December 15th 2015 marked the very last Nintendo Smash Bros Direct, and although it didn’t give everyone exactly what they wanted, it still managed to take everyone by surprise. The biggest news, of course, was the inclusion of three brand new characters to the Smash Bros family. One character we already knew about, the other two, not so much. Check out the full Nintendo Direct below, and hit the jump to read the highlights from it!
Smash Bros fans were shocked to discover that Bayonetta, the titular Umbra Witch from Bayonetta, will make her Smash Bros debut in February of 2016. It turns out that Bayonetta was the character that won the Smash Bros ballot by an overwhelming majority.
But Bayonetta wasn’t the only character revealed in the direct; Corrin from Fire Emblem: Fates will also be joining the cast. Much like Robin, you’ll be able to play as both the male and female versions of Corrin. And of course, they will not play any differently, it’s just cosmetic. Also, let’s not forget that Cloud from Final Fantasy VII is also coming to Smash Bros. In fact, he’s available right now at the time of this writing.
So let’s break these characters down shall we?
Starting off with Bayonetta, it seems she’ll be retaining a lot of her qualities from her own game series. Bayonetta is straight-up a combo character. It seems like she can rack up damage on her enemies at an alarming rate, but also requires a fairly high degree of execution to use her effectively without leaving yourself vulnerable. The crux of her combo system is that Bayonetta’s opponents have to be in mid-air. But luckily, she has a lot of tools for launching characters into the sky. While Bayonetta’s opponent is in mid-air she can then chain together her aerial normal attacks and special attacks for huge amounts of damage, and possibly land a killing blow.
However, the trade off is that the more attacks Bayonetta can execute in the air, the longer she’ll take to recover once she hits the ground. So if you land an awesome combo in mid-air, but miss the killing blow, she’ll be left vulnerable for a few seconds when she lands. Bayonetta also comes bundled with her own level based off of the falling clock tower scene from the original Bayonetta. She will be released in February of 2016 for $6.99
Corrin is the latest Fire Emblem character to enter the fray. Corrin is indeed a sword user, but he/she has very unique fighting style compared to the other Fire Emblem characters. A few of Corrin’s attacks do use his/her sword, but certain attacks transform Corrin’s body parts into the limbs of a dragon. By the way, Corrin has the ability to turn into a dragon apparently. These dragon attacks have weird properties to them, but unfortunately they weren’t all explained in-depth, save for Corrin’s side smash. This attack transforms Corrin’s arm into a long reaching lance that is most deadly at the tip. It also seems that Corrin’s side smash has the longest reach, next to Mega Man.
Speaking of lances, Corrin’s side special move has him/her leaping forward and thrusting a lance at a downward angle. If the lance hit’s a surface or an enemy, Corrin will be suspended by the lance for a short amount of time. While in this state, Corrin can perform a forward jump kick, a back kick, an upward jump, or simply cancel out of the lance stab. Other than the lance attack, Corrin’s other moves aren’t too notable, save for his/her back-air attack that gives him/her a short boost forward. Corrin will be released in February of 2016 for $5.99.
Cloud is available right now, so I won’t spend too much time breaking down his abilities but I will talk about a few tactics. First and foremost, Cloud is a very agile and powerful fighter, but he lacks a decent recovery ability. Cloud’s up special move can be used for recovery, but it’s not that great unless you use the limit break version which turns his up special into one of the best recovery moves in the game. Cloud has a strong ground game, but if you miss any of your smash attacks you’ll be left wide open for a counter.
In the air, Cloud’s attacks come out quick and have the potential to kill no matter which direction you attack from. Most notably, Cloud has two meteor smashes, his down air and his forward air. Cloud’s forward air is powerful enough to kill even if you don’t land the meteor smash, but it comes out slow so it’s easily avoidable. But anyway, like I said, Cloud is available right now for $6.99 at the time of this writing. So get to fighting!