Fans of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate have been graced this Christmas by the release of Final Fantasy villain, Sephiroth, as Fighter #78. Sephiroth was announced at the Video Game Awards and presented on Dec. 17 by Mr. Sakurai himself. Interestingly, Sephiroth is the newest villain to be added in the Super Smash Bros. series since Bowser and Ganondorf were added in Super Smash Bros. Melee way back in 2001.
Nintendo surprised its fans late last week with an event that allowed players who purchased the Sephiroth DLC where if you beat him in a boss encounter you could unlock him and the Northern Cave map early. As of Tuesday, the character is officially released and available in the Fighters Pass Vol 2 DLC, or can be purchased separately for $5.99. Also available are new Mii Fighter costumes based on Final Fantasy 7’s Tifa, Barrett, and Aerith, and Super Mario RPG’s Geno.
Along with Sephiroth’s arrival came a free minor update, Ver. 10.1.0 which is live now. Patch notes are smaller this time around than the last two character-release patches, but the fixes continue to improve multi-hit attacks including Luigi’s dash attack and Toon Link and Young Link’s Up Special, among others.
As far as what these changes mean for the competitive scene, the meta is unlikely to shake up too much until professional players spend time to master Sephiroth. However, characters like Fox who got multiple buffs and fixes in his multi-hit attacks may have stronger combo and out-of-shield options, according to top 10 players Light and Panda Global’s ESAM in this twitter thread. Small changes like these may be the difference in a player winning a competitive match, and so far, the pros are impressed.
We’ve seen DLC characters like Joker (and shockingly Bestness’ Piranha Plant way back during the Quarantine Series) surprise us by how they’ve broke into the competitive meta. Smash fans, including myself, are equally as eager to see if Sephiroth may perform in the esports scene just as well.
