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.