UPDATE: Nintendo has now officially confirmed that Roy and Ryu are indeed joining the roster of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, following their Super Smash Bros.-focused pre-E3 broadcast today. Better still is that they will both be released today, along with all of the other new content that was detailed! Roy will cost $3.99 to download individually for 3DS or Wii U, and $4.99 to download simultaneously for both platforms, alongside the previously confirmed Lucas, who is also launching today. Ryu will cost $4.99 individually and $5.99 for both games together, but will come free with an all-new arena, Suzaku Castle, inspired by Street Fighter II.
Roy was shown to have Japanese voiceovers, similar to his incarnation in Super Smash Bros. Melee, and also as a reference to his Fire Emblem game still not being released outside of Japan. His power-focused sword attacks make him a fighter that’s all about heavy close combat, much like his Melee counterpart. Ryu, meanwhile, has combo-based attacks that are a first for Super Smash Bros., with players able to input familiar button combinations from Street Fighter to use more powerful attacks and secret Street Fighter moves, depending on their timing, and how long they hold down the A Button. Ryu is also the first Super Smash Bros. fighter in history to have two separate Final Smash attacks, normally launching a more powerful Hadoken that can attack more than one fighter at once, though if he uses Final Smash closely, he can also use an extra powerful Shoryuken to launch his target into an instant KO!
Nintendo also confirmed plans to make Amiibo figures of both Roy and Ryu, though neither currently have a release window, much like the planned Amiibo figures of Mewtwo and Lucas. Nintendo did however confirm that the upcoming wave of Amiibo figures this September will expand to include the four remaining in-game fighters, namely R.O.B., Falco, Mr. Game & Watch, and Duck Hunt Dog. Mr. Game & Watch will also offer a first for the Super Smash Bros. set Amiibo, not only being a flat figure, but also allowing owners to customize his pose from a handful of presets.
Alongside the showcases of the new fighters, Nintendo also confirmed the Splatoon Trophy, along with all-new Mii Fighter costumes inspired by Mega Man X, Mega Man Battle Network, Animal Crossing and Virtua Fighter, as the hackers previously revealed from the Japanese update. The only Tekken costume featured however is Heihachi. One thing that the hackers strangely didn’t reveal however is that there are also new Splatoon costumes for the Mii Fighters as well, consisting of Inkling Boy and Inkling Girl variations, alongside a Squid Hat. All of these costumes are available to purchase today.
Despite the large-scale leak, a handful of announcements still remained surprises. While a build for Dream Land 64 was leaked as a new stage, Nintendo also announced plans for Peach’s Castle and Hyrule Castle from the original Super Smash Bros. on Nintendo 64. New Ryu and Ken trophies are also being added, along with All-Star Final Smash trophies for both Roy and Ryu, naturally. Nintendo will also soon be featuring the ability to upload replays from Super Smash Bros. for Wii U at the very least on to YouTube, preventing them from expiring as they do in-game, so long as you have a YouTube account, of course. Nintendo will be adding the Miiverse Stage to Super Smash Bros. for Wii U as well, though unlike the other new stages, this one will be free to download. Lastly, Ryu’s new Suzaku Castle stage will feature the original themes from both Ryu and Ken’s stages in the arcade build of Street Fighter II, along with remixes of each by original composer, Yoko Shimomura.
Original report follows:
Either some hackers have far too much time on their hands, or Nintendo may have inadvertently suffered another boo-boo from their Japanese arm ahead of E3, following Tecmo Koei accidentally uploading a Japanese trailer for a 3DS port of Hyrule Warriors ahead of Nintendo’s digital keynote on Tuesday. This time, it’s Super Smash Bros. for Wii U that appears to have spilled the beans on a big announcement, with hackers uncovering more previously hidden Japanese footage of victory montages for two all-new fighters apparently set to come to the mascot brawler as DLC, after a Japanese update went live for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U ahead of schedule.
Perhaps even more exciting is that one of these characters is another third-party character! None other than Ryu from Capcom’s Street Fighter series appears to be joining the Super Smash Bros. roster on Wii U, and no doubt 3DS as well, with a moveset shown off that includes his familiar Hadoken and Shoryuken attacks from the Street Fighter games. A shot from a new arena that appears to be inspired by Ryu’s ‘Japan’ stage from Street Fighter II also seems to indicate that stage being added to the game. Leaked alongside this are a slew of costume change palettes for Ryu as well, further making this leak seem pretty legit.
Unless this is some sort of amazingly ambitious hack job, Ryu marks the fourth character from a third-party franchise not owned by Nintendo to join Super Smash Bros. for Wii U at the very least, though pretty well certainly Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS as well, since those games have not held any exclusive fighters to themselves at this point. The games also feature Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog, making his return from Super Smash Bros. Brawl on Wii, Namco’s Pac-Man, and another beloved Capcom character, Mega Man. The previous Super Smash Bros. Brawl featured another third-party character, Solid Snake from Konami’s Metal Gear Solid games, though Snake ended up being cut from the series’ latest 3DS and Wii U iterations.
Alongside Ryu in the leak is another frequent fan-requested character, that being Roy from the Fire Emblem series. Roy originally debuted alongside fellow Fire Emblem protagonist, Marth in Super Smash Bros. Melee on the GameCube, where they helped raise enough awareness of the Fire Emblem series in the West to start getting it localized outside of Japan. Roy made his debut in then-brand new Japanese Fire Emblem game, Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi for the Game Boy Advance (roughly translates to ‘Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade‘), though this game was never released outside of Japan. This may have contributed to Roy being cut from subsequent Super Smash Bros. games, and replaced by Ike, who is the protagonist of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance on the GameCube, and is also a supporting character in its direct sequel, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn for the Wii. Despite Roy’s game still not making it out of Japan yet however, Roy’s father, Eliwood is a key protagonist of the Game Boy Advance entry simply titled ‘Fire Emblem‘ in North America, which was the series’ first game to be released outside of Japan.
Along with the credible footage and images for these two new fighters, more hidden assets from the Japanese update were also uncovered. These include a trophy inspired by recent Wii U shooter, Splatoon, bonus costumes inspired by Tekken and Virtua Fighter, along with new attire inspired by Mega Man and Animal Crossing, and finally, another new arena that is inspired by the Nintendo 64 rendition of Dream Land from the Kirby series.
It’s likely that at least some of this content, namely the reveals for Ryu and Roy, were meant to be unveiled at the special Super Smash Bros. event broadcast tomorrow, at 7:40 A.M. PST/10:40 A.M. EST. Given that the uncovered assets appear to be fragmented however, it’s likely that Nintendo will be announcing even more content that the leak didn’t seem to uncover yet. Remember as well that another DLC fighter, Lucas from Mother 3, will make his debut in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U tomorrow, no doubt immediately after the broadcast.
Keep smashing Eggplante for all news and updates on Super Smash Bros.