Pyra and Mythra are joining the second Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Fighters Pass today. The trend of Masahiro Sakurai and his team adding unique fighters is as strong as ever with these two, and that has the community asking a lot of questions. While it’s not unheard of for a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC character to have more moves than normal — Joker, Hero, Terry, and arguably Steve all have ways to expand their movesets or change their attacks — Pyra and Mythra are the first fighters in a long while to actually be multiple characters in one.
A stance fighter is an iconic fighting game archetype that most series have observed at some point. Street Fighter’s Gen and Zeku, Tekken’s Lei, and much of Soul Calibur’s roster (but especially Maxi and Tira) are all examples. While Super Smash Bros. has had multiple characters that can switch between each other before (Zelda/Sheik, Pokemon Trainer, Samus/Zero Suit Samus), all of these examples contained radically different characters, and most were separate by Ultimate. Pyra and Mythra look similar enough, at least in terms of their normal attacks, to be the series’ first true stance fighter. Until much research is done, fans are left to puzzle over exactly what that means for the meta.
Pyra and Mythra share different versions of their normals and a character-switching down-special, and that’s about it. However, those normals might be scary enough to make both fighters a force to be reckoned with. Sword characters have long been considered universally mid-to-high tier simply because of the natural range extension on their attacks. Pyra and Mythra are both wielding massive laser swords similar to Shulk’s iconic Monado, so it’s safe to say they’ll be hitting from a fair distance away. With Pyra’s slight bit of extra range and Mythra’s speed, they’ll get a lot of surprise hits early on.
And that’s not all the Xenoblade 2 duo have. Pyra has massive, super-damaging attacks, and can throw her sword out as both a projectile and a trap that spins in place for a moment as she moves without it. Mythra, meanwhile, has a charged attack that can hit multiple times in front of her, and another that sends her diving forward, slashing erratically. A lot of these attacks cover large chunks of the screen, and that’s not even getting into Mythra’s aerial projectiles. With their signature attacks, Pyra and Mythra can lock down different parts of the battlefield, even if the moves that do so can have a lot of startup and recovery.
Pyra and Mythra have a couple more tricks up their sleeves that will enable them to deal with characters that get close. Like the Pokemon Trainer’s Pokemon switch, the girls are briefly invincible when they tag out, which could help in certain circumstances. More notable is Mythra’s Foresight, which harkens back to Street Fighter 5’s V-Shift. Rather than a counterattack like Shulk’s down-special, this is a slightly souped-up dodge that only Mythra can use. After dodging, Mythra has no baked-in counterattack, and can act however she pleases. This could lead to many more counter-offensive options if Mythra is able to respond quickly enough.
All of this spells out a fairly complex fighter who is almost guaranteed to be good at launch. With the ability to deny the opponent’s approach and control different parts of the stage, Pyra and Mythra can play a deadly game of keepaway with just about any character. Mythra can whittle away at an opponent’s health while zipping around the stage, and Pyra can come in later to finish them off. Their primary weakness is being in a range that their other self favors, and even then they still have some pretty impressive normals and a quick switch to take the heat off them. Mythra may prove to be more popular with her faster movement and multi-hit attacks, though it remains to be seen if she has the kill setups to truly upset the current tier list.
It will likely take a little while before players start to master weaving in and out of both stances, so the community’s opinion of them will likely rise over time. It’s just unfortunate they were two more anime swordfighters, and so soon after Sephiroth was as well. At any rate, they look like fun fighters to slash away entire groups in friendly free-for-alls, and like a potential menace if paired in doubles. All the community needs now is to try them out.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is available now for the Nintendo Switch.
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