Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: The Final Mr. Sakurai Presents – Information and Reactions

Today marked an ending point in the life of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. While the game’s sure to get balance patches, and perhaps some future spirit events, the last major question has been answered. Finally, Smash Bros.’ maestro Masahiro Sakurai revealed the final fighter to his illustrious game: Sora, the biggest finale of a fighter the series has ever had.

We’ve naturally included all of the presentation’s information, with our reactions. Since this is the last hurrah of the game, I’ll personally also be talking a bit about the game and its DLC as a whole as well.

EDIT (3:04 PM EST): corrected that all three Kingdom Hearts releases will be sold exclusively as cloud versions, as opposed to “just” Kingdom Hearts III.

Fighter #82: Sora, from Kingdom Hearts

• Release date: October 18
• Sora noticeably draws more from his Kingdom Hearts 1 appearance; Ultimate in general looks to that entry more than any other
• Unlike many of Ultimate’s DLC “idiosyncratic” characters, Sora is designed to be easy to control. However, he’s also meant to approximate how he plays in the first game, including his floaty jumps
• Befitting his name (Japanese for “sky”), Sora excels in the air – he has excellent jump height and air speed – but suffers from a poor weight and somewhat slow attacks
• Normal moves
  • Sora’s neutral attack, side tilt, neutral air, and forward air can chain into a 3-Hit Combo by repeatedly tapping or holding. Each hit has different damage and knockback properties that appear if they are the last attack used in the combo, as Sora can cancel or simply not finish the combo
  • The up tilt has a multi-hit effect
  • The down tilt knocks foes upwards
  • Unlike his more normal side and up smashes, his down smash has him make a leaping shockwave. All of them are strong, but slow
• Air attacks (other than the neutral and forward air attacks)
  • The back air is distinctly powerful
  • The down air has a downward spinning move
• Sora’s throws are primarily based around starting combos. His back throw is the spinning throw Mario has
• Special moves
  • Neutral special: Magic, in which Sora unleashes a spell. There are three types of magic, and Sora switches to the next one after using each one in a set order: fire, thunder, and ice. Players can see which one is next with a bar over Sora’s profile
    • Firaga: shoots a fireball. As it only switches to the next spell after Sora stops using it, he can repeatedly press the button to keep casting it
    • Thundaga: summons three lightning bolts in front of Sora
    • Blizzaga: shoots a short distance blast of cold, which freeze the opponent momentarily
    • If Villager or Isabelle pockets the spell, they’ll use it in the exact same way, i.e. they’ll drop Thundaga down and only throw out a single Blizzaga ice shard
  • Side special: Sonic Blade, a three time dashing move similar to Quick Attack and Hydro Pump. What distinguishes it is that it homes in on the nearest opponent slightly after the first dash
  • Up special: Aerial Sweep, a twirling jump with strong launch power. You can transition to Sonic Blade at the apex of the recovery, and it goes far enough to be used as a combo with the fast falling down air attack
  • Down special: Counterattack. Unlike other counter moves, it knocks the target off balance before Sora attacks. It also acts as a reflector, but it’s more limited (as is reflects the projectile behind him), and it only protects his front
  • Final Smash: Sealing the Keyhole. Sakurai openly refused to explain what it is… until showing it during the stamina match. Sora traps his opponent behind a door with a Smash logo, like he does at the end of the first game
• Sora’s up taunts also switch between casting spells: Stopga, Aeroga, Curaga
• Sora has four costumes, each from a different game. However, his body will always be from his younger appearance in the first Kingdom Hearts:
  • Costume 1: Kingdom Hearts 1
  • Costume 2: Kingdom Hearts 2
  • Costume 3: Dream Drop Distance
  • Costume 4: Kingdom Hearts III
  • Costume 5: Timeless River design, a monochrome look
  • Costume 6: Valor Form (Kingdom Hearts II)
  • Costume 7: Wisdom Form (Kingdom Hearts II)
  • Costume 8: Ultimate Form (Kingdom Hearts III)
  • Sakurai emphasized that he and the staff worked extensively to add each unique costume
• As per Kingdom Hearts standard, Sora will have both English and Japanese voice acting – in the former case, his longtime actor and former child star Haley Joel Osment
• Sora has a custom victory screen for when he wins a Stamina battle
• After six years, Sakurai revealed that Sora was in fact the winner the Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot from 2015. He and Satoru Iwata made the decision to not reveal the results, out of concern it would encourage fans on to hound the owners of the most popular requests with demands that they let their characters join Smash
  • Sora’s inclusion also demanded “more coordination” than other fighters, presumably due to the complicated legal situation with Kingdom Hearts. Disney owns the property and character, but Square Enix owns significant individual bits of content within it, and both companies are notoriously controlling with their properties. It goes unsaid, but there’s an implication that his inclusion took more time as well – and, perhaps, that this may have been responsible for Sora’s absence in Smash For
  • This lines up with rumors from last year that Nintendo had approached Disney to use the character for the first Fighter Pass, only to be rejected

Stage: Hollow Bastion

• A fairly plain stage that flies around Hollow Bastion, after climbing Rising Falls
• As with Sora himself, it draws most heavily from Kingdom Hearts 1
• When the match approaches its end (i.e. time runs low, a fighter is down to one stock, or they are low on HP), the stage dramatically changes into Dive to the Heart, and a grand stained glass painting depicting Kingdom Hearts characters – Sora, Riku, Roxas, Xion, Terra, Ventus, Aqua – appear

Music: nine songs total, all having originated in the very first Kingdom Hearts. Due to my lack of familiarity with the series, I’m not sure if the songs are from their original games or the rearrangements from sequels and remasters. Because of that, my links (all of which are the original versions) may not be the specific versions that come with Sora.

• “Night of Fate”
• “Destiny’s Force”
• “Shrouding Dark Cloud”
• “Hand in Hand”
• “Blast Away! -Gummi Ship II-”
• “Hollow Bastion”
• “Scherzo Di Notte”
• “Fragments of Sorrow
• “Destati”
• In additions, people with save data of Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory will get a bonus song, “Dearly Beloved -Swing Version-,” the first time Smash Bros. has given out bonus music for save data
• None of these are arrangements, excepting Sora’s victory theme: a remix of “Hand in Hand” made by Kingdom Hearts and Smash Bros. composer Yoko Shimomura
• Sakurai directly rejected music “that’s closely linked to specific worlds,” which I’m taking as a statement that he would not or could not use Disney inspired music

Spirits

• Sora
• Sora (KINGDOM HEARTS II)
• Sora (KINGDOM HEARTS 3D [DREAM DROP DISTANCE])
• Sora (KINGDOM HEARTS III)
• Sora (Timeless River)
• Kairi
• Ventus
• Aqua
• Terra
• Riku
• Xion
• Axel
• Roxas

Mii Fighter Costumes will be available October 18 with Sora as the final DLC

• Octoling (from Splatoon) (Hat)
• Judd (from Splatoon) (Hat)
• DOOM Slayer (from DOOM) (Gunner)

Millescany

• The Steve amiibo is planned for an early 2022 amiibo, along with an Alex amiibo – the first time an Ultimate fighter has gotten one for an alternate character or costume
  • Amiibo of Sephiroth, Pyra, Mythra, and Kazuya are also planned for release
• Sakurai worked to give use every fighter in the presentation, as a way of remembering the history of the game
• And naturally, he spent some of the presentation discussing the sheer length of the game’s life in the public’s eye since May of 2018 (in his words, that you “could go from middle to high school in that time”), as well as the time he’s spent directing it before its promotional material
• As Smash For’s last presentation did, it ended with a summary of the game’s many and substantial achievements and accomplishments
• For the first time in the history of a Sakurai presentation, he’s announced a game entirely separate from Super Smash Bros.: ports of the (all told, much more than three games) Kingdom Hearts trilogy, coming to Nintendo Switch – specifically as cloud versions. Specifically, the games are:
  • Kingdom Hearts HD I.5 + II.5 ReMIX (a compilation of remastered versions of Kingdom Hearts I and II, Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days, Birth by Sleep Final Mix, and RE:coded)
  • Kingdom Hearts HD II.8 Final Chapter Prologue (a compilation of Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-, and χ Back Cover)
  • The disgustingly concisely titled Kingdom Hearts III
  • According to Sakurai, you have “commit to them” to complete them. Yeah, that’s pretty much how it looks from someone on the outside
  • While several Kingdom Hearts spin-offs have released on Nintendo platforms, this is the first time Nintendo-only players will have access to the series’ mainline installments

Videos:

Wolfman’s Soapbox: Announced in late March. Formally shown off in June. Released in the start of December. And that was just a 2018; the cycle of Ultimate’s downloadable content has taken us more than two and a half years. That’s a lot of time to discuss a game. And this won’t be our last word on Ultimate or Smash, not by a long shot, but we’ve reached an end to this journey of speculation and wonder and hope. It is now final, complete. God, I can remember how it started, with the Smash of Fire and the fighters it obscured.

But Ultimate was not the start, was it? Sakurai started work on it right before he finished the past games. And Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS & Wii U; those started in 2012, were released in 2014, and got DLC that lasted until early 2016. He’s been living his series uninterrupted for nine years. And we at Source Gaming also started in 2014, a month before Smash for 3DS, and while our interests go far beyond Smash, the fighting game has been our greatest focus – our greatest drive. We’ve lived these three games, at times to the detriment of other games writing and journalism. I wrote three daily blogs on these games. The second round of DLC (and NantenJex) spurred me on to start a series on the game’s fighters; I finished my fifty-sixth script a few days ago, in a period of about eight months. Smash has captured our imaginations.

Of course, this ignores the presentation itself, and Sora. I’ve rarely bothered to hide my general dislike of the Disney Corporation, or the proclivities of Tetsuya Nomura, and Sora always seemed a deeply unsatisfying pick. Then again, Byleth and Sephiroth and Kazuya did to me, too – and all three became my favorite of Ultimate’s DLC characters. Sora also seems very fun, with his dumb Haley Joel Osment acting and the kind of floatiness I tend to like. But I’m also thinking about the reveal that he was the winner of the Smash Ballot. Because that makes him the proof of how these three games really do form a trilogy – and one that desperately needs a name more interesting than the “Smash Trilogy.” Smash For went out of its way to create more oddball characters; Ultimate tried to rope in plenty of the fan favorites who had missed out. Smash For cut characters by necessity and to push its weirder ideas; Ultimate worked a double shift to make sure everyone could fit in. You can see the evolution of how the games view DLC, too, not just in size or scope but the ambition of its ideas. There’s a story there.

But it’s a story that, for the most part, has now concluded. Sora will take over a week to finally be released, and I’m sure that Nintendo and Namco will have balance patches and bug fixes. And if they decide to have a few more spirit events, well, I’d be quite happy about that. But this is the end of the game’s life as a truly living thing, a beast constantly shedding hairs of speculation. We’ll still have the game to play, and I look forward to treating it as something that’s not stalked by the shadow of a newcomer just around the corner. It’s done, it’s over, and I’m quite content.

When the next iteration of Super Smash Bros. comes out – and it will come out, if hopefully many, many years from now – it’ll have to be wildly different. It won’t be able to have eighty-nine fighters; it may not even be able to have a third of that. There’s a decent chance it won’t have the series’ creator and longtime director, at least not leading development. It may need wild gameplay changes or a new art style. I’m intrigued by the forms it may take. But speculation is for tomorrow; play is for tonight. What we have left of all of this – the three and a half years in the public eye, following a grand two games of their own – is something truly and legitimately unbelievable. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is an accomplishment. And while I can say that I hope we can spend a few years not thinking too hard about Smash 7, I’m very happy from the journey of hype and excitement and suspicion and intrigue I took with Smash 6.

Even though I don’t intend to pay $60 USD for one remix.

PhantomZ2: I know what to say and don’t know what to say, so many emotions are hitting me at once. I absolutely love Kingdom Hearts, it has influenced a great amount of my personality, the characters have resonated with me, the music has caused me to tear up – Kingdom Hearts is such a magical series. I’ve wanted Sora to be in Super Smash Bros. for a while but I never believed it would happen. It just seemed so impossible and far away, even hearing that he was the most requested fighter doesn’t sound believable. But, the fact that he’s here – the fact that the world he’s reached is the world of Smash. I’m incredibly happy and have been on the verge of crying several times, especially from watching other content creator’s reactions. I truly hope Sakurai does get rest and takes a long needed break from here.I think he needs it.

Spazzy: Well, someone had to be the dissenting opinion here, so I guess it might as well be me. I’m not a big Kingdom Hearts fan.I played and enjoyed the first game, but that’s it. I think Sora is a perfect choice to end Smash Ultimate on. He’s a very popular character and his inclusion will make a lot of people happy. He’s also part of his own weird and convoluted crossover so his inclusion in Smash just feels natural. That being said, I’m just not excited for his inclusion. His moveset seems a little vanilla to me (that down b counter didn’t help) and I don’t have a very strong attachment to the character. I think I just wanted something that felt a bit more different from what we have already seen out of DLC. Sora, for me, is not that. Super happy for his fans, though.

NantenJex: Coming in for the final opinion and while Sora wasn’t my first pick by any means, I think his inclusion made sense. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate needed a big request to end on and Sora is one of the few that made sense. He also looks really fun. As a fan of Kingdom Hearts and its floaty combat, I like that they are including that here. There’s also a lot of attention to detail in his design and he even has his English VA which I was afraid he wouldn’t. It’s not all great though. Hollow Bastion is a pretty disappointing stage and the final Mii Costume selection was meh. Doom Slayer is good, but I wanted more.

I totally understand though why some, like Spazzy, are disappointed. In a fighter pass with characters like Sephiroth and Pyra, and Hero, if we include the first set of DLC, his moveset doesn’t feel very special. I think the counter as a down special is pretty indicative of this feeling. It’s also odd to not have any of the Disney stuff. I know they’re not video games but Disney is tied in with Sora’s identity so it only feels like half of Kingdom Hearts is really here. I think I’ll enjoy playing as Sora and this certainly was the right character to end on, I just wish everything else around him was a bit better.The trailer was dope though.

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Wolfman_J

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