Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – Direct Roundup

Nintendo followed up on their E3 showcase with an entire direct chock full of brand new Super Smash Brother’s Ultimate information.

Simon Belmont

Wasting no time, the team revealed that none other than Simon Belmont would be joining the roster from the Castlevania franchise. Most of his normal attacks will include the usage of the slow but long-reaching ‘Holy whip’ and his special attacks include the likes of the iconic axe, cross, and holy water. His final smash is known as “Grand Cross”, sending his opponents flying into the air trapped within a coffin followed by a barrage of crosses.

Dracula’s Castle

Simon’s home stage is Dracula’s castle. A gothic horror house filled to the brim with different enemies and bosses from the Castlevania series including the Mummy, Death, Carmilla, Werewolf, and of course, Dracula. For an advantage, players can attack the candlesticks for an item to spawn. The house also boasts over 34 music tracks from throughout the game’s soundtracks.

Echo Fighters

With an alternate costume and animation moveset is Richter Belmont, an echo fighter of the newly announced Simon Belmont. However, Nintendo didn’t stop there, and also announced that the highly desired Chrom and Dark Samus would also be joining the battle. Dark Samus is obviously echoing Samus, and although it wasn’t confirmed, Chrom appeared to be an echo of Roy. Also on the character screen, it was detailed that the echo icons have the option to be stacked on top of their recipient character’s icon.

Stages

Nintendo announced that Smash Ultimate will include over 103 stages. And it was specifically announced that Pokemon Stadium 1, Garden of Hope, Brinstar Depths, Summit, Unova Pokemon League, Magicant, Gamer, and Fountain of Dreams would be included as returning stages. We were also given brief looks at the new psychedelic inspired Final Destination stage, and New Donk City Hall which is a traveling stage featuring characters from Super Mario Odyssey. They also announced a new custom mode called Stage morph, which will periodically change the stage you’re playing on.

Music

Smash Ultimate has an extensive soundtrack containing over 900 songs. Now, instead of by stage, songs are organized by their respective franchise, so any Zelda song can be played on any Zelda stage. There’s also an extensive sound test menu including playlists, and even an option to play music with the screen off like an IPod

New Rules

Rules are now the very first thing you choose, and custom rule sets can be made for quick access. There’s also an option for loser’s pick during stage selection. And Final Smashes can be designated to a meter that continuously charges to a less powerful final smash.

Modes

Squad Strike has each player using five or three characters in an elimination-style rotation battle. After a battle in Smashdown mode, the previously selected fighters are no longer playable. Tourney mode is back is back with up to 32 players. Training mode has been given a special grid stage detailing exact knockback and trajectory distances with different amounts of damage taken. And classic mode is back ditching its chess format from Smash 4.

New Items

Some of the new items shown was a gun shaped like a banana, a sword that continuously glows and becomes more powerful, a bomb that when lifted up would explode its surroundings, an instakill scythe, a staff that grows in power with increased distance, a mushroom that reverses your opponent’s controls, and a blaster that increased it’s damage the higher the opponent’s percent was.

 Pokemon

Upholding the tradition is a myriad of new pokemon to torment your friends with. Revealed today was Abra, Solgaleo, Lunala, Mimikyu, Pyukumuku, Vulpix, Alolan Vulpix, Marshadow, and Ditto.

Assist Trophies

Missing the mark of being included as characters, but still getting the participation award are essentially Assist Trophies. Disappointing fans today was the inclusion of Knuckles from Sonic, Zero from Mega Man, Krystal from Star Fox Adventures, Alucard from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Klaptrap from Donkey Kong Country, Kapp’n from Animal Crossing, Chef Kawasaki from Kirby, Gray Fox from Metal Gear Solid, Nikki from Tomodachi Life, Shovel Knight from Shovel Knight, the Moon from Majora’s Mask, and Rathalos from Monster Hunter who also doubles as a boss. Rathalos was also shown upon an announced mountainous stage.

The Menu

The traditionally bad menu from Smash was actually given an first optimistic first look. This time the front page was broken into Smash, Games and More, Vault, Online, and a blurred out section they would talk about more later. The Smash section then further broke up into Smash, Tourney, Special Smash, and the previously announced Squad Strike. There’s also a side tab that contains options, and another blurred out mode.

King K’ Rool

Sakurai has obviously listened to his fans, and this time has announced another extremely requested character in the form of King K’ Rool. They didn’t say anything, but his gameplay trailer showed his famous cannon, crown, and boxing gloves all being used. He’s also extremely tall and will most likely play as a tank with projectiles.