This article is part of our Smash Bros series.
That sound you heard last Thursday afternoon around 2:30 PT was the sound of the entire Super Smash Bros. community screaming their heads off at the announcement that the next installment of the series was coming to the Nintendo Switch THIS YEAR. I yelled so loud, in fact, that my wife thought that I had just won a game of Fornite since usually that's the only time I yell loud enough for her to hear me from downstairs. But no, this was the yell of jubilation as the release of the next big thing for the Switch.
Before we go any further, let's just watch the announcement trailer again.
The manipulation was so great. After having just shown off the new single-player DLC for Splatoon 2, Nintendo opens the trailer with two Inklings battling it out. We all let out a collective sigh as we assumed there'd be nothing hype to end this Nintendo Direct. 30 seconds into the trailer, however, the lights dimmed. Everyone held their breath as this happened.
Yep, that's a burning Smash logo in the Inkling's eye. With one single frame, the entire Smash community was sent into a frenzy. It didn't stop there, however. They then proceeded to give us a look at the silhouettes of the entire roster, with a special close up of Mario and Link. And this wasn't just any Link, mind you. This was a version of Link from the latest Legend of Zelda game, Breath of Wild, which means new sets of moves and more for us to speculate and clamor over.
Before we can even think about the characters and moves, however, there's a bigger question that needs to be addressed.
Is this a new Smash or a port of Smash 4?
Given Nintendo's penchant for taking awhile to release certain big titles (looking at you BotW and your 2015 original release date that turned into a 2017 launch title for the Switch), it's perhaps not too surprising that some people are skeptical that this is a brand-new Smash title coming within two years of the Switch's release. When you step back and look at things from a wide-angle, however, it becomes pretty clear, in my opinion, that this is in fact a brand-new Smash title.
First, and perhaps the most telling, centers around how Nintendo had dealt with Switch ports of Wii U games. In short, they have been very deliberate about differentiating between ports and new games. There's Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Pokken Tournament DX, to name a few. Notice the qualifiers at the end of each of those games. They didn't just simply carry the same name, but had something like "Definitive" or "Deluxe" to show that it was simply an enhanced version of the Wii U version. While there have been other non-Nintendo developed ports that don't carry that distinction, Nintendo has made sure to make a clear distinction with their first-party games.
Now flashback to that amazing trailer above. "Super Smash Bros." reads the title for this new game. No qualifiers of any kind.
That is, of course, assuming Nintendo purposely neglected to use a qualifier in its first hype video in order to build suspense and intrigue. But at some point, there has to be a level of trust built into an announcement, right?
It's that trust that makes me feel like it would incredibly odd for Nintendo to just buck that tradition for no reason with this announcement. Doing so could very well undo a lot of the hype that people have for this game since fans could feel intentionally misled by the announcement. Thus, we should feel fairly safe that this is a brand-new offering.
Next up, we've got word from the longtime director of the Super Smash Bros. franchise, Masahiro Sakurai. Right after the trailer dropped, he tweeted about his involvement with the game. While the tweet was in Japanese, we've got a translation of it from Source Gaming.
We went back and re-translated this:Right now we're just at the stage where we revealed this game, but I've been working on this game in silence day after day. Please wait until we can release more information, or until release day!This is a more accurate translation.
— Source Gaming (@AllSourceGaming) March 9, 2018
Couple things here - the fact that Sakurai has been directly involved with the game points to this being more than just a port. If they were simply just updating the engine slightly to bring it to the Switch, why would his presence be needed? In that case, the fundamentals of the game would be staying completely in tact. Such heavy involvement from Sakurai again gives the feeling that this is more than just a lowly port.
In addition to his simple involvement, it's worth looking at the trailer itself as a whole when compared to the trailers of the ports I mentioned above. Looking at each of these trailers, we see actual gameplay footage of each one. This makes sense due to the fact that nothing "new" is being created, making it easier to bring footage to the table. Things are a bit different in this case.
Again we flashback to the amazing Smash trailer above. You know what, I'll put it in again just so everyone can bask in its glory once more.
Notice anything missing from that trailer? Actual gameplay footage. That trailer was an industry standard of giving us something to salivate over without providing anything substantial about the game itself. If Nintendo had something to show, they surely would have shown us, right?
And there you have it. My (totally foolproof and 100% true, don't @ me) rundown of why we will be getting our hands on a brand-new Super Smash Bros. entry by year's end.
