The Game Awards started out incredibly strong, with one of the first things shown being the reveal of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate‘s new character. Very few people predicted that Sephiroth would be added to Smash, but now that he’s here, it seems like it was almost inevitable. One cannot have Cloud without Sephiroth after all, so the One Winged Angel was bound to join the fight once Cloud was added back in Smash 4. While there’s a lot that can be said about Sephiroth’s trailer including moveset analyses and general discussion about the hype, his inclusion actually says a lot about Cloud as a character too.
Cloud was added to Super Smash Bros. at the end of 2015, and has since returned in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Now, five years later, his arch nemesis has arrived as well to bring despair to Smash. They say a hero is only as good as his villain, and that couldn’t be more true than in Cloud’s case. In almost every form of media he’s portrayed in, is entire identity is tied directly to Sephiroth, as the two share a sort of twisted and unbreakable bond that isn’t found in many other characters.
A prevailing theme in Cloud’s character is that he is in some ways defined by Sephiroth. It seems like wherever he goes, Sephiroth follows, and the two’s fates always end up intertwined. This holds true in almost every incarnation of Cloud in a video game, starting with the original Final Fantasy 7. In that game, they are connected due to both of them having Jenova cells, but Sephiroth frequently uses this against Cloud, at one point even tricking him into thinking he was a clone of Sephiroth’s. Final Fantasy 7’s main villain is as much a threat to Cloud’s mental stability as to his physical health.
Naturally, Cloud has appeared in many spin off titles since then, and for the most part Sephiroth is always there, too. In Kingdom Hearts, Sephiroth acts as a secret boss in the Olympus Colosseum where Cloud’s story plays out, and in Advent Children Sephiroth returns to be the main villain to antagonize Cloud. Even other titles like Dissidia Final Fantasy makes the relationship between these two characters a huge focus of their individual stories, proving that their fates are intertwined regardless of what universe they are in. Now Sephiroth has managed to seek Cloud out in Smash, validating this concept again.
In the many polls online trying to parse out who fans wanted to see in Smash next, very few even included Sephiroth as an option. No one was asking for him to be added because it seemed so unlikely that it wasn’t even given a chance. Final Fantasy already had one representative in the form of Cloud, and it seemed to make more sense to allow DLC spots to bring in new franchise reps like Crash Bandicoot or Dante. This made his inclusion all the more shocking.
Even so, when the infamous One Winged Angel tune started playing, a majority of Smash players were thrilled to see him included. Sephiroth goes against most of the things the Smash community wanted (ie. no more sword users, no more fighters from existing franchises, etc.), but simultaneously is everything they could have wanted. It certainly seems like he is canonically leagues above the other fighters in the game, though, as he is able to easily one shot Galeem despite the rest of the cast struggling to defeat him. He will of course be balanced for actual gameplay, but it will still be odd to see the likes of Sephiroth go up against characters like Jigglypuff or Princess Peach.
One interesting detail that fans picked out of his reveal trailer is that at no point was Sephiroth given an invitation to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, rather it seems that he just showed up in search of Cloud. In other character reveal trailers, the coveted white envelope is often a focal point of the whole experience, like how all the fighters in ARMS were battling to get ahold of the invite, but in Sephiroth’s trailer it is nowhere to be seen.
If any character in Smash would show up as an uninvited guest and start wreaking havoc for his own personal gain, it would be Sephiroth, so this makes a lot of sense. His bond with Cloud seems to be so strong that he’s able to chase him down through the world of Midgard, into Kingdom Hearts‘ Olympus Colosseum and Hollow Bastion, and now even into the world of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. All of this is to show that no matter how hard Cloud tries to get away from his enemy, he will always be there. As he put it himself, Sephiroth will never be a memory.
Cloud’s run in Smash 4 and Ultimate leading up to this announcement mark one of the few times when he existed in a franchise without Sephiroth. Even if the character didn’t show up in person, Sephiroth was always there in some capacity in other games that feature Cloud. While the anti-hero must have certainly enjoyed this time away from Sephiroth, it seems that all good things must come to an end eventually.
It’s humorous to think, but it almost seems strange that Sephiroth wasn’t in the game already. Most of the other characters have villains to match in some way, whether that’s as an actual fighter, a stage element, or even an assist trophy, but Sephiroth was strangely missing in this capacity altogether. Pair this knowledge with how integral Sephiroth is to Cloud as a character and his inclusion seems to just make sense.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is available now on Nintendo Switch.
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