Geno Conspiracy Theories

There is perhaps no other potential Smash character with a fanbase more well-known for insane theories than that of Geno, a sidekick from *Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars*. While Geno initially started as a standard, high-demand frontrunner pre-release, his fanbase devolved into cooking up theory after theory during the DLC era in an attempt to convince themselves (and everyone else) that he was perpetually the next character coming.

Though most of the Geno conspiracies surfaced on fellow Smash forum Smashboards, the majority seeps into GameFAQs, both by Geno supporters that frequent both sites, and by onlookers who find humor in the theories' absurdity. They've become so widespread that Fatmanonice, the source of the majority of these rumors, has become infamous on GameFAQs despite rarely ever using it and posting almost exclusively on Smashboards.

### Pre-Release/Challenger Packs 1-3

Prior to the release of *Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*, as well as the early days of the first Fighters Pass, Geno supporters' attention was drawn entirely towards the rumored "Square representative" that Vergeben often mentioned. While the community as a whole tended to predict it would be Geno early on, focus soon shifted to *Dragon Quest*'s Erdrick after files referencing an unused character named "Brave" were discovered within one of SSBU's earliest updates. Geno fans remained hopeful that this wouldn't be the case, or argued that this was a good sign, as the presence of another Square character somehow bolstered Geno's chances.

Of course, the character ended up being revealed to be a *Dragon Quest* character, after all (four-in-one, rather).

### Challenger Pack 4

The first major case of a Geno-related conspiracy came in the summer of 2019, in the form of an image of a bird (specifically, a starling) on a roof. The source of this image was an alleged insider from a Discord group centered around leaking. Fatmanonice, who was part of the group at the time, assumed that this was a sign Geno would be revealed as the character in Challenger Pack #4 (because the bird was a starling, and Geno is literally a star possessing a doll), and took it upon himself to post the image.

The image gained a small amount of traction and ended up on GameFAQs thanks to JudgeGeno [1] posting a thread about it after it was covered by Smash rumor mill clickbait YouTuber Blocked Content. JudgeGeno was largely met with ridicule, and GameFAQs' Smash community largely discarded it as nonsense.

In early September 2019, *Fatal Fury* protagonist Terry Bogard would be revealed as Challenger Pack 4's fighter, and the Starling leak was quickly forgotten. The true meaning behind the image was never found out, but it was most likely a dead end regardless.

### Challenger Pack 5

Unfortunately, Geno had the rug swept from under his feet early on in Challenger Pack 5's speculation. While some Geno diehards swore early on that he would be revealed at The Game Awards 2019, leakers Vergeben and Sabi would quickly dispel any notion that Geno's arrival was imminent, as he was one of the earliest names dismissed by both on the now-infamous "Deconfirmation List" spread between the two.

Talks of Geno being a part of Challenger Pack 5 dwindled for the next month, until a 4chan user leaked a video supposedly showing off two unreleased Mii Costumes: hats for *DOOM*'s Cacodemon and Geno's fellow *Super Mario RPG* party member Mallow. This was initially seen as a smoking gun for either Geno, Doomguy, or even both, as Mii Costumes were originally believed to be "impossible to mod". Many adapted the term "**Cacomallow**" to refer to this video and the supposed Mii Costumes within. The leak began to lose credibility as in just a few days modders would come forward and manage to insert their own Mii Hats into the game, including recreations of the Mallow and Cacodemon hats seen in the mod. Its status would continue to be dubious in the eyes of some, but it was almost unanimously considered a hoax after the next several reveals (including CP5) came without any sign of either Geno or Doomguy.

While Fatman would keep the Mii Costume leak in his back pocket (not fully acknowledging it as a fake even after nearly everyone else had), the goalpost was shifted to Geno being an inexplicable "bonus character" released alongside the actual Challenger Pack 5. Fatman would make a multitude of claims regarding CP5's identity, first stating it was "one of four characters who are similar to each other, but are owned by different companies", then shifting his claim to say it was either *Soulcalibur*'s Nightmare, *Guilty Gear*'s Sol Badguy, or *Tales of*'s Lloyd Irving. He would later shift yet again, now outright saying it would be the aforementioned Nightmare, and that the reveal would take place at the 2019 Game Awards.

After the Game Awards went by with no Smash character revealed, Nightmare or otherwise, Fatman got in touch with fellow disgraced leaker Paragon (somewhat well-known for falsely claiming that Challenger Pack 4 and 5 were *Undertale*'s Frisk and *Mario*'s Waluigi, respectively) and determined that CP5 would be Waluigi, with Geno coming alongside him as a "bonus" *Mario* character.

Just like last time, he was incorrect, and Challenger Pack 5 was revealed in January 2020 to be Byleth from *Fire Emblem: Three Houses*. To save face, Fatman would claim after the reveal that the rumor he heard regarding Waluigi was that he'd inexplicably come with a *Three Houses* stage and Spirit Board.

### Challenger Pack 6

Alongside Byleth, the details behind Fighters Pass Vol. 2 were revealed in January 2020: 6 more characters would be joining the battle by the end of 2021. Fatman would inexplicably respond to this by posting what his "sources" claimed to be the complete lineup for the second Fighters Pass: Waluigi, Geno, Crash, Lloyd, Dante, and Master Chief.[2]

Fatman and company would waste no time cooking up a theory that pointed towards Geno being the first character in Fighters Pass Volume 2. What they came up with was that a Smash reveal would take place on March 10th (branded by Nintendo as MAR10 Day), and the reveal would, of course, be Geno. Unfortunately, March 10th went by without any Smash-related announcement, though one did end up taking place later in the month: Challenger Pack 6 was revealed to be a character from *ARMS*. The character's identity wasn't initially given, but the fact that they were from *ARMS* instantly ruled out Geno being next and debunked Fatman's Fighters Pass Vol. 2 "leak". Despite this, he would shift and claim that this character still fit his predictions, taking the supposed first-party slot from Waluigi.

This defeat did come with a silver lining for Geno, however: in June 2020, the *ARMS* fighter was revealed to be Min Min, a character already present in the game as a Spirit. This reveal effectively killed the long-standing (if somewhat controversial) community belief that Spirits could not be upgraded into Fighters. As Geno was already in Smash as a Spirit, this "rule" was considered one of his biggest obstacles, so its death was a major victory for the Geno camp. Fatman also claimed Min Min's reveal as a victory for his predictions as he said while he mixed up the exact character, both Waluigi and Min Min are Nintendo-owned characters and would have been promoted from NPC roles. He further pressed that he had only assumed it would be Waluigi by that description alone.[3]

### Challenger Pack 7

At this point in speculation, some of Geno's more hardcore fanbase was beginning to grow more desperate to see the character become a fighter. As such, the lead-up to Challenger Pack 7 had the widest variety of ridiculous Geno related conspiracies of any stretch of time before this point. Things kicked off after Geno fans noted that the next fighter's in-game number would be "77", on top of being the 7th Challenger Pack. "7" also happened to be prominent in *Super Mario RPG*, as it was both the number of Star Pieces, the game's main collectible, as well as part of the game's subtitle in international releases. (The "Legend of the Seven Stars" subtitle was only added for the Western release of the game and was not in the title of the original Japanese version, simply called *Super Mario RPG*). The 7th month of the year, July, was also rapidly approaching. This led to some Geno fans believing that on July 7th (7/7), Challenger Pack 7 (AKA Fighter #77) would be revealed to be Geno from *Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars*. Despite much hype around the idea, nothing came of it, and the fated date went by without Smash news of any kind. Many would claim that it was nothing more than a joke, though the attitudes from some beforehand seemed to make this description's ground in reality questionable.

The next supposed lead came when GameStop uploaded a news video, where the anchor mentioned fans' excitement over "Geno being confirmed for Smash". While many outsiders came to the fairly reasonable conclusion that she was referring to either the Spirit in Ultimate or the Mii Costume in *Smash 4* (the latter of which definitely got lots of positive buzz), a large number of Geno's diehard fans assumed this was a video that had been recorded in advance before E3 2020 was cancelled due to the worldwide impact from the COVID-19 pandemic, referencing a reveal that would've happened during Nintendo's own cancelled E3 presentation, and thus confirmed that Geno was in fact the next character. To little surprise for most people, GameStop later clarified to have been referring to the Spirit in *Ultimate*. While this served as a pretty rational explanation, a good number of Geno diehards took it as simple backtracking after a mistake on GameStop's part and assumed even further that Geno would be the next reveal.

Fatman would pick up on a new conspiracy theory not long afterward, claiming that upcoming amiibo re-releases could be taken as hints for future Smash reveals. He noted that he had heard several Mario amiibo and Cloud would get new issues in September and assumed this to be the most likely time for a Geno reveal. Furthermore, he came up with a further ridiculous theory that these re-issues further implied that there would be a series of semi-clone characters, consisting of Waluigi, Dixie Kong, Medusa, and (most strangely) Lolo from HAL Laboratory's *Adventures of Lolo*, and that these characters would release alongside the next four Challenger Packs (Geno, Master Chief, Dante, and Crash Bandicoot, respectively).

In quite possibly the most desperate new lead, Fatman later learned that Square Enix would be revealing something at the Xbox Series X reveal event at the end of July, and inexplicably pondered that it would be a reveal for Geno in Smash, despite Smash being a Switch exclusive and having nothing to do with the new Xbox console. Of course, this was also incorrect, as Square's announcement ended up being Yuji Naka's *Balan Wonderworld*, a spiritual successor to Sega's *NiGHTS* and *Billy Hatcher*.

In early September known leaker and ResetEra user Ryce created a post with a bunch of uploaded GIFs implying a Smash trailer with Kirby landing on Super Mario RPG location Vista Hill with Bowser's Keep in the background would happen soon.[4] It was later clarified by him to just be a joke post but it was already too late at that point to stop all the discussions on gamefaqs and Smashboards it sparked.[5] SmashBoards in particular took it as yet another confirmation of Geno becoming a fully playable character.

While there was still some confidence in Geno being the next fighter, in the length of the wait after Min Min's reveal, some began to plan ahead under the notion Geno might be coming later. Some instead shifted focus to the future with a new theory surrounding the recent purchase of Bethesda by Microsoft. Digging up the long-dead Cacomallow Mii Hat leak, Fatman decided that a Microsoft character (believed to be *Halo* protagonist Master Chief) would be next, and that this in turn would confirm the now Microsoft-owned Doomguy as a future character, which would in turn confirm Geno. Y'know, even though having two soldiers in green body armor back-to-back in the same pass would be incredibly redundant. It's also worth noting that Bethesda themselves had largely implied that *DOOM* content would not be appearing in Smash in January of that year during an interview for the then-upcoming release of *DOOM Eternal*.

In the end, after months of wild and loose speculation, *Minecraft*'s Steve, also owned by Microsoft, would be revealed in October 2020 as the main focus of Challenger Pack 7. While a number of Geno fans on Smashboards were initially dismayed that the Geno theories relating to the next fighter were down the drain, they soon shifted focus and took Steve's reveal as a good thing for Geno's chances. Fatman in particular took the reveal as a stroke of luck. It may not have been Master Chief, but, as Steve was also a Microsoft-owned character, Fatman considered this a win for his new Bethesda-Microsoft connection theory.[6]

### Challenger Pack 8

Challenger Pack 8's speculation was more subdued, especially in comparison to the speculation around Challenger Pack 7. Some fans took on the idea that Steve was supposed to be the first half of a double reveal at E3 2020, similar to E3 2019 the year before, with Geno's fans concluding that he could be the "hype pick" similar to Banjo & Kazooie the year before (even though *Minecraft* was VERY WELL a huge pick). Geno diehards still looked at Cacomallow and the Microsoft-Bethesda connection as a bastion of hope, but around this time they largely refrained from making a multitude of crazy new theories. The dwindling amount of returning Mii Costumes had also been seen as a major plus for Geno, as he (alongside Lloyd, two different armor sets for the hunter from *Monster Hunter*, and the largely tossed aside Chocobo from *Final Fantasy*) was one of the last remaining character-based Mii Costumes from *Smash 4* that had yet to return in *Ultimate*.

On December 10th, 2020, it was announced on Twitter that a Smash newcomer trailer would air at The Game Awards. Many Geno fans didn't think much of it, doubting that Geno would be a good fit for a reveal at the show and assumed someone like Crash Bandicoot or Doomguy might be shown off instead. While a few fans argued against this logic, it was surprisingly generally accepted even among many diehard Geno fans. Unfortunately, this reveal would prove to be perhaps the biggest, most devastating blow to the Geno fandom, as the fighter in Challenger Pack 8 ending up being Sephiroth, the main villain of *Final Fantasy VII* and a fellow Square-owned character. The revelation caused a widespread feeling of defeat to wash over the Genoboards thread, and many Geno supporters on GameFAQs (including TheHypist, who once had Geno listed as one of his mains in his sig) and otherwise echoed this feeling. While Fatmanonice initially seemed to accept defeat and believe Sephiroth's announcement to be the end of the Geno hype train, he backpedaled a mere few hours later and began to once again insist that Geno would still get in. Despite the insistance from Fatman and some other particularly foolhardy Geno fans, a wide number conceded that he would likely be a Mii Costume once more. Ths said, a large number also held the belief that he would be a "premium" Mii Costume with a full head and even an extra music track (likely "Beware the Forest's Mushrooms"), in a similar style to that of Sans or Cuphead. This idea had largely been spread by PapaGenos in his videos, and while it would fit there was absolutely no reason to hang onto this conclusion.

### Disconfirmation and Aftermath

On December 17th, 2020, the "Mr. Sakurai Presents Sephiroth" presentation was aired, and finally, the moment of truth arrived. In a departure from the usual, Mii Costumes were announced at the start of the presentation rather than near the end. Geno hopefuls watched with baited breath as costumes for *Final Fantasy VII* party members Barret Wallace, Tifa Lockhart, and Aerith Gainsborough were announced, followed by the returning Chocobo Hat from Smash 4......then, "Beware the Forest's Mushrooms" hit, and Geno's Mii Costume, practically unaltered from SSB4, was revealed, effectively confirming that Geno will not be a playable character in Super Smash Bros Ultimate.

In the aftermath, Fatmanonice continued to maintain that Geno would be playable, despite having said the week prior that he would finally give it up if the costume were to return [7]. He has also openly stated that he is "more than happy to string people along" in his pursuit [8] and that he's doing it "for the younger fans" [9]. While the majority of supporters in the Geno thread conceded, many diehards still decided to deny reality alongside Fatman and ride the now zombified hype train until the bitter end. Fatman and the remaining Geno believers' took on the hope that a third Fighter Pass would be announced, and they believed that the existence of a third pass would inexplicably put Geno back on the table, while simultaneously also trying to find ways to that Geno could still be part of the second Pass (such as taking information given by Imran Khan regarding Sephiroth being "inexpensive to license" and twisting it to somehow be part of a deal to get Geno into Smash, similar to theories previously brought up by Geno fans in regard to Cloud and Hero). On top of all of that, Fatman and the remaining hopefuls began to write off Mii Costume disconfirmations as being a baseless fan rule, despite it having been one of the most solid methods of disconfirmation throughout both SSB4 and SSBU's DLC speculation, and the thread previously having openly considered Mii Costumes to be disconfirmation themselves (even previously citing the failure of Geno's costume to return in Hero's Mii Costume wave as proof of his inevitable playability).

Eventually, on December 22, 2020, Fatman was banned "indefinitely" from Smashboards by the moderation team, with them citing his "extensive history of warnings and temporary bans". [10] Shortly after, the Geno support thread was finally closed for good, pushing a stake through the long history of theories related to Geno's supposedly inevitable inclusion. [11] Despite the original thread being closed, a new one would be opened a little less than two months later, in February 2021, by one of the mods on the site. It was claimed that the thread was largely created to keep discussion going similar to other disconfirmed characters, and there was now a set of rules featured at the bottom of the opening post, including one directly related to theories. While it mentions there they have no issues with "theory-crafting", it also warns that other users have a right to disagree with them. [12] As of now, the thread has not delved into the same sort of conspiracy circlejerk as the previous one, though it is too early to say for sure if this behavior will actually be avoided entirely. Fatmanonice, on the other hand, remains banned. The new thread being an improvement over the previous one more or less confirms that Fatman himself was the Smashboards Geno thread's biggest issue the entire time.

February 2021 would also feature the confirmation of *Xenoblade Chronicles 2*'s Pyra and Mythra as the fighters included in Challenger Pack #9, which serves as yet another notch in the loss column for Fatmanonice and his supposed inside source's leaked character list. Yet another loss would happen at E3 2021, where Challenger Pack #10's fighter was revealed to be *Tekken*'s Kazuya Mishima, as one of Fatmanonice's most consistent claims was that Namco's second Smash character would be from the *Tales* or *Soul Calibur* series. An additional blow to Fatman's theories and leaks would come during the "Mr. Sakurai Presents Kazuya" presentation, where Sakurai would confirm that Challenger Pack #11's fighter will be the final addition to Smash Ultimate's roster, disproving the claims Fatman made of there being "bonus characters" after the Fighters Passes, as well as ruling out the existence of a third Pass. In the same presentation, both Dante and Lloyd (two characters Fatman had implicated in the past) were disconfirmed, instead being revealed as Mii Costumes.

One final blow was delivered to the decaying corpse of Geno on October 5th, 2021, when Sora was revealed as the final character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Though owned by Disney, his series, Kingdom Hearts, is developed by Square, marking the third time Geno was rejected in favor of a character from another Square-produced franchise following Hero and Sephiroth.

## The Second Coming

After spending the entirety of 2022 and much of 2023 as a laughing stock in the Smash community, Geno support would rise from the ashes like a phoenix on June 21st, 2023, when a remake of Super Mario RPG was announced for the Switch during a Nintendo Direct. Almost immediately after the news broke, threads began flooding onto GameFAQs with users (both ironically and unironically) declaring that Geno is once again a guaranteed shoo-in for the not-even-announced Smash 6. Notably, many users who typically viewed Geno in a negative light (or didn't talk about him at all) changed stances and instead declared that they had softened their view on Geno or acted like they were supporters all along. Fatmanonice would also make a rare appearance on SmashFAQs [13], giving a surprisingly subdued "Maybe" in response to a thread by Cybersai bemoaning the possibility of another Smash speculation cycle centered around Geno.

Though the next Smash is presumably far off, the stage has already been set for another round of insane conspiracies surrounding the beloved possessed doll.

## Trivia

* Despite being revered as an almost prophet-like figure by members of the Geno thread on Smashboards, Fatmanonice's record of leaking/predicting characters is notoriously abysmal. His one and only accurate one was the existence of a second Fighters Pass, something half the community was already anticipating. All of his other perceived "victories" are stretches and technicalities (Examples include counting his Waluigi prediction as a correct guess for Min Min due to them both being Nintendo-owned characters with nonplayable roles in the base version of Smash Ultimate, and counting Master Chief as a correct guess for Steve due to them both being owned by Microsoft), or were claims made after the fact (Like taking credit for Byleth post-reveal).
* Ever since being booted from the leakers Discord server he was formerly part of (mentioned in the "Pre-Release and CP 1-3 section" above), Fatman has enlisted multiple "inside sources", almost all of whom are disgraced former leakers who have been outed as fakes themselves. This rogues gallery includes Paragon (responsible for the Frisk and Waluigi leak from just after E3 2019), SupirorGuy (spelled in context, a literal 13 year old boy who was somehow also involved in the server and repeatedly posted fake Mii Costume and Spirit-related leaks), MandyCan (a fully-exposed fake Twitter leaker who gained traction briefly in early 2020), and the mysterious "Mii Costume Guy" (completely unrelated to Supiror).
* While Fatman and the Smashboards Geno thread are viewed as a joke on GameFAQs, a small number of GameFAQs users do seem to give him the benefit of doubt. Users who have posted Fatman's info on GameFAQs as unironic, legit pieces of info include Zeldameister (strangely under his Zeldameister persona despite typically only supporting Geno on his JudgeGeno-related alts), Cybersai, and 7NATOR.