Two Rs Might be Coming to Smash Bros.

I'm still sort of getting used to this idea of Nintendo entering the era of DLC, but when it comes to adding new fighters to Smash Bros, I can't think of a better feature (though I still haven't downloaded Mewtwo.)

This is all rumors, so take it with a grain of salt, but the leaked videos I've seen look very believable, so I'm inclined to think these are probably truly coming.

The first I'll mention is an old favorite - Roy from Fire Emblem.

Roy was a smaller, slower, but more powerful version of Marth in Melee. In Brawl, Ike basically took his place, and personally I always preferred Ike, but we'll have to see how Roy works.

I'm hoping we get a pretty significant reworking of his abilities, because Wii U Smash (I kind of wish they'd gone to the thesaurus again) already has Lucina, who is another Marth clone. I wasn't crazy about how Fox, Falco, and Wolf were all nearly identical in Brawl, and I don't know if we need three versions of Marth. Still, since he hasn't been seen since Melee (which, Jesus, came out fourteen years ago) it'll be nice to have the guy back.

The other R guy is Ryu, from Street Fighter. Now, confession time, I've never actually played Street Fighter, even though I know it's, like, the most popular fighting game there is (well, maybe Mortal Kombat is up there too.) But to be honest I was never all that into fighting games before Smash Bros, which is such a different take on the genre that it could almost be called its own thing.

Anyway, unless I'm mistaken and about to be burned alive by the collective scorn of the internet, Ryu has the famous hadouken move, and is certainly a video game icon, which is a big prerequisite for Smash Bros (well, unless you're already a Nintendo IP. I mean, has anyone ever heard of Dark Pit?)

I'd really hope for them to be able to bring back some missing classics. I'm sad not to see Snake this time around, and it's a damned crime that Ice Climbers are nowhere to be seen.

Anyway, it looks like Ryu will be coming with his own stage, which is good. I don't know what the actual count is, but I feel like the latest Smash has fewer original stages than previous games - like almost half are old-school stages. I'm totally happy with having the old-school stages, mind you, but I'd like to see more original settings (off the top of my head, how about a Maridia Metroid stage with rising and falling water levels, a Dark World Zelda Stage on top of a collapsing Pyramid of Power, or a Mine Cart-based Donkey Kong stage.)