Welcome to the Saturday Smash-Up, a weekly recap of all of the new and exciting information from the week in Smash Pics of the Day. What am I talking about? Well, here’s a primer: Since the announcement of Super Smash Brothers for Wii U and Super Smash Brothers for 3DS back at E3 2013, project director Masahiro Sakurai has been posting daily updates on SmashBros.com, just as he did with Super Smash Brothers Brawl during its development cycle. The update is just a screenshot from one of the two versions, but Sakurai provides a small description of the screen on the Super Smash Bros Director’s Room Miiverse page. Sometimes we see the announcement of a character (most recently with Lucario on January 31), other times it’s just a goofy pose. Check back here every week for a week’s worth of Smash updates, Sakurai musings, and Fanelli reaction.
This week is a Bill Cosby special, as the first three pictures all center around POKEYMAN! With the Lucario reveal last Friday, Sakurai took two days highlighting the Aura Pokemon’s moves before moving on to other Poke-things on Wednesday, then finishing the week with a look at his brain. Here’s the week in pictures!
Monday, February 3rd, 2014
Sakurai: “Pic of the day. A size comparison of Lucario’s standard special attack, Aura Sphere, in its weakest and strongest states. The attack is faster and more powerful when the Aura Sphere is bigger.“
Editor’s Thoughts: That fully powered Aura Sphere is friggin’ huge…but I bet it’ll STILL fit into Villager’s pocket. Seriously, a fully-charged Lucario looks like he’ll be more potent than he was in Brawl, making the reward part of the “high risk/high reward” more alluring. I sure hope that’s the case.
Tuesday, February 4th, 2014
Sakurai: “Pic of the day. When Lucario shoots out Aura from its hands to fly with ExtremeSpeed, you can control its flight direction. If Lucario’s Aura is fully charged, it can fly extremely far, so be careful not to accidentally launch out of the area.“
Editor’s Thoughts: This is an interesting detriment to the fully-charged Aura Pokemon. Just how out-of-control will a fully-charged ExtremeSpeed be? Will he jump from one side of the stage to the other? I’d need to see it in action before I cast judgment.
Wednesday, February 5th, 2014
Sakurai: “Pic of the day. Palkia appeared in the Spear Pillar stage of the previous game…but now it’s coming out of a Poké Ball?! Here’s Palkia’s signature move, Spacial Rend!“
Editor’s Thoughts: Well, I guess we can cross Spear Piller off the list of “Possible Returning Brawl Stages.” I’m totally cool with more Legendaries at play in the Poke Ball item, as it’s better them than weird Pokemon like Garbodor. I don’t want to see that trash pile in my Smash game.
Thursday, February 6th, 2014
Sakurai: “Pic of the day. It is said that the cosmos is beneath Rosalina’s gown. This was actually featured briefly in her debut video.“
Editor’s Thoughts: Heh heh…”cosmos beneath Rosalina’s gown.” Super Mario Galaxy suddenly makes MUCH more sense. Anyhow, this move hits multiple times as shown in the video, so I’d expect it to be a big part of her aerial offense.
Friday, February 7th, 2014
Sakurai: “Pic of the day. Housed within the Control Capsule! Protected by Rinkas! Eyeball armed with a Laser Brain Attack!! The massive Assist Trophy Mother Brain joins the collection!!“
Editor’s Thoughts: Holy crap, Mother Brain! Straight out of Super Metroid! When I first saw the pic, I thought (hoped?) Brain would be a stage hazard, freeing up Ridley for a prime roster spot, but Assist Trophy makes a whole lot more sense (and Ridley will probably still be left out).
Another interesting, if uneventful, week of Smash updates. Nothing groundbreaking, but not every week can deliver something insane, or else there’d be nothing left to talk about at launch. However, I do think we’re getting a character next week, Thursday specifically. Why? In the past, Sakurai has shown a pattern of revealing veteran characters on days where a relevant game is coming out in Japan. Dedede, for example, was revealed the same day Kirby: Triple Deluxe launched over there, as was Zelda on Link Between Worlds day and Toon Link on Wind Waker HD day. This coming Thursday, February 13th, is the Japanese launch of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. It’s not a stretch then to expect Diddy Kong’s banana-throwin’, peanut pop-gunnin’ face to show up on the Smash site Thursday morning. Unless Sakurai wants to throw a curveball and reveal a newcomer like Dixie Kong…but we aren’t seeing any newcomers outside of Nintendo Direct trailers. Speaking of which, we’re long overdue, where the hell is the first Direct of 2014?
That’s all for now, but before we go, it’s time for the Song of the Week! At the end of every week, I’m going to post a Nintendo tune that I’d like to see make it into either version of Smash (especially if My Music returns, WHICH IT SHOULD). I’ll take requests for songs on the GamerNode Twitter page or on my personal one (remember the #SaturdaySmashUp hashtag!), so let’s jam to some sweet music every Saturday.
With all the Pokemon going on, I figured I should choose a good Pokemon track that I’d like to fight to. Since most of my favorites are already represented (including the excellent Pokemon Center remix in Brawl), I’m going to go with a song from the original Pokemon games, Red and Blue. We’ve all heard it a ton, especially if we wanted to get around Kanto faster. I give you…the bike riding song. Good luck getting it out of your head after you listen to it.
Until next week, Smashers!
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