Nick’s NetBlog

This argument that I’m making seems confusing at first glance, doesn’t it? All of these different sources and facts about those sources seem to jumble together, and its hard to make sense of them. So, it would be a good idea to explain all of this for my argument to make sense in the end. I only have time to present one of these three, so I’ll use the one that appeared first in release order. That would mean…

Riku Replica, or Repliku for short. Now, if you look at him normally, nothing seems off. The outfit from the fight towards the end of the first game, the face, the way he speaks…everything seems like the real deal. Then, there’s some exposition after your third fight with him, before being immediately thrown into another fight against another antagonist, that he’s fake. The second campaign, where the real Riku makes his way through the basement of the castle the game takes place in, has a fight against Organization XIII scientist Vexen.

After fighting him, it turns out he was just collecting data on Riku’s fighting style and strength, and the next story fight that comes your way is against Repliku. It’s all very strange.

Anyway, back in Sora’s story, we come back to a mentally defeated Repliku. He has to accept who he is, as a duplicate. He does decide to help Sora in the final stages of his campaign, but that acceptance is what I kept finding in my research. Two examples that stood out to me are from Us and Mega Man Zero 3.

In Us, the Tethered are scientifically generated clones of the population of humanity, left to live in the scarce and dark environment of the sewers and caves below the entirety of the world. They do know what they are and who they are bonded to, while the aboveground counterpart does not. All actions that are good for the aboveground version are mirrored beneath them, turning into traumatic scenes. Red and Adelaide show off this juxtaposition perfectly, but either way, the Tethered know that they are just shadows of what is above them. They had long accepted that. Yes, all except Adelaide’s die in the end, due to the grand twist the movie was leading up to, but they had the opportunity to be the only version left in the world, and that gave them the glimmer of hope to potentially not be a clone anymore. Something that they had long given up on until the original Adelaide came along.

Zero in the small Mega Man Zero series goes through a lot in only four games. He deals with the aftermath of a past war from a century prior, an oppressive ruler of Neo Arcadia, the only safe place left on the planet, and a current war that has left the robotic side of the population segregated and discriminated against. Dr. Weil, the antagonist of this subseries, has been dogging Zero’s progress in missions and keeping his allies safe the whole time. In the end, after a raid on Weil’s lab, the whole building crumbles, leaving Zero to face Omega one-on-one. The first two phases are fairly difficult, but the third is where the story hits its peak.

Omega looks exactly like Zero. The confusion is lifted by Weil’s explanation: Omega is using Zero’s original body, and Zero’s current form is a duplicate made so he could still fight in the Elf Wars, that conflict from a century prior. In this moment, face to face with his evil past, he decides that the only choice is to rid himself of it, and Omega in the process. Besides, the one thing that really brings everything together is Zero’s old partner, X. One quote really sells it all: “The defeated Omega is using your original body. That’s all… Your current body may be a copy… But your heart is the real thing.”

This is the point that all three share. They may just be duplicates of something else in some way, shape, or form, but in the end, each are their own individual. Their choices and beliefs are a part of what makes them unique. The Tethered wanted to be their own people, Zero chose his heroism over his body, and Repliku chose to aid Sora in a way that the original Riku couldn’t have.

Now, why am I making these connections? What’s the point in all of this? Well, the story of the Kingdom Hearts franchise seems simple at first, but becomes very convoluted very quickly due to how the games line up both chronologically and by release date. Sure, most of the important entries are bundled together and released for the consoles of that generation, but important details are hard to fill in without taking the time to think about and understand what is being presented. Therefore, my purpose with these connections is to make transitioning into being able to go through the story easier. By using popular examples that people can understand, they can relate to the stories of certain characters a bit better and make the pain of understanding the whole picture less of a burden.

I don’t have time to discuss Roxas or Xion, but believe me that they have just as much depth. Thank you for listening. Any questions?

The last unit we covered was over clones, replicants, and similarly manufactured beings. We were given the task of creating our own arguments involving the topic. In my case, I chose to connect characters that aren’t discussed in this context much to characters that usually are. Three different clones from Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts: Riku Replica, strange double found in Castle Oblivion; Xion, Organization XIII’s 14th member, and Roxas, Sora’s Nobody. Their stories will be summarized here.

First on the list, the cliché, Replica Riku.

Known colloquially as Repliku, this character made his first appearance in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, released in the west on the Gameboy Advance in November of 2004. At first glance, he looks and acts exactly like the Riku that we saw aid us in the climax of the first game. However, the more you run into him, the more his behavior seems to change, and show that this is not the same person. The aftermath of the last fight sees Repliku disabled completely, as shown in the clip below.

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx6hib0Z7hWWFYUDJUKe8e04NfL5WShE33

This event reveals the truth: this Riku isn’t the real deal. After a small amount of exposition, the Riku Replica finally admits to itself and the party that it is not the real deal. Then, after coming to terms with its false existence, it goes with the party during the endgame of Sora’s story.

This character is a fairly classic example of a clone. It is implanted with false memories, believes it is the real person, but acts in a way that doesn’t really reflect the original and this points out what it really is.

Second is a character no one expected to be impacted by, Xion.

She was a character introduced in the early-game of 358/2 Days, as the 14th member of Organization XIII. Xion was much like many a Nobody soon after forming, mute and seemingly emotionless, for a week of in-game time. Once that time was over, she seemed to come out of her mental shell, and she, Roxas, and Axel, the Organization’s number 8, became fast friends. Towards the end of the story, though, Xion’s origins came into light. She had been a replica from the same program that generated Repliku, just a more finished version towards the end of that program’s life. She also had the power to absorb Roxas’ powers with the Keyblade, and the goal with Xion was to make an obedient puppet for the Organization to use to their full benefit. To that end, Roxas and Xion only had one fate: either defeat the other, or be assimilated. Roxas won out in that case, and Xion returned to the memories she was created from. She would return in the third numbered entry as a member of the second Organization XIII.

This style of introducing a clone is something the series has original to it. Someone created from memories, made to take the power of another…this is a direction that was taken with this character and this character alone. The specific pieces have been used before, with characters that can absorb the strengths of others or are recreated from memories, but this specific blend is original to Xion.

Last on the list, we have Roxas.

Born during the events of the first game but never really revealed until the second, he is the Nobody of Sora. Created using the leftover husk when a person loses their heart, Nobodies don’t really exist. With Roxas, even though he seems to be his own person, he takes a lot of elements from Sora. Wields a Keyblade, is generally good-natured at heart, and so on and so forth. His whole story is pieced together through the events of 358/2 Days and the introduction of Kingdom Hearts II. Not long after creation, he is found by and recruited into Organization XIII, given his name in the process. After a few days of mindlessness, Roxas starts taking missions to collect hearts from Heartless for the Organization. The purpose of those collected hearts is to manufacture an artificial Kingdom Hearts, meant to grant the members of the Organization a heart and complete them. Said purpose was also not quite true, but this wouldn’t be revealed until much later down the road. Roxas’ missions continue for many weeks, making friends with Axel and Xion along the way. Once he and Xion fight, she requests him to set the hearts free and not let Xemnas, their leader, have his way with them. That request is his goal the following night, but stopped by a much older Riku at this point, he is subdued and placed in a digital town to help keep Sora’s restoration on track. At this point, Sora’s year-long sleep was almost up, and he wouldn’t be able to wake up without Roxas returned to Sora’s heart. At that point, the confused boy had a choice: leave Sora asleep, keep his existence, but leave the Organization free to continue their plans, or rejoin his other half, wake him up, and lose his own form in the process. It’s a struggle, but he realizes that Sora would be the better person to take the Organization on, and gives up his existence. At this point, Sora would journey out and start his journey over once more.

Roxas could be seen as a sort of tragic clone character. In the digital world he was placed in, he was just living life, hanging out with his friends, enjoying the last few days of his summer vacation. In the course of one day, he gets all of his suppressed memories from before being in the simulated town back, realizes who he is, and essentially has to choose whether he lives on or if his counterpart gets to wake up.

These three are the focus of my final report for this class. With how long I’ve spent in the Kingdom Hearts franchise, these characters feel like old friends, and talking about them comes naturally. Back in August, I had no idea of the many things that I would do over the school year, and it’s safe to say I’m happy with what I have achieved. It’s been a good semester, Professor Mintler. Thank you for teaching me.

The end of the semester is almost upon us. It’s a time of family get-togethers, final tests, and a lot of studying. Naturally, when all is said and done, students need rest. Thankfully, the university gives 3 days of the school week, and 4 days of the work week, for Thanksgiving and an entire month for Christmas. I may not have a lot that I’m going to do, but some of it is things that I’ve been missing since I moved to Norman campus.

Thanksgiving break is going to go by really quickly. The first day I get home, I’m going to be just talking with family, petting the cats, and other normal things. I can take the first day pretty slowly. Thursday will be filled with a lot of good food, so I can’t say no to that. Friday will probably be getting ready to come back and packing everything up, and Saturday I’ll return. It will be a nice morale boost going into dead week and finals.

Christmas break is when things get interesting. There’s more time, meaning more available activities. We have relatives to have Christmas with in Springfield, Missouri. There are events to visit around town. My older brother and our aunt come to visit from Ada. Christmas events in some games, and other things to spend the holidays with. Family is definitely a good way to spend a break.

At this point, the only thing left is to prepare for finals and any leftover assignments. Let’s end this semester off like we began- doing our best.

This week, I just want to talk about a campus service that I have been interacting with throughout the entire semester: Housing and Food Services’ work program. I have a few parts that I am angry about, a few parts that I am content with, and a couple suggestions that I would make given the chance.

1. Background Information

First off, some context. The program goes as follows: Work for Housing and Food services at one of the locations for 18 hours per week, and your bursar will be paid off at $17 an hour. Any other work will be paid at $10 an hour. Relatively simple on paper. However, in execution, it’s far more difficult. Depending on the location, you could just be preparing food, actually cooking it, or cleaning dishes more often. You could have only a total of 500 people during the course of a day, or 1000 for just lunch. The differences in quality for each working area could be drastically different from location to location. For example, Headington/Dunham ResCo Cafeteria is far cleaner and a more positive atmosphere compared to that of Couch Restaurants.

2. Some Gripes I Have

There are a few things that are somewhat disappointing about the program. Despite Housing being in the name of Housing and Food, and Room being a part of Room and Board, there are no Housing-based positions in the program. All there is available is food service. Having the option to work on cleaning and/or maintaining things in the halls of the residence areas of campus would be great. If you’re not really able to cook or handle food that well, having other options to work in the program would be useful for students. Another aspect that’s disappointing is the inconsistent workload. Some locations, like at Couch, are very difficult due to their high traffic. Others, like Headington/Dunham or Acre Provisions, are relatively simple. It makes no sense, and transferring to an easier place is almost always the easiest option.

3. Some Good of the Program

Thankfully, there is some good to be had in the program. 18 hours is potentially very flexible. Some weeks, if I need it, I can even mix and match my hours in the program and still get a full paycheck sent to the bursar. The bursar also gets paid at about $600 a month, which is really powerful. Paying off the bursar over the course of the whole semester is the goal, after all. It’s been very helpful, just very tiring. On that note, if the harder work is something that a person can handle, and they work fairly late, they can fall asleep easier. Not a normal bonus, but a bonus nonetheless.

4. Some Suggestions

If I was allowed to help improve the program, I would mainly make two changes. First, give the ability to choose a location when entering the program for the first time. This might mean that areas like Couch could receive less freshmen at the start of the semester, but making sure those freshman are able to acclimate to the college environment is important. If they feel like they want more challenge, they can transfer to a new location if need be. Second, giving more options for work will attract more students to the program. If you already keep your room really clean, then helping to keep the halls clean will be a piece of cake. It would make sense to give the janitors some extra help, too. Other changes would be a bit more miscellaneous; allowing a student worker to be able to change their schedule for a day on the fly, in case an emergency came up and they needed to swap their shift from morning to night, for example.

Getting that off my chest has been a long time coming. However, I am thankful that the program exists; otherwise I would have about $3,000 of debt on my bursar account that I would need to pay off and some extra time that I wouldn’t know what to do with.

In this last part of the Super Smash Bros. story, all information that was added to the story in Smash 4 and Ultimate will be connected to points from the rest of the series. Masahiro Sakurai’s journey has come a long way, and this is the end of it.

The Wii U and 3DS entries would be considered the point where the young man enters an actual job, considering he just beat the societal taboos that were beating him down. That would contribute to the drastic change in the menus and UI; every menu is bright and full of color, but is also sharp with thick lines. Standardized, but freed from any limitations. Entering a paying position also means that our protagonist has an income that allows for the purchase of new figures, which could explain the large amount of newcomers. In total, this game adds 17 new characters. Sure, 5 characters from past games are not present, but a roster of 58 playable characters is very impressive. Information about the Master Core, which could represent the more stressful aspects of being an adult, is available in a previous post here.

At this time in the series’ history, Masahiro Sakurai was revealing more and more about how his time developing each game went. In Famitsu articles, he would go over the development of the current game, as well as give insight to how he put his heart and soul into each title as if it was the last. He would mention how there would be times where he would go on long work sessions with low amounts of sleep, all to make the title a masterpiece. Even if the title wasn’t as beloved or accepted by Nintendo or by the fans, he would have done his best, and that’s all he cared about. This conflict between his company and his fandom did come to a greater focus with Smash 4’s DLC, since they were so much more powerful than a great deal of the cast. The last character released, Bayonetta, had this problem especially. With a new console, the Switch, releasing in 2017, everyone knew it was only a matter of time before a new entry came, and with it, Sakurai would put the long story to rest.

The specific details about Galeem and Dharkon can be found here, but to keep this simple, Galeem is the Lord of Light and Dharkon is the Lord of Darkness. They are two sides of the same coin, yet not quite perfect foils either. This is evident in their specific endings to the World of Light campaign, where you fight the other one solo. In Galeem’s ending, if you beat Dharkon, the dark monster is ripped to pieces while Galeem repeats the start of the adventure with an all-encompassing burst of light. On the flip side, defeating Galeem gives Dharkon the power to imprison the Lord of Light in dark chains. The connotative meanings of these endings and what they represent are clear: Galeem, in a way, represents Nintendo, while Dharkon is analogous to the fanbase.

Galeem, a being that wants to take all characters and worlds and make standardized copies of them. A being that can rip the spirit of a character away from it’s body. A being with an army of what is meant to be a creative force. In everything we see Galeem do in the intro, it’s very telling of what point Sakurai is trying to make. The company takes all of the creative energy of its employees and uses them to make and sell its product, just like how Galeem takes the energy of its army of Master Hands to capture the fighters and auxiliary characters. The burst of light could be capturing the worlds related to the Smash franchise, similarly to how the characters were taken. The duplicates of the cast that Galeem creates to stuff the spirits of auxiliary characters into are uncannily representative of Amiibo, figures that represent Nintendo IPs that, if they represent a character in Smash, can be made into a fighter that you teach. They take your fighting skills, your spirit, and become something new. It’s all very interesting how these link together.

Same goes for Dharkon. The fanbase can be a dark place, with the better aspects of us obscured by our toxic darkness. The army of Crazy Hands, the representation of destruction, with movements that could be seen as erratic or similar to typing, both of which apply. Some people can be short-tempered and erratic. They complain on social media about aspects of a game. It happens, but it hurts people’s feelings. This falls even harder onto Sakurai, as his design was something he put great work into, and no matter what, something gets bashed. He just has to deal with it and move on.

In the end, Sakurai is split between the two factions. He’s a part of Nintendo, and, in the case of the story, represents the Master Hand you free in the Warzone. Still, he’s a great part of the fanbase, representing the Crazy Hand that you free as well. Freeing his two sides allows his Master Hand to fly into a created portal to rip the last remnants of the Light and Dark armies apart. Once done, Sakurai’s role is over in the story, the two entities are defeated, and the spirits of the auxiliary characters are released. This release is representative of not only every time a new game is released, allowing for Sakurai to rest, but also Sakurai’s final release of the characters himself. They aren’t his to keep, and they aren’t Nintendo’s to keep either. These characters are for everyone.

So ends the story of Masahiro Sakurai’s Super Smash Bros. series.

This small series of blog posts is about taking the subtextual story of the Super Smash Bros. franchise and stringing it together through the whole series. This entry is all about Brawl.

At the end of Melee, we see a young tween, becoming more organized while still enjoying the crossover battles he can create with his imagination. As the series moved into Brawl, this tween would become a full teenager. More responsibilities come with that age, as well as the idea of leaving childish things behind. This is showcased in the latter stages of Brawl’s Subspace Emissary, with the enigmatic final boss Tabuu.

An adult figure, with closed off body language, both able to hold Master Hand, the embodiment of creative imagination, hostage as well as revert every character to their trophy form in a single blast. Tabuu, due to his name pointing heavily to taboos, is meant to reference the societal taboo of interacting with childish things as an older person. Peer pressure, societal norms, and the very meaning of new responsibility for a teenager reinforces this taboo. All of this combines to form a very powerful force, one that would force child-like imagination and wonder to cease. In the case of the story, it would rip the world and characters apart, and destroy everything in its wake. Just like Subspace itself.

With all of the areas that were visited in the main campaign, especially areas that were consumed by Subspace Bombs, Tabuu creates the Great Maze. It is a labyrinth of the strongest enemies as well as remixed areas with new gimmicks and level designs. The only way to reach it is to fight through the last two regular stages in the game, both called “Subspace”. The first involves an unlikely group, that being King Dedede, Luigi, and Ness. The king had taken their trophies for himself and placed broaches with his face on them, but had been knocked out and his castle consumed at the midpoint in the story. Thankfully, those broaches are essentially Chekhov’s gun, and are able to awaken Luigi and Ness, allowing them to revive Dedede and head out. They find the entrance to the maze, at the very least. Another survivor is Kirby, because he accidentally swallowed a broach from the midpoint. When he gets to the entrance of the maze, the king is ecstatic to see him okay. They head into the maze with all of their allies, who were rescued during the course of the two stages.

The maze is not only a gauntlet of enemies and obstacles, it is also a boss rush. Scattered throughout are dark doors leading to either a shadowy character or a boss from the campaign. All must be defeated to reach Tabuu once again. Thankfully, there are four entrances, and all can be found over the course of running the gauntlet, allowing for time to save your progress. Once everything is cleared, there is only one option to move forward: confront Tabuu once more. He charges up like before, but is stopped in his tracks by a new arrival. Like how discovering something completely new can reignite the imagination, the arrival of Sega’s mascot Sonic is enough for Tabuu to be forced to fight the characters directly. Tabuu fights fiercely, with strange patterns and attacks that sometimes just kill on hit. No matter the terrible odds, the man is defeated, Subspace withers into nothing, and the world is returned to its complete whole.

This story is very much representative of Sakurai at this point. He grew up with toys from Japanese kid’s cartoons of the 70s, much like how some people grew up with the cast of Smash 64. He would broaden his horizons with new media in the early 80s, including the arcades that began springing up. In his teenage years in the late 80s, based on how this story was written, he would seperate himself from the taboos of Japanese teens that normally left childish things behind and molded into workers. Sakurai would be more than just a worker, and in the 90s and beyond, creating video games for the world to enjoy would be how he expressed the creativity that he sustained from his youth.

The next entry will cover Smash 4, short but important, and Smash Ultimate, the climax and conclusion of the franchise’s story.

The Super Smash Bros. franchise, on the surface, just seems like a fun party game to break out with friends. Each game has a decent amount of single-player content, and some of them have cool story modes or adventures to partake in. However, if you look a little deeper, a story, based somewhat on the events of director Masahiro Sakurai’s childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, begins to form. When put together, in the context of what Sakurai has been through, the franchise shows a lot of growth. This all began back in Smash 64, with the opening cutscene.

This room is where the first game is set, and is in the mind of a young boy playing with his plush toys. These characters are brought to life within the child’s mind through Master Hand, the representation for not only the child’s hand but also the creative forces to make this game possible. The four unlockable characters could be seen as newly purchased toys. The Arcade mode’s ending could be seen as the end of the play session and going out to do something else. Given information was small and simple, but it laid the groundwork.

The next set of information came up in Melee, at the end of its Classic Mode. It shows the bedroom again, but it’s changed a lot.

There’s more organization, more memorabilia, and more mature representation for the characters in the form of these trophies. Compared to the child from before, this is a tween growing up. No longer are the characters childish plush toys, but collectable figures. Very much like the amiibo that exist in real life. This game is also the introduction for Crazy Hand, the representation for destructive force in the series. Where Master Hand brings figures to the table, Crazy Hand sweeps them off the table. Sakurai’s way of introducing Crazy Hand, by needing decent speed in a Classic Mode run, was a decent reward for becoming fast enough.

Brawl will be an entry all to itself, due to how much its Subspace Emissary mode added to this subtextual story, so we must leave off here at Melee for now.

This entry will be the last for this set, covering the major entry for Smash Ultimate: Galeem and Dharkon.

Galeem is the first of two antagonists of the World of Light story mode in Smash Ultimate. It is the ending to the main arc of storytelling that has been occurring since the Wii release of Brawl, using the same location from the end of its story mode for the beginning of this one. Galeem itself has three main physical attributes to take note of; the core of the being is an orb of light, with appearance similar to a halo, the angelic wing appendages around the core, and the coloring of the underside of those wings, whose reds and blues are very reminiscent of the colors used in the logos for Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U. Its first act is to take its many master hand clones, absorb their energy, and send a burst of light beams out. When the cast assembled on the cliff nearby are hit by these light beams, they are consumed by them and vanish from the area. Only one character, Kirby, is able to escape the event while the master of the Light reshapes the world to its liking. Spirits of secondary characters from the many connected franchises are left to wander, while Galeem creates puppet clones of the main cast and adds spirits to them, while keeping the real forms of the characters under lock and key. Kirby’s job from here is to travel Galeem’s new world, free the spirits and other fighters from its control, and go confront the area bosses and Galeem itself. These puppet fighters are exactly like their normal counterparts with different colors being the main way to distinguish them. They are very meaningless, however, due to the sheer amounts of them that Galeem mass-produces. Once confronted and defeated, Galeem’s influence weakens significantly. It may not be completely gone, but it’s a start! Of course, at a moment of triumph, another being appears to take control in the power vacuum: Dharkon.

Dharkon. The leader of darkness, and the other side of the coin to Galeem’s light. In general form, Dharkon is not too different from Galeem. Replace the angel wings with dark tentacle-like thorns, the halo core with an eye like a predator, and change the color palette to that of the dark reds and blacks of the Brawl logo from E3 2006, and it fits like a glove. After getting sucked into the world beneath Galeem’s creation, “The Dark World”, the path to each area boss is clear and straightforward. Once dealt with, Dharkon flees to the final area, the Warzone.

This area is where the two forces of light and darkness come together. You find four fighters and many powerful spirits here. The true Master and Crazy Hand are found here, and they defect from their respective masters once defeated. They help clear the remaining fighter copies, turn the first form of the warzone into it’s purified, second state, and make each side equal. Once your roster is complete and your spirits are ready, there are three options to close the story. Two of them are incorrect, those being fighting the other being by themselves. The bad endings are two different actions resulting the same fate: Either Dharkon corrupts everything and the fighters seem to die, or Galeem is able to rewrite everything again permanently. The good ending involves The Gauntlet, a three-phase battle. The first is a vertical platforming course, the second is a boss rush with all of the area bosses from before, and the last is a fight against both Galeem and Dharkon, made easier due to the warring godly beings hurting each other with you trying to beat both of them. Once beaten, the two fall away into the sea, shredded into pieces, and their powers overload and release. The balance has been restored, and the trapped spirits are all freed. The main story of the series comes to a close.

Next week, the reasoning for their design and juxtaposition will be compared to a potential explanation for other subtextual decisions throughout the series.

We return once again with the Smash franchise and its doubles.

4. Clone Characters

Clone characters have always been a strange topic throughout the series. Their purpose is to ease development time by taking an already pre-existing character, change some of their moves or properties, and change the model and animations. The first of these was in the N64 release, with Luigi’s moveset being very reminiscient of Mario’s with some differences. Over time, most clones would gain significant differences from their main counterparts to allow for different playstyles. Ganondorf’s moves would change more significantly from Captain Falcon’s, gaining his sword in Ultimate for the first time. All three Links would deviate slightly from each other, Young Link holding the playstyle of regular Link of older games and Breath of the Wild’s Link taking that name instead, with more power and important differences. Toon Link would reflect his more cartoony nature more compared to the other two links. Pichu is so radically different from Pikachu now it’s almost like Melee Pichu is forgotten. Only recently has the concept returned, with the new moniker of Echo fighters. They are denoted by the small greek letter epsilon (ε) near their fighter number, which is the same number as the fighter they are a clone of. A few important examples of echoes are Chrom, a character from the modern era of Fire Emblem, and Dark Samus, making their first playable appearance and their second smash appearance after being part of the assist trophy line back in Smash for 3DS and Wii U.

5. Master Core(Smash for 3DS and Wii U)

Master Core is a secret boss in the Classic Modes for the 4th generation of Smash games, those being the 3DS and Wii U entries. It is encountered by playing through and surviving the mode on intensities 7.0 and higher, and a new form is added every 0.5 intensity until 9.0, where the full Master Core fight is available. In this fight, it starts out with Master and Crazy Hand, until a little damage is deal to either and Master Hand begins to convulse. Crazy Hand vanishes into smoke, and the darkness that makes up each form, the Swarm, breaks out of Master hand. Using the 9.0 intensity fight, the first form is Master Giant. It towers over every character, swiping and slamming Final Destination over and over until enough damage is dealt to its head. It reverts back to Swarm and becomes Master Beast, a large dog-lion like fusion. It can tilt the stage, create lightning sparks, and bite with such force that the knockback could take a stock even at medium percent. After returning to swarm, the Master Edges form. it is a group of blades that slash and slice the player at great speed, and have a few projectiles combined with its free movement. It is the most dangerous of the forms after Master Beast, and is the transfer point from the hardest form to the easiest. The last regular form is Master Shadow, a copy of the fighter that you are playing. Once defeated, on any intensity lower than 9.0, the fight ends, but on 9.0 the final form is the greatest of the 6: Master Fortress. It is a dark labyrinth, not too dissimilar to the 3DS’s Smash Run mode. It is a linear gauntlet of enemies composed of Swarm and checkpoints with blobs of Swarm energy that must be destroyed to continue. Deep in the heart of the labyrinth is the core of the fortress, and destroying it returns the player to Final Destination, where the Swarm has departed. All that’s left is the final piece of the core, the titular Master Core. After destroying it, the level and the Classic run is over.
Considering some of the lore aspects the franchise had been subtly hinting at over the years, this fight is very important. The darkness erupting from Master Hand is comparable to some of Masahiro Sakurai’s darkest days, where he was considering concluding the series or handing it off to another director. He does develop each entry as if its the last, after all. The Giant form represents the final boss of Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s Subspace Emissary, Tabuu, and the connotations of taboos against more childish games and toys as one grows older conformed into a representation of the fear of that taboo. The Beast form could represent one of two things: Sakurai’s longing to be free from a tightened schedule of long workdays and tiredness, to be home with his pets and family, or it could be his tiredness making him snap at people that are bothering his work. Both make sense in the connotation of a dog, and the lion-like aspects could have been added for a ferocity factor. The Master Edges could represent how design considerations that were criticized cut into Sakurai’s self-esteem like a group of knives. Good examples of criticisms that would have done the most damage were how Melee was so competitively amazing and Brawl was a full departure from that, and how overpowered the DLC characters were in both Smash 4 and Ultimate. The Master Shadow could represent Sakurai’s darker thoughts, the secrets he has to keep from the fans for future plans, and thoughts of how the franchise might end concerning him. The fortress could represent everything together all at once, which is how it affects Sakurai in real life: these feelings aren’t in stages, they usually hit him all together. The last form, the spherical core, represents Sakurai at the end of development. He is calm, collected, and ready to give the game out to the world. He doesn’t struggle to add anything at the last minute, as there is no need; he is just finished.
The Master Core fight and its connotations would be one of the largest chunks of lore about the series until Ultimate’s release, so it would have to be major to last that long. It assuredly was.

Next week will be only one entry, about Ultimate’s clone bosses and final boss. It will be a long entry, detailing everything about the World of Light game mode.

Just like with Capcom’s Mega Man franchise, Nintendo’s undying platform fighter has an array of duplicates of its many, many characters. Just like before, this will be in halves.

1. Metal Mario in Meta Crystal (first appearance: Super Smash Bros (1999, N64)

This first early example was a reference to the stage where the Metal Cap was unlocked in Super Mario 64. Beyond the callback to the system’s launch title, the fight is interesting, due to how Metal Mario is so heavy that he doesn’t even flinch for the first few minutes. Once around 200%, he does start taking decent knockback, so getting rid of him isn’t terribly difficult, but it is a change in expectations when you first meet him. This form would reappear in Melee’s Adventure Mode in a double fight with Metal Mario and Metal Luigi, but at that point, the metal form was an item, so it wasn’t as special as before.

2. Master and Crazy Hands (First appearance together: Super Smash Bros. Melee(2001, GCN)

The first set of original doubles, Master Hand and Crazy Hand play an important role to some subtextual revelations in the series. To start, Master Hand first appeared in Super Smash Bros.’ 1P Mode as the final boss, and it was a decent fight. In the upgrade to Melee as the GameCube’s launch title, his moveset was given some extra flair while retaining his original style. On the other hand, he now had a fighting partner; just like the many clone characters with similar, slightly edited movesets in Melee’s roster, Master Hand had his own mirror in the form of Crazy Hand. Where Master Hand is far more refined and seemingly elegant, Crazy Hand is erratic and…well, crazy. In the context of the subtextual lore and the story that would form in the games to follow, Master and Crazy Hand represent Masahiro Sakurai, the series’ creator, and the creative and destructive power he has regarding the series. Want to remove or rework characters completely? It’s his games, he can do what he wishes. Need to cut characters due to system limitations? Nothing stopped him, as with the 3DS and Wii U releases where the Ice Climbers had to be cut due to the 3DS’ inability to handle 8 climbers at once. This pair is interesting, and their fights usually have some form of double attacks when together.

3. Mii Fighters

This entry is the first legitimately playable fighters that have a double-like aspect to them. These three characters have simple movesets, some moves taken almost wholesale from other fighters. However, the moves don’t matter as much in this case. The rest of the customizability is where the Miis could become anyone or anything. Is there an actual costume for the character you want? You can put it on them. Is there something that’s close but isn’t quite right? Using the right combination of clothes and weird face and people could see the character you’re going for. In Smash Ultimate, some costumes fully cover the face of the Mii, removing the last potential barrier that would make the character recognized for certain as a Mii. These characters can be molded into anything the creator wants it to be.