Smash Significance Part 5: The End of the Base Roster and a Plant (The 11/1 Reveals)

So here we are.  The November Direct contained the final base roster fighter reveals (plus a bonus temporary freebie).  I've been excited to get to this one for a while now (heck one of the reveals here is the entire reason I started this series).  Literally, every fighter here is one of my mains/secondaries, so get ready for an extra-long post.  Just a note, this is going to be a very noticeably biased post, so it will likely end up reading a bit differently than previous ones.  My personal thoughts are going to be implemented throughout the other typical sections for each fighter just because in this case all three fighters are of major interest to me (one more than the others, so that's going to be an even more extra-long section).  So without further ado...

Part One: History

Yeah, I'm doing this slightly differently than the 8/8 Direct.  This is mainly because the speculation and rumors between the September Direct and this one are too significant to split up between the three fighter reveals.

I don't know what happened, but the speculation leading into this Direct got cranked up to 11.  Every single week it felt like there were so many more rumors and "leaks" than usual.  Just about every leaker, credible or not, seemed to give their own takes, such as Vergeben singling out Incineroar as the Gen 7 Pokemon being represented, as well as stating for sure that he and Ken were locks, but not knowing if there would be any more beyond that.  This lined up with the Box Theory, which was taken from the collector's edition box that had every fighter on each side, seemingly only having two slots left for newcomers.

While we know now that all of the above came into fruition, the two biggest leaks before the launch were yet to come.  The first happened at the end of September where a screenshot of a battle on Moray Towers was posted, including Ivysaur, Pichu, Pac Man, and the yet-to-be-announced Ken.  Many tried to disprove this leak, noting Pichu's ear being cut off on the in-game portrait, as well as Ken's foot slightly clipping through the floor.  When recreated in a demo, however, it was found that these were simply just the game's own imperfections.

Quite possibly the most infamous "leak" going into Ultimate happened towards the end of October in which a picture of a seemingly completed Everyone is Here banner was posted by an anonymous person who seemingly worked for an advertising company.  Near the finished banner, a version of the banner with no fighters, and what seemed to be set up instructions for a looping display for it was an unseen render of the Grinch for the then-upcoming Grinch movie.  This leak would soon become known as the Grinch leak, splitting the community as to who did and didn't buy into it.

Now the Grinch leak had a lot going for it, but also a lot going against it.  The leak included seven newcomers: Shadow and Ken as echo fighters, and Banjo, Geno, Chorus Kids, Mach Rider, and Issac (with some also thinking they saw Skull Kid in it as well).  This just flat out felt too good to be true.  Even outside of all of these being very popular fan picks (which, in its defense, was a commonly recurring theme in the Ultimate fighter reveals), seven new fighters just felt like too much considering Sakurai's statement not to expect "too many new fighters." Mix that with the fact that many of the most credible leakers were confused about the lack of Incineroar, and there was a lot going against the leak's validity.

On the other side of things, evidence within the picture revealed the name of someone whose LinkedIn revealed they had ties to a French publishing company, suggesting this was indeed real marketing material.  Other evidence was found through official means, such as some miscolored pixels that were found on the banner after Isabelle was added, which lined up with the placement of Issac in the leaked version.  Beyond that, a trailer posted a few days later showed an unrevealed item that bore resemblance to an item found in the Golden Sun series, seemingly giving even more validity to the leak.

Things would soon come to a head, however, as at the end of the month, the final Smash Direct before the launch of Ultimate was announced, amping the community up even more, and increasing the debates as to what was real and what was not for just a few more days.

Before this, however, Vergeben posted one last leak.  It was said that the Grinch Leak was fake, Ken and Incineroar were the last two in the base roster, and that Issac would be an assist trophy instead of a fighter.

And then came the Direct...

Part Two: My History

Here's where my bias starts.  Going into Ultimate, there were four main fighters I wanted in the game.  Shovel Knight was the first fighter I ever wanted in Smash, and he would become an assist trophy.  I wanted an ARMS rep, and my mind immediately went to Spring Man, who would soon be revealed as an assist trophy as well.  Of course, I would get my wish there later, but that's for another post.  Inkling was up there, but I figured they were a lock anyway, so I didn't think too much into it.  My top pick, however, above all others was Incineroar.  I'll get to the specifics as to why later, but this is pretty crucial information as to my thoughts during this wave of leaks.

Throughout this entire cycle, I was trying to keep my expectations as low as possible as to whether or not Incineroar would get in.  Honestly, I never really expected it to happen.  Decidueye seemed to be the more popular starter in Gen 7, especially after his inclusion in Pokken, and nobody was really predicting Incineroar.  Heck, quite frankly I, myself, would have been totally fine with Decidueye, though I would have much rather gotten the other.  Right around when Smash was first revealed for Switch though, I suddenly thought about how much fun Incineroar could be, between all of the grappler/wrestler type attacks that he could use.  Heck, I even thought about how his reveal trailer might play out.  I figured it would start with two fighters fighting in the boxing ring, one of which getting defeated, and then Incineroar would come in out of nowhere and start wailing on them (I've had a tendency to get the general concepts of reveal trailers correct, only missing a few details.  In this case, I didn't factor in that it could double as another character's reveal, with said character being the one fighting Little Mac at the start).

Of course, there was plenty of bias from my end.  Sun and Moon were the first games I was really *there* for during the reveal cycle, and when the starters were revealed, I immediately decided on Litten.  Even though I was a bit disappointed with Incineroar when the final evolutions of the starters were leaked, he quickly grew on me as I saw gameplay and especially once I played the game for myself.  By the time I finished the game, he was easily my favorite Pokemon.

So yeah, as one would expect, I definitely didn't want to get my expectations up too high.  Things would change as I started seeing more leaks though, especially when I first heard Vergeben's statement that there would indeed be a Gen 7 Pokemon and that it would not be Decidueye, Lycanrok, or Mimikyu.  Of course, I was thinking "ok if this is real, wouldn't that suggest Incineroar?"  The only thing is I tried not to put too much trust into that leak so I could avoid disappointment.  As the months went on, however, and Incineroar began to become a more prominent candidate for the game (heck, Vergeben even eventually stated it was, in fact, Incineroar), I started to believe.

Then came the Grinch leak.

I'll be honest, I was fooled by it.  I don't know if it was everyone else acting like it was real or what, but I believed it 100% (well, maybe a tiny bit less than that because I never wanted to go all-in on believing a leak, but still).  Something I forgot to mention earlier that I feel is necessary to mention now is that Charizard was my main in Smash 4 and once I found out he was part of Pokemon Trainer again, I knew I probably needed to find a new main.  The only issue is I wasn't really feeling anyone on the roster.  I figured that if anything, I'd fall back on Inkling going into Ultimate, but I was still holding out a little hope for Incineroar since I knew I would likely main him if he got in.  The Grinch leak completely killed that hope for Incineroar, but it at least contained a few characters I would have been interested in, even if I didn't main them.  Banjo and Geno were both characters I wanted specifically because I knew how big their fanbases were for their individual inclusions, so they were both in my mind.  Chorus Kids were characters I was sad to find out were possibly cut from Smash 4, so I was very excited about their inclusions as well.  Finally, even though I didn't really know Mach Rider before then, I had always liked the idea of an Excitebiker as the new retro rep for a game, so Mach Rider filled that hole for me.  

Ultimately, however, I was saddened by the fact that Incineroar wasn't there, and was trying to make myself feel a bit better about it.  One video I saw talking about leakers being confused about Incineroar being missing was suggesting that maybe he was just moved to DLC so they could get Banjo into the base roster, justified by Banjo trademarks recently being made, suggesting that he might have been decided on earlier that year.  This was the conclusion I decided to follow and it helped me not feel like all hope was completely lost, at least outside of the base roster.

Of course, though, the Direct then came...

Part 3: Ken and Incineroar

This was another Direct I had to watch in bits between classes throughout the school day.  Honestly, if I could change any one thing about my viewing experience with this Direct is that I would have rather been at home instead of school because I definitely suffered for it.  Honestly the fact I didn't get to react properly is probably the reason I'm still shaken over it (in a good way).

So like the previous one, it started right at the end of class for me.  I went in expecting the Grinch leak fighters to be revealed, so when the trailer started and Ken was shown, I was like "yep, there we go.  The leak is definitely real." For reference, I totally forgot Ken was even mentioned in Vergeben's leak, so he seemed to confirm the Grinch leak in my mind.  I will admit though, there was a split second at the beginning of the reveal where I thought it was Incineroar, since the boxing ring setting lined up pretty well with my concept of an Incineroar reveal trailer.

So I was completely clueless.  By the end of the gameplay section of Ken's half of the trailer, I was walking out fo my class over to the break time hangout spot my friends and I had.  I had to pause, but before I did, it zoomed into the eyes in the doorway, and my first thought was Shadow.  My line of thinking was that they probably jsut wanted to do a dedicated echo fighter reveal trailer, just to add a bit more flair rather than Chrom's and Dark Samus's barebones reveal trailers.

Then came the segment after Little Mac got thrown into the screen.  That little first person segment of Incineroar running to the ring.  At first I was like "yup, it's Shadow because he's running I guess," but then the flames started showing up around the edges of the screen and I was like "wait, fire isn't a Shadow thing is it?"  That was when I started to get suspicious, only amplified by the shadowy, firey figure landing in the ring with that immediately recognizable flame belt.  EVEN THEN I was trying as hard as I possibly could not to believe that it was indeed Incineroar.  My mind was a mix of trying not to believe it was him (with the constant repetition of "nowaynowaynowaynoway..."), as well as me trying to verify that it was indeed Incineroar's belt, all while multiple feelings of hype, disbelief, etc. started to rise up in my stomach.

Aaaaaannnnndddd then he roared, his face was revealed, and the splash screen happened.

I yelled.

You know when you watch a Smash reveal and you're so hyped you miss/don't even process the gameplay segment?  Yeah, that was me.  There are exactly five times so far that I screamed at a Smash reveal (and the same number for when I was shaking during/after it).  Inkling, Incineroar, and a few that we will get to within the next few entries.

Legitimately I was so hyped and not even thinking that on accident, I immediately spoiled my friend who was nearby but planning on watching the direct later that day.

Now I know most people were likely disappointed in this, especially since it deconfirmed the Grinch leak, and the second they said Incineroar was the last newcomer, I immediately thought "uh oh..." just because I knew that would likely increase any disappointment people had.  Nevertheless, I was still hyped out of my mind, and nobody can take that from me.

As for how they play, I really love both of them.  Incineroar, of course, is my main, as my continued rambling about him has likely implied, but who I didn't expect to play as much as I do was Ken.  Honestly, I kinda contribute some of that to the fact he was announced alongside my top pick, but yeah, I unlocked Ken in the game and decided to try him out just because he had the trailer connection, and I ended up having a lot of fun with him.  Before this point, I had never played a Street Fighter game (or really any traditional fighter, for that matter), but because of Smash and the fact that I really enjoyed playing Ken, I would go on and end up buying multiple games in the series over the next few months.  That's something else I really love about Smash.  You may vaguely know about a series but never really give it a shot, but then you find a character from said series in Smash and that can be the tipping point.  It's amazing to me just how awesome Smash is at being able to introduce people to new series that may not have reached them beforehand.  Smash is inherently an advertisement, but in a way where you don't really care because everything is so interesting and true to their sources.  I'll likely touch on this a bit more throughout some upcoming entries in this series, but yeah, it's just amazing to me that because a character I love got announced alongside a character I only moderately knew, I was fully introduced to a new series that I may not have ever thought to try out otherwise.

Now, the funny thing about these reveals is that both fighters had been very heavily speculated/rumored/leaked (especially in Ken's case), so to most, neither of these were that big of a surprise.  However, shortly after announcing the first Fighters Pass, we are given a trailer for a bonus fighter that absolutely nobody seriously saw coming...

Part 4: Piranha Plant

What do I even say about this one?

As far as leaks beforehand, there were almost none for this.  The only one found that maybe was credible was discovered after this Direct had ended, and it was just a 4chan post from late September 2018 saying Ken, Incineroar and a potted Piranha Plant were the last newcomers.  Credible or not, I think I speak for most when I say practically nobody would have taken this seriously.  Heck, I think this reveal probably caused people to be more believing of absurd-sounding leaks.  I distinctly remember not long after this reveal, a YouTuber covered a leak for the Fighters Pass in which they claimed the 5th Fighter would be a GameCube controller (which honestly, why not at this point?).

Anyway, as with Ken and Incineroar, this reveal fell victim to the combination of the timing of this Direct and my lack of control.  This one got hit even harder since it happened during class.  I remember shortly after the Ken/Incineroar reveal, I had to get to my next class, and all throughout it I had my laptop open to the Direct, but my mobile hotspot and school wifi were being trash that day so the stream kept buffering and I constantly had to refresh.  Eventually, I see the moveset information segment for a Piranha Plant and I'm just sitting there really confused and thinking I missed something.

At first, I was worried that people were going to be pissed that this got in over (insert character here), but I was (and still kinda am) surprised to see that the reception was more positive than anything.  I think the pick was just so out there that most people were more willing to accept it or something like that.  At the very least, that would explain the contrasting receptions between this and some of the DLC characters (though that could also probably be contributed to the constantly changing community).

As for playing it in-game, this is another character that really clicked with me.  Plant is definitely not one of my mains by any means, but I really like its moveset and find it fun to casually play as every now and then.

Conclusion

So yeah, I went into this Direct expecting confirmation of the Grinch leak, but I got way more out of it than that.  The leak got deconfirmed in what was, for me at least, the best way possible with my first top pick getting into the game.  As for the other reveals, even though they may not have been as exciting for me at the time, both would become some of my favorites to play in the game, with one of them properly introducing me to a new series altogether.

Also just some little notes about this series and its future:  so this entry was started at the end of September and I just kinda kept forgetting to come back to it.  There may be some inaccuracies between now and then since we have gotten an additional 3 character reveals, and I tried to update everything I could, so just keep that in mind.  As for the future of the series, I'm not sure how consistently I'm going to be doing this but I do plan on covering both Fighter Passes (and beyond in the event that we somehow end up with even more DLC).  It will likely continue the formula of each post focusing on fighters per event, so characters like Joker, Terry, Steve, etc. will have individual posts, while a Hero/Banjo situation will be relegated to a single post.  I'm not entirely sure exactly when I will have the Joker post ready, but I will be sure to get to it as soon as I can.  

Until next time...

Smash Significance Part 4: Isabelle

As we work towards the tail end of the base roster reveals, we are now hitting our penultimate Direct before Ultimate launched.  This was a pretty interesting case, as this Direct was originally scheduled for September 6, 2018, but was postponed a week to September 13, 2018 as a result of a natural disaster in Japan.  As a result, speculation only grew more and more over that week since there was now confirmation that a Direct would be dropping soon.  The big questions brought with it, though, were if a Smash reveal would be featured and what character it would be if so.

Surprisingly, this was a fairly polarizing question since some thought it was a pretty easy prediction, but others thought there weren't many reveals left and they would all be saved for one final Smash Direct.  Of course seeing how this reveal played out, it seems that it was always planned to be a part of a general Direct.  That said, let's talk about the second to last "unique" newcomer in the base roster, Isabelle.

Part One: History

Isabelle first debuted in 2013's Animal Crossing New Leaf, released on the 3DS.  Since then, she has climbed the ranks and is now up there with the Villagers and Tom Nook as the face of the franchise.  At the time, many were predicting her inclusion in Ultimate's roster as an echo fighter for Villager, as a result of her importance to the Animal Crossing series, as well as because of the fact that echo fighters were being pushed very hard in the pre-launch days.

Outside of Smash, there was also very heavy speculation towards something else Animal Crossing-related.  As stated earlier, New Leaf was released in 2013, but that was the last core game in the series going into that Direct.  Though there were side projects like Happy Home Designer, Amiibo Festival, and Pocket Camp released since then, many fans were craving a new entry in the series and after every passing Switch-era Direct, the speculation and desire only grew more.

Going into this Direct, speculation towards these things would increase, also being amplified by the question as to whether or not the way the March Direct ended was the new normal or if that was a special one-time thing.

Then the Direct came.

Part Two: The Reveal

The September 2018 Direct took those expectations and blew them out of the water.

Literally the first thing shown after the familiar intro animation was a trailer for Luigi's Mansion 3, already bringing the Direct pretty much up to par with the previous one (though it's kinda hard to beat a surprise new Smash game).  Afterwards, the Direct went on pretty much like usual.  There was a small selection of 3DS games, a hefty amount of switch games (new and ports), but for the most part, there was no sign of Smash.  Eventually, towards the end of headlines, Smash was featured, however, it was only the announcement of the rumored Switch hardware bundle.

Then the end of the Direct hits, and we get the tease of one more thing.  Well, not exactly.  It was moreso just a tease that the Direct was not over yet and to stick around until it was completely over.  That already raised some flags for me since it seemed like we were about to get multiple announcements.

So yeah the trailer starts, and I was already thinking Animal Crossing, though I also had a feeling it might have been Isabelle for Smash.  Once Isabelle got the letter, I was pretty much like "yeah ok, it's Smash.  That's neat."

Then that trailer ended and transitioned to the Tom Nook bit at the end.  My first thought was Tom Nook as an echo, but pretty quickly that turned to half expecting it to be an actual Animal Crossing announcement, which it ended up being.

Part Three: My Thoughts

Roughly half a year before this reveal (Would have been the month before the Inkling reveal if I'm not mistaken), I was on My Nintendo and noticed that New Leaf was one of the discounts offered at the time.  Because of this, I decided to finally dip my feet into the Animal Crossing series, as there was plenty of talk about it at the time, and it felt like a Switch entry was pretty much inevitable at that point.  While it wasn't my favorite game in the world, I still absolutely loved it and completely understood the hype around the series.  At that point, I was completely down for an Animal Crossing Switch reveal.

After Ultimate was officially announced, people also started talking about potential echo fighters, with Isabelle being one of the main ones in the spotlight at the time.  I would mentally take note of this, and this altered my reaction to the reveal.

When this Direct did come around, I was starting to have some suspicions about a new game in the series being announced.  Most of the big Nintendo IPs had already been covered up to that point, and it had been 5 years since New Leaf was released.  It just felt like time, so when the trailer opened up with Isabelle scrambling around the office, I immediately got extremely hyped for a new Animal Crossing.  I did start expecting it to be a Smash trailer though, and as soon as she got an invitation, I was just like "oh, yep."  I was excited though, even though, like many other fighters beforehand, this wasn't exactly a character on my personal wishlist.  I was honestly more excited about the prospect of a new Animal Crossing at the time, and after a brief thought of Tom Nook potentially being revealed as an echo after the Isabelle trailer ended, I was more than happy with what we got in that Direct.

The Animal Crossing series has only gained more and more steam since it first started and New Leaf and New Horizons collectively signify a peak in the popularity of the series.  With Isabelle becoming the retroactive mascot of the series as of these games, it's only fitting that she is properly represented as a fighter in Smash.

Smash Significance Part 3: The 8/8 reveals

Wow, it's kinda odd how I've been completely unintentionally spacing these posts out to correlate roughly with when the reveals happened.  I'm gonna do something a little different here compared to my last entries though since we have 5 characters to cover for this Direct.  Normally, I would split this into multiple posts but seeing how I don't have quite as deep an attachment to most of these characters as I do others, I think we can squeeze all of them into one big post.  So let's begin:

The 8/8 Smash Direct had 5(!) character reveals in it, albeit 3 of those were echo fighters, but still.  Given the fact that we were told literally the last time we got news before this specific direct that there wouldn't be too many newcomers in the game, this was a pretty big deal.

The characters we got were Simon Belmont with Richter Belmont as his echo fighter, Chrom as an echo of Roy, Dark Samus as an echo of Samus (who would've guessed), and King K. Rool as the big closing reveal.  Overall, a pretty solid lineup of highly requested fighters (aside from Richter, I suppose, but I doubt many would have expected him to begin with).  The only issue is I have minimal to no experience with most of these characters, so while I was still hyped about them and the fact that others who wanted them would be getting them, there overall was a pretty average amount of hype initially coming from me for each of these reveals.  That's not to say I don't like these characters or have opinions on them, their series, or their gameplay.  I just want to put that out there so y'all know not to expect the most in-depth amount of knowledge about them.

Without further ado though:

Part One: The Belmonts

So this is an interesting case because up until this point, I had heard the names Simon Belmont and Castlevania enough to know generally what was going on, however, names were the only thing I really knew about the series going into this reveal, and I just happened to make a correct assumption that this was a Castlevania related reveal (similarly to a future reveal I will cover).  I distinctly remember checking my notifications on my phone at one point during the reveal, since I had to start watching this Direct a few minutes late, and saw that Nintendo tweeted "the legendary vampire hunter..." and I had no clue what or who they were talking about.  I'm getting ahead of myself though.  Let's give a brief history of the buildup to this reveal and the speculation that went with it.

Simon was always a popular third party pick for Smash, and for good reason.  The series is very heavily tied to the NES, and with Konami already letting Snake in previously, he seemed to be a great pick for a potential second rep from the company.  Like many of the newcomers, rumors for Simon seemed to come to a head going into Ultimate.  Popular leaker Vergeben singled out Simon as one of the newcomers in the game one month before the full E3 reveal, and over the two-month gap between E3 and the 8/8 Direct, Simon seemed all but confirmed.  Quite literally at that, as the night before the August Direct, a music track preview originating from the Castlevania series was mistakenly uploaded to YouTube by Nintendo themselves.

I was lucky enough to avoid this, as I got on Twitter that night and immediately saw a tweet that said the new character's identity was leaked and to be careful on the internet.  That was the point when the laptop was closed.

So my experience with the reveal was kind of a blur, as it was in this weird in-between class break period we had at my school that year and the direct itself started roughly a minute or two before my class ended, so I was trying to simultaneously boot my phone, walk to mine and my friends' hangout spot, and try to intake as much as I could within the ten minutes I had for the break period.  As such, I missed a lot in my first run through, including a whole character.

My reaction basically went like this: "Oh it's a spooky-looking castle in the rain at night.  I wonder if this is that Castlevania thing that's all over my NES and SNES Classics?"  "Simon?  Crap, I feel like I know who this is but I can't pinpoint it."  "Beelmonnnt?  I think that's right.  Yeah, I've heard of him before"  *Skips ahead a bit so I can intake more information*  "Wait, what echo fighter..?"

So yeah, obviously not the biggest Castlevania fan right here (still been meaning to try the series given I have, like, 3 or 4 entries between my classic consoles), BUT that doesn't mean I don't have respect for the characters and series.  As said earlier, it's one of the biggest series from the NES, even sharing with Metroid the title of an entire subgenre of platformers.  Simon and Richter are both really fun to play as too.  They both play exactly the same, with the only real difference being an effect of the holy water, with Simon's being fire-based, and Richter's being aura-based.  I would definitely be lying if I said I haven't had a blast playing as the Belmonts.  While they aren't exactly top tiers, they can be really satisfying and you can set up some fun traps and projectile-based combos with them (again, speaking as someone who plays them super casually).  Their inclusion in the game was very necessary, and quite frankly, I'm kinda surprised it took them this long to do it.

Part Two: The Echoes

I'm going to group these two together because 1: I don't have much to say about them overall and 2: I think some of what would be the Chrom-based discussion would be better fit when we eventually get around to Byleth.  Same goes for Dark Samus, as I think most of the personal history with the Metroid series was already covered when I talked about Ridley.  I am, however very aware of the fan requests for these two, especially Chrom.

Chrom was a character rumored to be included in Smash 4.  His chances were especially popularized by the Gematsu leaks, which were a series of leaks throughout the Smash 4 reveal cycle that seemed to have very high credibility.  However, when a Fire Emblem reveal eventually did come around, Robin and Lucina were the candidates chosen for the roster.  To add insult to injury, they trailer deliberately showed Chrom getting injured, ending with his popular remark that he will get his chance another day, and immediately cutting to Robin's final smash, showcasing Chrom's role in it.

Dark Samus, on the other hand, I admittedly know very little about in terms of their history with Smash speculation.  Before Ultimate, they were simply represented as an alt for Samus and an assist trophy in Smash 4.  Outside of that, most speculation for a Metroid newcomer was almost exclusively given to Ridley.

After Ridley's reveal, however, things seemed to change in favor for both of these candidates.  For one, Samus's Dark Samus alt was seemingly removed and replaced, based on the E3 build.  The same went for Ike's Chrom alt.  Beyond that, Dark Samus's assist trophy was nowhere to be found, and at the time, it was unknown whether or not Robin still had Chrom in his final smash.  All of these clues led to speculation that the two may be included in the game, especially after the introduction of echo fighters, as both seemed like perfect candidates for clones.

Of course, the August Direct came around and revealed both back to back.  They even commented on how many may have been expecting the two to show up.  Quite frankly, I was pretty indifferent.  I was excited about them since I knew many were speculating about their inclusion, but outside of that, yeah, it didn't do much for me.

Overall though, I'm very happy with their inclusions.  While Dark Samus plays near identically to Samus, it's awesome to have a character in Smash to directly represent the Metroid Prime series.

As for Chrom, he definitely differentiates from Roy more than most echo fighters do from their counterparts, and it's really nice to have closure from the tease of his potential inclusion in Smash 4.  Heck, even though he is the third rep now from FE Awakening, it makes tons of sense given that game essentially saved the FE series to begin with.

Part Three: King K. Rool

Now here's the character I was most excited about in this Direct.  King K. Rool is the main antagonist of the SNES era Donkey Kong Country series.  I say SNES era because after that, he slowly began to lose relevance over time, not yet even making an appearance in the modern Donkey Kong Country series.  Heck, before his inclusion in Smash, his latest appearence was in 2008's Mario Super Sluggers, a game that released just over a decade before Smash Ultimate!

This was the big argument against K. Rool for a long time because even though he was up there with Ridley as one of the highest requested characters, many figured he just wasn't relevant enough anymore to be considered for a spot in the roster.

Things changed in the Smash 4 days, however.  While he was never included as a fighter in that game, two big developments occurred that seemed to increase his chances (or at the very least, make it seem like he was on the developer's radar.  For one, he was included as a DLC Mii Fighter costume, which indicated that the fans' desires had been recognized.  This was also later shown to be a big development, as many characters that were included as Mii Costumes in Smash 4 would later become full fighters in Ultimate (Inkling, Chrom, Daisy, etc.).

The big game-changer for K. Rool, however, came in the April 2015 Nintendo Direct, in which full DLC support was detailed for Smash 4, and the Fighter Ballot was announced.  The Fighter Ballot was an official survey in which Nintendo asked fans to write in their most wanted fighter for Smash, with the promise that the most requested realizable fighter would be included as a DLC fighter in Smash 4.  Ultimately, Bayonetta was the winner of the ballot, and was included as the final DLC fighter in the game, however, it was also stated that the results of the ballot would also be used for future Smash products.

After the launch of Ultimate, Sakurai had even directly stated that characters like Ridley, Simon, and K. Rool were included as a result of the ballot, with that fact especially being emphasized for K. Rool in the months prior.  Even when K. Rool was first revealed it was stated that his inclusion was due to high fan demand for him.

As for the reveal itself, it's actually slightly interesting from my perspective.  I was still in high school at the time when that reveal happened, and as stated earlier, the Direct started in between classes for me.  Due to this, I had to pause part of the way in becuase class started, and I couldn't finish it until my lunch period.  During this time, I remember thinking about the possibility of K. Rool being revealed for the game, and I was thinking about just how obvious the reveal would theoretically be, as I could only visualize a K. Rool trailer heavily involving the DK characters, likely being them vibing in the treehouse and getting interrupted by K. Rool.  Low and behold, that is essentially what happened, though I definitely didn't expect them to play with our expectations the way they did with the Dedede fakeout.  That was a treat.

As you can probably tell by my much more extensive explaination of the history behind K. Rool and his inclusion in Smash, I already had respect for the character and source material going into this Direct.  K. Rool especially represents one of the most formative eras of the Donkey Kong franchise, being the point in which the series changes focus from the traditional arcade gameplay of the original series to the challenging platforming focus that started with the Country series.  While he had slowly faded from relevancy throughout the prior years, the amount of fan demand for his inclusion that raged on afterwards speaks miles about the importance of him as a character and the impact he left on the Nintendo community.  He would not be the only character to undergo this kind of story though, but we'll touch on that on a later date.

Conclusion

So yeah, overall the 8/8 Direct was very big for the Smash Ultimate pre-release cycle.  For one, we weren't sure just what to expect when Sakurai told us not to expect too many new fighters, so going into this, many weren't sure how many fighters to expect in this Direct.  While many only expected one or two reveals, we ended up getting a whopping 5 reveals, even if three of them were echoes.  This easily blew most expectations out of the water, though it would set up an unreasonable standard that would eventually come back to bite many.

The fighters we did get here, though, all serve a large amount of significance to Nintendo and the Smash series, with four of the five being very highly requested (with the other one a victim of simply not being on anyone's radars, two of which being representatives of a series many wanted to see in Smash, one being the third rep from a game that saved a now much more popular franchise, one being a more direct rep of a popular sub series of one of Nintendo's biggest franchises, and the last being another piece of proof of what high fan demand can do.

Smash Significance Part 2: Daisy and Ridley

So this week would have been this year's E3, but as we all know, that had to be canceled because of COVID.  Of course, this impacts the timeline in which all of the game companies announce their new games and other products, one of the main ones being the PS5 reveal taking place later this week.  Today, however, would have likely been Nintendo's big E3 Direct, since those have historically taken place on the day E3 starts (or at the very least the Tuesday of).  Seeing as there was no Direct today, or any other big news from them for that matter, I figured I would continue the Smash Significance series here since the next pair of fighters is relevant to this time.  Let's jump back to two years(!) ago on that fateful day when a new Smash game was shown off in its entirety for the first time.

The History

Ok so maybe we won't be getting to that point just yet, but anyway, Daisy and Ridley are two characters that were constantly brought up as potential Smash candidates on several occasions, the former of the two especially taking the spotlight.  These two characters, however, had glaring issues that seemingly impacted their odds of getting their spot, with many considering Daisy to not be different enough from Peach to warrant getting her own spot in the roster, and the infamous "too big" argument that everyone and their mother brought up whenever someone mentioned Ridley getting into the game (as a fighter, anyway).  Speculation on Ridley's inclusion had been ongoing since the Melee days when he was prominently featured in the original trailer/intro for the game, and his popularity as a possible fighter only grew more over the coming years as more games in the series were released.

I actually find it very interesting as it can be somewhat easy to predict when a long-awaited character will finally join Smash, and I really felt that with multiple characters that made it into Ultimate.  By this, I mean that there's just some kind of feeling when everyone is speculating that a certain character will make it in and there's just some kind of feeling when that speculation begins to reach its peak.  Everyone is talking about the character but also trying to be safe and not go all-in on their inclusion, and it just begins to feel so obvious that this is the direction the game is going to go in.  This is how I felt about Ridley.  In that relatively short period between the initial Smash tease for Switch and the full reveal at E3 2018, almost anywhere speculation persisted, Ridley's name was bound to come up somewhere, and as it got closer and closer to that Direct where the game would be fully revealed, it just started to feel like now was just going to finally be the time and that the speculation was reaching a climax.

The Reveal

So E3 2018 rolls around and Nintendo's Direct starts.  As with almost all big reveals, I distinctly remember the day it happened.  I could barely sleep that night knowing that we were about to get information on not only a load of unrevealed Nintendo games, but also a new entry in the Smash series.  I especially remember the debates that persisted in the months leading up as to whether it was a port or sequel, but looking back, it was pretty glaringly obvious that it was a new game.  I think the only people really thinking it was a port were ones trying to avoid disappointment in case it actually was one.

Anyway, I remember waking up at, like, 6 or 7 that morning because I just couldn't sleep anymore, even if I was multiple hours away from the Direct.  I legit had to keep myself occupied so I wouldn't bore myself to death for the next hours, and watching Coco on Netflix for the first time was one of those things.

So the Direct finally rolls around and I'm in a Discord call watching it with my cousin.  Let me tell you, the hype levels at the time were unreal.  Everyone was watching that morning, knowing Smash was coming and anticipating its reveal.  Is it a new game?  Who will be cut?  What newcomers will there be?  These were all questions running through my mind for the preceding months and I was minutes away from finally getting answers.

That was a stressful Direct too, especially with all those unknowns.  It felt like Smash would show up at any moment and whenever a new trailer started, the anticipation only grew more.  Finally, around the midway point of the Direct, the typical end of Direct sizzle reel shows and afterwards they transition into the second half of the Direct, which was essentially just a Smash Direct.

Sakurai introduces the game and the first trailer starts.

The trailer begins with a new version of battlefield, and a pipe comes up out of the ground, obviously indicating Mario's design in this new game is about to be seen.  When he comes up, it is already obvious (as if it wasn't already) that this was indeed a brand new game, and as the trailer progresses, we see a couple returning veterans who were previously cut, such as Ice Climbers (expected, but exciting) and Pokemon Trainer (completely unexpected to me, but still not too crazy).

Then Snake shows up, bringing with him the "Everyone is Here" tagline, and if I could pinpoint any exact moment in that Direct when shit absolutely obliterated the fan, it would be that one.

That's not what we're here to talk about though.  Let's get into the newcomer reveals.

So the Direct continues and we see a bunch of changes to different characters.  Finally, Lucina and Dark Pit are brought up, introducing the concept of Echo Fighters (or basically clones/semiclones).  This is fine.  They finally directly addressed the "issue" of having clone characters and gave them a fancy new name to go alongside them.  This is only the beginning, however, as we then are led into the reveal of a brand new echo fighter.  That fighter was revealed to be Daisy, and while not exactly the most exciting character imo, this brought in a completely new side of speculation and made an entire subsection of fighters more likely to make the cut.  Now we know that they are glorifying clones and are willing to add even more.  Now even more characters that were simply dismissed as only being able to be a clone are able to join the roster

That was not the only character reveal however, with the next being one of the biggest reveals of the hype cycle.

The Direct continues, and towards the end we are told that because they prioritized bringing everyone back, there was going to be a lower number of newcomers in this game.  That's fine, we already got enough as is, but then we are told there is one more announcement.

Now imagine this in the shoes of someone seeing all of this for the first time with the context that most big Smash fans had.  First we see a brand new version of the Smash 4 reveal trailer intro, this time having a simple, more minimalist presentation (which imo, adds even more to the hype since it makes everything feel even more unknown and mysterious).

The main trailer begins and we see an overhead shot of a robotic, sci-fi looking bridge over a giant metallic chasm.  This, for many, raised suspicions as to who was about to be revealed, only amplified by the next shot where the first things we see on the bridge are Samus's feet.

Honestly, this is one of my favorite reveal trailers because, even though it's very obvious who is being revealed, the darkness within this giant, empty room, accompanied by the silence only broken by ambient sounds and the footsteps of the main three characters creates this tense atmosphere that only makes the sudden bursts of sound caused by Ridley's murders that much more impactful in building the excitement.

Eventually, Mario and Mega Man are taken out, Samus turns around, and a giant figure bursts up from under the bridge, quickly revealed to be Ridley.

This trailer is easily one of the most exciting reveals in Smash history both because it was such a long-awaited character, and because the trailer really does a fantastic job at building the tension and making the reveal that much more impactful.  

As someone who has played very little of the Metroid series, I can really appreciate the fact that Nintendo would actually let this character in even after seemingly shooting him down in the past, and whenever I watch the reveal trailer or any reactions to it, I can still feel the sheer hype radiating from the fans who had been wishing for this character for many years beforehand.

Why I like them

Daisy is a character that I have played very little of in the actual game, and though I'm not really huge on her's or Peach's playstyles in a general sense, she is one of the main faces I associate with echo fighters in Smash, and that's a good thing.  As I said before, her reveal opened up a completely new kind of speculation.  Now that people knew that they were really going to be pushing into the concept of Echo Fighters, the big question was who's next?  Chrom, for instance, was now a likely candidate, as it had been stated in the past that his inclusion in Smash 4 was decided against as a result of his being too similar to other characters in the Fire Emblem series.  When playing the E3 demo, people noticed Samus's Dark Samus alt was no longer there.  Did this mean Dark Samus will be a new Echo?  What about Ken?  He's already essentially a Ryu clone in the Street Fighter series.  He's such an obvious candidate now that echoes are a thing, so is he going to get in.  Will Mrs. Pac Man get in?  What about Shadow?  Maybe Dry Bowser?  Why aren't Octolings an echo?  How about Isabelle?  I could go on.

On the other side of things, I really appreciate Ridley's inclusion for a reason why I appreciate a lot of other inclusions in Ultimate, being that he was such a big fan request and it felt so nice to know that those fans had closure and that they got their most wanted character.  Even aside from that, I love playing Ridley in the game.  While he isn't exactly one of my mains, I really enjoy his moveset and whenever I play as him in the game it's always a fun match.  Overall, he's just a really fun character.  His inclusion, similar to Daisy, raised a lot of questions as to who was going to be included in this new game.  Now that one heavily requested character is in, are there going to be more?  Is this just a one off and every other newcomer is relatively safe? etc.

Overall, I love the inclusions in Smash revealed at E3 2018.  Both were big characters that made a lot of people happy and both brought a lot of speculation to the table as to what other characters were going to be included in the game.  I think it's safe to say that without Daisy and Ridley, Ultimate would have been very different, both pre-launch and post-launch.

Smash Significance Part 1: Inkling

As many people know, the Super Smash Bros series is prone to having some of the most hype reveals out of any Nintendo franchise.  Whenever a new character is revealed, everyone immediately gets extremely excited and interested in finding out who it is and what their moveset will be like.  This series of posts will detail my memories of each Smash reveal since Ultimate began because I genuinely believe that every character is important and that somebody out there will be losing their shit.

Of course, there's no better way to start than the initial reveal of the game, with its heavy focus on Inklings.

The Context

The Nintendo Switch was officially revealed in October of 2016, and even before its March 2017 launch, game announcements were to be made.  As per usual, many were speculating on what the games shown in the initial reveal were, as well as what else might soon be getting a new entry on this new system.  One of the main questions asked was "Where is Smash?"

It was easy to assume that a new Smash game would have to make its way onto this system eventually, but as 2017 went on and multiple presentations passed, the fans were slowly becoming more anxious as to when it would finally be announced.  I distinctly remember the period early on in the Switch's life when it would be difficult to watch a new Nintendo Direct without somebody during speculation bringing up the possibility of Smash being announced or half the live chat spamming stuff along the lines of "where is smash?!?," "smash?," etc.

Then 2018 rolls around, and the March Direct that many remember very fondly is announced.  I distinctly remember just about every speculation video pertaining to that Direct brought up Smash at some point, but the speculation all felt the same as it had been for the last year or so, so nobody was necessarily getting their hopes up.  This is especially the case since most of Nintendo's Directs since the Switch launched didn't really have any major first-party reveals, E3 being the main exception.  Because of this, there was no precedent for Nintendo to reveal anything big to begin with until E3, much less Smash Bros.

Aside from when Smash would be announced, there was also the question of who would be announced with it.  Many people had many ideas, but it was pretty much universally accepted that whenever the reveal finally happened, it would involve the Inklings in some capacity.  Splatoon was Nintendo's newest IP and between the success of the first game and the fact that the sequel was one of the first games shown off for the Switch, it just felt inevitable that the Inklings would be in the next Smash game.

The Reveal

So the Direct starts, and it's already kind of insane.  The first reveal is a new WarioWare for 3ds, which was a very welcome addition for me.  Not long after, a remake of Bowser's Inside Story is revealed (my friend was super hyped for that, and was convinced to watch the Direct because of it), followed by a remake of the original Luigi's Mansion for 3ds.  Overall, it was definitely a solid 3ds selection, especially compared to the last couple directs.

The insanity doesn't stop there though.  The rest of the Direct has announcements ranging from more details on Octopath and Mario Tennis, to a Captain Toad port for Switch and 3ds, to ports of Crash, South Park, and Undertale.

What is seemingly the final announcement for the Direct is for version 3.0 of Splatoon 2.  A pretty solid way to end the Direct, but not all too noteworthy at first.  Then the gameplay swirls into darkness (which lowkey gave me a heart attack bc I was on edge about Smash, but not fully expecting it), transitioning into the reveal of the Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion.  This felt like a hell of a way to end a Direct, and most people were likely satisfied by this.

Then a 7 word sentence was uttered:

"Well, actually we have one more announcement."

A new trailer starts, calling back to the original Splatoon trailer.  This was the first hint for me because a Splatoon 1 port made no sense at the time, and the only other reason as to why they would call back to the Splatoon 1 announcement that made sense to me was Smash.  I still held out just to avoid getting my hopes up.  As the trailer goes on, I notice how the trailer was much faster paced and action-heavy than I was used to for Splatoon, which was sign number 2 for me.  Even when everything went dark, I was still trying to stay in disbelief.  Then, however, came the iconic image of the flaming Smash ball forming in the Inkling's pupil (literally just got chills typing that out, lol).

I think that was the first time a gaming announcement made me actually shout.  I'm not even kidding, I was shaking for the next 10 minutes or so.  It was such a weird mixture of disbelief, excitement, and flat out shock that I was experiencing.  I distinctly remember texting my friends and struggling because I was both shaking and attempting to type really fast.
Overall, a very fond memory of mine.

Why I like them

I got a Switch roughly 3 months after its initial launch, so as many people know, there wasn't a whole lot to play on it at the time.  For the first month or two that I had it, the only game I owned was Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and while I love it to death, I already had Mario Kart 8 on my Wii U.  I was in much need of a new experience on Switch, and I didn't have the money to get anything until late July of that year, which happened to be when Splatoon 2 launched.

I never played Splatoon on the Wii U, though I had only heard praise about it, so I was intending on eventually trying it out anyway.  Thankfully, the first Splatfest for the sequel was a pre-launch event that anyone could try (a smart move on Nintendo's part).  This alone convinced me to get the game, and for a while, it was easily my favorite Switch game that I owned.

Even before this point, I felt like their inclusion in Smash was an inevitability, and me trying them out brought them up much higher on my wish list for the game (I'll get to my number 1 pick in a later post).  I even had a few ideas as to how their reveal trailer may play out, which ended up coming fairly close to what we got (definitely not quite on the mark tho).  This definitely helped me in getting excited for their inclusion in the game since I now knew more about how they might play and what their moveset might look like.

Speaking of, Inkling is such a fun character to play as.  They were my second main from the start of the game, and even though they have been surpassed by a few fighters, they are still one of my favorite characters to play as in the game.

Overall, my experience with Splatoon has given me enough to appreciate the inclusion of Inklings in Smash, and the circumstances surrounding their reveal (and Smash's reveal as a whole) only amplified my excitement for their inclusion.  Quite honestly, Smash Ultimate just wouldn't have felt the same without Inkling.