Sephiroth (SSBU)

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Sephiroth in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
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Universe	Final Fantasy
Availability	Downloadable
Final Smash	Supernova

“	Sephiroth Descends to Battle!	”
—Introduction Tagline

Sephiroth (セフィロス, Sephiroth) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and the third third-party fighter from Square Enix after Cloud and Hero. He was confirmed as a playable character on December 10th, 2020 at The Game Awards 2020, and is planned for release on December 22nd, 2020 as the third downloadable character from Fighters Pass Vol. 2. Sephiroth is classified as Fighter #78.

In the Mr. Sakurai Presents aired on December 17th, 2020, a limited-time event known as the Sephiroth Challenge was announced. It is set to run from December 17th-22nd, 2020. If the player beats the CPU-controlled Sephiroth, they can play as him ahead of release.

Toshiyuki Morikawa, who has voiced Sephiroth since Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, reprises his role as the character in all regions.

Moveset

Sephiroth's full moveset was showcased on his respective Mr. Sakurai Presents video presentation on December 17th.

• His base design for Ultimate is based on his design from Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, while his Coatless design is from the final boss fight in the original Final Fantasy VII.
• Sephiroth wields his signature weapon, Masamune, which, like Simon's Vampire Killer and Min Min's ARMS, possesses extremely long reach but a slow attack speed.
  • His forward tilt is an outward slash at an upward angle, which can be angled.
  • His forward smash is a two-handed upward slash.
• His forward aerial is a thrusting stab with Masamune, which can be used to stab into walls and jump afterwards, acting somewhat like a wall grapple or Corrin's Dragon Lunge.
• His up smash appears to be a wide upward swing, similar to Hero's up tilt.
• His down smash is a wind-up stab forwards, piercing the ground and sending debris forward for a wider range of attack. The debris won't be launched if the attack isn't grounded, but Masamune itself can poke past the ledge to hit opponents grabbing it.
• His up tilt is an upward stab.
• His down aerial is Hell's Gate, a downwards stab (a homage to an infamous scene in Final Fantasy VII where he kills Aerith with a stab from above).
• His up aerial is a backflipping slash above himself.
• His neutral special is Flare/Megaflare/Gigaflare, consisting of launching a slow Flare fireball, which can be charged and canceled (but not stored). Each level of charge has less range but possesses more power and a larger explosion, and the stronger Gigaflare can create an opening for Sephiroth to follow up with another attack.
• His side special is Shadow Flare, a weak but fast move that causes dark spheres to orbit around the target, which explode some time after. The projectile can be charged, creating more dark spheres per hit, to a maximum of three per hit. Up to five spheres may be orbiting each opponent at once. The dark spheres are susceptible to the usual reflection and absorption, but are thrown as standard projectiles when pocketed.
• His up special is Blade Dash, an omnidirectional slash forward which functions similarly to Fire Fox. When charged, it becomes the multi-strike Octaslash, gaining more power and distance but losing the ability to snap to the ledge.
• His down special is Scintilla, a unique counterattack consisting of a honeycomb-like barrier that deals multiple hits upon counterattacking. While only able to destroy and not reflect projectiles (in addition to being susceptible to breaking), it counterattacks even when an attack is not present, and grows stronger depending on the damage it has taken.
• His Final Smash, Supernova, consists of Sephiroth performing a wide slash to trap foes in the attack before transforming into Safer∙Sephiroth (his final boss form) to summon Meteor and trigger a supernova in an extremely similar manner to its use in Final Fantasy VII, wiping out the earth and causing random status effects to foes who survive the attack. These status effects include an automatic shield break, being slowed down, having reversed controls (indicated by a mushroom on the victim's head), having a flower planted on the victim's head, being put to sleep, or a simple darkness effect, which is accompanied by more knockback than usual, albeit still on the lower end for a Final Smash. Fighters caught in the Final Smash face towards him with their backs to the camera, much like Cloud and his party do in his final boss battle.
• Some of his taunts and idle animations were shown:
  • He has two variations of him readying Masamune in a battle pose, one of which is a ko gasumi samurai stance which is a direct reference to the final duel between him and Cloud from Final Fantasy VII.
• He possesses a unique fighter ability to unfurl his black wing (which takes on a purple glow) and enter his Winged Form, based on the amount of damage he has taken and how far ahead/behind he is in stocks. This increases his power, speed and grants his smash attacks super armor, though he loses the form after being K.O.'d.
• Sephiroth's victory poses shows him in front of a flaming background, referencing a scene from Final Fantasy VII. The ending notes of his theme from Advent Children are heard for his victory theme, followed by a long drowning note:
• One of his victory poses is a direct reference to the Nibelheim Incident, where Sephiroth (facing away from the camera) looks behind him to chuckle menacingly, before walking into the flaming background and out of sight.
• One of his victory poses has him do a sword slash while facing his back towards the camera.
• One of his victory poses has him look up menacingly and say something in Japanese.
• If Sephiroth is in a team battle and he is not the leader of the team, then he will have an exclusive animation where he simply looks off to the side without doing anything.

Classic Mode: The Chosen Ones

Uniquely, Sephiroth's classic mode route has him facing off against various bosses in the game in a Boss Rush, referencing his status as a final boss in Final Fantasy VII.

Round	Opponent	Stage	Music	Notes
1	Rathalos	Forest Hill	Roar/Rathalos
2	Galleom	Base	Boss Battle - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
3	Marx	Mysterious Dimension	Vs. Marx
4	Dracula	Dracula's Castle	Phase 1: Nothing to Lose Phase 2: Black Night
5	Ganon	Sacred Land	Calamity Ganon Battle - Second Form
6	Giga Bowser	Final Destination	Giga Bowser
Bonus Stage
Final	Master Hand & Crazy Hand	Northern Cave (Ω Form)	One-Winged Angel	References the final battle of Final Fantasy VII where multiple characters team up to defeat Sephiroth.

Credits roll after completing Classic Mode. Completing it as Sephiroth has JENOVA accompany the credits.

Role in World of Light

Due to his status as downloadable content, Sephiroth does not have a legitimate role in World of Light. Instead, he is unlocked for use in the mode after freeing 10 fighters from Galeem's control. If loading an existing save file that meets this condition before downloading Sephiroth, he is immediately unlocked.

Interestingly, Sephiroth’s trailer takes place during World of Light, where he makes his presence known by slicing Galeem in half and fighting the heroes himself.

Alternate costumes

							File:SephirothHeadCoatless VioletSSBU.png

Gallery

• 

  Sephiroth's splash art.

• 

  Sephiroth standing and holding Masamune on Northern Cave.

• 

  Attacking Captain Falcon on Umbra Clock Tower.

• 

  Casting Flare on Dracula's Castle.

• 

  In his coatless alternate costume on Northern Cave.

• 

  Sephiroth in his Safer form facing Ness, Bowser, and Robin.

• 

  Fighting Cloud in his Advent Children alternate costume on Midgar.

Trivia

The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate × Final Fantasy at the end of The Game Awards 2020 video.

• Sephiroth is the second character to be revealed at a non-Nintendo event/presentation, the first being Joker. Both of them were revealed at The Game Awards (in 2018 and 2020, respectively).
  • Unlike Joker's, however, Sephiroth's featured actual gameplay footage, was announced ahead of time, and was a standard world premiere trailer, rather than an "intruding" announcement.
  • Oddly, Sephiroth's English trailer shown during The Game Awards is slightly different from the one uploaded to Nintendo's official channels later: the crossover card states Super Smash Bros. Ultimate × Final Fantasy during The Game Awards, whereas in later uploads it displays Super Smash Bros. Ultimate × Final Fantasy VII, in line with Cloud's trailer for Super Smash Bros. 4.
• Sephiroth's internal codename is "edge".
• Sephiroth is the fourth enemy to be available as DLC, after Piranha Plant, Zombie, and Enderman, and the first to be the primary antagonist of his game.
• Sephiroth is the first:
  • DLC character from a universe that was introduced as DLC in a previous installment.
  • Character from an already-represented third-party universe to not be a clone of another character.
  • Third-party playable antagonist (not counting Steve's Zombie and Enderman alternate costumes)
  • To have a stage cinematic depicting their ending story line.
  • Ultimate DLC character to not have their full Final Smash shown in their reveal trailer.
  • Character to have a boss rush as their Classic Mode route.
    • Consequently, Sephiroth is the only character to not fight any playable characters in Classic Mode.
  • DLC character to be able to be unlocked early via an event. If the player beats the limited time "Sephiroth Challenge" event (available from December 17, 2020 to December 22, 2020) on any difficulty, they will unlock Sephiroth early.
• Sephiroth is the second character whose trailer references World of Light, the first being Hero's.
  • Coincidentally, both are downloadable fighters from Square Enix, and both fight opposing forces from the World of Light, as Hero fought Dharkon and its controlled puppet fighters and Sephiroth sliced through Galeem. Additionally, they each hail from one of the two companies that merged into Square Enix, as Sephiroth comes from Squaresoft and the Hero from Enix.
• Sephiroth's trailer makes several references to both the original Final Fantasy VII game, and the CGI-animated film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, with much of his and Cloud's dialogue being adapted from the latter. Several shots in the trailer are direct recreations of shots from Advent Children.
• Sephiroth's trailer currently features the most playable characters in the animated portion of any reveal trailer (excluding himself), with 18 characters.
  • Aside from Erdrick, Banjo, and Kazooie, who are DLC characters, Bowser Jr., Cloud, and Richter are the only characters of these that do not appear in the World of Light opening cutscene.
    • Sephiroth’s trailer marks the first time that Cloud has appeared in CGI in the Smash series, with all of his other appearances in trailers and cutscenes using his in-game model. Cloud's CGI model is, notably, based on his Advent Children design.
• Like Cloud, Smash marks the third time that Sephiroth has been playable in a fighting game/series, with the first two being Ehrgeiz and the Dissidia: Final Fantasy series.
• Sephiroth is the third DLC fighter in Ultimate to hail from a series already represented by a fighter, with the first two being Piranha Plant and Byleth. Out of these, he is the first to come from a third-party series.
• Sephiroth's render resembles a flipped version of his original Dissidia render (albeit in 3D and with his wing displayed).
  • Sephiroth's coatless render uses his battle pose from his fight against Cloud in Final Fantasy VII, similar to his taunt.
• Sephiroth is one of only five characters to predominantly use his left hand to wield his weapon, sharing this trait with Young Link, Toon Link, Ice Climbers, and Rosalina & Luma.
• Sephiroth is the first DLC character who must be unlocked through fighting him, although this is only for an early access and not a permanent feature.
  • The is also the first time an early access to the DLC was not in the form of a free promotion, unlike Mewtwo in Smash 4 and Piranha Plant.
• Sephiroth is the first character whose Classic Mode consists entirely of bosses.
  • Because of this, Sephiroth is the first non The Legend of Zelda fighter to fight Ganon as a boss.
  • Sephiroth's Classic Mode is also one of only four to feature a fight against a boss outside of the final round, the others being Bowser, Mega Man and Hero.