely coming, but also announced that she has given up trying to find out about the rest of the characters, as the ones she heard about were starting to look like red herrings, including any Square Enix fighters, thus bringing Vergeben's claim into doubt, as well.

By November 24, 2018, another insider by the name of Ryce called out that Vergeben was likely misled about Steve being a DLC character, since this claim came out long before the DLC choices were set in stone. Vergeben agreed with Ryce in a post, stating that he still heard that Minecraft was still being represented with a boss, despite acknowledging the fact that nobody had yet found any references to Minecraft in the datamine of the full game. It should be noted that this does not dismiss Hitagi's claim of Steve being DLC.

The day of The Game Awards 2018, Joker was revealed to be the first DLC fighter, contradicting Vergeben's claim that the first DLC character to be revealed would be a Square Enix character. This is notably the first of Vergeben's claims that has been proven wrong. Vergeben tried to cover this up by explaining how he was told a SEGA character was going to be in Smash as DLC (since Atlus is owned by SEGA), however this did not stop many to doubt Vergeben at this point.

Near the end of the year, on December 30, Vergeben posted, following up that the Square Enix character is believed to be from Dragon Quest and the names that had come up frequently were Erdrick (the name he had heard most), Luminary (second most heard & almost always heard when Erdrick is heard) and Slime (heard about once). This correlates with a separate alleged leak originating from 5channel, claiming that Erdrick was the Square Enix rep, and would feature the Luminary as an alternate costume, while the Slime would appear on a Dragon Quest stage.

As of December 30, 2018, the only things left to be predicted correctly by Vergeben is Minecraft being represented as a boss, and a Square Enix/Dragon Quest newcomer appearing as part of the Fighters Pass.

References

~~Goro Akechi~~

Goro Akechi
Goro Akechi's civilian artwork from Persona 5
Universe	Persona
Debut	Persona 5 (2016)
Smash Bros. appearances	Ultimate
Most recent non-Smash appearance	Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight (DLC, 2018)
Console/platform of origin	PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Designed by	Shigenori Soejima

Goro Akechi (明智 吾郎, Akechi Goro) is a character that originates from Persona 5.

Origin

Goro Akechi is a detective celebrity praised as "The Second Coming of the Detective Prince", and has shared his criticism of the Phantom Thieves actions. However, the increase in the Phantom Thieves' popularity would damper his approval rating until Kunikazu Okumura is killed, where the Phantom Thieves were blamed for his death. Akechi later joins the Phantom Thieves themselves temporarily after blackmailing them with a photo of the thieves leaving Okumara's palace, forcing them to steal Sae Niijima's heart and never reform thereafter.

However, and as the thieves would soon realize, Goro Akechi was a traitor all along, being the true mastermind of the mental shutdown cases to which he solved himself, and plotting to kill the protagonist after selling him out and during his interrogation. Not holding back, the thieves devised a plan to prevent his own death from the hands of Goro. After the thieves "steal" Sae Niijima's heart, the protagonist is taken in by police, and placed in a interrogation room with Sae. The protagonist convinces Sae to show Akechi the phone, which results in Akechi accidentally entering the Metaverse and ends up killing a cognitive version of the protagonist, faking his death.

The Phantom Thieves soon realize that Akechi was merely acting as a hitman to Masayoshi Shido, a powerful politician that serves as one of the game's main antagonist. Goro Akechi soon discovers that the protagonist is somehow still alive and infiltrated Shido's palace in order to confront them. There, he unravels his plan to destroy his father's career after his victory, and his status as another wild card user. Despite doing his best to destroy the thieves, Akechi is left defeated by their hands. Although the Phantom Thieves desired for him to rejoin their group, a cognitive version of Akechi arrives and threatens Akechi for his failures, disclosing that Shido was to dispose him after the election. Akechi ends up sacrificing himself to this cognitive Akechi for the Phantom Thieves, asking them to change Shido's heart in his stead.

His rivalry with the protagonist turns out to be part of Yaldabaoth's game, where if he won, his own desire for destruction and recreation would've been where humanity went, and therefore Yaldabaoth would had to remove both sides to prove that humanity wanted his deliverance.

If the protagonist fails to finish a palace in time, Akechi will swoop in and kill them, causing a game over. Furthermore, selling out any teammates does the same affect and triggers a bad ending.

Akechi's initial persona is Robin Hood, based on the famous outlaw of the same name in English folklore. His other Persona, Loki, is based on the same trickster god of Norse mythology. His codename for when he's part of the Phantom Thieves is Crow.

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

As a color change

Goro Akechi serves as one of the color palettes for Joker

Spirits

No.	Image	Name	Type	Class	Slot	Ability	Series
1,316		Goro Akechi	Support	★★	1	Item Gravitation	Persona 5

Trivia

• Goro Akechi is one of the only Phantom Thieves, alongside Futaba, that does not appear in Mementos, partially due to his status as a temporary member of the Phantom Thieves and his subsequent betrayal.
  • In general however, he's the only Phantom Thieves apart from his own spirit that does not have a cameo at all.

External links

• Article on the Megami Tensei Wiki