Smash Bros.: Terry Bogard Presentation: Information and Reactions

Being longer than both Hero’s and Banjo’s presentations put together, the painfully exhausting dive into SNK’s boy Terry Bogard a unique new stage, complex mechanics, and decades of SNK’s history. Here’s what resides in, dun dun dun, Challenger Pack #4.

Fighter #81: Terry Bogard

Always faces the opponent, just like Ryu and Ken. However, his attack animations are slower than Ryu’s. Only his up aerial was made just for this game; every other move comes from his games.
Dash Attack is Power Charge, one of his original special moves
Terry has a Dodge Attack, activated when you hit the attack button right as you perform
All special attacks have multiple levels of power.
Neutral special: Power Wave. Can now be used in midair
Side special: Burning Knuckle. Uses Fatal Fury command input, which coincidentally is the same as Ryu’s Hadouken. Small audiovisual effects show whether you pull it off. It can be strengthened both by using the command input and more “strongly” attacking (possibly like Samus’s Super Missiles)
Terry has an additional side special, the first Smash Bros. special to be different depending on where you face. Crack Shoot always moves towards the opponent in a one-on-one match, and executing it in free-for-alls involves quickly tapping the stick behind you. This means that using it to recover is dangerous. It also has its own command input.
Up special: Rising Tackle. Can also be charged, which makes Terry partially invincible.
Down special: Power Dunk. Uses a “Shoruken” command input
Terry can also cancel certain moves with the shield button, including special and aerial attacks, allowing players to make another move immediately
Final Smash: Triple Geyser. If the initial Triple Geyser connects, Terry adds Power Dunk and Buster Wolf as a combo attack
Terry has two additional Super Special Moves, also Triple Geyser and Buster Wolf. When he’s over 100% damage or has only one third of his health, he can use one of four command inputs to use them highlighted by a separate “GO” icon over his profile (each move has both a simple and complex input). They can be blocked
Taunts come straight from the original games, as do most of his costumes. Others come from the Fatal Fury anime and King of Fighters

Stage: King of Fighters Stadium

The edge is blocked off with an invisible wall. However, fighters can break through the wall if knocked into it at a high enough damage, though some situations – such as being next to the wall – can lead to fighters being knocked out at low percentages. It gives the game a tighter feel more similar to traditional fighting games.
Cameos abound from across SNK history (Fatal Fury, King of Fighters, Art of Fighting, Psycho Soldier, Ikari Warriors): Andy Bogard, Joe Higashi, Tung Fu Rue, Billy Kane, Geese Howard, Rock Howard, Kim Kaphwan, Ryuji Yamazaki, Blue Mary, Athena Asamiya, Kyo Kusanagi, Iori Yagami, Goro Daimon, Chang Koehan and Choi Bounge, Ralf Jone and Clark Still, Ryo Sakazaki, King, Yuri Sakazaki – twenty in total. Sakurai deliberately decided not to include Mai Shuranai, presumably due to her outfit potentially changing the game’s age rating
Some characters are more likely to show up depending on the song chosen. For instance, Andy will always appear if “Pasta” is playing
Not including the “The” in “King of Fighters” was done to reference the tournament itself, not the crossover

For music, the team initially looked to Terry’s various themes before focusing on a broad showing from SNK’s entire history. The music list submitted to SNK ended up at fifty entries, the largest collection of music for any series other than Super Mario by far, every one of which the company approved:

“Haremar Faith Capoeira School – Song of the Fight (Believers Will Be Saved),” Fatal Fury
“The Sea Knows,” Fatal Fury
“Kurikinton,” Fatal Fury
“Kurikinton,” Fatal Fury
“Kuri Kinton Flavor,” The King of Fighters XIV
“Pasta,” Fatal Fury 2
“A New Poem The the South Thailand Wants to Tell,” Fatal Fury 2
“Tarkun and Kitapy,” Fatal Fury 2
“Let’s Go to Seoul!,” Fatal Fury 2
“The London March,” Fatal Fury 2
“The Working Matador,” Fatal Fury 2
“Duck Dub Dub (Duck, You Too),” Fatal Fury Special
“Soy Sauce for Geese,” Fatal Fury Special
“Soy Sauce for Geese,” The King of Fighters XIV
“Big Shot!,” Fatal Fury 3
“11th Street,” Fatal Fury Wild Ambition
“176th Street,” The King of Fighters ‘99
“Ne!,” The King of Fighters ‘94
“Desert Requiem ~Operation02UM~,” The King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match
“ESAKA!!,” The King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match
“Stormy Saxophone 2,” The King of Fighters ‘96
“KD-0079+,” The King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match
“W.W.III,.” The King of Fighters XIV
“Terry115,” The King of Fighters 2000
“Street Dancer,” The King of Fighters XI
“New Order,” The King of Fighters XIV
“Undercover,” The King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match
“Cutting Edge,” The King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match
“The Second Joker,” The King of Fighters XIII
“Esaka Continues…,” The King of Fighters XIII
“Wild Street,” The King of Fighters XIII
“Tame a Bad Boy,” The King of Fighters XIII
“KDD-0063,’ The King of Fighters XIII
“Yappari ESAKA,” The King of Fighters XIV
“Departure from South Town,” The King of Fighters XIV
“Theme of SYD,” Alpha Mission
“IKARI,” The King of Fighters XIV
“Forest World,” Athena
“Psycho Soldier Theme” (Sakurai noted this as being the first fully voiced song in a game)
“Psycho Soldier Theme (Overseas Version)”
“ART of FIGHT,” Art of Fighting
“Art of Fighting Ver.230000000.0,” Fatal Fury Special
“Tuna,” Samurai Shodown
“Banquet of Nature,” Samurai Shodown
“Gaia,” Samurai Shodown
“Main Theme from Metal Slug,” Metal Slug
“Assault Theme,” Metal Slug 1 – 3
“Final Attack,” Metal Slug 1 – 6
“Judgment,” Metal Slug 2
“Blue Water Fangs (The Island of Dr. Moreau),” Metal Slug 3

Mii Costumes, Wave 4. SNK was involved in selecting their characters

Nakoruru (Samurai Shodown, Swordfighter)
Ryo Sakazaki (Art of Fighting, Brawler)
Iori Yagami (Art of Fighting, Brawler)
Akira (Virtua Fighter, from Smash For, Brawler)
Jacky (Virtua Fighter, from Smash For, Brawler)

Miscellaneous

Terry comes alongside Version 6.0.0, released almost immediately after the presentation. Alongside balance patches, Battle Arenas now allow you to send preset messages, change rules during tournaments, and select Battlefield and Omega Forms in random. It can also be set to Public
Terry’s Classic Route is The King of Smash. Terry faces a team of three in one-on-one Stamina Matches, with stages being flat, with walkoffs, or otherwise generally unobtrusive. In keeping with this, the “final boss” is against Ryu, Ken, and Terry. One route is based on the Athena series. Another with third party fighters references corporate crossovers like King of Fighters, and the penultimate one is meant to bring to mind the battle with Geese Howard in Fatal Fury
New DLC Spirits include Nakoruru, Geese, Ryo, Athena, and Ralf & Clark from Ikari Warriors. The Spirit Board’s background is actually looping footage of Fatal Fury‘s famous West Albuquerque stage
Sakurai additionally spent time discussing the history of the NEO-GEO, Fatal Fury, its relationship to King of Fighters, and the appeal of older and more obscure characters. He also emphasized that while he wrote the reveal trailer, the inclusion of the “S” (for Sakurai, or Smash Bros.) joke was from his staff, as he apparently hates that kind of inside joke. He plans to try to avoid making future videos of this nature as long as this one was
Presentation was recorded a month ago, and includes comments on Ultimate’s recent award wins

Videos:

Reaction (Wolfman): Fifty music tracks. FIFTY MUSIC TRACKS. It’s positively demented, even unreal. Okay, look; Terry and all he comes with are great. He’s got some fascinating gimmicks big and small, he’s incredibly satisfying to play, his stage’s invisible walls are cool as hell, and we get to see the immutable glory of GEESE HOWARD. This is a great package just with that. But the music, the music. It’s mind-boggling that a DLC character – one who represents an entire company or not – has given us a selection of music greater than what Pokémon or Fire Emblem or The Legend of Zelda got, enough to put us at 956 tracks in total. If those “future characters” end up being another five-part Fighter’s Pass, that would likely put us over an actual thousand pieces of video game music. That’s insane, and the actual tracks themselves are great. Honestly, it makes us even more curious about how music is chosen for this series.

Beyond that, I’m not convinced this “needed” to be forty-eight minutes. I certainly found it deeply entertaining, but given I’d be happy watching Sakurai talking about the lunch he ate as he futzes about his day, I’m probably not the ideal appraiser for that. It’s a big investment, especially for a character who – while compelling, historical, and super fun – is by Sakurai’s own admission not a “name” in the way Cloud and Ryu were in past Smash Bros. games. Still, that itself is pretty neat. A bunch of Nintendo fans got all excited about a character who, while historically valuable and having been on Nintendo systems for over a decade, has never been defined by the company or been an icon for its devotees. That’s honestly pretty cool. I hope and trust Terry gets followed by more people outside the nuclear of Nintendo culture like him; it’s good for this cycle of DLC.