The first special, themed Super Smash Bros. Ultimate online tournament will officially occur this weekend. The tournament theme is “heroes vs. villains,” and it will allow players to select from a limited pool of fighters to compete with others online.
The official Japanese Smash Bros. Twitter account announced the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate online tournament late last night. According to a Google Chrome translation of the tweet, the tournament will be called “Decisive Battle! Hero VS. Villain,” at least in Japan. Accompanying the tweet is an image of several Smash Bros. Ultimate characters, including the Dragon Quest Hero, Mario, Link, Samus, and Fox (heroes), along with Meta Knight, Ridley, King K. Rool, and both Ganondorf’s and Bowser’s enlarged Final Smash forms (villains). Players who win matches in the tournament will be rewarded with spirits, which will be more advanced depending on how many matches are won. There’s no word yet from official Western Nintendo channels if the tournament will come to other regions this weekend or what it will be called if it does, but it’s set to begin on Friday, August 9 and run through the weekend in Japan.
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【トーナメントイベント】
8/9（金）から3日間、トーナメントのイベント「決戦！ ヒーロー VS ヴィラン」を開催！期間中は、ファイターを限定した特別なトーナメントに参加できます！ヒーローとヴィラン、それぞれのファイターが大激突！勝ち進むほど、豪華なスピリッツが手に入ります。#スマブラSP pic.twitter.com/VIQvDhBMHU— 大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズ【スマブラ公式】 (@SmashBrosJP) August 7, 2019
Game director Masahiro Sakurai announced the existence of the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate online tournaments near the end of the “Mr. Sakurai Presents ‘Hero’” video, which showcased the Dragon Quest Hero character. In addition to the tournaments that players can enter regularly enter by selecting the mode, Sakurai said there would occasionally be special event tournaments. This “heroes vs. villains” tournament appears to be the first of these special tournaments.
Some fans in the comments section of the Japanese Smash Bros. tweet likened the tournaments to Splatoon 2’s Splatfest events, dubbing the tournaments “Smashfests.” The final Splatoon 2 Splatfest was held last month, so the special event versions of Super Smash Bros. online tournaments may indeed be the kind of regular competitive challenge Splatoon 2 fans are now missing.
