There are a total of 86 characters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, mostly due to its “Everyone Is Here” theme. It’s hard to imagine how a sequel will be able to manifest itself considering the high standards and expectations set by Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but series creator Masahiro Sakurai has always managed to find a way up to this point.
During the DLC era of Super Smash Bros. 4, the reveal Final Fantasy’s Cloud Strife would be joining the battle turned out to be quite the shocking surprise for fans as he was more often associated with Sony rather than Nintendo. However, it turns out that there were other Final Fantasy characters that were also considered.
Ultimately, Cloud was chosen as he was apparently the most popular of the possible Final Fantasy reps. According to Sakurai, Cloud made up a large percentage of the requests concerning the Final Fantasy series that he’d receive for Super Smash Bros.
“This isn’t an exact number, but among the requests for a Final Fantasy character to appear in Smash, around one-fourth to one-third of the requests we got from fans were for Cloud.” — Masahiro Sakurai
“This isn’t an exact number, but among the requests for a Final Fantasy character to appear in Smash, around one-fourth to one-third of the requests we got from fans were for Cloud,” said Sakurai during a joint interview with Tetsuya Nomura (as translated by Source Gaming). “I really wanted to answer the desires of those fans, and even though I thought it would be impossible, I reached out anyway, just to try.”
Apparently, Sakurai and Nomura had never really interacted with each other before this conversation about getting a Final Fantasy rep into Super Smash Bros. Sakurai even stated that he wasn’t even sure if Nomura would agree to speak with him.
Luckily for Sakurai and all the Final Fantasy fans that wanted representation in Super Smash Bros., Nomura was more than willing to talk about this becoming a reality. Of course, he wasn’t sure if Cloud would be the right fit for the crossover.
“When we first talked, I asked ‘are you sure you’re okay with Cloud?'” responded Nomura. “He’s not a character from a new game, after all.”
“We could have used Terra or Bartz, protagonists in their own right, but I feel like there would be some people who wouldn’t know who those characters are.” — Masahiro Sakurai
Regardless, Sakurai was adamant that Cloud would be the right choice. Although he did admit that they could’ve used other Final Fantasy reps instead, he thought that very few of them were as recognizable as Cloud.
“But on the other hand, if you think about who to add from Final Fantasy, it’s hard to come up with a choice that’s not Cloud,” declared Sakurai. “We could have used Terra or Bartz, protagonists in their own right, but I feel like there would be some people who wouldn’t know who those characters are.”
Terra Branford is one of the main protagonists of Final Fantasy 6 while Bartz is the main protagonist of Final Fantasy 5. They came shortly before Cloud was introduced as the main protagonist of Final Fantasy 7.
“There are characters like Strago too,” chimed in Nomura. Strago is a character that also hails from Final Fantasy 6. He is most notable for being a mage capable of learning enemy attacks upon witnessing them being used.
“But I’ve actually only talked to Mr. Nomura just once, that first time. After that, I was generally free to do whatever I wanted.” — Masahiro Sakurai
“Characters like Fusuya might be good as well,” said Sakurai in response. Fusuya is an interesting choice considering that he was only temporarily playable in Final Fantasy 4, though he does have the honor of being the first nonhuman character to be playable in Final Fantasy.
Ultimately though, Cloud was the one destined to be playable in Super Smash Bros. Sakurai and Nomura were apparently able to decide on Cloud from just the one conversation.
“But I’ve actually only talked to Mr. Nomura just once, that first time. After that, I was generally free to do whatever I wanted,” continued Sakurai. “There was general editorial supervision going on, of course, especially on the graphics side — to get Cloud looking as right as possible was tough. It took some time for us to discover how to present Cloud with a Smash touch.”
Cloud Strife would eventually pave the way for Sephiroth to also join as a Final Fantasy 7 rep in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Thus far, only the seventh entry of the Final Fantasy series has had playable characters within Super Smash Bros.
More recently, Clive Rosfield from Final Fantasy 16 was added to Tekken 8 as a guest character. This shows that Square Enix is still willing to lend their characters for the sake of fighting game representation.
Additionally, the Nintendo Switch 2 has finally been officially unveiled. With every new console, we should expect some new games to also get announced.
Incidentally, Masahiro Sakurai has been working on a secret game project since April 2022. Could this be the next entry in the Super Smash Bros. series?
Whether or not Sakurai’s secret game project actually is the next Smash, we’ll probably get another game in the series for the Switch 2 at some point or another considering how well it performed on the Switch as the third best-selling game on the device. As such, we could potentially see more Final Fantasy reps entering the fray alongside Cloud and Sephiroth.
Source: Event Hubs
