Fire Emblem Remains Sharp With Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

A familiar and mostly-fun pattern repeated itself with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Nintendo confirmed that director Masahiro Sakurai would hold another stream to reveal and demonstrate the next downloadable character, the final character for the first Fighters Pass. The guesses started mere minutes after the tease, helped along by Sakurai holding up three fingers in the attached image on Nintendo’s social media channels. Dante? Sora? Waluigi!? It was tough to say. The extremely online world was waiting, though several of them were bracing for disappointment. Not everyone was going to get their wishes here.

Sakurai helped build the hype when he mentioned that even other Nintendo employees didn’t know who this character would be. But despite that, you could almost literally hear the hopes and dreams of fans being crushed when the newest character was confirmed to be Byleth from the recent release of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. This was the hint provided from Sakurai’s three fingers.

Turns out, some of us (yeah, including me) put too much thought and hope into what character the Smash team would pick. It’s been difficult to escape the complaint of Smash Bros. having too many Fire Emblem characters since Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U, especially those who rely on swords as their primary weapons. But that clearly didn’t stop the team from adding yet another one. Yet, it’s a good choice given Three Houses’ sales and reception worldwide.

After providing a semi-lengthy history of the FE series, which might still be necessary given the Smash Bros. series’ all-consuming popularity (especially among the young’uns), Sakurai detailed Byleth’s move set. Yes, Byleth primarily uses a sword, but the kind that can also be turned into a whip for ranged techniques, though the attacks themselves will be slower. An axe, lance, and a bow can also be used for certain attacks, to give the character some variety. But maybe not too much, since it’s possible the team has made sure they aren’t too powerful. We won’t find out for sure until they’re released. The Final Smash will include an appearance from Sothis, prominently featured in the above-linked character reveal trailer.

This first season of Smash Ultimate characters seemed like they would be all male, despite the characters (Dragon Quest III and IV’s heroes and Terry Bogard) that could have had female counterparts. So, it’s nice that Byleth will have more in common with Robin and Corrin by having both available. In addition to inheriting their designs from Three Houses, they’ll have different neutral stances.

The male and female variants will be attached to the color selections. Other colors will reference the palettes of Dimitri, Edelgard, and Claude of the Blue Lions, Black Eagles, and Golden Deer from Three Houses, respectively. Another color will reference a change Byleth goes through later in the game, which wasn’t detailed due to spoilers. (I haven’t played Three Houses yet, so I don’t know either.)

Byleth will come with the Garreg Mach Monastery stage, that will feature several cameos in the background from Three Heroes’ cast, including the aforementioned characters whose colors are available. They’ll be seen through different segments of the stage, bound to be a joy for anyone who isn’t a fan of potentially distracting stage transitions. A whopping eleven new music tracks will be added as part of the pack, joining the dizzying array of FE franchise music already present.

The gameplay demonstration of Byleth from the stream was filmed in November, so, as Sakurai warned, moves could be altered for the final version. I can’t imagine that a character with a sword whip and three other weapons as options can be easy to balance, but we’ll find out how good a job they did when the pack is released on January 28th. Contrary to other characters, this one wasn’t released after the demonstration stream, and perhaps there’s a reason for that.

Coming with Byleth will be new Mii Fighter Costumes, which will feature the Rabbids from the titular Ubisoft Rayman spinoff series, Cuphead from the also-titular game, Mega Man X, Mega Man.EXE from the Battle Network series, and, uh, Altair from Assassin’s Creed. Huh. Additionally, the Spirit Board will feature more characters from the FE series, along with the “A Heroic Legacy” classic route. The Dark Samus and Richter Belmont Amiibo variants will arrive in stores on January 17th (yes, that’s tomorrow), figures that thankfully haven’t been in limited qualities for years now.

The Fighters Pass Vol.2 will be available for pre-purchase on January 28th for $29.99. Similar to DLC from the first season, each character will come with a stage and various music selections. Now is the time to place your bets about who could be part of this second round of DLC, so you can all set yourselves up for disappointment again. Not that I need to say that here for it to happen, of course.

The Smash fanbase will likely get over the presence of yet another FE face, especially if the character is fun to play when they arrive near the end of this month. That is, unless they’re too good and everyone uses them online and in tournaments. Either way, this will all be entertaining.