Today is December 15, the day when the final Smash Direct came out and revealed the final batch of DLC information for Smash 4.
It was a pretty memorable day for me. I remember watching the beginning of the Direct and seeing Ryoma, immediately making me hyped we were getting Fates content after all. At the time, I wanted Azura to be the Fates rep, so I was hoping she'd be revealed during it. It seemed more and more likely that it was going to be Corrin though because the nature of the reveal was trying to mimic that famous scene from the game, but I still hoped for Azura, thinking Sakurai could surprise us just like he did with Robin.
When Corrin was revealed, it made me feel a bit unhappy at first. I didn't have any interest in the character prior to the Direct because I didn't think he/she could stand out in a unique way, not to mention I hard time imagining how would they pull off the manakete aspect to him. Boy was I blown away when I saw the gameplay footage. They implemented the manakete skills perfectly, and they even gave bigger focus to that compared to the sword. That made me pretty hyped to play Corrin, and buy the time he/she finally came out, the hype was worth it. Corrin turned out to be a really fun addition, one who even became my main secondary to this day.
Also, that Lost in Thoughts All Alone Remix is gold. I wish we had a Fates stage to tag along with Corrin's reveal though.
Bayonetta was another surprise to me. Prior to the Direct, I thought her chances of appearing in Smash would be higher around Smash 5, so to see her make the Smash 4 roster was something I didn't expect for the most part. I was also surprised to hear she won the Smash Ballot, especially when you saw those polls leading up to the reveal that suggested characters like K. Rool, Wolf, Inkling, etc. would take the cake.
But for the final character reveal, they handled Bayonetta perfectly to fit that kind of theme. I also found her Smash moveset to be pretty fun. Sadly, I have not mastered her to this day since I'm not the best at combo-heavy characters, but I think she was a really great addition to the roster. Bayonetta was also memorable to me because she threw out the "you need to be a gaming icon" rule that was previously with every speculated third party character in Smash, and she proved that a silent majority triumphs over a vocal minority (if the polls were anything to go by).
Her stage was really fun too, and the music selection was pretty nice.
Even in the midst of the hype of the Direct, I remember feeling pretty sad by the end of it because I knew that was it for Smash DLC and my most wanted character ultimately didn't make the cut.
'Twas a memorable day indeed.
