I was a recent guest at Namco Bandai studios. I'm not going into much detail as to how or why.

Here is some general information:
I played the game on Friday, Januray 17th.
I played a recent build but it was NOT FINAL. The guy was very specific and said there will be a lot of changes.
I am not a native speaker of Japanese, and my guide wasn't going to ask many questions for me. I was only sure of the above bullet.
When I asked if I saw the final roster, I was answered with grins. Again, not a lot was answered for me.
I asked how far into development the game was. Answer: "It's developing."
Two developers were showing me the build, along with my guide.
I DID NOT SEE ANY OTHER MODE BESIDES THE FOUR PLAYER VERSUS.
I played 2 four player matches. It was me, my guide, and the two developers.
One developer was using the Gamepad. The screen was only mirroring what was on the television.
I used the pro controller, as did everyone else.
Characters:
I DO NOT KNOW IF I SAW THE FINAL ROSTER.
Besides the announced cast, here is who I saw on the character select screen:
(Note: I did not take a picture, I am going from memory. I was so overwhelmed I could have forgotten someone).

Veterans
Wario
Yoshi
Mr. Game and Watch
Meta Knight
Falco
Ness
Lucas
Captain Falcon
Diddy Kong
Ice Climbers
Mewtwo
I did not see Snake, Jigglypuff, PKMN trainer, etc. on the character select screen. Yes, I did not see Ganondorf on the screen. He's my main Brawl and I was disappointed I didn't see him. I did see Mewtwo.
It should be noted that none of use played as Zelda or Samus. I don't know about Sheik or ZSS, but I don't recall seeing Sheik sharing the portrait with Zelda like in Brawl.

Newcomers
Chrom
Issac
Shulk
Adam (from Other M...)
Dixie Kong
That was all that was on the character select screen.

Before we get into gameplay, here are some tibits:

I did not see any other screen besides the character select, stage select and victory screens. We did not even change the rules, so I didn't see any rules screen.
We played a 2 minute match twice.
The character select screen was very close to Brawl's. The portraits used the character renders that you would see on the website.
One interesting thing I noticed is that instead of the names being above the characters, they are now below.
A new orchestral version of the music that played during the E3 trailer was the music used on the select screens.
There was no announcer.
Stages
I saw about roughly 20 stages on the screen. However, we immediately went into Battlefield.
I did look at the pictures on the screen as the stage loaded, here's what I saw:
I saw what appeared to be a glimpse of a Fire Emblem stage. It sported a castle, but not one from Zelda.
Speaking of Zelda, I saw the pirate ship from Brawl on the screen.
There was also a Kirby yarn themed stage I caught a glimpse of.
Battlefields day and night cycles seemed quicker.
We also played on the Skyloft stage. It was much like Isle Delfino. The stage stopped onto of the bazaar, which I don't think has been seen.
Another version of that E3 theme played on Battlefield.
A new version of the theme that plays when you fly through the sky played on Skyloft.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRbROTdOgj0
^That right there.
Gameplay
It is closer to Brawl than it is to Melee. I couldn't wavedash.
Falls were quicker.
As expected, the B button did special attacks and A did Smash attacks.
The right stick acted like the C stick.
I chose to play Rosalina in the first match. I forgot who was who but I played against Bowser, Wii Fit Trainer and Fox.
Rosalina was silent. Wii Fit Trainer spoke Japanese. Bowser and Fox were reusing their Brawl sounds. (Fox was, oddly, speaking in English for some reason.)
Rosalina
She was more difficult than I expected. Neutral B summoned a Luma. It was green the first time. I'm not sure if color of the Lumas mean anything. I had trouble keeping up with where Rosalina was and where the Luma was. I had trouble controlling the Luma and where I wanted it to go. I was very confused. Her down B brought in a lot of items that I used to throw at people, which was basically my main method of attacking. Speaking of...

Items
Gardevoir is back.
Waluigi is back as an assist trophy.
Torchic is back.
That seal starter Pokemon (I forget the name) came out and threw bubbles.
Bandanna WaddleDee is an assist trophy and throws spears.
The new Nintendog stayed on longer than the old one. Had the same animations.
Moltres was back.
Bomb Ombs were back.
Party Balls were back and they dropped food.
Food was back.
Heart Containers looked more like TP incarnations than SS.
Bumpers are back.
The Pikmin rocket worked like Olimar's FS, except on a smaller and quicker scale. It flew up, all around and crashed into the ground.
Franklin Badge is back.
The new bomb that makes an X shape is deadly. The X spun around rather quickly.
I didn't see that Steel Diver item.
I saw another new item. Forgot what it does and what it looked like (sorry!)
Sandbag appeared, but I didn't see him drop anything.
Cracker launcher is back.
Bowser got the final smash. He still turns into Giga Bowser.
I played as Marth in the second round. Opponents were Villager, Dedede and Dixie Kong. Villager was silent as well, DDD and Marth reused voice clips from Brawl. Dixie Kong used Diddy's voice clips from Brawl, it sounded like.

Marth
Virtually unchanged from Brawl. I got the Final Smash in the second round. Marth still used his same FS, however it did not kill someone at 16%. I was shocked.
Dixie Kong
I didn't play as her, but she could hover around like in DKC2. Her grab also seemed really strong as her forward throw KO'd me. A lot of her moves seemed original, to me.

The results screen was like the one at E3. It showed the characters render and said "Bowser wins!" and "Dedede wins!"
No one was clapping and there wasn't a final score. No music played either. It went right back to the character screen.


It was fun, but too soon to say anything. I'm glad I had the experience.

If you want a pic of the Namco office, I have some. It doesn't show much though. Just a lot of people in chairs.
I could go into more detail about the actual office, if you'd like. It was fun, I saw a lot of Tekken machines and played against someone.

I should point out that I did not see Sakurai.
Thanks!
Let's see how the game turns out!

http://smashboards.com/threads/i-have-played-the-new-smash-bros-wii-u-version.346330/

Reply to my closed thread http://smashboards.com/threads/i-have-played-the-new-smash-bros-wii-u-version.346330/#post-16231274
You guys wanted those pics really badly.
There's nothing in them that showcases anything Smash. They're tourist pics, really.
I also looked into it and the Pokemon I meant was Oshawott.
As for the artwork of the new characters, I only saw them from head up. Chrom was facing to the right, Dixie Kong had her mouth open and looking down, Issac and Adam looked sorta neutral. Shulk was also looking to the right.





http://smashboards.com/threads/ssb4-rumours-and-leaks.338842/page-96#post-16232145

Alright, I need to step in briefly to talk about the most interesting "leak" I have seen, the Trip to Namco leak by Toots. This one is notable because of the insane amount of detail the leaker put into it, including actual photos of Namco. I will apply the questions I proposed in my last post about analyzing leaks more thoroughly. If the leaker offers more information or evidence, I will update this post.

1) What motivation would someone have to leak information about this game to a bunch of strangers on the internet?

I think this is the most important question, and it make me doubt the veracity of this leak the most. It's safe to assume that there are very few outsiders who are invited to tour the inside offices of Namco, and even fewer who get to play demos of unfinished games. The circumstances of the visit might have involved winning a contest, having a family member or friend on the inside, or working with Namco as a freelancer and getting a courtesy tour. No matter how he got to visit, I think it's also safe to assume that Namco asked him to not talk about anything he saw relating to unreleased games. They also probably didn't allow him to take photographs of the Smash demo, although it is odd he that he didn't mention trying.

My point is, the detailed story and photographs he posted clearly implicate the leaker. If he didn't want to be caught leaking or get on the bad side of people who trusted him to keep a secret, he wouldn't include so much specific information that the people who gave him the tour would recognize. Unless there is another reason the leaker wouldn't care about his hosts knowing his betrayal (maybe Namco isn't as secretive as Nintendo and forgot to make him sign something?) I don't think anyone would risk their reputation over telling a bunch of strangers insider information.

I'll address this more later, but it's worth noting that he came to Smashboards before he went to a legitimate news site or any other forum. He also chose to make a brand new account for the occasion.

2) What evidence does the leaker offer?

Well, not much. We get some information we won't be able to verify until the game releases (and the leaker conveniently left a lot of things very vague) and three photographs of Namco's studio in Tokyo. After looking online at other photographs of Namco, it is clear that the second and third images were taken inside the main lobby. I wasn't able to determine if the first image was actually in Namco's offices, and frankly it's the only photo that matters. There are countless youtube videos and blog posts by people who were able to go inside Namco's main lobby to play on the plethora of arcade machines there (which the leaker mentions doing), but a major thing that would help the leaker's credibility is establishing if he was able to go a step further than most people by entering the back offices. But even that would not prove that he saw Smash.

It has been shown by other sleuths in this thread that the image dimensions are all different, suggesting that they could have been resized from a video. I searched google and youtube for a little while, but I couldn't find any videos of Namco tours that had the exact same images (and they could easily be taken from multiple sources). If anyone wants to disprove this leak, finding a video that matches would probably be the easiest way, because it would prove that the leaker didn't even take pictures of Namco in the first place.

Another poster in this thread mentioned that Toot's photobucket account was linked to an animal crossing forum. I couldn't find said forum, assuming his username there is Teekycres. I will examine the forum if you can link me to it. It would be suspicious if he really was posting on January 17 and didn't mention his trip, assuming he mentions other things about his private life on that account.

3) How easy was it to create the leak?

Relatively easy, but much more thought was put into this leak than the others. He offers photographs, a plausible backstory, and exactly the kind of information one would get from a short demo. It seems like a lot of trouble for the express purpose of trolling, especially if he ripped images from an obscure video tour of Namco. On the other hand maybe he visited Namco, already had the pictures, and wanted to make up a leak for fun. In that case it would have been a lot easier.

4) Do you want the leak to be true?
5) Similarly, do you think a leak is unlikely given the proposed roster or game modes?

These can be answered together. Personally, I think the characters he mentioned would be interesting additions to the roster, but I would have never guessed that a character from Other M would make it. Shulk and Issac sound like they came from a fanboy's dream roster. That makes me slightly biased against the leak, so keep that in mind as you read my analysis.

6) Where did the leak come from?

This is where we need to do some detective work to learn as much as we can about Toots (otherwise known as Teekycres, or Tom Cresci, based on his photobucket profile). What follows are the notable links I have found about him using these names. Other posters might have already posted some of this.

Facebook: Tom Cresci's facebook page is mostly private (and may be changed to fully private after he sees this) but from what I can gather, he is interested in fighting games, specifically Soul Caliber, Tekken, and Smash. That could imply that he has been following the leaks for Smash 4, and maybe that he would try to get a tour of Namco if he could. He also works at Open Road Integrated Media in post production. The company is a digital book publisher, and I can't find any connection between that and Namco, so it is unlikely that his work brought him there.

Smashboards facebook story: On August 28th, 2013 Smashboards was hit by a DDOS attack. The facebook page posted a link to the Kotaku story, which Tom Cresci commented on: "Are you ****ing kidding me. I dont want to say anything, but I swear tio god if its Marvel scrubs..." This suggests that he was active on Smashboards back in August, and probably has another account here right now. Why wouldn't he post his leak on his established account to give it credibility? It also confirms his interest in multiple fighting game communities.

Long Island Smash Tournament: On May 18th, 2013, he attended a smash tournament. This also shows his competitive interest in the game. It implies that he lives on the East Coast somewhere around Long Island. If he did indeed take those pictures of Namco, he would have had to actually take a trip to Japan.

In a similar vein, he has attended smash tournaments using this very site, although I couldn't figure out his account name in either of these threads. Let me know if any of you can determine what his alternate account is. Assuming he knew about competitive smash, follows the rumors and leaks, and loves fighting games, something really bothers me about his story: Why wouldn't he choose to play as the new completely unrevealed characters to learn more about them? I sort of understand him choosing Rosalina, but then he picks Marth over Shulk, Issac, and Adam. The way the story is currently set up, he picked the safest characters to describe. If he had picked any other newcomers, he would have had to invent their move set from scratch if he is lying.

7) How many other leakers have taken a shot at predicting similar things?

There have been plenty of leaks that predict all of the characters mentioned by Toots. More interestingly, I remember another poster in this thread suggesting that a leak would be more believable if the leaker was in a realistic scenario, like playing one round of the game during a lunch break with Sakurai, rather than having insider information on the development history of the game. It's possible that Toots saw that post and took it to heart when creating his leak.

8) Do one or two correct details guarantee the rest of a leak to be true?

Obviously not, and we will have to remember this even if characters such as Shulk and Adam become spoiled. The leaker has tried to give himself some leeway by repeating that he saw an incomplete version of the final game, allowing him to later claim that they must have significantly changed things from what he saw.


So, that is my analysis. I hope other people continue to look up Tom Cresci and find other accounts he has used here or elsewhere. Maybe he has a history of fake leaks. I'd also love to see that animal crossing forum. And Toots, if you are reading this, feel free to comment on my speculation and add more evidence.

http://smashboards.com/threads/ssb4-rumours-and-leaks.338842/page-98#post-16232979