Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Mario Kart 8 are about a full 3 months apart from one another which means as a Wii U owner you probably haven’t had a whole lot to do lately. Nintendo is here today to salve that wound and remind you that good news is coming in the form of Super Smash Bros. Said news was released today in a 40 minute Nintendo Direct dedicated entirely to Smash Bros. Here are some of the choicest bits of news to come out of the announcement:
- The Wii U and 3DS versions will have split release dates. The 3DS version will be launching this summer while the Wii U edition is slated for the coming winter.
- The 3DS version should “mostly” run at 60 FPS even with 3D turned on.
- The fighter lineup for both editions will be identical but there will be a number of differences when it comes to stages.
- It’s teased that the two platforms will have some form of connectivity but it looks like we’ll be waiting until later for more details on that one.
- Both the Wii U and 3DS editions will allow online play both with friends or with strangers.
- Online play is no longer anonymous and instead you’ll be represented by your Nintendo Network ID.
- Before playing online with strangers you can choose to play “For Fun” or “For Glory”.
- Playing “For Fun” will select a random stage and also enable all items. This mode will record and track your wins but not your losses.
- Electing to play “For Glory” ensures that you play on a version of “Final Destination” with all items disabled and will also record both your success and failure.
- The games will usher in a psuedo-ranking system called Global Smash Power.
- But c’mon, what you’re really interested in is new characters, right? Well we got a couple of announced returning fighters as well as some entirely new ones.
- The first big change in the roster, is that characters who used to morph like Samus/Zero Suit and Zelda/Sheik will now be split into separate characters entirely.
- Yoshi is (unsurprisingly) confirmed to return.
- Greninja from Pokemon X/Y will be playable.
- Charizard is being split off from his trio of Pokemon in Brawl and will now be his own full character.
There’s plenty more to check out including new items and Pokemon which you can check out by watching the full presentation below.
