Earlier Nintendo showed their new Direct dedicated to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The first section might frighten young children.
Castlevania
First they showed off a new character and his echo fighter in a new stage. Simon Belmont from Castlevania is lashing out and into the Smash Bros series. He comes packed with his whip, axe, crosses and holy water. Along with him is a new stage based on the Dracula boss fights in the Castlevania series. It comes with many stage hazards in the form of classic monsters and even Dracula himself.
Richter Belmont crosses over to appear as Simon’s echo fighter (clone character). Unfortunately this news was mostly spoiled to some people as the Nintendo Youtube channel uploaded some Castlevania songs earlier that day. Simon appears to be a slow but powerful fighter, with a long reach attack via his holy whip. The Dracula’s Castle stage comes with thirty four different Castlevania music tracks! Alucard from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night appears as an assist trophy.
New Echo Fighters
Two more echo fighters after Richter were announced. Firstly Chrom from Fire Emblem Awakening will be an echo of Lucina from the same game. Then Dark Samus from Metroid Prime showed up. They’ve also added settings so echo fighters can be selectable separately on the roster screen or share space with their counterparts. Which one is the first option on the shared space is up to you with the press of a button. They’ve also announced that all characters will be revealed before the game’s launch. So hopefully there will be another newcomer or two.
More Stages
Most of the stages are returning, and they announced more of those stages in this Direct. From Melee we have Pokemon Stadium and Brinstar Depths. The Brawl stage is Summit. As well as the Smash 4 stages Garden of Hope, Unova Pokemon League, Magicant and Gamer. Some new stages were shown and others weren’t shown but could be seen in the selection screen. They also noted that for the Nintendo 64 stages they intended to keep the classic look instead of updating the visuals beyond resolution. There are one hundred and three stages in Super Smash Bros Ultimate, and all stages have Omega and Battlefield forms and can be played in 8-Player Smash. I’m disappointed Pokefloats doesn’t look to be making it, but I suppose it was too hard to accommodate the other stage versions for it. I am happy Brinstar Depths is back. Nintendo announced all stages will be available from the beginning so no need to unlock them. Stage Hazards have an option to be turned off, meaning more stages will be able to be tournament legal. A stage morph mode is also an option where a stage can turn into another one during a match, but only two at a time can be selected for it.
Music
If the thirty-four Castlevania songs weren’t enough for you, there are more than eight hundred tracks in Ultimate. This totals to more than twenty eight hours of music. Tracks will be series locked rather than stage locked so any Zelda song can be played in any Zelda stage and so on. You can create your own playlist and can play music in handheld mode with the screen off. Essentially making the Nintendo Switch a Super Smash mega music player.
Rules + New Modes
Rules will now be the first thing selected when playing and you can save your own rule set. Stamina battle is now a standard battle mode wherein you have HP rather than a damage percentage. After the rules stage selection is picked, making character selection last for once. Loser’s pick is now a stage selection option, rather than fighting the cursor to get your pick. As was announced at E3 the sudden death mode features an enclosing screen rather than bob-ombs. Chargeable final smashes are now an option, meaning you can have a smaller final smash or keep up to save for the full one. However only one final smash can be played at a time. There are new battle modes such as squad strike a 5v5 or 3v3 elimination battle this can be five consecutive characters for one player or shared between multiple players. Tourney mode is back this time with up to thirty-two players. Smashdown will involve selecting a character but after each match those fighters can’t be chosen again.
There’s a new training mode with a special stage displaying a grid and launch distance. This will be extremely helpful for competitive players, or anyone looking to tell a change from a patch update more easily. Classic Mode returns, with each fighter having their own selection of stages and opponents to go through.
Items + Pokemon + Assist Trophies
First there’s a banana gun that after shooting a single shot turns into a peel. A new sword, a Kirby bomber, Death’s scythe, a magic staff. A control inverting mushroom (eek) that sticks onto the head of the opponent like the flower looks like trouble. There’s a blaster that becomes more powerful the more damaged you are.
Heaps of new Pokemon have been revealed. I feel sorry for anyone trying to remember what they all do. We have a couple of Alolan forms being Exeggutor and Vulpix. There’s also Abra, Solgaleo, Lunala, Mimikyu, Pyukumuku, Vuplix, Marhshadow and Ditto. Ditto takes on the form of the fighter than chose him and can do one of their attacks, which looks amazing and seems like a heck of a lot of work. I wonder what he does if he copies Kirby.
New assist trophies (aka official fighter disconfirmation) are: Zero (Megaman), Knuckles (Sonic), Krystal (Star Fox), Klaptrap (Donkey Kong), Kapp’n (Animal Crossing), Chef Kawasaki (Kirby), Gray Fox (Metal Gear Solid), Nikki (Swapnote), Shovel Knight and the Moon (Zelda). The Rathalos from Monster Hunter appears as a stage hazard boss as well as a very big assist trophy. Casual Smash is looking like the more intense experience!
One Last Thing
They showed off the main menu while censoring a very big section (hmm…) it features a dashboard that can be opened up in other menus. Of course they had to announced another character at the end of the direct. After a mean trick by King Dedede, King K. Rool comes aboard! I know many people will be happy about the decision to bring him in as a fighter, we definitely needed more villains. His final smash appears to be him blowing up DK Island from Donkey Kong 64, and it looks fantastic.
A Single Player Campaign? And Final Thoughts
It seems perhaps that another Subspace Emissary type mode might be returning. They did censor a large chunk of the screen that they “can’t talk about yet”. I also found that the cinematic for King K. Rool’s reveal was far long than other fighters and appeared to be like the cutscenes in Subspace Emissary. My brother also pointed out that the Rathalos appears as a boss and could in fact be a story mode boss like Rayquaza was in Brawl.
Having had Castlevania leaked for me (this time being Nintendo’s fault!) I wasn’t super excited by this direct. Like I said I was disappointed by Pokefloats not looking to be there but I still have hope. King K. Rool’s announcement made me happy. He was actually the only character I could think of that I wanted who wasn’t a veteran. I still think there will be another Pokemon character (probably Decidueye or a next gen Pokemon). I also don’t want to think about all the new amiibos I just HAVE to get.
Also, a Limited Edition has been revealed for Europe. It is just the game bundled with the Gamecube controller and adapter, but it should save a little bit of money.
What does everyone else think about this Smash direct?