SUPER SMASH BROS. Direct FULL of Info, Characters, and Other Things!

By Nathan Mark on Tuesday, April 8th, 2014

Today, Nintendo did a live-stream called “Super Smash Bros. Direct”. Fans were hyped! What would be featured? New characters? New stages? New items? New gameplay modes? A more solid release window? Yes to all of the above. Not kidding. This may have been the coolest Nintendo Direct EVER. As a big Super Smash fan, I was grinning through the whole thing!

It was pretty huge, showing more content in around 30 minutes than fans had been expecting. I’ll try to sum it all up.

The first big announcement was regarding the release date. Unfortunately, still no street date; however, we did get some news. The 3DS version will be released in the Summer, with the Wii U version being released in the Winter, likely near Christmas. Most of the rest of the stream mainly showcased the 3DS version, but keep in mind, both consoles have the same characters!

Stage wise, aside from already confirmed stages, it seems the 3DS will be getting Jungle Japes, a fan-favorite Donkey Kong level. Others include Metroid‘s Pyrosphere, a boxing ring from Punch-Out!, Skyloft from The Legend of Zelda, and Windy Hill from the Sonic games.

Some stages will have “boss battles”; Mega Man‘s stage features an appearance from the iconic Yellow Devil, and players will probably want to work together to defeat it!

The 3DS online modes are more fleshed out than Brawl‘s, with specific settings and records.

Item-wise, the Direct featured many returning and new items; Bombchu’s, Fairy Bottles, X Bombs, Hocatate Bombs, and of course, Assist Trophies and Pokeballs.

On this game, there will now be two Pokeballs; the normal kind, and MasterBalls, which contain legendary Pokémon. Some new Pokémon include Metagross, Evee, Fennekin, Kyurem, Victini, Arecus, and Xerneas.

Assist Trophy wise, we have some returning ones (Dr. Wright, Saki, Andross), and some new ones (Midna, Dark Samus, Chain-Chomp, Elecman). Some really cool ones here!

The 3DS version also includes an exclusive 4-player mode: Smash Run! Four-players traverse a dungeon for a few minutes, stocking up on items while fighting or avoiding various Nintendo enemies, and once time is up, the four players do battle, using the collected items! Sounds pretty exciting!

Now the part you’re all waiting for: characters! Returning characters include Sheik and Zero Suit Samus; now their own characters! No more switching between characters; Zero Suit now has some kind of air boots. We also get Yoshi, everyone’s favorite green dinosaur.

But you want new characters? Okay, then! We get two Pokémon: Greninja (a ninja frog who can teleport and go invisible) and…Charizard! It seems he will now work solo, no longer encumbered by his Pokémon Trainer! Charizard is already a fan-favorite, and Greninja seems to have a solid move-set!

So, yeah. Is it too soon to call Super Smash Bros for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U the best game of 2014? All these cool characters and items and shout-outs to various Nintendo games; so beautiful! Day one buy for me!