Kingdom Hearts' Sora is the Final Character to Join Smash Bros. Ultimate
On October 5, 2021, the director of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and a game developing god, Masahiro Sakurai, hosted the final Mr. Sakurai Presents on Nintendo’s official YouTube channel. During this video event, Sakurai revealed the 89th fighter and final DLC character that will ever be added to the Smash Ultimate roster. The character is Sora from the Kingdom Hearts series!
Sora’s official cinematic reveal trailer started in a similar fashion to the very first announcement trailer for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which Nintendo unveiled way back in March 2018. This new trailer included all 88 characters formerly revealed. And the fiery Smash logo finally fizzled out, signaling the end of an era. It was a great way to show things coming full circle.
But all of a sudden, there was one last bit of fire for Mario to throw. It was one last key, or rather, keyblade… and in an incredible, heartwarming and magical moment that captured the spirit of Kingdom Hearts, Sora was finally, FINALLY transported into the world of Smash!
Sakurai goes on to explain that Sora was the most requested fighter to join Smash in a poll open to the fans six years ago for Smash Bros. WiiU. While the game's development companies Bandai Namco Studios and Sora Ltd. could not add Sora back then, they’ve been secretly working on having him join SSB Ultimate. A journey that took six long years! I bet they faced a million difficult licensing and copyright hurdles adding a character like Sora, who is jointly owned by Disney and Square Enix!
Speaking of which, fans have commented that Sora’s party members, Donald and Goofy, are not present at all in this reveal news. Nor are any other Disney characters. But in my opinion, we should be extremely grateful that Sora could be added to this universe. That’s already a massive undertaking and an unbelievable accomplishment, as well as a dream come true for so many Smash fans.
Right now, “#ThankYouSakurai” is trending on Twitter. Indeed, congratulations and thank you to Sakurai-san and his development team for all their hard work and creating the best-selling fighting game of all time!
Image source: gamepress press release material
