Ever since its 1999 debut, the Super Smash Bros series has held its place as one of the most beloved fighting game titles. It is probably best known for featuring more franchise crossovers than any other traditional fighting game on the market. Super Smash Bros has featured the likes of Pokemon, Mario, Final Fantasy, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Metal Gear Solid. And with the latest reveal off of Nintendo Direct, Castlevania is joining in the fun with Simon and Richter Belmont.
Watch Super Smash Bros Direct via Official Nintendo YouTube Channel
The video begins with the a clip of Luigi running for his life in Dracula’s Castle. This is later revealed to be the reveal trailer for Simon Belmont and his echo character Richter. While the video itself is 26 minutes long, the most important news can be summarized as such: the Castlevania reveal, and two new echo characters.
Simon and Richter Join Smash Bros Roster
Simon Belmont is the protagonist of the original Castlevania video game on the FDS and NDS. He wields the legendary whip Vampire Killer, as well as an assortment of other tools from the classic title. As with most other fighters on the roster, Simon’s moveset retains the nostalgia of the respective franchise (albeit not always his own original moves).
Richter on the other hand, is Simon’s echo character. That is to say, the two handle and play the same way, with the only difference being animations. Think of it as a reskin.
Other nods to the Castlevania universe include the aforementioned Dracula’s Castle battle stage, including iconic monsters from across the series. Dracula himself makes an appearance, and features the classic fireball attack among other moves in his arsenal.
Fire Emblem Echo Character: Chrom
Chrom, the prince from Fire Emblem Awakening will also be joining the roster as an echo character to Roy. However while he is a massively requested addition, this may not be such a good thing. As an echo fighter, he has no unique moves of his own. The trouble is that part of what makes Fire Emblem so fun is the uniqueness of each character across the titles. So by having different characters feel the same in players’ hands, Super Smash Bros Ultimate might fail to match that feeling.
Dark Samus from Metroid 2 Echoes Samus Aran
It’s funny and fitting that Dark Samus is an echo character to Samus Aran. Not only does she canonically take the form of the bounty hunter, but her debut game is actually called Metroid Prime: Echoes. This really has been a long time coming. Does it feature anything new? Probably not. But does Dark Samus look good? Hell yes.
Building the “Ultimate” Fighting Game
The video goes on to discuss the massive scale of Ultimate in comparison to its predecessors. According to Masahiro Sakurai, Super Smash Bros’ director, Ultimate features 103 unique battle stages. That is more than double the stages in last installment minus DLC. All-new power-ups spice up gameplay as well. Our favorite is the terrifying Moon from The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.
Developer Bandai Namco also paid special attention to sound design. It is now possible to select which tracks play and how often per match. Ultimate features over 800 tracks, not including the title and menu tracks. This is important because repetitiveness is the enemy of fun when it comes to fighting games. Just as nobody wants juggling 30 of the same move in gameplay, nobody wants the same song burned into their head after 30 matches.
Overall, Super Smash Bros Ultimate does look like it’s delivering its promise. Whether or not it actually will… the answer to that will have to wait. Super Smash Bros Ultimate will be released on December 7, 2018.