Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Thoughts on DLC Characters

“Please no more sword guys”

So Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has been out for quite a while now, and though I enjoy it, I’m not very good at it.  In fact, I’m pretty mediocre when you take the skill cap of the game into account.  I usually main King K. Rool, which is good, or Bowser, which is not good, but I still tend to tie with the level 9 CPUs.  Which means if I were to play online against real people, I’d probably have my ass handed back to me on a silver plate.

However, I didn’t get Smash Bros. to go online and wreck shop; I bought it to play with my friends and family in the comfort of my own home, where I’m usually the best player in the room.  For example, just about the only video game my mom can play is Dr. Mario, and those skills don’t exactly translate to the smash version of the good doctor.

But there are so many characters in the game, it’s almost impossible not to find at least one you can play, with enough practice.  I think the base game comes with something like 76 characters if you count the echo fighters as separate characters.  They’re just clones of other characters, but I do count them as their own fighters because it makes the roster look bigger.

And in the surprise of the gaming year, the first add-on character, Piranha Plant, got released early for the clamoring masses to download.  And I gotta say, I was skeptical when Piranha Plant was first announced.  Now they’re just throwing in random background enemies?  It’s not even Petey Piranha, come on!  Next thing you know, they’ll be tossing in Waddle Dee as a playable fighter.

But once I got a chance to test out the potted plant, I found that it was actually a pretty fun character to play.  The down-B (which is Smash-speak for one of the directional special moves) is pretty nice, and the neutral-B adds an interesting touch of timing and strategy to the character.  And I guess the final smash does have Petey, so that’s something.

And that’s when I thought, “if Sakurai can make this dumb plant work, what can’t he do?”

Clearly Masahiro Sakurai, the director of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and the game’s team are setting their expectations high with acquiring Joker from Persona 5 to use in the game as the first real add-on fighter, especially considering that Persona 5 was never on a Nintendo console.  I guess Cloud kind of set some precedent, but still, it seems weird.  I haven’t played any of the Persona or Shin Megami Tensei games, so I was a little disappointed to see that reveal, but I’m sure he’ll be a fun character to play.  I’m also hoping it’s a sign that Persona will be branching to other consoles.

But there are still four as-of-yet unannounced fighters that will be added to the game between now and February of 2020.  And considering I already have the fighters pass, which means I’ll get to download the new characters as they’re released, I’m pretty invested in who each new fighter will be. And while it seems like we might be getting some sort of reveal in the maybe-happening-maybe-not February Nintendo Direct, I’m gonna tell you just who I hope those DLC characters are.

I briefly fell for this joke video that seemed to suggest that Steve, from Minecraft, would be one of the DLC fighters, but according to certain leaks, Steve may or may not actually be one of the downloadable characters.  I don’t really know how I feel about that, just as I don’t really know how I feel about the other supposed members of the leak roster.

Obviously none of this is guaranteed to be accurate, and it’s probably just some guy pulling stuff out of his ass, but the other unannounced DLC fighters are supposed to be Erdrick from Dragon Quest, Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden, and the Doomguy from, well, Doom.  Yes, the Doom that your cool uncle bought for you in the 90’s that your parents made you return because it was too violent.  He might be in Smash Bros.

I’d actually be interested to see how Nintendo would pull off a character as asynchronous as Doomguy, but I guess they already did that with Snake, an elite covert operative from the Cold War, so it might not be anything new.  And I’m pretty neutral with Erdrick and Ryu.  Erdrick would just be a new sword guy, and Ryu would just be a Greninja clone.  I’d rather see characters that could introduce entirely new playstyles, like Piranha plant did.  And, speaking of which, here’s some characters that I would personally rather see, some of which I specifically picked to be kind of out-there.

For brief starters, I’ve got a lot of different characters that I’d love to see in Smash Bros., but I’m really only going to go into detail on the ones that I like the best.  Some of my personal runners-up that I think would make great fighters are Skull Kid, from The Legend of Zelda, Shovel Knight from Shovel Knight (who’s technically already in the game, as an assist trophy), Cranky Kong from Donkey Kong Country, Pokey Minch from Earthbound and Mother 3, Goku from Dragon Ball Z, and the player-character from Hollow Knight.

Think of it this way: Skull kid could use the different masks for his special powers.  Shovel Knight could use his shovel to bounce on the heads of enemies.  Cranky Kong could do basically the same thing but with a cane.  Pokey Minch could control a big-ass spider robot and/or giant statue of himself.  Goku could be Ryu from Street Figther but with better recovery.  And the Hollow Knight dude would just be another sword guy, but also a bug. But, anyway, here’s who I really would want to see.

Banjo and Kazooie (Banjo-Kazooie)

Let’s start with a familiar face for Smash wishlists. I didn’t actually get around to playing the original Banjo-Kazooie games until just before Nintendo decided to take a steaming shit on the emulator community.  And considering that I never had a Nintendo 64, emulation (running old console software on modern PC hardware) was the most reliable method of playing those games.  But that’s a whole other story.

I’d like to see Banjo and Kazooie as a team like Ice Climbers mixed with Olimar, where you control the big fuzzy bear, Banjo, and use the bird, Kazooie, to shoot eggs or fly away.  Honestly, the special moves kind of write themselves from the original games.  Of course, licensing would be an issue, since the creator company, Rare, is owned by Microsoft, but Nintendo did still manage to wiggle Snake out of Konami’s slot machines, so there’s hope.

The Heavy (Team Fortress 2)

And now we get into the absurd. This one is almost absolutely out of the question, and probably not on anybody’s radar.  Include a character whose main trait is to stand still while he cuts his enemies in half with a minigun?  Reggie would faint at the thought.  But still, Valve, the makers of Team Fortress 2, are some of the biggest names in gaming; I think any of their characters would be, at the very least, interesting, additions.  Gordon Freeman could gravity-gun people off the edge.  The spy could turn invisible at will.  Ellis could shoot off fireworks.  You know, the usual.

Honestly, any of the Team Fortress 2 characters would make pretty good additions, if you can look past the fact that they’re from a glaringly different class of game than almost every other character in smash besides Snake.  He’s still there.  And he’s still the weird one out, even among all the other characters.  So who knows what could happen?

Solaire of Astora (Dark Souls)

And speaking of “who knows what could happen,” here’s my personal favorite choice. I know I just said I didn’t want any more sword guys, but I’d be willing to make an exception for the greatest Dark Souls character of all time, second maybe only to the goodest boi of Dark Souls.  I think you could work in some interesting mechanics to differentiate Solaire from every other sword-person.  Shielding could also heal you with Estus flasks, kind of like how the Inklings recover ink.  The side-B could be throwing lightning.  Maybe the recovery move could be that big-ass bird from Firelink Shrine.

Do I think that Solaire will get added?  Probably not.  Do I think it would be awesome?  Hell yeah!  After the under-printing disaster that was the Solaire amiibo, I think Nintendo owes it to their fans to do something with Dark Souls.  Plus the Switch did get the remastered version, so that could be a sign.  Alternatively, I think Artorias could make a good fighter, too. Or Mufasa and Tubby.

Sans (Undertale)

Don’t throw a fit over this one, I just think that internet’s favorite skeleton, Sans, would make a good fighter.  Yes, I like Undertale.  No, I’m not a weirdo.  Hopefully.  Anyways, Undertale was a cute little RPG that made the world wide web implode back in 2016, and it got a special Switch version not too long ago.  And now there’s Deltarune, so Toby Fox, the game’s creator, is still active.

The biggest roadblock to Sans’s inclusion, I think, would be Toby Fox himself, and for good reason; the only way to get the true ending in Undertale is to not kill anybody.  The game’s all about talking through problems and making friends instead of resorting to fists, which is pretty much the exact opposite of Smash Bros.  So if Nintendo approached Toby Fox about any Undertale character as a potential fighter, I’d have quite a deal of respect for the man if he turned them down.  But then again, just imagine the memes if Sans was included.  Oh, yeah, and he’d have cool skeleton moves, too. Like lasers.

Madeline (Celeste)

This one’s a little bit iffy, too, since Madeline, the main character in the gorgeous platformer Celeste, doesn’t really have an attack.  Kind of like Sans and Undertale, the point of her game isn’t about outer conflict.  It’s about inner conflict, about climbing the mountain that is inside of each of us and triumphing in spite of the demons that drag us down.  She isn’t exactly suited for a game about punching people in the face until they explode.  But still.  I can dream.

And it would be nice to see some more female representation in Smash Bros.  I didn’t exactly think about this until I already made my list, but Madeline is the only woman on my wishlist.  Which is either telling of the kind of games I play or of the video game industry as a whole, and I don’t know which.  I guess Skull Kid and Hollow Knight are kind of asexual, and Shovel Knight has a female alter-ego, but still.  It isn’t the same, and the industry as a whole has a pretty big issue with representation.

Waluigi (Mario Series)

You knew it was coming.  There was no other way this list could possibly end.  If you want to talk memes, there is no better source than Waluigi.  Waluigi’s blood is just a condensed, liquefied extract of disappointment and grade-A memes.  He lives and breathes seemingly for the sole purpose of being the Alice Cooper of the video game world; everyone, even his creators, shit on him.  He can’t get no respect.

I’m the kind of person who always picks Waluigi for Mario Kart or Mario Party, without fail.  I don’t know what that says about me as a human being, but I like to think that underneath Waluigi’s eyeliner is a burning soul, one who wants to rise above the position allotted to him by his maker.  A man with ambition and drive, hopes and dreams.  A man who wants to do more than just hit Mario in the face with a tennis racket.  Now that’s a candidate I could support.