‘Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s’ final fighter is Sora from ‘Kingdom Hearts’

 

The final “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” fighter is Sora from Kingdom Hearts, game creator Masahiro Sakurai announced Tuesday in a virtual Nintendo event. Six years ago, fans were asked to vote for their most desired “Super Smash” fighter, and the result was Sora.

“His addition required more coordination than other fighters,” Sakurai said, adding that the Smash team could not reveal the survey results for six years. “Kingdom Hearts” is a franchise made and owned by Square Enix and Disney, not Nintendo. Sakurai joked that Sora is the same name as his company, Sora Ltd., which is a coincidence.

Sora is getting multiple outfits, including a Timeless River design that takes Sora back into black and white graphics. “Of all of our DLC characters, Sora might be the most elaborate,” said Sakurai.

In a demo, Sakurai played as Sora, fighting against famed Nintendo characters like Mario, Donkey Kong, Yoshi and Kirby, and showing off moves like a three-hit combo with his keyblade. “Please bear with me,” he joked about turning Nintendo characters into enemies. “I don’t know who I said ‘bear with me’ to, honestly. I wonder if I can make it to the end.”

The nearly half million concurrent viewers who tuned in to watch expressed excitement over Sora getting added to the game, with some spamming the lyrics to Utada Hikaru’s “Simple and Clean,” a song from the franchise.

Since Sora is the last fighter to be added into “Ultimate,” as a last hurrah, Nintendo showed Sora facing off all previously introduced “Ultimate” fighters and demolishing most of them. The developers designed Sora with similar controls to what he had in the original “Kingdom Hearts” franchise, and he also retains magical powers like Firaga (Fire), Blizzaga (Blizzard) and Thundaga (Thunder). Alongside his character, Nintendo also introduced a new battle stage, based on Hollow Bastion, Maleficient’s castle in the original “Kingdom Hearts,” a world that later was rebuilt into Radiant Garden in the second game.

“All the fighters in the game should have made an appearance by now," said Sakurai. At the end of the presentation, Nintendo showed some all-time statistics about the game, noting that players had fought 11.7 billion offline battles.

Earlier in the virtual Nintendo event, Sakurai announced new Mii fighter costumes, including looks from the Splatoon franchise, a cat outfit and a getup from Doom. Each costs $0.75 and is available on October 18. Doom Slayer is another premium Mii Fighter Costume that transforms the shape of the Mii Fighter. Only a few Mii Fighter Costumes have this feature, like Sans from “Undertale,” Cuphead and Vaultboy from the Fallout series.

Source:The Washington Post