Home > King K. Rool and Simon Belmont Revealed for Smash Ultimate
During today's Super Smash Bros. Ultimate direct, two new original playable fighters were revealed. Long time hopeful and Donkey Kong villian King K. Rool is joining the battle. In addition, Simon Belmont from Castlevania is also playable as a third party rep. Both these new fighters have been long anticipated fan favorites, so it's incredible to see them finally coming to Smash, especially after such a dramatic reveal.
Three new echo fighters were also revealed: Richter Belmont (echo of Simon), Chrom (echo of Roy), and Dark Samus (echo of Samus). All three of these characters will share very similar movesets to the character they are cloning with mostly visual differences. As a handy option to clean up the clutter on the fighter screen, echo fighters can also be displayed as alternates for their cloned characters.
In addition to playable fighters, a few new stages were revealed. New Donk City Hall from Super Mario Odyssey and Dracula's Castle from Castlevania were headlined. A Monster Hunter stage was also briefly teased. The total number of stages, which will all be playable from the start, is 103. This doesn't include the Omega, Battlefield, and lack of stage hazard options that dramatically increase the number of possibilities.
For even more stage permutations, a new feature that allows stages to transform into another stage of your choosing mid-battle was shown off. You'll be able to pick two stages from the beginning (or choose random) and after a certain amount of time the stage will fluidly transform into another.
The number of music tracks in Smash 4 was impressive, but Smash Ultimate is kicking it up a notch. Over 900 tracks are included in the game, for a total of over 28 hours of music. There's a handy music manager that allows you to customize which songs play on which stage. You'll also be able to create playlists of songs that can be played at any time, even when the Switch is in sleep mode.
Some cool new items including a Banana Gun, Death's Scythe, Killing Edge, Bomber, Staff, Ramblin' Evil Mushroom, and the Rage Blaster. The detailed use of these items can be seen in the full direct. These are of course in addition to most items from previous Smash games that will be returning in Ultimate.
New Assist Trophies include Shovel Knight, Knuckles (Sonic the Hedgehog), Krystal (Star Fox), Rathalos (Monster Hunter), Zero (Mega Man), and the Moon (Majora's Mask). A new option allows nerfed versions of final smashes be charged and used on command as well.
New game modes include Classic Mode, Stamina Battle, Squad Strike (Crews), Tournament Mode, Training, and Smashdown (Iron Man). There's a new training mode exclusive stage that shows knockback trajectories and has a rule in the background for measuring distances.
The direct was packed with a ton of new information, almost all of which is worth getting excited about. With nearly all the newcomers fans have been asking for, an incredible number of stages and music, and a bunch of new competitive and casual features, it seems like this really is the ultimate Smash Bros. game.
As always, stay tuned for further coverage of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which launches exclusively for Nintendo Switch on December 7. You can check out the direct in full below.
About the Author:
Rial Johnson
Rial Johnson founded Nintendo Castle in 2011 with hopes to build the largest collection of Nintendo walkthroughs, guides, and content on the web. He is an avid gamer with a special place in his heart for Nintendo, but often finds himself writing about games more than actually playing them. You'll likely see him around Nintendo Castle and on social media, mostly managing the front-end content of the site.
