Oh my. Can you hear that? The sound of angelic choirs singing? The smell of lavender in the air? The taste of victory? Smash Bros for the 3DS is FINALLY here! Which isn’t to say that Smashing Saturdays is over, not by a long shot. But this installment marks the end of Character of the Week and Most Wanted Brawler. Which is okay, because now we all get to play Smash in exchange! There were a couple of cool reveals this week as well, but I’ll be succinct, ’cause I want to sit down and turn on my shiny new game.
Without further ado, let’s get Smashing!
Monday was a lackluster start picture-wise, but had some cool info. “For the 3DS version, you can select alternate tracks for stages by holding down the R Button while you select the stage–the brown drop shadow that frames the stage image when you hold down the R Button indicates the alternate track is active. For the Living Room stage, the alternate track is the vocal version of the default track. Songs with vocals aren’t the best match for battles, but the song was too good to leave out, so this is how we chose to include it.” Gotta love options, right? Sakurai also had this pic to share for Monday.
This looks basic, but Sakurai had something really cool to reveal for this second pic – “Also, For the Boxing Ring, if you select the stage while holding down the L Button, you can play on the Smash Bros. version of the stage. If you hold down the Y Button, you can choose to play on the Punch Out! version. These variations are usually selected at random, but this method lets you select them manually.” Retro for the win. Gotta say, though I’m not a Little Mac fan, I do love his stage.
Tuesday didn’t have much to share, other than how subtle the colored outlines are in the Wii U version. I appreciate the lack of a giant colored halo, and am very eager to play the Wii U version whenever it comes out, be it November, December or later. Up next is the best reveal in a VERY long time.
If you’ve been regularly following Smashing Saturdays, you’ll recognize this ship from an earlier post way long ago. It was uncertain then if it was a new stage or just a remastered Brawl level, but wonder no longer. Orbital Gate is an entirely new multi-part level exclusive to the Wii U version. Though I’m not a huge Star Fox fan, simply because I was never fond of the controls, I really appreciate how cool this level looks. Though it starts out here, it moves to two completely different sections.
Yes, you can fight atop a giant missile as it tries to annihilate the Orbital Gate. How awesome is that? And if that wasn’t enough, it then moves onto this section of the stage.
You get to fight atop two racing Arwings! This level looks amazing. Case in point, many of the Wii U levels look superior, but I’ll reserve judgment till I fire up the 3DS version and get into the meat of it.
Okay I’ll avoid spoilers if you haven’t been reading up on the leaked roster. This Assist Trophy is from a real classic. “This assist trophy is Sheriff. Sheriff was an arcade game released in 1979. In this game, the players aim by choosing one of eight directions to shoot using a second joystick separate from the one that controls movement. It was quite a revolutionary game for its time. For shooting games overseas, it’s common to see games that utilize the left stick to move around and the right to determine the direction to shoot, so we can say the origin of modern shooting games was this game–which is pretty remarkable.” Love that jab at modern FPS games, as well. Sheriff looks pretty epic and retro. Also, love that shocked look on poor Dedede’s face.
Okay, Friday’s pic was the most boring, but I’ll make up for it with a nice surprise right afterwards. First, I’ll let Sakurai do the talking – “Finally, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS is being released overseas. Congratulations!! With the game released globally, from here on out I’ll be posting about some of the hidden elements in the game. However, for now they’ll only trickle down a little bit at a time. I’ll be done with posting new pics by the end of the year, so I hope you’ll enjoy the rest of the ride.” Couldn’t agree more, good sir. But I promised something extra, besides the final Character of the Week, and I intend to deliver. Warning in advance, this may constitute spoilers for some.
This is the point of no return!
So, on the UK Smash Bros site, three returning characters as yet unannounced on the official site were revealed. Had I not already known about them, I would have been even more ecstatic. In no particular order, those returning Brawlers are Ness, Falco and Wario!
But that’s not all! Let me show off one more Character of the Week! And make sure to tune in every week until Sakurai stops providing pics of the day, sometime before the new year!
Character of the Week
Okay, full disclosure–I never mained Diddy Kong in Brawl. Not because he was terrible, but because I had a lot of trouble learning the best way to use his unique moveset. However, not one to be discouraged by such things as utter failure (did I mention I’m stubborn?), I often played him in Brawl, especially when I wanted to mix things up and throw my opponents off their game.
Diddy Kong was a master of confusion, using tons of unpredictable (and unpredictably-dangerous) moves. I really love how he wasn’t just using his own monkey athleticism to attack foes, but also his powerful, yet bizarre barrel “technology.” Case in point, his Rocketbarrel Boost was incredible, allowing him great aerial lift and surprise attacking foes with stray rocketbarrels. It was hard to use at times, but allowed this silly simian much better recovery than old tie-wearing DK.
Another great tool at his disposal was the Peanut Popgun. It hit fast, could be charged to hit faster and harder and occasionally exploded. I’m not sure why Diddy made use of such dangerous technology, but it proved useful in giving him much better keep-away skills than Donkey Kong. Combined with his Monkey Flip and Banana Peel, Diddy was a very technical combatant. He wasn’t skilled in laying constant hurt of foes, but he was great at hit-and-run tactics, which I generally love in a Brawler. But none of his moves were as dangerous as his Final Smash…
Once he got that Smash Ball, Diddy transformed from an unpredictable technical specialist to a flying force of nature. Blasting forth at full power, shooting peanuts everywhere, he was much more of a threat while it lasted. The tricky part was actually controlling him, but that fit well within his battle style.
I am glad to see Diddy made it back into the roster for the new Smash Bros games, and look forward to trying to play as him again. Who knows, Sakurai might have tweaked him enough that I could even main the little guy! I look forward to finding out very soon!
