The Super Smash Bros. trailer. Sephiroth’s Ultimate gave video game fans a real show as we learned the identity of the character behind Challenger Pack 8. Those familiar with Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children probably noticed some memorable scenes from the movie as the revelation happened.
According to Masahiro Sakurai in the last Famitsu column, the script for Sephiroth’s revelation was set to pay homage to Advent children. It seems that plans for this were created before the release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. In other words, there are no intentional references to events that took place in Final Fantasy 7 Remake in the Super Smash Bros. trailer. Ultimate.
Indeed, the scenes of Sephiroth in Advent Children who enveloped him in the dark sky, pushing Cloud and lifting him into the air, being the victim of Cloud’s Omni Slash Ver. 5 and swearing that it will never become a mere memory, all were mentioned in the great revelation.
Of course, the violent nature of the bastard’s attack on Cloud was reduced to a trailer. Instead of pushing someone with seven-legged Masamune, the one-winged Angel lifted Mario into the air in overalls in a hilarious way that was more appropriate for the Nintendo audience.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake was released earlier this year on April 10, 2020. At this time, Min Min from ARMS and Steve from Minecraft were not even revealed as playable characters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
It is not too surprising to hear that Sephiroth has already been chosen to become a playable character at the time, given that it has been said that Nintendo has already decided on the list for Fighters Pass Vol. 2 in 2019, as in the first Fighters Pass. Again, you don’t need a “Smash Ballot” to find out which fighters deserve a slot.
This seems to imply that the One-Wing Angel was worked to some extent while Min Min and Steve were also developed. At the very least, plans for each fighter’s cinemas revealing trailers and moving sets have already been created.
Masahiro Sakurai previously mentioned that he was offered early versions of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Fire Emblem: Three Houses in order to put Breath of the Wild Link and Byleth in Super Smash Bros. Completed in a timely manner.
Similarly, Sakurai received early sketches for Greninja before the release of sixth-generation Pokémon games during the development of Super Smash Bros. 4. Of course, this would obviously not happen with one of the intellectual properties of Square Enix, so there was no possibility of Final Fantasy 7: Remake being mentioned in the Sephiroth trailer.
At the end of the Famitsu column, Sakurai says he is happy that he and the development team managed to release Sephiroth before the end of the year. Given the complications surrounding the global COVID-19 pandemic, there were no guarantees that this would happen as Sakurai could have hoped.
In any case, this seems to imply that the newest character was recently prepared for release. This could mean that we are at least a few months away from the next fighter.
Source: Source Gaming.