Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Players Are Already Speedrunning The Sephiroth Challenge
Yesterday was a big day for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as game director Masahiro Sakurai spent some time on a livestream showing off the game's next DLC fighter, Sephiroth from Final Fantasy 7. During the presentation, Sakurai showed off all of the bells and whistles that came with Sephiroth, including his moves, alternate costumes, and more.
Although Sephiroth was given a release date of December 22, towards the end of the presentation, Sakurai mentioned that he wanted to give the character a special spotlight deserving of one of the most iconic bosses in video game history. It was revealed that players could unlock Sephiroth five days early by completing the Sephiroth Challenge, a special limited-time mode that lets players take on Sephiroth for the chance to unlock him prior to his December 22 release date. And now, it seems that Smash players everywhere are having fun with the challenge.
Shortly after Sakurai's presentation of Sephiroth concluded, an update was made available for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that allowed players to partake in the Sephiroth Challenge. While some players were eager to jump at the chance to unlock Sephiroth in order to use the character as soon as possible, some Smash players took a different approach to the challenge. On Twitter, many players started to share videos of their Sephiroth Challenge attempts, speedrunning the challenge by defeating Sephiroth as quickly as possible on the hardest difficulty option.
While some Twitter users opted to share their in-game replays of their Sephiroth Challenge attempts, some users made their attempts live on stream, such as professional Smash player Hungrybox. Players used a variety of characters and strategies to take out Sephiroth quickly. Some picked characters with moves that would spike the opponent, such as Pichu, but in one attempt, Hungrybox decided to rely on pure luck. The pro Smash player used Mr. Game & Watch's "Judge" move, which scales the attack's power and effects based on a randomly generated number held up by the character. With luck, Hungrybox was able to take out Sephiroth in just 2.75 seconds.
While many Twitter users posted screenshots of their Sephiroth Challenge speedrun attempts, some decided to adhere to the rule that the attempt doesn't count if there isn't a video of it, or "no vid, no did," as Hungrybox puts it. Other features of the newly released DLC character blew up on Twitter as well, such as Kirby's Sephiroth transformation, appropriately dubbed Kirbyroth.
Having such an iconic video game villain join the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster has made it feel a little more complete. And with features like the Sephiroth Challenge and Sephiroth's unique boss rush-esque Classic Mode, there is surely enough Final Fantasy fan service to tide Smash players over until the next DLC fighter is announced.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is available for the Nintendo Switch.
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