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Super Smash Brothers Presentation April 2019
Reviewed: 04/20/2019
Joker Shadow Drops & DLC Modes Never See It Coming~!
Well; now that Ducktales 2018's first season is over and Della Duck is on the moon and alive and somewhat well, killing any hope for a Della/TaleSpin crossver, the show is no longer amusing to me. I'm not saying that it's awful; in fact, the recent episodes were great actually. However; as I mentioned on Live Journal, it's completely overshadowed by one of my other loves: Nintendo. Why? Because of Super Smash Brothers Ultimate and the awesome epic mess it has turned into. You ever get the feeling that Sakurai has taken the opinions of some of the worst offenders to heart and is now pissed off (especially since he had medical issues during the development of Smash Brothers for Wii U/3DS) that now he's just focused on making the ultimate Smash Brothers game? If so, this is beyond great now because this has been amazing, in ways that I didn't think was possible in Smash. So, for the first time since the 50-Facts Direct for Smash Brothers for Wii U/3DS, I'm going to review all of the Smash Brothers Ultimate Directs and some bonus stuff. This one will cover the bonus segment from the Video Game Awards in December and the Smash Brothers Version 3.0/Joker presentation that is not a "Direct"; despite being mostly a Smash Brothers Direct minus Sakurai. Since these are commercials for the game, they will not be rated....So let's rant on shall we...?
Bonus Segment - Joker Infliterates the Video Game Awards: Before I begin; I would like to point out that I am reviewing the December Video Game Awards version (which I was disappointed that Celeste didn't win game of the year because that would have struck a blow for the independent scene and put the bloated third party developers on notice.). The VGA version did a distrup snow screen sequence with Joker and his friends making references to the VGA awards as Joker inflitered the theatre the VGA awards were hosted. Those references I mentioned were excised in the generic version of the trailer which was released on the Smash Bros website; which is no longer on the Smash Bros website last time I checked. (Note from the future: Actually; only the references to the VGA awards were changed. In the generic verison: Joker says that the mission is go and his friend is flastergasted that he went alone. The visual references were perfectly intact in both versions. I reviewed the video IGN showed which was the VGA awards version and there is a Gamespot version that is the generic version. Only two lines were changed.) So, no Smash white cross logo this time, although they teased the sound effects as the screen goes to red and a top hat materializes with a mask and white flames as the words "Take Your Heart" are shown. This is the calling card of Persona 5, and they did this to tease us: Is Persona 5 coming to Switch? Or is it something else? Wow; they used old television visual effects of wear and tear. In comes a masked man dressed in black with a black and white mask. In North America, Joker is a clown villain from Batman. In Japan, Joker is a college student who summons monsters in Persona 5 (also appeared in Persona Q 1 & 2 (For Nintendo 3DS); so it's not like Joker has not appeared on Nintendo platforms before). There is a lot of anime-equse animation in this one with the running as his friends are shocked that Joker ran off to infliterate a video game award show. Wasn't Persona 5 nominated for VGA awards in 2017? Why would this be surprising to Joker's friends? So, we get some flips as Joker's friends deduce that Joker is at the VGA awards to steal a treasure of some sort. If it's an award, Persona 5 won the VGA award for Best RPG, so unless he's trying to steal the VGA Game of the Year Award, what is he stealing?
Apparently; the Phantom Thieves send calling cards, which have brainwash-equse waves and the logo of Take Your Heart shown on the back. But, wait?! The Phantom Thieves aren't sending them for this one, they have been invited. Uh-oh! Joker flicks the card as one of the Phantom Thieves proclaim that they are there to steal the greatest treasure of them all. The card turns into an envelope, it turns around to show to the Smash seal logo and yet another character that only appeared in side stories on a Nintendo platform and the main game is not on a Nintendo platform (yet; since Cloud Strife finally got Final Fantasy 7 on Switch; albeit the broken PC version that SquareEnix forgot to and needs to patch STAT~! I give Atlus three years or less to put Persona on Switch and judging by what we got from Sakurai, we might get Persona 3 and 4 Golden. More on that later) has made it in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. Well; one of the Persona 5 songs contains the lyric "Never See It Coming"; although it's not like no one asked for Joker or anything. Sure, it wasn't as many as Steve from Minecraft, The Chrous Kids, Banjo-Kazooie nor Geno; but it does have a fanbase. It also helps when Sakurai is a big fan of Persona. And I do mean a big fan; probably more than Kid Icarus and Fire Emblem combined. The Phantom Thieves have a collective orgasm as shadows in masks turn into white cloud images of various Smash characters appear and disappear at will. Then the background goes to back in the most anime way possible as Joker takes off his mask with a closeup of his head shown at the hard camera and Joker yells Persona and they zoom out to reveal a shadow like monster speaking in tongues and then proclaims to Joker to show it's might against all challengers as we fade to black as Joker is in fact the first Challenger Pack character as the screen goes to red with metal sound and black letters showing that Joker is from Person 5. It ends with the Smash Bros Ultimate logo sequence with the cross to Persona 5. Trailer is done.
Super Smash Brothers Ultimate Version 3.0 Update Presentation: Time for the April 16th shadow drop presentation that is not a Direct despite clearly being one without Sakurai hosting. Before I continue this rant, I want to say that it might be past time to retire the Nintendo Direct. Sure, watching these Directs are great and all; but fans are completely ignoring the purpose of Nintendo Direct. They were not made to entertain and amuse us fans; they were created in order to get the video games they announce over. Fans seems to care a lot more about the Nintendo Directs being over, instead of caring about the games within those Directs. Once that happens, the Directs are a failure because they are ineffective in convincing you to buy the games, and that's the whole purpose. I rate Directs based on the quality of the games because that's the only thing that matters. The format itself is an automatic success and thus means nothing in determining the quality of the Directs. How many times have fans whined about Nintendo not giving out Nintendo Directs like candy? Heck; when Nintendo did release Directs like that back in the summer; it did nothing to increase their hardware numbers so they would make it to 20 million units and they had to downtick it to 17 million units for the fiscal year. It's happened so many times that they believe rumors and 4chan fakery, because they don't care about the games on the Direct, they only care about the Direct itself. Once that happens, Nintendo might as well never do another one again and just shadow drop presentations instead. Plus; when the V3.0 Presentation dropped four days ago, the total views is almost four million views! Now, granted; it's Smash Brothers Ultimate and those presentations do high numbers anyway regardless of what it's called; but it also shows that not calling it a Direct made no deletious effect on viewership. And too many Directs burned me out as a viewer, and it's not like there are third party video people out there you pretty much do the same thing week after week with the entire lineup; which would be impossible for Nintendo to do. So, in the end; I think it's time for Nintendo to consider just announcing stuff out of nowhere because that at least would give them the element of surprise back; although probably not as much that as they would like. Anyhow; enough of my opinion on Directs, let's reveal the Joker trailer...
So, the Smash Ultimate logo sequence starts up as we do a heavily cut version of the VGA trailer as Joker finally grabs the letter with the Smash seal and it shows Joker Steals the Show as his tagline. Finally; Joker appears for real (he was teased in the February Direct along with the Version 3.0 stuff; but the tease wasn't much at all and most of that footage is in this presentation) at Fourside as one of the Phantom Thieves is still giddy about this moment. They show Final Destination with Mario, BOTW Link and Kirby, along with Ryu, Cloud Strife (the first character whose main game wasn't on a Nintendo platform until a month ago) and Sonic. Joker brings out his oversized kunai like knife and a gun. Yawn, Bayonetta beat you to it and she has four times that fire power. We get various scenes of Joker being a male version of Bayonetta with his moves and Joker is in a school uniform, because why not?! Now, remember what I said about Sakurai loving Persona? Well; it's in full effect here as this trailer goes on for way too long, because Joker has to get all of this stuff in. To be fair; Persona is not a huge brand (although for Atlus, it is their biggest brand), so Nintendo almost has to do this. They show Kirby's Joker hat and masked cat furry wearing a gernade belt. This cat is named Morgana by the way. Joker's gimmick is that, when he glows blue and fighters start hitting him hard, a Persona 5 style meter and when it fills up; they show the recycled shot of Joker doing his transformation sequence, which is no in the game, although he does yell Persona and there is a sequence, but it's very different as you'll see later on when they explain Joker in grave detail. And I do mean, grave detail. I discover the monster's name is Arsene (Lupin), whom has a top hat, black wings and wearing a red suit with black claws. Apparently; Sakurai banned all the other Personas Joker can use because they were too powerful. More fighting with Arsene (Lupin) in tow. I guess the blue meter is Rebellous Spirit as mentioned by the Phantom Thieves. One of the attack causes sap status and makes the characters eye bug out.
Joker also has Palutena's magic and physical moves in the same button push and the Phantom Thieves think this is cheating. So was Custom Moves from the last Smash game and that's now reserved for Mii Fighters. More on them later. School Uniform Joker sits down with WTF character Piranha Plant. After some more flips, we fade to black and return with the new stage called Mementos, basically a Persona 5 stage which has the most whackiest changes of KO zones you will ever see. Morgana's bus appears here as do the Phantom Thieves in their Joker-equse forms as one of the Phantom Thieves asks about the existence of Mementos being a secret. Oh; and the stage changes colors depending on which music you play. One changes blue for Persona 3 and yellow for Persona 4. And I finally figured out that the Persona 4 music they used is Reach Out To The Truth. I always heard that music when I was in the bathroom and Kyle was playing that game many years ago. The Persona 5 music they used earlier is Last Surprise which combined with Persona 5's rather interesting battle interface became a meme. Sadly; the only truly funny use of it was Nin10doUltra's Nintendo Switch Hater Meets a Nintendo Fanboy skit where SAW (Sony Always Wins) brought out the sword against his room mate because his room mate was playing non-Sony games (I have got to do a review on those skits). Only since both characters are played by the same actor, there was no chance SAW was killing anyone and even the room mate realized it and stop selling. And of course, his final Smash is All Out Attack (I would have gone with Take My Heart personally), which is basically an anime/manga version of Shulk's Final Smash Chain Attack. Although the finish to it is awesome as they show the character bleeding ninja stars and the side proclaims that the show is over! That last part was really awesome and made this an upgrade over Chain Attack. Now; there were stories when the DLC was released that Joker's Final Smash soft locked during Classic Mode. However; I always believe in replication of said bug and checked one of my favorite Youtube buddies who played Classic Mode and he did Joker's Final Smash on Mementos stage and it worked! This looks like a Project X Zone bug to me in that it might be difficult to replicate the bug. The workaround is simple though.
I should also point out that the mouthflaps during the manga sequence of this Final Smash do not match the dialogue either and I mean it's way off base. Sometimes tells me some of it was excised for language; but they forgot to adjust it to make it less obvious. Granted, mouthflaps from Japanese to English is extremely tricky even in the best of localizations. Still; it's way off. And yes, Joker's victory sequence is over the top as well. So, more of the VGA footage is shown out of sequence and then we get a weird moment: Joker is stealing crowns and motocycles from K. Rool and Wario. That's not the weird part. Look at the stage: It's the Galleom boss stage from Classic Mode/World of Light! WHAT?! Wait a minute?! Are they teasing new stages for future version releases now? We have a mystery on our hands here. Back to the Smash Brothers Mural as Joker is added with Pac-Man and Dark Samus on top. Fade to black; and we finally return to Battlefield with Sonic, Simon, Incineroar, Isabelle, Bowser, Luigi, Inkling and Kirby are fighting as the announcer, who is not the same one who speaks for Sakurai. It's the General Direct dub voice as he announces that the V3.0 will soon be revealed. However; we start with the full reveal of Joker. Strangely, he doesn't get a title like the others. Joker wields a grappling hook for recovery. The sap spell I mentioned earlier is named Eiha. The blue shield move is known as Rebel's Guard and the gauge is called Rebellous Gauge, so I wasn't far off. Apparently; Rebel's Guard allows for increases in the meter to speed up, while taking half damage. It even works against combos if done properly. When the gauge; he unleashes Arsene (Lupin) with a different voice sample of Persona than the one he used in the trailer. He also loses the mask, too. In this form, all of his moves are enhanced, and the grappling hook is eliminated completely since Arsene allows him to fly short distances as Joker's recovery. When the gauge empties, Joker will yell return and Arsene disappears until the gauge is full again and Joker summons him, again.
Gun Special increases the number of bullets per shot (3 per shot now), Wings of Rebellion is his recovery which puts him into invincible status for a short time as well (he'll still get KO'ed if he goes into the KO zone though), Eigaon is a more powerful version of Eiha, and his Paultena counter and reflect moves are Tetrakarn and Makarakarn in that order. Arense (Lupin) cannot take damage at all, not that it matters. Arense (Lupin) doesn't affect the Final Smash either. Morgana is also part of Joker's taunts and they show his two alternate costumes, which is his school uniform and his glasses trigger the summon. Fade to black and we head to Mementos as the Japanese has been kept intact in all versions. Nice! There's a lot of chains in this one and the trains are also hazards. The Phantom Thieves show up to cheer as Morgana's Car (which looks like a van) shows up. Persona 5 has five pieces of music, Persona 4 has only 3 and Persona 3 has two since Aira of The Soul is actually from the first Persona game Revelations: Persona! This was not mentioned in the presentation despite the announcer saying that there were 11 tracks. Also; if Joker wins in Mementos based on the Persona game music is playing, the victory screen plays a different victory theme and a different color scheme, which I believe is a Smash series first! So, we finally end the Joker reveal with the date (April 17th) and the cost, along with the screen of the Fighter's Pass with Joker now inserted into the far left side of the Pass. Nothing unusual there. Also; Classic Mode is called Shadows as Joker faces off against dark costumes alternates and partners with white costume alternates, which is better than my Personas idea with it being all Horde Battles with Kirby hats, Mii Fighters and Master/Crazy Hand as the final boss. That last one was pretty much kept; although they fight in Mementos this time. And you get a DLC Spirit Board with at least a dozen new spirits. This just makes SquareEnix look like a copyright maximalist, even more so than usual. That ends the Joker reveal as that took nine and a quarter minutes to complete; which was way too long. On the other hand; Joker looks great!
[1.] The Version 3.0 Goodies
This will pretty much be the only major segment of the entire presentation. We fade to black and then in red glow white letters, it's time for Paid DLC Mii Fighter Costumes! BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I pretty much saw this one coming when Nintendo of America basically confirmed this in their DLC FAQ on Smash Brothers Ultimate months ago. This is of course the first round and they are 75 cents a piece. Also, there will be six Mii Fighter outfits per wave. The wave features the return of Tails and Knuckles from Sonic, so Assist Trophies do not disconfirm Mii Fighter costumes at least; and the debut of four costumes from Persona: Persona 3/Persona 4 protagonists, Morgana Hat from Persona 5 and Teddie Hat from Persona 4. I'm disappointed, I thought Jack Frost the Atlus mascot would have gotten in. So, no Akira and no Jacky from Virtua Fighter. I guess to avoid confusion, although they could easily use Akira's look from Project X Zone. Maybe round #2 will feature them, I don't know. Basically; the reveals are the same of the Mii costume reveal waves in Smash Brothers 4. Woo-woo! So, that is it for the paid DLC content and it's now time for the free stuff, which features all new modes. YAY! Now, in the Februrary Direct, there were shots of a Switch showing a huge blur with a white question mark on top as they reappear in this presentation. Finally; they remove the blur and question mark to reveal a background of Battlefield and then menus show up...Wait a second?! That's Stage Builder, isn't it?! Why yes; it's Stage Builder and I didn't see this one coming...until Nintendo pretty much showed it in one of their commercials. Personally; I'm not a big fan of Stage Builder because I suck at art. However; the most important thing about this is that if Sakurai is willing to bring Stage Builder back (something that Nintendo probably wasn't too thrilled of since scumbags will be scumbags no matter how wrong it is to be one, and it took less than 48 hours for them to be out in full force) and actually make it better (albeit it's still very limited at this point) with multiple layers, multiple stage backgrounds from actual Smash stages (sadly, not all of them) and even making animated stages (albeit a bit crude); what is to stop Sakurai from bringing other modes like Stadium mode (Home Run Contest, Board the Platforms, Target Blast etc.), Smash Run, Smash Party, Master/Crazy Orders, Boss Rush, etc., etc.
Sub-Space and Adventure Mode is really the only ones out of the running now since both already have been combined as World of Light/Dark/Void. And I can hear the "They don't have room" excuse coming a mile away: Change Mob Smash to Stadium Smash. Make new menu containing Mob Smash and other features. If they can make a new screen for Persona 5's DLC Spirit Board, then they can make a new screen for Games & More. The only thing stopping them is if Sakurai doesn't want the feature in and Sakurai is really good in keeping his cards away from prying eyes. The stages they showed off were really great and really show the improvements to the builder itself. Oh; and they also solve the stage full issue by showing a tab between normal stages and custom stages, so if they need more normal stages and run out on the first tab, they could just add another tab. I doubt they will need to do that, but the option is there now. Next segment, it's more video editing options, which now allow you to edit your video to look similar to the Smash Brothers commercials and trailers. And apparently; the video limit is 4 minutes 30 seconds now. You can select any music you choose and even the video effects for scene changers; along with subtitles and the size, color and backgrounds of subtitles. Then record and export. But wait, no one creates video for themselves, thou must share, you see! Next segment: Shared Content! The downside is that you need Nintendo's Paid On-Line Service for this as the feature is internal instead of going to social media. Also, you can download Mii's and custom stages. You can also like stages; however, it seems that stages are limited to four players, although you can apparently play them on-line, which makes it neccessary since on-line is limited to four players anyway. And yes, there is a report button; but it based on users, not stages themselves. Finally; there is Smash World, which is basically the same sharing service, but on mobile phones, so I don't care. However; there was one video of Wario butt bouncing Mario into a KO in Green Greens which was uber funny, so there's that. Oh; and Youtube is responsible for the videos.
The only other thing of note was being able to make Spirit teams. So, like the Joker release; Version 3.0 was released on April 17th as well, which was amazing considering that before the shadow drop, I assumed Joker was going to be delayed with Version 3.0 coming up the same day as Joker, which I felt would be May or at E3 in June. Instead, it was released 13 days before the end of April and Version 3.0 with it. So we end this presenation with a recap video of all the content revealed for Version 3.0 and that is that! I felt the pacing of this video was not good given the almost ten minute reveal of Joker; but otherwise, this was really great! Sadly; the incompetence of Nintendo's IT team to release the content during maintance time was in full force here and made people think Joker was stealing the servers. It's not the servers that broke, it's Nintendo IT guys being stupid. How about we invest in more human beings with a clue of basic IT skills before we talk about dedicated servers again. Okay?! So, what's next for Smash Brothers after this? I'm certain V4.0 will be next and it will be similar to V3.0 in that we'll get more modes and a new fighter with new music, more Spirits and a new stage. Who will be DLC Challenger Pack #2? What is the next round of Mii Fighter costumes? Will SquareEnix finally stop being an idiot? And will Sakurai finally get a break that doesn't kill him first? I'm guessing the next announcement will be at E3. No assurances that the content will be released at E3 though; but who knows? Until then; it's off to Bubsy as Bubsy is back with his Paws On Fire, a game that will scare critics into thinking that this game might actually be good.