Did you know that tomorrow, it will have been four years since the March 2018 Direct, and thus four years since Smash Ultimate was first teased?
Here's a look back at a roster I made back when it was first announced:
Basically everyone from Smash 4, plus these newcomers:
- Dixie Kong
- Ridley
- Excitebiker
- Takamaru
- New Pokemon of some kind
- Rex & Pyra
- Chorus Kids
- Inkling
- Spring Man
- Dragon Quest character of some kind (just used Slime as a placeholder FYI).
+ Wolf and Ice Climbers as returning vets. Also Link, Zelda and Samus revamped to reflect BOTW and Samus Returns, respectively. All for a total of 70 characters. In comparison, Ultimate ended up with 76 characters, counting echo fighters.
Basically I assumed we were just in for Smash 4 2.0, focusing on contemporary/relevant characters plus the oddball Sakurai surprise/retro pick like Takamaru and Excitebiker. I actually originally had Monster Hunter penciled in here, but then I saw all the rumors regarding Ridley at the time (he was a
very poorly kept secret) and thus I began expecting him, so I axed MH in his favour to save space.
Interesting to see some of this come to fruition in some form: besides Inkling (already announced obv), we did get a new Pokemon in the form of Incineroar, the Ridley rumors came to fruition, and we did eventually get a Dragon Quest character, but as DLC. Likewise we also eventually got Pyra (and Mythra) but no Rex.