Ganondorf Spotted in the 3DS Direct

[Venus of the Desert Bloom]

Friday was the grand reveal of Shulk as a newcomer to Super Smash Bros. While not exactly a surprise given various recent leaks, his announcement was fairly surprising due to the fact many didn't think we would be getting a newcomer during the Japanese 3DS Direct. The direct had a number of interesting Super Smash Bros. for 3DS features including:

• Final Destination forms for Tortimer Island, Paper Mario, Corneria, Rainbow Road, and Living Room.
• Footage of Multi-man Melee
• Various new trophies
• Smash Run events involving climbing through vertical-scrolling stages and a game similar to "Race to the Finish".
  
• "Enemy Army Group" mode. Most likely involves fighting off enemies from home franchises.
  
• Customization features (in particular Kirby)
• Mii Fighter outfit customization
• Ike's Final Smash "Great Aether" returns.

However, more notably was the reveal of a character that was unintentional but widely speculated to return. The first portion of the Direct showcased various characters but one particular character screen caught people's attention:

If you look at the far left portion of the image, it shows Pikachu. While seemingly innocent, looking at the bubble on the far right of that Pikachu screen yields this...

Yeah, it seems a bit blurry but that character in the bubble seems to look a lot like a character that we all know.....

Zooming further shows...

Wait....is that....the King of Evil?

Many view this as a strong indication that Ganondorf is this character in the Nintendo 3DS Direct and could have been an accident. However, if the Youtube video leak is to believed, he will continue to have his Falcondorf (Falcon + Ganondorf) move set that he has kept since Melee with slight improvements from Brawl version. While this may add credibility to the leak, only time will tell. However, this is great news for Ganondorf fans!

Ganondorf is briefly visible for several seconds at around :57 so you have to be quick to notice it but, once you do, it is hard to not unsee it. To discuss about Ganondorf, please visit the Ganondorf sub-category section. Let us know if you think this is Ganondorf, what changes you would like to see to the character, and your general feelings on the King of Evil.

Venus was hoping for a Canondorf instead of a Falcondorf. Ganondorf needs his Dead Man's Volley and other LoZ canon abilities! If you think so too, follow Venus at @VenustoBloom!

 

[EdgeTheLucas]

Falcondorf confirmed to return. though we've known this for a few days, but yeah this is a good recap article for that

He'll most likely at least be buffed, and that's good and all. He has a fun moveset as it is.

But man.

Looking at the Hyrule Warriors footage of him is so depressing now.

 

[PeanutProphet]

WHY CAPTAIN FALCONDORF WHY!!!!!!!!

 

[ミスティック Speed]

Late again. But whatever, I guess. lol

 

[Space Stranger]

So close...

 

[shrooby]

I like how Ganondorf has now been unintentionally shown twice.
Just once is pretty bad.... but twice.

 

[lob]

i honestly dont mind falcondorf as long as hes not absolute **** like he was in brawl. it would be cool if he had his sword and kept some of his signature moves (chokeslam, dair, fair, the boot, etc) and had a sword for his other stuff, and you could choose between 100% sword or 100% falcondorf with custom moves

 

[sWiTcHeRoO [疾~斬]]

It's funny how late these last two news posts are.

That aside, kinda sucks Ganondorf is still the same from Brawl, him being a slower and useless Captain Falcon just makes him way too boring to even consider playing as, imo.

 

[Space Stranger]

Late again. But whatever, I guess. lol

C'mon, step it up!

 

[Saito]

Did anyone expect the king not to come back?

 

[EmeraldDragonair]

Why is the Black Shadow cosplaying as Ganondorf again... oh well looks like the actual Ganondorf is waiting until Smash 5

 

[QuickLava]

I like how they called the changes made to Ganondorf from Melee to Brawl "improvements".

 

[Venus of the Desert Bloom]

Sonic jokes aside, there are reasons as to why news reports are late. And that's all I have to say about that.


Reasons.

 

[aS_Skyloft]

I wasn't bad with Ganondorf in melee so if anything I hope he's closer to that.

 

[•Col•]

On one hand, I think Falcondorf is kinda cool.. On the other.. It feels like so much wasted potential. Like, they don't even have to completely change his moveset. Just change a few of his moves to be dark magic-y and some sword slashes;for the moves that look unnatural for Ganondorf to be doing(mostly the weird yoga kick poses/flips he does).

For instance, change his utilt to be more of a dark magic explosion rather than an exploding kick.. Upsmash/Upair/Nair/Dtilt changed sword attacks. Warlock Kick changed to a lunging/dashing attack with the sword. Warlock Punch changed to shoot out some electric orbs or something.. Really just small changes like these could keep the functionality of the moves mostly the same, but giving more to the Ganondorf character.

According to the leaked footage, he even still has the sword-in-my-pocket taunt.. Always considered that taunt to be Sakurai trolling the fanbase.

Anyway, hoping that the custom specials will give some of the Ganondorf flair I'm craving.

 

[Turmalinium]

Falcondorf confirmed

 

[Young Marth]

Can someone link me to pics of final destination unveils?

 

[ORANGEtheGORILLa]

Poor Nintendo they've tryed everything to stop unneed chracter reveal.

 

[Auramaniji]

I'm happy that there's a another article citing the return of characters, but i'm depressed that the damage has already been done...
There's nothing we can do but let the roster play out.

 

[N7S]

No sword

 

[Espy Rose]

Venus, can you be any slower?

 

[WwwWario]

I'm both happy and a bit sad. Ganondorf is one of my mains, so after seing him in the leaked gameplay and here, is great. We haven't seen his specials yet, though, so MAYBE he has changed a bit? But it looks like he have the same moveset with the normal attacks, as seen in the leaked footage. However! If you look at the leaked footage, it's clearly that his up-special speed and running speed is increased!

 

[Chris Sifniotis]

Eh, not my favorite character to return, more or less everyone else has pointed out his woeful shortcomings. I hope he's a bit quicker; Bowser and Ganondorf are more or less the trundling tanks of Smash, Bowser being the Panzer and Ganondorf being the Sherman. Much slower and nowhere near as excellent.

 

[CryoGX]

This is now your theme song.

On a serious note, I really did want to see SSJ3 Ganon in this Q_Q

 

[Ryu Myuutsu]

Did anyone expect the king not to come back?

You'd be surprised how some people thought that Ganny would get the cut, being replaced by Ghirahim or another Zelda villain. Because it's not like Ganondorf is part of the triforce trifecta or Zelda's most recurring villain or anything.

 

[pawndidater2]

I doubt this was an accident.
They are teasing us.
Ganondorf has swords in custom moves. This is now an irrefutable fact.

 

[Chaos Archangel]

Don't forget, there's still custom moves. There's still a chance we can make Ganon completely unique and original.

Edit: Ninja'd. x.x

 

[SupremeSuperiorStick]

A bit late don't you think?
But anyway it was kinda obvious that he would return, but I was hoping he would get a new move set. I mean it's all cool how he has a sword for a taunt yet fights with his fists, but after seeing how awesome he looks in Hyrule Warriors, I was hoping they would take some aspects from there

 

[KuroganeHammer]

WHAT IF IT'S NOT REALLY GANONDORF

BUT ACTUALLY A CAPTAIN FALCON ALT COSTUME

 

[Madash]

I like most of Falcondorf. But a few slight changes I'd like to see to greatly improve him as a character.
Dark Dive: little shorter distance but directional giving him more versatility and a better recovery
One recurring move I've seen with Ganondorf is a sphere of energy projectile, have it still be slow and predictable and straightforward but extremely powerful fully charged. This would give him a projectile which he needs.
Usually accompanied by this move in this series is a reflective cape spin for a game of tennis with the ball of energy. It'd give Ganondorf a level of unpredictability and tacticalness if this spin comes out frame fast last a second and has ending lag. This could reflect his energy sphere and other projectiles but what I think would top it all off is if close opponents either trip or get shocked still for a bit. the combination of these two would make ganondorf still strong and slow but those 2 moves would make it to where being too close or far is dangerous.
And of course his swords for some attacks.
Also Flame choke to not send him into helpless but have ending lag.

 

[EdgeTheLucas]

I think I'll repost my thoughts from the Ganondorf thread here. I think they speak for most of us Ganondorf fans:

I want Falcondorf's up-tilt changed. Have you guys seen Project M's? That one's so brutal and satisfying to hit with.

Also Falcondorf still has a chance to be more Ganondorf-like via custom specials a la Palutena.

If Sakurai doesn't go along with it, then Sakurai officially doesn't think having a canonical Ganondorf matters, AND WE SHOULD MOVE ON FROM THAT. It's been 3 games in a row, and If Sakurai still doesn't care then he never will. We should accept that and move on.

Yes, it's unfair that he got the short end of the stick. The difference between him and characters like Mega Man and Shulk when it comes from using source material as inspiration is as deep as the Grand Canyon. I still resent that he ever included Ganondorf in Melee so haphazardly to begin with--I suspect that if he left him out of that, then he'd be an awesome, true-to-source-material Ganondorf in Brawl.

But it was not meant to be.

We have no choice but to stop crying about it, since our words are just gonna fall on deaf ears anyway.

 

[arcticfox8]

Assimilate into the Falcondorf following
We have footdives

 

[poisontongue]

It would be inexcusable to me to not have the supreme villain of one of Nintendo's flagship franchises represented in game. We have Bowser... we even have Dedede.

While I always expected the lord of evil and bearer of the triforce of power to return, I hoped he'd be respected enough by Sakurai to get some more effort put into him and give him some character of his own (you know, like the vast majority of non-skin swap characters, aka everything we hang on when a new challenger is introduced).

At the very least I hope Sakurai and co. put some effort into fixing the flaws because it kills me how he's been since his introduction.

 

[Busterbie]

Yo, people updating the news page, you're awesome and all, but you're for the most part pretty late

 

[Yoshi Kirishima]

**** wait, is there no FD version of Gaur Plains? I would love to be able to play on Gaur Plains because of the scenery + music without having to play on a scrolling map.

 

[mario123007]

They don't need to hide anything since it is going to release really soon, and I can't wait to use Ganondorf in Smash!

 

[BADGRAPHICS]

We've seen almost nothing of Ganondorf; just because he doesn't have a completely new moveset doesn't mean he isn't exactly the same. His UpB looks vastly improved from the leaked video.

I'd like it if his NeuB was a charge projectile, though. That would be pretty great.

 

[Kirbybrawl]

If only he could at least fly and not be so slow

 

[TheGhostlyPidove]

You'd be surprised how some people thought that Ganny would get the cut, being replaced by Ghirahim or another Zelda villain. Because it's not like Ganondorf is part of the triforce trifecta or Zelda's most recurring villain or anything.

Triforce trifecta... I like the sound of that. It's got a nice ring to it.

 

[BADGRAPHICS]

If only he could at least fly and not be so slow

He should totally be able to do the floaty thing that Peach does; that would suit him really well.