By Andrew Yoshioka  

SAN JOSE, CALIF. — On Oct. 5, Nintendo revealed the last fighter for the hit game Super Smash Bros. The crossover franchise of popular video game characters, fighting for glory ends its update cycle of paid downloadable characters, which it has received for the past three years.

The character revealed was Sora from the “Kingdom Hearts” series, a franchise by Square Enix known for being a role-playing game that features characters from Disney. It was unclear how likely the character’s chances were for an addition. It was revealed however, that he won the “Super Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot” held back in 2015. This was a poll for fans to request fighters for Super Smash Bros. that they wanted to see in the brawl. While director Masahiro Sakurai thought the likelihood of Sora actually being in the game was incredibly low, a chance encounter with a Disney executive managed to seal the deal.

Sora himself mainly pulls material in his include some of his abilities from his first entry, the original “Kingdom Hearts” for the PlayStation2. He does reference later entries in his outfits and additional content. His stage, Hollow Bastion, is based on the area of the same name from his home series, but has a gimmick that changes the background to “Dive into the Heart”, an area in the series used to represent one’s heart. He released Oct. 18, 2021 for individual purchase at a $5.99 price, or those who bought the “Fighter Pass 2” bundle ahead of time, which includes Sora and five other additional characters (Min Min from “ARMS”, Steve from “Minecraft”, Sephiroth from “FINAL FANTASY”, Pyra and Mythra from “Xenoblade Chronicles”, and Kazuya from “Tekken”), will get him the moment he’s released.

Due to his status as a highly-requested character, websites such as Twitter were trending with posts about him days ahead to his reveal, from people hoping that it would be him. The reveal then became one of the most viewed Super Smash Bros. related videos to ever release, currently sitting at a solid 4.4 million views, as well as hundreds of pieces of fanart. After the said reveal, another twitter hashtag started to dedicate to thanking the director of Super Smash Bros, Masahiro Sakurai, for all the hard work put in the game.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate continues to be a best-seller on Nintendo platforms, being both a go-to party game for family, and a highly competitive game for eSports. It’s available now for $60, or you can go to the Gaming Club on campus in T11 on Wednesdays and Fridays after school. Students have stated to be satisfied with the new release: since the regular attendees have the aforementioned “Fighter Pass 2”, a few matches have been held in honor of his inclusion.