Super Smash Bros. 4 Official Site
The official website for Super Smash Bros. 4 launched on June 11, 2013, shortly after the two games' E3 2013 trailer. Like its predecessors, Smabura-Ken and the Smash Bros. DOJO!!, it was periodically updated with information on the games, but unlike its predecessors, the information was shown mostly through pictures instead of text. For a short time after a character was revealed, their image links would have an "UPDATE" banner affixed.
The website gives information about all of the characters and shows videos and images in both Wii U and Nintendo 3DS versions. On the main page, there is a picture that was changed every weekday. This picture was the most recent "pic of the day", which was also posted by Masahiro Sakurai in the Miiverse community called the Director's Room, where he started providing captions and sometimes additional pictures starting July 2013.
Overview[edit]
The language selection offered by the site includes eight languages: English, Japanese, German, French, Italian and Spanish, like its predecessor Smash Bros. DOJO!!, in addition to the newly-added Portuguese, Dutch and Russian. For some languages, regional variations are available.
When a character was revealed, a banner under the daily photo that said "Warning! Challenger Approaching!" (a reference to the message that typically appears whenever unlockable characters are first encountered within a Super Smash Bros. game) was added. It remained there for a couple of days. The amount of time the banner stays up seemed to be dependent on how soon the next character would be revealed, though there was an approximate maximum and minimum timeframe.
Over time, the website was gradually fleshed out, later including Nintendo 3DS informational manuals about character movesets (Japanese version), as well as additional information regarding Pokémon, Assist Trophies, and music previews.
Character pages[edit]
Each character confirmed for Super Smash Bros. 4 has their own character page. These pages can be accessed by clicking on the picture displaying the fighter on the website's front page. Each character page contains the characters' official render within a frame displaying their name, and ten additional photos. These pictures will be a mixture of Wii U and 3DS screenshots—there are typically more from the Wii U—and the Wii U pictures always precede the 3DS pictures. The background color of the page changes according to character. When applicable, these character pages will sometimes link to a recent or then-upcoming Nintendo game featuring the character. On special characters, such as newcomers and third-party fighters, there would often be a bonus video or piece of artwork alongside the main character render.
Unlike the website's predecessors, the Smash Bros. DOJO!! and Smabura-Ken, there is no additional text on the page regarding the character, except for Ryu, whose page explains the system for his Street Fighter-style inputs.
Fighter Ballot[edit]
- Main article: Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot
On April 1, 2015, the website was updated to include a new section titled Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot. The purpose of this ballot was for regular players outside the development team to have an input on what characters should be released as DLC. Upon entering the site, the voter is given four tasks. The first is to identify their gender - male or female - then the character, their game of origin, and a brief explanation as to why the character should be included. This final section has a 500 character limit. Once every section is filled out, the voter presses the large confirm button, where the vote is submitted to a database. There is no limit to the amount of times a single person can vote, although only a single vote per person was considered valid and effected the results of the ballot.[1] This ballot was live until October 3, 2015, where it was closed and removed from the website. Around 1.8 million valid votes were then tallied, and a winner was decided.
During the Final Video Presentation on December 15, 2015, Bayonetta was declared as the winner of the ballot. She was the #1 choice in Europe and in the top 5 in North America. She was also the #1 choice among "realizable and negotiable" characters, which was the real deciding factor. Bayonetta was released as the final Smash 4 DLC fighter on February 3, 2016. The game was later datamined in June 2018, and the dataminers discovered evidence that parameters for Bayonetta were added to the game as early as version 1.0.6 on April 15, 2015, only two weeks after the ballot went live, despite not actually releasing until nearly ten months later with version 1.1.5.[2] This information suggests that Bayonetta had already been decided as a character before the ballot ended.
Masahiro Sakurai would later confirm that the results were used to determine new characters in future installments of the series. Several popular characters from the Fighter Ballot were introduced as fighters in Ultimate, such as Banjo & Kazooie, Ridley, King K. Rool, Simon, Richter, Chrom, and Dark Samus. The overall winner of the ballot was revealed to be Sora during Sakurai's Presentation for the character.[3][4][5]
History[edit]
| Event | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Website launch | June 11, 2013 | Same day as the E3 trailer. At this time, it had information on Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Kirby, Fox, Pikachu, Bowser, Pit, Villager, and Mega Man. |
| Reveal of the Wii Fit Trainer | June 11, 2013 | Accompanied with another trailer. It was also the first character reveal on the site. |
| Reveal of Olimar | July 12, 2013 | His reveal was one day before the release of Pikmin 3 in Japan. He was the first character revealed after the initial E3 2013 reveal of Smash 4. |
| Reveal of Luigi | August 7, 2013 | The reveal corresponded with a Nintendo Direct, as part of the "Year of Luigi". This is also notable in that this is the first time that a traditionally unlockable character was revealed on the site. |
| Reveal of Peach | September 12, 2013 | The reveal coincided with the anniversary of the original Super Mario Bros. |
| Reveal of Toon Link | September 26, 2013 | The reveal occurred on the release date of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD in Japan. |
| Reveal of Sonic | October 1, 2013 | The game's returning third-party character, Sonic was revealed during a Nintendo Direct, to celebrate the release of Sonic Lost World that month. |
| Reveal of Marth | November 7, 2013 | The first veteran revealed on a day not coinciding with a date or time frame pertinent to their home series. |
| Reveal of Rosalina | December 18, 2013 | Coinciding with a Nintendo Direct, Rosalina & Luma were the first newcomers to be revealed since the game and newcomers Villager, Mega Man, and Wii Fit Trainer were announced at E3 2013. |
| Reveal of Zelda | December 26, 2013 | The reveal occurred on the release date of The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds in Japan. |
| Reveal of King Dedede | January 10, 2014 | First new character revealed in 2014. The reveal occurred a day prior to the release of Kirby: Triple Deluxe in Japan. |
| Reveal of Lucario | January 31, 2014 | Lucario was revealed on the same day Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released in Japan six years earlier. |
| Reveal of Little Mac | February 13, 2014 | First newcomer revealed in 2014. Little Mac was revealed via a Nintendo Direct that day, his official Smash Bros. artwork is a reference to both the arcade Punch-Out!!, & Punch-Out!! for Wii, where Donkey Kong appeared as a hidden fighter. His connection to Donkey Kong is further referenced, as his reveal coincided with the release of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze in Japan. Furthermore, February is the anniversary month for the arcade Punch-Out!!. |
| Reveal of Diddy Kong | February 21, 2014 | His reveal coincided on the international release date of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. This was the first character reveal to coincide with an American/European release rather than a Japanese release. |
| Smash Bros. Direct | April 8, 2014 | Confirmed the return of Yoshi, Sheik, Zero Suit Samus, and Charizard. Greninja confirmed to appear as a newcomer. All of the "Original 8" characters were now revealed. |
| Reveal of Ike | May 23, 2014 | Confirmed the return of Ike. His reveal coincided with the anniversary of the North American release of Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. |
| E3 2014 | June 10, 2014 | Confirmed Palutena and Mii Fighter as playable characters. Pac-Man was confirmed at a Smash Bros. roundtable later that day. The site was also redesigned on this day. |
| Reveal of Captain Falcon, Lucina and Robin | July 14, 2014 | Confirmed the return of Captain Falcon. Also revealed Lucina and Robin as newcomers. This date was the same as the Japanese release date of F-Zero X. |
| Reveal of Meta Knight | August 13, 2014 | Confirmed the return of Meta Knight. Revealed exactly one month before the release of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS in Japan. The site also displayed some information about the 3DS version's modes stages and controls. |
| Reveal of Shulk | August 29, 2014 | Revealed via a Japan-only Nintendo Direct, coinciding with the announcement of Xenoblade Chronicles 3D. |
| International release of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS | October 3, 2014 | Ness, Falco, and Wario were officially revealed on the website; the first characters revealed since the game's launch. The site added a section for hidden characters, as well as re-arranging the fighters revealed before launch based on when they joined the series. |
| Reveal of Dr. Mario and Dark Pit | October 9, 2014 | Dr. Mario and Dark Pit were officially revealed on the website. |
| Reveal of Ganondorf and R.O.B. | October 15, 2014 | Ganondorf and R.O.B. were officially revealed on the website. |
| Super Smash Bros. for Wii U 50 Facts Extravaganza | October 23, 2014 | Officially confirmed Bowser Jr. as a newcomer. Mr. Game & Watch was also confirmed to return, but was confirmed on the site itself and not in the direct. Jigglypuff was shown multiple times throughout the presentation, but was not officially revealed on the website. |
| Reveal of Duck Hunt and Jigglypuff | November 5, 2014 | Duck Hunt was confirmed during a Nintendo Direct that day. Jigglypuff's page was also officially revealed on the website. All of the "Original 12" characters from the Super Smash Bros. were now revealed. The complete roster (excluding DLC) for Super Smash Bros. 4 was now revealed. |
| Reveal of Mewtwo and Lucas | April 1, 2015 | Lucas was revealed as a downloadable playable character to be released in June 2015. Additionally, Mewtwo, who was revealed in the 50-Fact Extravaganza, was given a new trailer showcasing its moveset, in addition to getting its own character page. The site had two new sections: one about downloadable content for the game, and the Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot, in which fans could request characters to be included in Super Smash Bros. 4. |
| Reveal of Roy and Ryu | June 14, 2015 | Roy and Ryu were officially shown on the site. |
| Removal of Fighter Ballot | October 4, 2015 | The Fighter Ballot officially closed and the section was removed from the website. |
| Reveal of Cloud | November 12, 2015 | Cloud was revealed as a downloadable playable character at the end of the Nintendo Direct shown that day. |
| Final Smash Bros. Presentation | December 15, 2015 | Corrin and Bayonetta were revealed as the last characters introduced. All DLC characters were now revealed. All DLC characters are now listed on the front page with its own section rather than giving them a page of their own. |
| Reveal of a new Super Smash Bros. game for Nintendo Switch | March 8, 2018 | Added a link to the then unnamed Ultimate official website. The site's URL was also changed in favour of the official site for Ultimate. |
Trivia[edit]
- On the character image links, all names are written in capital letters, as in the game, with the exceptions of the Wii Fit Trainer and Mii Fighter, whose names appear as "Wii Fit TRAINER" and "Mii FIGHTER". Bowser Jr., Mr. Game & Watch, and Dr. Mario additionally follows this rule, but only on the Japanese site ("KOOPA Jr.", "Mr. GAME & WATCH", and "Dr. MARIO").
- On the English website, despite certain characters receiving their English-localization names for their respective URL addresses (such as Mega Man being referred to as "Mega Man" within his page's URL address, rather than his Japanese name of "Rockman"), the English URL addresses for the character webpages of Rosalina, Charizard, Greninja, Robin, and Corrin still incorporate their Japanese names as of December 2015 (Rosetta, Lizardon, Gekkouga, Reflet, and Kamui respectively).
- Ryu's "Challenger Approaching" image on the official website read "Here Comes A New Challenger!" instead of the usual "Warning! Challenger Approaching!", a reference to the classic tagline played when the arcade single-player mode in Street Fighter II is interrupted by another player's joining. Interestingly, this is done in English even on the Japanese site, where the character's Japanese name followed by "参戦！！" is normally used.
- Prior to the international release of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, characters new to the Super Smash Bros. series had a much larger feature on the website's main page, which included their series symbol, "NEWCOMER" and an additional image. However, this did not apply to Lucina on the desktop version of the site.
- Robin is the only character on the site whose official art incorporates both female and male versions together.
- In the version of the website after the international release, the first ten characters listed are ten of the original twelve (excluding Ness and Jigglypuff, who are located on the page for secret characters). The default characters are listed in the order that they are located on the character selection screen, which is the order in which they were introduced, with Luigi and Captain Falcon following Pikachu.
- Despite the fact that Lucina was revealed before Robin, as well as her trophy and Mystery Mushroom costume from Super Mario Maker being listed before his, her page on the website is listed after his.
- Disregarding the first two Smash sites, which had no music, the Smash 4 site has the least available music, at 13 tracks.
References[edit]
- ^ Super Smash Bros. Ultimate [Game Concepts]
- ^ Bayonetta datamine
- ^ https://sourcegaming.info/2018/08/22/more-information-about-the-smash-direct-sakurais-famitsu-column-vol-561/
- ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20201026070354/https://japanesenintendo.com/2019/01/21/decidueye-almost-chosen-for-smash-in-an-interview//
- ^ Translated Famitsu column.
