Going into today’s Smash Bros direct, I wasn’t expecting much. I was very pleasantly surprised.

With that said, one should never underestimate Sakurai’s “everything and the kitchen sink” approach to games, because new stages, Mii Fighter costumes, amiibos (amiibi?), and extra features were all revealed over the course of the 18:22 video. Not only were three new characters revealed, they were all made available to download at the end of the direct (as of this writing, Nintendo’s servers have been too overloaded for me to download any of them).

Lucas’s character seems to be more or less a clone of Ness, and Roy’s sword was said to be more powerful towards its base when compared to Marth. The most interesting addition – by far – is that of Ryu. His classic move set is still intact here, which is a huge deal. The original button combinations you know and love from the arcade days still work, and you will be rewarded with a more powerful attack when executing a move this way instead of with the standard Smash controls. In-game trophies of these characters will also be added, including a trophy of Street Fighter’s Ken. Of the several new stages introduced, the Miiverse stage seems to be the most innovative (and the only free one). During battle, actual Miiverse posts will show up in the background, cheering on the characters in the match (to submit your own, simply go to the character community of your choice on Miiverse and write or draw a post). Ryu also gets his own stage, which is reminiscent of his stage from Street Fighter II.

Lastly, three stages from the N64 original Smash Bros. were shown. Link, Mario, and Kirby will all get their stages from the 64-Bit classic. Nintendo continued to fan the flames of amiibo fever by revealing that every character from Smash will eventually get their own figure. I, for one, must get my hands on a Ryu amiibo. Mr. Game & Watch doesn’t look half bad either, what with his interchangeable poses. Acutally, at this rate I think I should just have my paycheck direct deposited to Nintendo.

If you want all the DLC announced for both the 3DS and Wii U versions, you’re looking at spending about $30. That also includes the new costumes that were announced from the Mega Man, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, Virtua Fighter, and Tekken series, so now all we need is Mortal Kombat and all the fighting food groups will be represented in Smash.

Rounding out the announcements, the ability to upload replays to YouTube and tournament mode will be added in a future update. I’m glad Nintendo continues to support their games so far after launch. Personally, I haven’t touched Smash in a awhile (Splatoon has my full attention) so I’m looking forward to jumping back in.

What are you most looking forward to from the direct? Have you been able to download any of this content? Let me know in the comments and if you haven’t already, check out the video below.

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