UPDATED CHARACTERS:So finally, we’re down to the good shit: Characters! Sakurai split this into two sections: Changes to existing characters and further details about the New Comers. Before getting into anything really he started off by saying there will no longer be mid battle transformations (with exception to a few Final Smashes). So for example Zelda and Sheik are they’re standalone character now. Zero Suit Samus and (spoiler) Charizard are their standalone characters as well.
Zelda:Her Down Special, which used to be her Sheik transformation has be changed to “Phantom Slash.” Basically Zelda summons a large Knight which charges forward and swings his sword upward. The Phantom runs for a good distance before stopping and then using the sword, about 5 or 6 character lengths. The Phantom can be deflected and even destroyed with a powerful enough attack. It wasn’t really clear from the video how the Phantom Slash would behave in the air. Not mentioned in the Nintendo Direct was that her Side Special, Din's Fire, will now become more powerful as it gets further away from Zelda.
Sheik:Sheik’s down special has been replaced with a “Burst Grenade.” It seems to behave like Peach’s turnip but it appeared to only be thrown for a short distance. It very well maybe thrown a normal distance but the in the footage it wasn’t obvious. She can now perform a jumping kick a kin to Zero Suit Samus’ down special in Brawl. Only it seems to have more of a vertical climb to it. Sakurai even demonstrated that it can be used as a recovery. It might actually be a replacement to Sheik’s old recovery move, but Sakurai wasn’t specific if it was a indeed a replacement or her Down Special in the air.
Kirby:Kirby’s hammer attack will now function basically the same as King Dedede’s charging hammer attack (Down Special if I recall). Kirby raises his hammer above his head in preparation to attack. The longer he charges the more powerful the attack. If he continues to hold it out past the hammer’s maximum charge it will begin to damage Kirby over time.
King Dedede:Sakurai was very brief with Dedede, stating that he’ll have more personally, whatever that means. His Side B attack will now only throw those spiky things and not the little Waddle Dees. The throwing distance has been shortened.
Lucario:There’s a greater emphasis placed on charging his Aura this time around. His attacks will be even more powerful with Aura charged up. Sakurai showed how fully charging Lucario’s Aura can be a bad thing too with a clip of Lucario trying to use his recovery and over shooting the small stage entirely and dying. Lucario can now Mega Evolve into Mega Lucario as well. Mega Lucario attacks as if his Aura is fully charged. While Sakurai did not state how he evolves in-game but my guess is that it’s his new Final Smash.
Olimar:Olimar can now only have three Pikmin out at the same time. There is a fixed order to when they are pulled up: red, yellow, blue, white, purple. It was stated this was done to reduce clutter and make it easier to identify which one will be used next. It also makes players less likely to spam them all over the place. What about the new Pikmin from Pikmin 3? Olimar’s recovery move has been updated to reflect that. Two flying Pikmin attach themselves to Olimar’s back enabling him to fly in a similar way that ROB the Robot's recovery does. Having more Pikmin out makes the recovery less effective because of the added weight.
Pit:Pit can no longer glide (thankfully). They changed his Side Special to this long range upper cut attack similar to Captain Falcon’s. Pit's Down Special has been changed as well: shields now appear on either side on him as he preforms this reflecting move.
Yoshi:Yoshi now stands upright. Sakurai stated they made the change to reflect the modern stylings of the character. Another aesthetic change is that his Up Special egg throw now has a cute rainbow trailing behind it.
Mario:It wasn’t stated out right but there was footage with Mario wearing and using F.L.U.D.D. later on in the presentation. :'(
Pikachu:In the Nintendo Direct there was no mention of Pikachu at all. Just a few days before it went live however there was a small change revealed in one of Sakurai’s daily update, so I thought it was worth mentioning. The thundercloud created from Pikachu’s Down Special, Thunder, now acts as a spike (or meteor smash as Sakurai calls it). So if an enemy touches the cloud just before the lightning actually comes down they will lunched downward.
Luigi:Another recent non-Nintendo Direct update. Luigi’s final smash has been changed to his vacuum from Luigi’s Mansion. All that was released was a still image with him wearing it so it was unclear exactly how he’ll use it though.
New Characters detailed:Rosalina & Luma:She’s an interesting character with the ability to send (and bring back) Luma out and do her biding while she can go off and do her own tasks. Both characters have different movesets and appear to be able to attack at the same time and independently at the discretion of the player. It is not 100 percent clear how this is done. It’ll be fascinating to see out it all works once we get our hands on the game.
Luma’s Side Special is Star Bits! It shoots out a small barrage of 3 or 4 Star Bits at about 3 or 4 character lengths. Rosalina’s Down Special is Gravitational Pull which allows her to pull in all nearby items. The range was is quite impressive. In the example items were drawn to her from all the way across Battlefield. Gravitational Pull can also be used to circumvent incoming projectiles. In their example water coming from Mario’s F.L.U.D.D. was redirected up and over Rosalina. Her recovery Up Special appears to be a standard drilling like attack that can be directed but the player. Her Final Smash, titled Power Star, creates a large star above Rosalina that shoots out small power stars in almost every direction at random. Those star projectiles also ricochet off surfaces.
Little Mac:With a short jump height, weak aerial attacks and poor recovery Mac needs to stay on the ground to remain competitive. With that said he runs very fast and his ground attacks are incredibly powerful. Some of his attacks even allow him to not flinch when getting hit. Another unique feature to Mac is that he has a Power Meter that appears above his damage counter. As Mac lands hits and takes hits the meter fills up. Once full it will allow him to perform a one-hit-OK forward Smash Attack, with an impressive reach that rivals Falcon Kick. Looks kind of over powered if you ask me but I guess we see upon the games release. Little Mac also has a newly revealed Wire-frame costume. It draws reference to the original Punch-Out!! Arcade game. His Down Special has been revealed to be a counter. He fakes getting hit from the enemies attack and then comes in with a sharp jab. His Up Special, Rising Uppercut, doesn’t make for a good recovery with its limited vehicle climb but it is a strong drilling attack. Mac’s Side Special is a leaping punch attack. It appears to be similar to attacks like Capt. Falcon’s Side Special, only it’s a downward punch. His Final Smash is Giga Mac. He basically grows into a huge apish version of himself.
Animal Crossing Villager:Other than his Final Smash nothing shown was really new information but the footage did further detail some of his attacks. It’s neutral B attack is Pocket. Any kind of projectile can be caught and saved for later. At any point after you can hit B again to discharge what you’re holding. Pretty sweet! His Up Special recovery is strangely enough Balloon Fight. The two classic red balloons attach to his head and create lift. He’s able to flap his hands to get more lift. The footage was very reminiscent to how R.O.B.’s controlled flight recovery. There is one drawback to it however. Other players are able to pop the balloons. Once they’re gone Villager starts falling. It was unclear if Villager can attack out of this recovery or not. Villagers Side Special is Lloyd Rocket. He can either launch the rocket as normal projectile or he can hop onto it for a ride. It was clear how this is to be preformed. Villagers Down Special is Timber, which allows him to plant a sapling that rapidly grows into a full sized tree. The tree can be used as a barrier to block player movement and shots. Villager can use his ax to cut down the tree. The falling tree deals heavy damage to players in the way. The tree tumbles and rolls forward slightly allowing it to even fall off platforms. Sounds like a nice edge guarding tactic! It still has been revealed if you can have more than one tree up at a time however. The Animal Crossing Villager’s Final Smash as been revealed to be called Dream House. The whole Nook family comes out and constructs a small house in a few seconds. Upon completion it violently explodes.
Megaman:Pretty much all of Megaman’s attacks were outlined in his original announcement trailer. In this Nintendo Direct they showed how his moveset is mapped to the controller.
Tilt Down is sliding, its pretty much as it appears in Megaman 3.
Dash attack is Top Spin. He raises both arms into the air and spins around slapping anything in his way.
Special Up is Mega Uppercut. It can be used as a recovery. It does seem to be anyway to change its direction. It also seemed to have a climb and horizontal travel similar to Mario’s recovery move.
Side Smash Attack is Charge Shot. Doesn’t seem that he can store it for later.
Megaman’s Smash Up is Spark Shock. He raises two large spikes above his head and whatever touches it gets damaged.
His Down Smash, Flame Blast, appears to be almost exactly like Squirtle’s Up Smash from Brawl, but instead of water its fire: Two pillars of fire rise out of the ground on either side of Megaman.
His Side Special, Crash Bomber, shoots out a small explosive that sticks to the target for a few moments before blowing up.
Megaman’s Up Special recovery is Rush Coil. His dog Rush appears and causes him top bounce up into the air. Rush remains on the ground for a few moments after allowing Megaman to fall back and bounce of him again if he so chooses. The second bounce lunches the player much higher.
Leaf Shield is his Down Special. Megaman creates three or four leaves that circle around him. The leaves will block shots and when the user decides they don’t want them anymore they can discharge them as one large projectile. It was unclear from the presentation who the player chooses to either keep or launch the leaves.
Up Air is Air Shooter. Megaman launches a small tornado upwards. It can be used to push opponents off screen.
Down Air is a spike or Meteor Smash as Nintendo calls it.
At the end Sakurai revealed Megaman’s Final Smash. Megaman summons a bunch of reincarnation of himself to release a huge charge shot created from them all.
Wii Fit Trainer:Most of the Trainers moves have already been shown off so this time around Sakurai focused on her special moves. Some of her moves are based off traditional yoga positions. Trainer’s Down Special, Deep Breathing, causes her to stand still momentary and meditate. By charging up her… breath I guess, her attacks become more powerful. There was no indication if this affects all of her attacks or if she can lose the charge. The second and final move revealed was Sun Salutation, which is her natural B attack. It operates pretty much like Samus charge shot. She can charge up and store a Sun Salutation and release it later. The energy ball is quite large and moves at a modest speed. At the end of Wii Fit Trainer’s presentation Sakurai pointed point that there is a Male model that you can play as too. The male plays identical to the female model.
Two New Character Reveals:After the character rundown the main presentation concluded a new reveal trailer was played. The trailer depicted New Challenger Charizard and Mario about to start a battle when suddenly a spinning blade of water flies between the two combatants.
Greninja:The projectile was shot by none other than Greninja. He’s the final evaluation to Pokemon X/Y’s water type starter. In the game Greninja is a Water and Dark type. If you haven’t seen it before imagine a long and slender humanoid frog crouching over in a ninja like stance. His long and thick tongue is wrapped around his neck like a scarf. It sounds dumb but it hardly looks like a tongue can actually kind of looks cool ones you forget it’s a tongue. At the tail end of the trailer there was a few tidbits of actually in-game footage. Greninja is fast and agile in a Sheik like away, darting around gracefully through the air. He attacks with blades of water that he creates with his hands. Greninja can also throw them out as projectiles in a boomerang similar to a boomerang. He also employs a PokeDoll counter attack. When Greninja gets hit his image is simultaneously replaced with a PokeDoll. A few frames later Greninja reappears and slices through his opponent. Unlike other counter attacks there wasn't any indication that his counter stance was active.
Charizard:The in-game footage of Charizard and Greninja was brief so I guess we’ll have to speculate for a while on how they will behave and control. What we saw from Charizard was extremely minimal. My guess is that he’ll remain same as in Brawl because they didn't touch really at. There was one shot of Mega Charizard Y but it was unstated what Mega Charizard’s role will be. Probably his Final Smash or something.
Custom Attacks:It was almost a side note but the looks like in local multiplayer (only) there will be some method of modifying characters attacks. One example that was shown was how Mario’s fireball could either be large and slow or small and fast. There was also footage of Kirby using his breath to freeze a nearby enemy. Sakurai went on to say that there will be more on this topic in the future.
