Written by Bryant Donato
After an agonizing wait with what seemed to be a wasteland of news-lessness, we have finally received our gameplay reveal of the new Super Smash Bros Ultimate DLC Character, Hero from Dragon Quest! For those of you unfamiliar, Dragon Quest is a classic JRPG Published by SquareEnix that has been around for over 20 years, and is sometimes referred to as the “Big Brother” to the Final Fantasy franchise, a franchise we’re familiar with here in the U.S. While not as popular on this side of the Atlantic, it garners a huge following in Japan and the inclusion of the Main protagonist of not one but four of their games has received an outpouring of excitement and support. Without further ado, let’s dive into the gameplay!
After his initial teaser tantalized us with a variety of options based on his “Command List” special ability, the “not so Smash Direct” has given us a more accurate view of the seemingly immense depth of this character. Between the minimum of 16 (Yeah! 16!) different down-specials and three strengths of neutral special, up-special, and side-special, we’re looking at 25 different options for specials alone! This is a technical sandbox for the lab monsters of the smash fighting game community and will attract attention for people who love to optimize gameplay options and really let their creativity shine while in fisticuffs with their opponent.
This huge array of options is not without its drawbacks, with each move requiring some amount of mana that recharges when connecting attacks on the opponent, and the fact that the options you get every down-special are random. The combo of Mana and Management would suggest that the skill floor will be higher for a usable Hero, and the skill ceiling will be out of reach during this exploratory phase of the game. I am personally excited for the depth of gameplay introduced with this character and hope that the supplemental normal attacks build an exciting to play, exciting to watch character for Smash. The 4.0 Update containing the Hero should be arriving this evening after a maintenance period, provided you have the season pass for Smash Ultimate already.
