Prerelease:Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

This page details prerelease information and/or media for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

To do: Sakurai shows here many poses in their conceptual phase. A lot of poses are slightly different, as well as most notably for Sakurai, Hero's forward midair jump pose used to be different. Document them here. Sakurai notes here that the tires for the vehicles in the Moray Towers stage used to move. Document that here. Sakurai shows here an early pose for one of Pyra's moves. Document that here. Sakurai shows here that Simon's axe throwing poses in their conceptual phase were a bit different. Document them here. More poses here. Sakurai shows here early concept art for the Maid Outfit for the Mii Fighters. He details how he came to the final decision of choosing the correct design. Document that here. Sakurai shows off TONS of prerelease material; poses, expressions, etc. here. Document it all on this page A couple of characters icons / renders are less refined on the E3 2018 Treehouse Live footage, including Villager, Pikachu, and the most notable, Mario.

Early Development

Scrapped Characters

Base roster

• Decidueye - In an interview with Nintendo Dream, Sakurai revealed that Decidueye was almost chosen to represent Generation 7 of Pokémon as a playable character, but Incineroar was chosen instead, as Sakurai had a desire of creating a character with a professional-wrestler based moveset.
• Alucard - Sakurai stated in an interview that once it was decided to add a Castlevania character to the series, Alucard was a highly requested character and was very popular. However, Sakurai claimed he had chosen Simon and Richter as the Castlevania fighters over Alucard due to fans preferring the Belmonts. Thus Alucard became an Assist Trophy, likely as a compromise.
• Characters from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and ARMS- According to Masahiro Sakurai, he stated that multiple characters from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and ARMS were considered to be added to the base game, but were not included due to development being completed prior to the announcement of both games in January 2017. While they would receive representation of some kind (Spirits and Mii Fighter outfits for both series, as well as music in the case of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Spring Man appearing as an Assist Trophy for ARMS) in the base game, both games would eventually see playable representation in Fighter Pass Vol. 2, with Pyra and Mythra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Min Min from ARMS both included within it.

DLC

• Slime and other Dragon Quest heroes - Sakurai stated in an interview that if he could not use the Hero as the playable Dragon Quest character, he would have chosen Slime, but this went the other way round due to Sakurai getting the rights to the Hero. Additionally, he wanted the eight alternate costumes for Hero to be actual characters rather than recolours, but could not do so due to time constraints.
• Ninjara - When it came down to who will be the ARMS fighter, Sakurai mentioned that he considered either Min Min or Ninjara. However, he chose Min Min instead due to the request from the game's creator, Kosuke Yabuki.
• Rex - At one point in development, Rex was set to fight alongside Pyra and Mythra in a similar way to the Ice Climbers, but Rex was later removed due to technical issues with the implementation of the idea. One of the issues was how complex the designs of Pyra and Mythra were. Another issue was getting both characters to move at the same time, which the development team found impossible to do. Similarly, it was too difficult to dub Rex as the main fighter with Pyra or Mythra behind him, thus ultimately leading to Rex being delegated into a smaller role.
• Heihachi Mishima - During "Mr. Sakurai Presents: Kazuya", Sakurai confirmed that Heihachi Mishima, who was previously considered as a possible fighter in Super Smash Bros. 4, was nearly chosen to be the Tekken fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Instead he chose Kazuya, as he thought that because Kazuya has the Devil Gene, there was a better potential moveset for Kazuya than Heihachi.

Home Menu Icon

The icon on the Home Menu went under a few revisions.

Earliest	Early	Final

The earliest known revision of the icon appears to be a placeholder, as it doesn't even feature the game's art! It could be found for a short while on Nintendo's CDN servers and partially spotted on Nintendo Treehouse livestreams.

Character Preview Videos

Prior to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's release, the game's official website featured short 20 second videos for each character showcasing part of their movesets, animations and other miscellaneous features. Various differences from the retail game can be observed in the footage shown:

• Peach's neutral special move (Toad) was shown to re-use the same activation sound effect as in previous games, despite using a different sound effect in Ultimate upon use. (02: Donkey Kong and 13: Peach)
• Link's bow did not sparkle briefly upon reaching full charge. (03: Link)
• Mr. Game & Watch re-used his forward smash animation from Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS & Wii U: he would receive an updated animation based on Fire Attack in later builds. (08: Pikachu)
• Dr. Mario originally re-used Mario's animation for the Cape special move when using Super Sheet. (09: Luigi)
• A red visual indicator appeared when Luigi connected with the sweetspot of his Super Jump Punch - this would be changed to green in retail builds. (09: Luigi)
• Dr. Mario re-used the 3DS & Wii U animation for his Dr. Tornado special move - this would later be altered so that he would spread his palms out after the last hit. (18: Dr. Mario)
• Falco's preview video bizarrely contained debugging remnants - the hitbox visualizations for his Blaster and Falco Phantasm special moves can be seen for very brief moments. (20: Falco)
• Ganondorf's smash attacks produced different sound effects on hit, as well as having different, more saturated trail colours - down smash in particular lacked any trail effects at this point. (23: Ganondorf)
• Roy had a unique, more dynamic dashing animation that was not seen in either previous games or in the retail build. His down aerial also had a different sound effect on hit. (25: Roy)
• Wario's classic outfit had gold buttons on his overalls, which were changed to white, likely due to Wario's design never incorporating gold buttons before.
• Bizarrely, Ike's preview video featured a visual glitch, where the cut-in portrait for Ike's Radiant Dawn costume appears, despite him using his default Path of Radiance costume. (32: Ike)
• King Dedede displayed his default facial expressions when crouching - this would later be changed to a smugger appearance. (39: King Dedede)
• The Bulborbs which normally appear in Olimar's End of Day Final Smash were absent. (40: Olimar)
• All of Toon Link's attacks which utilize the Master Sword use unique sound effects in the retail game - these were not yet implemented as of his preview video, where the same attacks had generic "bash" sound effects. (43: Toon Link)
• The soles of Wolf's boots appear red at various points, clashing with his official render and final model, which have blue soles (44: Wolf)
• Wolf's down smash and Blaster special move used different sound effects at this point in development. (44: Wolf)
• Rosalina & Luma's Final Smash re-used the Power Star design from 3DS & Wii U - this would later be changed to the Grand Star from Super Mario Galaxy, although the attack itself remains identical. (48: Rosalina & Luma)
• PAC-MAN's Pac-Jump special move once had a property wherein it turned green whenever an opponent attacked it, and would collapse if an opponent touched it again. This behaviour and trampoline colour is never seen in the retail build, as it turns yellow if hit, akin to when PAC-MAN bounces on it once. (55: PAC-MAN)
• The water from PAC-MAN's Fire Hydrant special move appears to once have been able to clank with attacks, as it stopped in place when PAC-MAN hit it with his jab - this behaviour goes unseen in the retail build, as the water continues to push fighters away regardless of whether or not their attacks collide with the water. (55: PAC-MAN)
• The background torches in Arena Ferox appeared totally static, as if the animated graphics hadn't yet been added. (57: Shulk)
• Duck Hunt's Trick Shot special move bizarrely had a "punch" sound effect when the can collided with enemies - this would later be removed. The attack also appears to not have its flame elemental effect coded in yet, as there are no accompanying fire effects when it collides with Falco or Sonic. (59: Duck Hunt)
• Inkling's Slosher down smash had a different sound effect on hit. (64: Inkling)
• Daisy's forward smash bizarrely lacked any sound effects for when her golf club connected with the opponent. This would later be resolved. (13ε: Daisy)
• Ridley's forward smash had a different, more generic sound effect on hit. (65: Ridley)
• Richter's Axe and Cross used different, more generic sound effects on hit - the Axe used a generic "impact" sound as opposed to the blade cut sound used in the retail build, while the Cross lacked the distinct metallic clang it makes on hit. (66ε: Richter)
• Piranha Plant has a noticeably slower dash speed - this is more in line with an unused set of parameters corresponding to the character that were datamined in version 1.0.0 of the game, which set Piranha Plant's dash speed as the slowest in the game. (70: Piranha Plant)

Early Battlefield Design

On February 26th, Masahiro Sakurai posted a developer picture of Pit and Inkling in what seems to be the previous game's version of the Battlefield stage. The next day, he confirmed that it was a dev stage they used to test the lighting engine.

To do: What are the differences?

While the stage seems to be simply ported from Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, it has some small differences.

Early Sans Design

Sakurai later posted an early design of the Sans Mii costume on his Twitter on April 5th, 2020.

Early	Final

It features a slightly different design, with more realistic hands instead of the mitten hands seen in the final release. Undertale developer Toby Fox confirmed that this was changed at his request.

(Source: Toby Fox)