Nast

I don't think it's been heard in-game but it was one of a couple Smash Bros. songs played in the intermissions during Treehouse Live at E3, so it's safe to assume it'll be in the game. And yeah it's the Brawl version.

Pretty cool but yikes, epilepsy warning on that first video at 2:11!

The Stages and Items pages are now open on the website: https://www.smashbros.com/en_US/stage/index.html https://www.smashbros.com/en_US/item/index.html Seems like some returning stages have been renamed to avoid repeated names - i.e. Yoshi's Island (64 version) is renamed to "Super Happy Tree". This was a great opportunity to rename Mushroom Kingdom II to Subcon, but oh well...

Actually Chrom seems like a pretty unique case since he's borrowing moves from Marth, Ike and even Roy from what I've seen.

Damn, I wasn't expecting a dedicated direct this soon! I'm willing to bet that it will be mostly focused on modes (fingers crossed for a new Adventure Mode) plus a character reveal at the end.

The last gif doesn't seem to be working. Either way this is looking pretty rad. Looking forward to trying it out!

I don't think it's about special treatment, it's just that Shadow is more popular and has actually been decently requested compared to any of those other characters. I doubt there's a large demand for Jeanne or Raiden. Personally the only other third-party echo I could seriously see is X over Mega Man, although I'm not familiar enough with the series to say if that even makes sense.

The recent post on TSS prompted me to write some thoughts on Shadow. I do think Shadow has a good shot at being playable in this game, but being a full-on clone of Sonic is the only chance he has. I get that he has different abilities than Sonic and that making him exactly the same wouldn't be true to the character, but the same could be said for Dark Pit, Lucina, and arguably Daisy. Making Shadow a semi-clone (as in giving him some completely new moves) would defeat the purpose of the whole Echo Fighter concept, which is to add a few new, decently popular characters while using as little development time as possible. The dev time they would spend making these characters unique would be better spent on more interesting and justifiably unique newcomers. If anything, I could see them giving Shadow some stat differences from Sonic. Maybe he would have slightly less speed and weaker recovery, but more damage and knockback on his attacks, akin to Dr. Mario. I also think it'd be fair to expect some minor animation and effect changes (skating instead of running, energy effects on some of his moves, etc). On another note, the TSS post mentioned this widespread assumption that "there can’t be more than one playable Sonic character in Smash". I won't deny that it isn't an established rule, but I do think there's some sense to it. After all, Sonic is already in the game, and any side character they could add, even one as popular as Shadow, would never elicit the same kind of response as the main star of the franchise. Most of the Sonic fans you could bring in to Smash were already grabbed when Sonic was added, and Shadow would bring in a couple more. This applies to any other third-party series in Smash, too. Wouldn't it make more sense instead to secure any of the remaining third-party giants like Simon Belmont, Crash Bandicoot, even Bomberman were he not already deconfirmed, and bring in an entirely new fanbase, thus ensuring more sales? I dunno.

All I want is a Rhythm Heaven character. Please.

Some screenshots and renders have been released. Among them is this render of Riku with his new design: ...that's not a Keyblade, is it?

Fixed that for you