In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Sora is a bit off-key(blade)

Despite my hopes/theories that Sora would never be in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, he is and he’s also the final character.

I honestly forgot when Sora was supposed to drop today and only found out when the official Nintendo account unceremoniously announced Sora was live with an image so low res you’d think they took it from someone’s AOL Instant Messanger avatar. In fact, that seems to be the ONLY reaction to the announcement that Sora went live today.

Anyways, I had the chance to play with him and he’s, well, alright. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has given me plenty of practice with characters with swords so I had the range down pretty quick. The only thing that really changes is Sora’s air time. He can be up there for a while, especially if he connects with something. He can do combos up there really easily. And while Sora’s plethora of ora-ora-ora leaving him with the aura of Maniraptora can easily leave opponents as lost as Dora in Katghora (you’re welcome), he can also trip himself up more than his giant shoes can.

Sora’s Keyblade swings about as well as, well, a giant key. It does a good amount of damage but if you miss, that key’s still gonna move for a second, giving a huge opening for your opponent. Likewise, if you try to stay in the air, relying on an air combo and you miss, you drop.

The thing that tripped me up the most, however, was his magic and that may just be because I’m not used to it yet. Sora’s basic special casts spells that cycle through a rotation: Fireballs, Thunder, Blizzard. Throw a fireball across the screen. Hit it again and you call down three lightning bolts. Hit it again and you fire a cone of freezing air. The problem for me was that the fire and ice came from the keyblade. But when I was close to an enemy and tried doing it when lightning was up, the bolt would often hit behind him. So getting used to the fact that you either have to constantly pay attention to what spell is up or just deal with a one out of three chance to not have close range usefulness tripped me up a few times. Growing pains I guess.

His classic mode was kind of a trip though and is sure to delight any edgelords playing, as it mainly focuses on any characters that can wear black. Shadow Links, Game and Watches, Robins, a giant dark Ganondorf, they’re all here. The only thing I was disappointed with was the fact that his final boss is the hands. How dare Sephiroth not be his final boss. How dare.

There was one thing that got a big smile out of me though. The credits where you’re blasting all the names? If you beat Classic Mode as Sora, the credits music is the original Gummy Ship music and if you can think of a better song to shoot base polygons to you’re dead wrong.

All in all, Sora feels like a bit of a lackluster addition to the game. I’m glad the number one-voted character actually got in the game but there’s nothing really all that unique about Sora.