Super Smash Bros. Roster Outlook – Part 1

While the information on the new Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U and 3DS trickles in, we already know a large portion of the roster. With 21 characters revealed at this point, we’ve decided to split this feature into four parts and cover what we know about each character as we inch closer to the release of the new Smash Bros. game.

Bowser

The most notable change about the King Koopa is that he has a new standing animation. No longer is he hunched over, instead he stands almost fully upright making him considerably taller. To add to his new look, he now has the ability to run. This makes him far more mobile and has almost every competitive Bowser player jumping for joy.

Taking a look at his attacks, he seems to have retained most of his attacks and special moves from Brawl. He has a new Forward Smash, which is basically a drop kick. His new dash attack covers a decent amount of range and definitely adds to his newfound mobility. He also has a new aerial spinning attack which could be a great air to air depending on the hit box and how much priority it has. We haven’t seen the attack hit, so it’s hard to say at this point, but new moves are always welcome.

Donkey Kong

Mario’s classic nemesis returns for his third adventure with the Smash Bros. crew. Taking a look at what we know of his move set, he retains his up special attack spin move, with what looks like a slightly tilted hit box when performed on the ground. It’s hard to tell if this indicates a bigger hit box overall, or just a tilted hit box, but at the very least, the aerial version of the attack remains unchanged.

DK also keeps his classic throw that allows him to grab the opponent and walk around with them. In general, he has retained a lot of attacks from Brawl, with only minor adjustments to his speed. However, considering the overall speed of the game is faster than Brawl, and Bowser, another heavyweight is faster and more agile, it looks like DK is getting a similar speed adjustment.

Fox

When it comes to Fox McCloud, the competitive viewpoint is quite a bit different when compared to the casual perspective. For the casual crowd, Fox hasn’t changed much since the Smash 64 days. However, if we take a closer look we can see that Fox was a force to be reckoned with in Melee, but lost a bit of his prowess in Brawl, partially due to system wide changes.

In the new Smash game, Fox seems to have retained his entire Brawl move set for the most part. We can assume that he’ll see something new, but the hope that he may return to his Melee dominance seems to be fading quickly. That doesn’t mean Fox won’t be a force in the new Smash, it just means that some of his shenanigans from Melee won’t be carried over into the new game.

King Dedede

We haven’t seen much of the King since he was recently announced. However, what we do know is that he retains at least some of his Brawl attacks. We’ve seen that his up special and chargeable down special are making a return, alongside his neutral air attack.

While we don’t have much information, we can look at some other general info about the game and speculate about Dedede. In Brawl, the King is a heavyweight, similar to Bowser. We’ve seen that Bowser has been made faster and even has a dash now. Couple this with the fact that the overall speed of the game will fall somewhere between Brawl and Melee, and It’s not out of the question to assume that Dedede will receive similar treatment, getting a speed boost and becoming more mobile.

Kirby

The little pink vacuum returns to the Smash Bros. series with his third straight appearance. As with many of the other original characters, Kirby has retained many of his classic attacks. His down special has a new form, but it’s safe to assume that it still has the same function, and probably has multiple forms just like it did in every other game.

So far everything that we’ve seen from Kirby suggests that not much has changed for the little guy. However, it’s a safe bet that he has at least a few new tricks up his sleeve that we have yet to see. We’ll have to wait until the next round of media or possibly E3 until we can find out more about Kirby’s possible changes. As it stands, this doesn’t look great from the competitive side of things as Kirby was never known as a powerhouse in the scene, but perhaps he’ll learn a few things from Meta Knight and jump up in the tier list.