[COLUMN ] I Really Miss Nintendo’s Smash Bros. Character Reveals | by Marty Sliva

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate released six years ago this week, on December 7th, 2018. From unanimous praise at launch to years of DLC fighters, it reached a kind of rarefied atmosphere that few games dream of. It passed Street Fighter 2 years ago to become the best-selling fighting game ever, now sitting at over 35 million units as of September 2024, which feels like a record that may never be broken.

I personally have no doubt that Nintendo is working on a follow-up for the Switch’s successor, especially given that its creator Masahiro Sakurai recently wrapped up his incredible game design YouTube series (check out this episode on the Dragon King prototype that would eventually become Smash), and announced that he’s been working on a new project for the past few years.

Along with being a remarkable platform fighter, the Smash franchise has evolved into a true celebration of not just Nintendo, but gaming history as a whole. The only thing that really comes close is what we saw with Astro Bot’s trip down PlayStation memory lane. But this piece isn’t really about Smash Ultimate, or even the possible future of the franchise. Instead, I wanted to talk about an aspect of the series that I didn’t realize how much I appreciated until it was gone – the incredible hype that emanated from the expertly-crafted character reveal trailers.

Smash’s history runs parallel with that of the internet’s – the original N64 game launched as the web gained prominence, and each new installment felt like it came alongside a major step forward in the likes of daily news sites, social media, and YouTube. It feels like a franchise that grew up alongside the internet, culminating in viral videos of crowds going wild watching reveals at the Nintendo Store in New York City, or streamers losing their absolute minds when a personal favorite joined the roster.

But folks weren’t always reacting to these trailers live, and taking a look back at the franchise’s origins is a trip. I love the surreal commercial for the original Smash Bros. on Nintendo 64, which featured the characters represented in shitty mascot costumes beating the hell out of each other to the sound of “Happy Together” by The Turtles. As strange as it is, it kind of makes sense – there was no precedent in how to sell a game that saw Mario, Pikachu, and Yoshi just going to town, so you might as well dress some folks up in shoddy Times Square costumes and let them have at it.

The closest things to a “reveal” for this original game were the silhouettes of the four unlockable characters to sit alongside the core roster of eight. And while Ness was a nice surprise given how little Nintendo seemed to care about EarthBound after it commercially flopped upon release, it did point to the fact that there was no character too small or obscure to join the fray.

This is something that the developers would double down on when they revealed Smash Bros. Melee at E3 2001, and during a trailer that showed obvious newcomers like Peach, Bowser, and Zelda, we also got the reveal of Ice Climbers as additions to the roster. Truly the sky was the limit for who could join the fight, just so long as they were characters owned by Nintendo…right?

That last point was put to the test during the E3 2006 reveal of Smash Bros. Brawl, which showed off updates of familiar favorites like Mario and Link, along with some new challengers in Zero Suit Samus and Wario, the latter of whom farts out a mushroom cloud before we cut to the game’s logo (that’s a real thing that happened in the year of our lord 2006). All logic pointed to that being the end of the trailer, only for said logic to be tossed out the window when we heard the familiar chime of an incoming Codec call, revealing that Solid Snake was entering the mix.

For me, this is the ur moment of the modern Smash reveal trailer, and it pointed to a whole mess of possibilities for the future. The floodgates had opened, and no one was off the table from joining the roster. This was a character from an M-rated series, yet he fit perfectly alongside the likes of Fox and Link. And though Metal Gear games did appear on the NES, Game Boy, and GameCube, the modern iteration of the franchise was fully associated with PlayStation. Plus, the trailer itself does such a good job of mimicking the tone and visual stylings of the source material; something that would become commonplace in these reveals going forward.

We wouldn’t have to wait long for the next bombshell, as the unthinkable happened a few months later when Sonic the Hedgehog joined the crew. If Nintendo could bring Mario’s once-bitter rival into the family, then truly no character was off the table.

As the series pressed on into the Wii U and 3DS generation, the roster only grew more expansive. Strange first-party choices like the Animal Crossing Villager and Wii Fit Trainer were paired with industry icons like Mega Man and Pac Man. A glance at the character selection screen was a glimpse at video game history, spanning decades and consoles without any fear of the borders that once separated the companies that created these characters.

As Smash made its way to the Switch with Ultimate, a mission statement became abundantly clear with three words – Everyone Is Here. While previous entries would bench certain characters, Ultimate gathered every single fighter in the franchise’s history, along with a slew of newcomers. And of course, these reveals happened via killer trailers, with standouts like King K. Rool, Simon Belmont, and Ridley leading the pack. This extended into the game’s Fighter Pass DLC additions, which saw excellent reveal moments for folks like Joker, Minecraft Steve, and Sora, who was the final character to join the Ultimate roster.

Looking back at the long history of Smash, it’s wild to think that whenever there was a “white whale” of a character that seemed impossible to include on the roster, the team would eventually catch it. Maybe it took a few generations, and maybe fans lost hope now and then, but eventually we got a game that included Sonic, Cloud, Banjo, and Sora.

Smash trailers encapsulate why I still love watching events like The Game Awards or Nintendo Directs. There’s a sense of pomp and pageantry to the reveals that tap into a sense of childlike wonder that somehow still exists in my heart. In movies and TV, we generally find out about projects via a random press release from studios, or an early-morning report from Variety or Deadline. While that’s all well and good, wouldn’t you rather get your entertainment news via a video of Luigi getting literally killed by Death?

The trailers also helped create an entire online ecosystem of rumors, memes, and fake leaks, including the likes of Goku and my personal favorite, The Grinch. Yes, the internet genuinely convinced themselves that The Grinch would be joining the roster. Video games are great, and anyone who disagrees clearly hasn’t watched a Smash reveal trailer or two. And while it’s a bittersweet feeling to know that we won’t be seeing any new ones for quite some time, I can still rest easy with the hope that we finally get that big PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale 2 reveal next week at The Game Awards. Oh, and you didn’t hear it from me, but that The Grinch might be there.