Two for the price of one! Let's start by saying that all those people who doubted that Rex would make it into Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, mainly because of his DLC bonus Mii costume, were right in the end. And this is actually the much better outcome, where the ninth Challenger Pack entirely focuses on what makes Xenobabe Chronicles 2 so appealing in the first place: the female "Blade" characters designed by a hentai artist.
You could say that this is a very similar situation to ARMS overall, where this is a first party Nintendo Switch game from 2017, which didn't make the cut for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate initially, but now gets added after all via the second Fighters Pass. And instead of going with the front male character, they've chosen a female character who's arguably equally important to the game. Or two female characters in this case...
Speaking personally, I always enjoy to have a diverse cast, but I'm not a fan of forcing diversity or gender quotas just for the sake of it. It should come off naturally. But with the video game landscape, where the majority of protagonists are male, because we're probably still dealing with the prejudice that the majority of gamers are male and want to identify with a male character, it's a very good thing that they are going a little bit out of their way here to get some more female fighters in Super Smash Bros. with Min Min, Pyra and Mythra. I also often enjoy playing as female characters in fighting games more than with male ones, not only because they look better, but because they are usually more agile and faster.
Well, this is also the first time since Super Smash Bros. Brawl that we're actually getting another two-in-one character with a swapping mechanic, where Pyra and Mythra even count as #79 and #80 on the roster, similar to how Pokémon Trainer takes three numbers with Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard. There had been other characters like this in the past with Zelda and Sheik, as well as Samus and Zero Suit Samus, but those got separated in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS & Wii U. But if you thought that the time of such transformation characters is over, think again!
As for (Zero Suit) Samus, Sheik and Zelda, they were arguably better off separated and still are, mostly because these characters are vastly different from each other. In case of Sheik and Zelda they also heavily profit from one more move, which is something that fans of Charizard might miss in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. There are people out there who want solo Charizard back for that very reason and you can't blame them.
Pyra and Mythra, however, are both sword fighters and while they have different moves, they still feel quite similar, where this is more about swapping between two modes than swapping between two entirely different fighters. As a result, the transformation feels very natural and it also works incredibly fast, where having these two ladies as separate characters probably wouldn't be of any advantage, quite the opposite. So, overall this feels like an attempt of finally creating a transformation character that's done right.
What's also great about this Challenger Pack that this is more representation of first party Nintendo Switch stuff. When Super Smash Bros. Ultimate came out, it did very little to represent the current era of Nintendo in the form of fighters and stages. It had Splatoon, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, but this was basically just checking off the most important boxes.
So, having ARMS, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Fire Emblem: Three Houses represented as well is really an improvement, where ideally we will also get a stage for Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze in the future. But who knows...? Maybe one of the final fighters will be Dixie Kong after all?
PS: They haven't shown any of the alt colors yet and you can't see them on the official page yet either, so there might be some surprises here. I'm hoping that there will be a version where Pyra has the colors of KOS-MOS and Mythra looks like T-elos. This would be awesome.
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