Friday, December 7, 2018

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate x The Game Awards

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate got officially released today and the Game Awards ran last night, where it's not a surprise that Nintendo would heavily advertise the game at this event. What was surprising, however, was the announcement of the first DLC character: Joker from Persona 5. They just started developing the DLC, so this seemed somewhat early, but as a result we didn't get to see any gameplay in the trailer.


It was clarified again that these "Challenger Packs" are a unit of a character, a stage and some music, where we're getting something entirely new for Smash. This is reminiscent of my idea for game-based DLC Packs, where you now get another crossover like "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate x Castlevania".

However, this announcement also deepens the fear that most, if not all of the DLC will be 3rd party. Vergeben, the guy who leaked Ridley, Simon, Isabelle, Ken and Incineroar, keeps insisting that there will be one more character from Square Enix, as well as some content from Minecraft (a boss in the least). With that we're already looking at three fifths of the Challenger Packs being from 3rd party games. And with contenders like Monster Hunter, Ryu Hayabusa (Ninja Gaiden / Dead or Alive), a character from Bethesda (Dovahkiin or even Doom Slayer) and another Bandai Namco representative, it's not unlikely that the entire DLC will revolve around 3rd parties.

On the other hand we have excellent Nintendo games on the Nintendo Switch, which only get represented as Spirits, Mii costumes, Assist Trophies or not all... Games like Xenoblade Chronicles 2, ARMS and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. And with that it would be a shame, if all of the DLC would put the spotlight on external parties, instead of Nintendo's own creations.

Persona 5 and Joker feel already quite "out there" and another Cloud-y case. The Megami Tensei franchise has its history with Nintendo, however, and this also might mean that Persona 5 is coming to Switch, but it's still not exactly what a hardcore Nintendo fan would have expected or wanted from the DLC. Well, let's see, where this will be going...

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