Today's Smash Direct has been great: character reveals, tons of content, details, info...
All pretty definite, but two parts: the blurred green menu, and the Monster Hunter content.
Rathalos is an assist trophy, which is pretty damn cool, and not the first third party character to end up like that.
On top of that, it's a boss, which sometimes makes sense when it is with a character, as seen with Dracula for the Castlevania reps, or Yellow Devil for Megaman. Or Ridley in the past. But Rathalos is the first and only third party boss character not being linked to a playable character in that franchise.
And then there's the stage, that some people probably recognized as the Steppes from Monster Hunter 4, and actually shown in the original reveal trailer for the game, at the same time as its 3DS exclusivity announcement. Like Rathalos, this is the very first and only stage representing a third party franchise with no playable character at all. It's also not shown in the stage selection, which is interesting.
Another interesting thing is how Nintendo's PR is talking only about Rathalos being an assist trophy, but not a stage.
Now there's basically two possibilities coming from that (I won't do any predictions or percentage of likeliness, I'm sure some will do that):
It's linked to the secret green mode , which is either some kind of boss rush mode, or Subspace Emissary-like mode for the more hopeful. It doesn't explain everything, like why a third party stage is here without any character, but would still mostly make sense.
It's leading to a MonHun playable character , and hasn't been unveiled yet for various reasons. Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate releases at the end of the month on Switch (nice way to remind people today that MH will be on this platform), and TGS is next month (where various MH games have been announced in the past). Around the same period, it also happened for Nintendo in the past to push a new MH game from Capcom at the end of one of their Directs, japanese or global. Which could tie in to a Smash reveal.
Now some years ago, the consensus was that Capcom wasn't sure how to put a MH hunter in a fighting game. Since then, Smash Bros WiiU got a Hunter skin, and the Hunter is arguably one of the most impressive characters in Marvel vs Capcom Infinite.
There's also the possibility that a Prowler could end up being the character representing MH, both due to its friendliness (although Smash Ultimate is going for a more mature aspect for many new characters) and for the Prowler mode exclusive to MH Generations (and Ultimate), a Nintendo platform exclusive for now.
In all cases, we should have more info in a few months when that green mode is revealed, or by around TGS (which could happen around the same time or not). It's a pretty unique case until then.
All pretty definite, but two parts: the blurred green menu, and the Monster Hunter content.
Rathalos is an assist trophy, which is pretty damn cool, and not the first third party character to end up like that.
On top of that, it's a boss, which sometimes makes sense when it is with a character, as seen with Dracula for the Castlevania reps, or Yellow Devil for Megaman. Or Ridley in the past. But Rathalos is the first and only third party boss character not being linked to a playable character in that franchise.
And then there's the stage, that some people probably recognized as the Steppes from Monster Hunter 4, and actually shown in the original reveal trailer for the game, at the same time as its 3DS exclusivity announcement. Like Rathalos, this is the very first and only stage representing a third party franchise with no playable character at all. It's also not shown in the stage selection, which is interesting.
Another interesting thing is how Nintendo's PR is talking only about Rathalos being an assist trophy, but not a stage.
Now there's basically two possibilities coming from that (I won't do any predictions or percentage of likeliness, I'm sure some will do that):
It's linked to the secret green mode , which is either some kind of boss rush mode, or Subspace Emissary-like mode for the more hopeful. It doesn't explain everything, like why a third party stage is here without any character, but would still mostly make sense.
It's leading to a MonHun playable character , and hasn't been unveiled yet for various reasons. Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate releases at the end of the month on Switch (nice way to remind people today that MH will be on this platform), and TGS is next month (where various MH games have been announced in the past). Around the same period, it also happened for Nintendo in the past to push a new MH game from Capcom at the end of one of their Directs, japanese or global. Which could tie in to a Smash reveal.
Now some years ago, the consensus was that Capcom wasn't sure how to put a MH hunter in a fighting game. Since then, Smash Bros WiiU got a Hunter skin, and the Hunter is arguably one of the most impressive characters in Marvel vs Capcom Infinite.
There's also the possibility that a Prowler could end up being the character representing MH, both due to its friendliness (although Smash Ultimate is going for a more mature aspect for many new characters) and for the Prowler mode exclusive to MH Generations (and Ultimate), a Nintendo platform exclusive for now.
In all cases, we should have more info in a few months when that green mode is revealed, or by around TGS (which could happen around the same time or not). It's a pretty unique case until then.
