SEPHIROTH

 Joins the fight

So I'm pretty sure that I've literally never disclosed this to anyone before, but I'm actually quite a big fan of Smash Bros as a fighting game, even if I absolutely suck at it. (Put me against another human being and I might as well be playing blindfolded) As such I do have a mild interest whenever I see that there's a new character reveal coming to Smash Bros because I'll never miss out on seeing the next addition to 'the biggest crossover in gaming'. And maybe I say that simply because I cherish the days when that title can still be held by something as well intentioned and cool as 'Smash Bros' before Fortnite manages to close the gap surely and steadily. (They just bought DC into their world which already had Marvel in it! Their ascension to tyrannical supremacy is inevitable at this point) And what's more, I'm ever interested in the characters that are turned down from such a role because I find that just as curious.

So this month heralded us a reveal that Sephiroth, the one-winged Angel, is our new addition to the cast, and quite honestly, I had to do a double take as I realised he wasn't already there. Yeah, it just sort of makes so much sense for his ludicrously long sword to be in the Smash arsenal that I wasn't remotely blown away about the brilliance off it all. Which isn't to say I disproved of the addition, far be it. Sephiroth belongs in Smash Bros right next to his other-half Cloud, and I look forward to all the cool ways the two of them can showdown in mock recreations of Final Fantasy 7's key moments. Also, I adore the setting of Midgar, so getting to explore a new themed location in that world is just fine by me. I wish we'd got to see a little more of his final smash (Which I assume was what was hinted by him becoming his One Winged Angel form at the end) but I like a little secret now and then so I can't get too riled up about it. Although at the end of the day I'm just not blown away because this doesn't really seem all that surprising.

When it comes to the franchises that crossover in Smash Bros, the coolest thing about them is that they go further than Nintendo licences and span the gaming world. (I mean, they're mostly Nintendo Licenses, but there's some exceptions) You've got Konami's Snake from Metal Gear who brings his gadgets and equipment to litter the stage and turn it into a death trap for the other fighters; Square's Joker from Persona 5 who brings a literal gun to the battlefield, although I guess it's a 'metaphorical gun' like in the game, huh; and even Capcom's Ryu and Ken, further prolonging fighting game's longest rivalry. Heck, even Microsoft/Mojang's Steve joined the fight just recently, in a pretty cool break from the traditional Smash bros visual style that I think most responded well to. I love it when non-Nintendo properties join in the fun, but Smash Bros already had a Final Fantasy character, and whatsmore he was also from the exact same Final Fantasy game. (You guys know there's like 15 of them now, right?)

Although I suppose it shouldn't exactly be a shock to see Sephiroth here given that the most substantial move from the Final Fantasy series this year (Aside from the announcement of 16) was the release of part 1 of 'Final Fantasy 7 Remake'. For years now Square have been riding the success of this one game seemingly over all their others, coming back for spin-off games, a movie and now a multi-part remake that's going to span the next decade at this rate. Thus I guess this Smash Bros placement can be seen as a sort of promotion for that series, as if it really needs promoting given how the wider RPG world gravitated around FF7R as much as anyone else. I'm not saying there's anything inherently wrong with this, per se, just that it would've been cool to see more Final Fantasy characters from the breadth of the franchise take the centre stage.

For example, what about Squall? I know he has a gunblade, but they let Joker in and as I said, that dude bought a glock, so some fantasy revolver sword shouldn't rustle feathers too much in comparison! Or you could bring in Tidus, with his famous laughing scene as a taunt, or maybe even Lighting if you're really stretching for a protagonist. Noctis could bring his godly summons to the plate which would all be very visually epic and I just had a thought that they could make the entirety of Class Zero a single character! Due to the way that every single student is affixed to a different held weapon and fighting style, there could be a sort of switching function where instead of getting strong moves the player switches to another student and thus changes up the basic moveset completely. It would be trading easy smash-ability with versatility but I think that'd be kind of fun on the competitive level. What I'm trying to say is; Sephiroth isn't exactly scraping the barrel, there could have been more done.

And this all just brings me back to the discussion surrounding Mai Shiranui and how she essentially got blacklisted from ever appearing in Smash by the creator. Mai, for those that don't know, is perhaps the most well known character from a fairly comatose fighting franchise known as Fatal Fury, and Smash Bros. has in the past served as the only means through which long dead franchises still get coverage to this day. That being said, it was rather definitively stated that Mai would never make it to the game due to her general design which I guess was considered too provocative for a Nintendo game. (Never mind the BSDM witch who dresses in leather and attacks people with her clothes made out of magic hair) It just kind of sucks that actual fighting games don't get representation on a stage where it would really be appreciated, whereas FF7 gets over-represented with another character to go alongside the new game release.

But with all that being said I will say that I do find Sephiroth to be one of the more interesting characters being added this Smash DLC cycle. He's a lot more exciting than Min min, at least, who literally hails from a game that Nintendo themselves pulled the plug on because it wasn't performing well enough. (So you killed her and then dragged her to Smash to prop her up like a trophy? You're sick, Nintendo. Just sick.) Although the typical grumbles of "Oh great, another sword wielder" are inevitable, I hold out hope that the sheer character and charm of Sephiroth's stupidly long katana will make him feel unique from the twenty Fire Emblem characters already here. I mean if nothing else it'll give him unprecedented sword reach, that can't feasibly be overlooked, can it?

So I guess the only thing to do now is speculate over who might the next character added to Smash, and do so with absolutely no regard given to the likely possibilities! So my first guess would be someone from the Resident Evil franchise, given that the game already shows up within Ultimate as Spirits but with no actual character representation. Unfortunately, most of the characters from RE use guns so I think it'd have to be a villain which pretty much makes Albert Wesker an obvious shoe in for the position. Else we could have the crewmates from Among Us if we're going to get super memey up in here, I think the kill animations lend enough material for a full move set. Or maybe even Johnny Silverhand from Cyberpunk 2077. He can spit out profanities every 5 seconds and crash the hardware whenever more than two characters are on screen. (Ops, I think I slipped into bitterness over CDPR again, better cut this short) So those are my not at all tongue-in-cheek suggestions, what are yours?