Category: Gaming

Didn’t watch the direct at 7am like most people?! Don’t worry, I have it covered in this TL; DW for the Nintendo Direct. The game shown was Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and it showcased many new characters and info about the game. The animation was stellar in the direct.

New Characters!

• Simon Belmont from the Castlevania series joins the list of fighters. His moveset is reminiscent of his NES/SNES whips, items, and attacks.
• Echo fighter for Simon: Richter. The voice, animation, and a few moves are different.
• King K. Rool joins the fray from the Donkey Kong series. Another big fan request! This fatty comes with his classic rifle, huge stomach strike, and castle!
• Alucard is an assist trophy.
• The Castlevania stage featuring the monsters, bosses, and Dracula is Dracula’s Castle. If you hit the candles, it will release items! No wall chickens yet but Dracula only appears at specific times…
• Chrom from Fire Emblems Awakening and Dark Samus from Metroid Prime join as Echo Fighters!
• You can have echo fighters on the fighter select option

New Stages:

• New Donk City Hall from Mario Odyssey. Platforms are rising and falling as you move around the stage. The musicians and Daisy appear as well. The theme of Odyssey will also appear
• Returning stages from Melee will include some rebalance changes.
• N64 stages are meant to be classic and nostalgic for players
• There are now 103 stages to choose from. Every stage has an Omega and Battlefield form.
• Every stage now has 8-player mode!
• You can turn stage hazards off
• A new option called Stage Morph! You can have a stage change midmatch and alter the time when it occurs. Just select two stages before the fight.

  

Music:

• Stages now have tracks based on the franchise. You will be able to hear different tracks and can change the frequency of how often it plays!
• 900 tracks! It is separated by franchises. You can make a playlist
• You can listen to it with the screen turned off. Not sure anybody will be casually carrying their Switch to listen to music.

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New Battle Options and Rules

• You can finally start with stock instead of time.
• Whatever option you left it at before is saved.
• Stamina battle is now a standard option
• Stages are selected before fighters. This gives you the option to choose your character based on the stage if you play competitively.
• You can make the option to have the loser choose the stage.
• Sudden Death will cause the screen to zoom in to add drama and shorten the KO borders!
• Final Smash Meter rather than a Smash Ball. It will charge as you fight but it will be weaker than a Final Smash Ball version
• Final Smashes can’t occur at the same time! So no Samus vs Dark Samus Final Smash beam clash
• The options are meant for competitive play so it’ll be interesting to see how the Smash community changes with these new options!

Battle Modes

• Squad Strike: 5v5 or 3v3
• Start team fights online with players choosing multiple characters. You can do it solo or with multiple players
• Tourney Mode: Start your own tournament and brackets! IT can go up to 32 players.
• Smashdown: After each round, those fighters are unselectable and you’ll have to choose different characters. It continues until there are no more characters left
• Training Mode Map: It will show you how the characters fight and how they will react based on hits
• Classic: Fight through a set number of characters and stages similar to Melee’s adventure mode

Items:

• Banana gun: Shoots one strong bullet before becoming a banana peel
• Killing Edge: Sword which will glow to grow stronger
• Bomber: Lift it up and it’ll explode and damage enemies around you
• Death’s Scythe: It kills you…if you’re badly damaged
• Staff: shoots a laser but it deals more damage the further the enemy is from you
• Ramblin’ Evil Mushroom: Reverses opponents’ controls
• Rage Blaster: The higher your damage, the stronger it is. For players who take hits a lot

Pokemon:

• Executor Alolan Form. It’s so tall you can wall jump on its neck!
• Abra: Teleports your enemies over the edges
• Solgaleo: The legendary Pokemon charges up and smashes into your enemies for huge damage!
• Lunala: The legendary Pokemon shoots a huge laser from afar that deals major damage
• Mimikyu: Grabs the enemy and gives it a big hug underneath its disguise.
• Pyukumuku: Damage it and get hit with a huge fist!
• Vulpix and Vulpix Alolan: Shoots a fireball which hits multiple times. Alolan form freezes you.
• Marshadow: The mystic pokemon makes you dizzy and punches you
• Ditto: transforms into you and attacks enemies

Assist Trophies:

• Zero from Megaman X series slash, dashes, and teleports!
• Knuckles from Sonic digs and punches your enemies
• Krystal from Starfox hits you with her magic staff
• Klaptrap from DK bites you. Not to be confused with the Borderlands character
• Kapp’n from Animal Crossing kidnaps you off the stage and drives away to kill you
• Chef Kawasaki from Kirby throws you in a pot and cooks you and makes food items appear.
• GREY FOX from Metal Gear Solid reflects projectiles and slashes enemies
• Nikki draws stuff to hurt your enemies
• Shovel Knight shovels your enemies
• Moon from The Legend of Zelda smashes into the stage and damages everybody
• Rathalos from Monster Hunter appears as a boss and an assist trophy!