Today was the highly anticipated Smash Bros. Direct, and luckily Nintendo didn’t hold back when it came to revealing many of the various new features in Smash Bros. Ultimate.
This special edition of a Nintendo Direct started off with a cinematic trailer revealing two new playable fighters, Simon Belmont and Richtor Belmont from the Castlevania series. Both characters are similar to each other while Richtor is being named as the echo character.
They also will come along with their own stage, Dracula’s castle. The stage is based off, of course, Dracula’s castle in Castlevania. In the stage various villains and monsters from the Castlevania series can appear as bosses. Dracula himself can also appear on rare occasions.
Alucard from the Castlevania series is also being introduced as an assist trophy.
Chrom and Dark Samus also join the battle as echo fighters.
Along with debuting these echo fighters Nintendo revealed that echo fighters can either be viewed independently as their own fighter or stacked with their base fighter on the fighter select screen.
Nintendo did a lot of stage reveals this time around, confirming the following stages to be in Smash Ultimate: Great Bay, Shadow Moses, Living Room, Gaur Plain, Figure 8 Circuit, Flat Zone X, Pokemon Stadium, Garden of Hope, Brinstar Depths, Summit, Unova Pokemon League, Magicant, Gamer, Final Destination, and New Donk City Hall.
Nintendo 64 stages are being said to prioritize nostalgia over new graphical style. Nintendo claims to be attempting to keep as much of the original style to the stages as possible while still giving the stages a graphical update.
Nintendo 64 stages confirmed in the Direct include: Saffron City, Hyrule Castle, Dream Land, and Kongo Jungle
The livestream also revealed the total amount of stages to be 103, not including omega and battlefield form (over 300 including these 2 forms). Every stage will also be unlocked from the very beginning of the game with full 8 player support.
Of course, stage hazards, and other options can be configured like normal, and you can also save rule sets for quick and easy access.
Stamina is now a standard battle option, and stage select now comes before fighter select to allow more strategic fighter selection. A final smash meter option is new to Ultimate as well. The option allows you to turn on a meter that will fill up over a battle, and when full you can unleash a less powerful version of your final smash.
Sudden death has also been slightly altered. Now not only are all fighters set at 300% damage, but the screen will slowly zoom in making the battle continuously more intense.
Smash Bros. Ultimate doesn’t seem to be only packed with fighters and stages, but also music.
More than 800 songs from the various game series are included in Smash Bros. Ultimate, and if you include the various menu tracks there are approximately 900 compositions in the game. Played back to back this totals to over 28 hours of music.
Tracks have their own section in the menus for listening, and are organized be game series here and in stage options. This allows for you to customize which tracks you hear on every stage, and you aren’t just limited to that stage’s tracks. Instead, here as well, you have the ability to choose from all of the stage’s game series’s tracks.
The official Smash Bros. website will also have a track list containing new tracks, and it updates weekly.
A few new modes were also outlined in the Smash Direct:
Squad Strike – A 5v5 or 3v3 game mode where each player chooses 5/3 fighters to face off against their opponent.
Tourney – Players select the amount of human and CPU fighters (up to 32), and the game will generate a tournament style bracket for the fights.
Smash Down – After a battle, the previously selected fighters will no longer be available for selection.
Classic Mode – Battle a series of fighters based on the fighter you select.
Training mode has also had some tweaks. The mode now takes place in its own stage filled with a grid pattern. The grid is intended to make distances easier to judge. The mode will also make launch distances based on character weights available to see.
Many items were also revealed in the stream:
Banana- Shoots a powerful bullet, and leaves a slippery banana peel on the ground after fired.
Killing Edge – A sword that, when glowing, becomes even more powerful.
Bomber – When picked up, this item will explode all nearby enemies.
Death’s Scythe – Instantly KO’s highly damaged enemies.
Staff – A ranged weapon that increases damage the further away the target is.
Ramblin’ Evil Mushroom – When applied to an opponent, their controls are reversed.
Rage Blaster – The higher your percentage is, the higher damage this ranged weapon does.
Multiple Pokemon have been announced as well, including: Alolan Exeggutor, Abra, Solgaleo, Lunala, Mimikyu, Pyukumuku, Vulpix, Alolan Vulpix, Marshadow, and Ditto.
Confirmed assist trophies from the Direct include: Zero, Knuckles, Krytal, Klaptrap, Kapp’n, Chaf Kawasaki, Gray Fox, Nikki, Shovel Knight, and Ocarina of time Moon.
Rathalos form Monster Hunter was also revealed to have the ability to show up as a boss or an assist trophy.
The end of Smash Bros. Direct concluded with a sneak peak at another new character to come to the battle. King K. Rool is confirmed to be coming to Smash Bros. Ultimate this December.
We hope we covered everything revealed today, but if we missed anything feel free to let us know so we can update the article.
Thanks, from Main Menu Games!