The ESRB Leak

Describe the ESRB Leak, as seen in this topic here:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/633202-super-smash-bros-for-wii-u/69889699

Note that they all correspond with this leak, which has been up for a while, a bit of evidence, and has been backed by several higher-ups on SmashBoards. There are a ton of arguments both for and against that can be found in the above topic, as well as here.

Leaked Newcomers (All Confirmed)

• Bowser Jr
• Duck Hunt Dog
• Dark Pit
• Shulk

Leaked Veterans (All Confirmed)

• Wario
• Mr. Game & Watch
• Roy
• Falco
• Jigglypuff
• R.O.B.
• Ness
• Dr. Mario

Cuts, According to the Leak

• Ice Climbers
• Squirtle
• Ivysaur
• Lucas
• Wolf
• Snake

Will be DLC, According to a Leak

• Ice Climbers
• Lucas
• Wolf
• Snake
• Chorus Men

Note: This part specifically was later confirmed to be fake. As in, it was given by someone who had some sort of legitimate information, so it was technically part of this leak, but it was confirmed to be fake. It's an extremely long and confusing story, but just know that absolutely none of this happened, and at most chances are very little of it will happen.

Speculated Characters

About a day before the Ninka/Vanroose leak started, a text leak was posted on 4chan. It mentioned the above leaked characters (minus Dark Pit), as well the Chorus Men and the below characters, which are widely speculated to be on the roster, should the leak be real, as it is known not all of the characters were unlocked by the leaker at the time of leaking.

• Dixie Kong
• Ridley
• Mewtwo
• Chorus Men

Some claims about Impa and Mach Rider have also shown up, although they were later revaled to be fabrications (as wel as hopes by some Smash Boards mod or something). That means that if there's a fifth character, it's either Wolf or a super-secret newcomer. Or something.

And it turns out that there was one character not on the selection screen- Mii Fighters. Dixie's a trophy, Ridley's a stage boss, Mewtwo is DLC, and the Chorus Men are... a trophy, surprisingly.

Leaked Stages

Note that due to the small images and quality, we're not 100% sure what stages have been leaked. We'll just post what it looks like. If someone can tell what it is, please correct it.

• Mushroomy Kingdom (Confirmed)
• Yoshi's Island (Confirmed)
• Corneria (Confirmed)
• SNES F-Zero stage (Confirmed)
• WarioWare, Inc. (Confirmed)
• Distant Planet (Confirmed)
• Magicant (Confirmed)
• Pictochat (Confirmed)
• Flat Zone 2 (Confirmed)
• Gaur Plains (Confirmed)

Note that Gaur Plains was revealed with Shulk, and that Corneria, Mushroomy Kingdom, and Distant Planet were revealed in this promotional video. Yoshi's Island was also confirmed somewhere. Pictochat (as well as more stages) can be seen here. And before you ask, yes, the stage icons, including ones we hadn't yet seen, match up completely. See this page for more information.

Reception

Everyone who either doesn't have one of the four newcomers as their most-wanted or hasn't had the newcomers they've wanted already get in hates it. ALSO WE HATE ALL THE CUTS.

But now, just like with the Chorus Men of Gematsu fame, people are starting to warm up to it. Everyone's going through their own phases of accepting Duck Hunt Dog, Shulk, Bowser Jr., Dr. Mario, and Dark Pit, should it be real. Notably, Bowser Jr. and Dark Pit generate the most negativity, and Shulk generates the least. Although now most of Bowser Jr.'s comes from his being in the Junior Clown Car and not using the paintbrush, and Dark Pit's comes from bias (Dr. Mario also got some initially because Mewtwo remained absent, although it's calmed down since Mewtwo was announced to be DLC).

Evidence Against it

The basic evidence for it is that we haven't seen a single render here before. However, people are coming up with evidence against it, so we're going to show you. We're still not 100% certain if the leak is real or fake, though.

• Ness' shirt in the leak is contradictory to his normal design.

That's the biggest evidence. The other small pieces against it have their own counterarguments, but this is the one that hurts it the most. Will Ness' shirt change? Only time will tell.

...And then it turns out that Ness' shirt isn't always consistent anyway. Here it is in the Melee intro, and here it is in his Melee trophy. Uh-oh...

Evidence For It

First up, note that not a single character render has been found anywhere on the internet. 

• Brinstar was revealed the day the leak came out.
• The Famitsu scans released a day after the leak matched the thumbnail of the Tomodachi Life stage from a different angle- that is the single biggest piece of evidence in the leak's favor.
• There's also a graphical glitch that pretty much no one noticed that's included in the leak as well.

Confirmation

On August 25th, 2014, the leak was confirmed real with gameplay footage posted. The board promptly exploded, with users taking shelter in user's private boards such as Yoshi2010's Hanafuda Koikoi.

Part of the footage can be found here. And then once Shulk was confirmed, he was revealed to play exactly as he does in the footage. BUT IT'S STILL FAKE, GUYS!

Also, the character positioning, especially with Yoshi, was confirmed once we received the starting roster. BUT THERE'S ABSOLUTELY NO WAY THIS COULD BE REAL, GUYS!

And then a trophy leak came out, revealing the following:

• Wario is exactly the same. (Post-release note: he's actually worse- Wario Land lost the little representation it had.)
• Krystal, Medusa, Pauline, Twinrova, Barbara, Candy Kong, and Tharja are all just trophies. There are more, but those are the only ones that anyone cared about. This part was also confirmed when the challenges and betting system contained in it were revealed days later by Sakurai himself. The only reason we're putting it here is because Wario has the same model as his icon on the select screen of the leak.

Believers in the ESRB Leak

• LemmTK
• RotomGuy3
• LethalAffinity
• AuraWielder
• energyman2289
• Yoshi2010
• kidmf935, as of the video footage (although he was leaning toward it when Famitsu came out).
• SmashingBros, as of the video footage.
• StompedGoomba, also as of the video footage.
• DemonicDratini, as of the video footage.
• NinjaNomad196, skeptical at Ninka/Vaanrose, believed when pics came.

People who Disbelieve the ESRB Leak

Put your name here if you disbelieve it, or add the names of people you know who don't.

• ChibiDialga (thinks it's wrong but right.)
• HerbertMcGee
• Kikoman589
• ThisAnvil
• greatdimentio
• VelocityHill
• ecylis
• Adumigan
• JohnTeetor
• NeutronStar456
• P_A_N_D_A_M_A_N
• sterlingtyger
• Ravio_Yo
• JorentyIII (Didn't want to. Sadly proven wrong)

People who Aren't Sure

• Powerclaw1 was leaning toward not believing the leak, but then he saw the video footage and doesn't know what to think anymore.
• Mikokiri, Belives a majority of the leak, but still sceptical about a few pictures, mainly the CSS due to Dr. Mario and Dark Pit not being shown off in video footage.
• KingGenesect, It doesn't ever matter and besides the Japanese game comes soon. We'll know for sure soon though.

Quotes

“	This leak is giving me a headache.	”
—Powerclaw1

“	This + Vaanrose + Cuts come back as (possibly free) DLC = I NEED IT I NEED IT NOW SAKURAI EVERYTHING IS FORGIVEN.	”
—Triforceformer

“	It's utter crap.	”
—NessInEagleland

“	However, there's always that slim chance that it's real, and if it is, I'll be greatly disappointed.	”
—Phrase-of-Eve

“	I don't know what to believe anymore.	”
—Thunder097

“	All of this is true, I asked my leaker for more information as soon as I heard of the leak and this is what they had to say "Enjoy my pal, Duck Hunt, as a playable character. Enjoy my friend, Shulk, as a playable character. Listen to the Doctor's orders, Doctor Mario, as a playable character. Yo yo yo my homie, Dark Pit, as a playable character." They also said "Ridley didn't fit on the 3DS screen, he had to be cut." and "Sakurai originally had a toss up between Mewtwo and Doctor Mario to decide who would be playable, he figured Doctor Mario should be in since Mewtwo is too similar to Lucario" Regarding Chrom, the informant said "Originally Chrom was going to be in the game, but Sakurai was afraid of all of the Chrombo Chrobos that were going to be in the game, he was too OP" there you have it people, the full roster has leaked. It was fun giving you all 100% accurate information. Also, Chorus Men are in the final game, nana and popo are alts of them	”
—Sal Romano

Trivia

• The guy leaking this stuff (uming it's real, of course) actually has no relation to the SEGA, apparently, add it being part of his username or something, so we chose the worst possible name for this. And then it turns out that he most likely did have some sort of relation to the ESRB, meaning no, we did not pick the worst name.
• Subscribe to Mr. Bean YT

Gallery

The first photo.

Subsequent images. Not all characters have been unlocked, apparently.

The third (after the first and batch) leak.

The bottom of Shulk's victory screen.

The top of Shulk's victory screen.

And the typical blurry photo that every leak just has to have (although note that this was later shown in video footage prior to the leak's confirmation, meaning for once it was actually a legitimate leak with a blurry image).