 Sephiroth is in Smash. The biggest reveal for Nintendo fans during the Game Awards 2020 is that the long-haired, long-sworded villain from Final Fantasy VII will be joining the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster as part of the Fighters Pass 2. While he is, to put things mildly, not the most popular choice among Western players, his inclusion at this moment in time makes complete sense. For example, having added Minecraft, a game series from Europe into Smash in October, it's entirely understandable that Nintendo would next want to add a character from an iconic Japanese developer. Square Enix and Final Fantasy certainly fit that bill. Speaking of including Final Fantasy VII in Smash, Masahiro Sakurai once said, Final Fantasy is one of the few uniquely Japanese game series revered by players around the world. I think fans across the globe have hoped a character from one of those series would appear in Smash, so it was only a matter of time. Sephiroth follows in the footsteps of Cloud Strife, the first Final Fantasy character to be added to Smash half a decade ago. According to Sakurai, there was a phenomenal demand for Final Fantasy VII's protagonist to be added to the game. He said, This isn't an exact number, but among the requests for a Final Fantasy character to appear in Smash, around a quarter to a third of the requests we got from fans were for Cloud. I really wanted to answer the desires of those fans, and even though I thought it would be impossible, I reached out to Square Enix anyway, just to try. Apparently, the developers at Square Enix were a little surprised when Sakurai asked to include a Final Fantasy character in the game. Tetsuya Nomura said, When we first talked, I asked, Are you sure you're okay with Cloud? He's not a character from a new game, after all. What's more, as Sakurai notes in another interview, Final Fantasy VII may feel like an odd inclusion for some Smash fans, as the game is notable for being the first in the series not to debut on a Nintendo console, instead releasing on the rival Sony PlayStation. Said Sakurai, A number of people fixate on the fact his original game was never released on a Nintendo console, but if we were to limit our choices to characters who appeared on a Nintendo console, we'd end up with Barts from Final Fantasy V or The Onion Knight from Final Fantasy III. How would that work? Maybe they could change jobs or something? Actually, that would be kind of interesting. At the same time, I think it's only natural to prioritise the character who enjoys worldwide popularity. This leads us nicely to the reason why Sephiroth is such a perfect inclusion in Smash in 2020. Following his role in Final Fantasy VII Remake, a whole new generation of gamers have been introduced to this iconic villain. Sephiroth's inclusion in the new game has proven a little controversial. FF VII Remake only adapts the first part of the story from the original Final Fantasy VII, and Sephiroth has been added into new scenes specifically that weren't present in the PlayStation 1 game. Series producer Yoshinori Kitase says that this was done very deliberately. The way we handled Sephiroth in the original Final Fantasy VII was to hide him, hold him back. You may not know this, but I was inspired by the movie Jaws which took a similar approach of teasing this powerful presence, but never fully showing you the shark until later in the story. We wanted to build him up as this really big powerful character in people's minds. By only referring to him indirectly, it created this feeling of fear and oppression, so when he makes his first appearance, it's a big deal. But for the remake, that doesn't work so well, partly because everybody knows who Sephiroth is. We didn't think it would be as effective to have him hold back until later in the story. So, Sephiroth features prominently in Final Fantasy VII Remake, and as such, gains notoriety among players. If Masahiro Sakurai's team, Sora Limited, were looking for an iconic Japanese video game character that has risen to prominence during 2020, they couldn't have made a better choice. Sorry fans of Crash Bandicoot, Phoenix Wright, or Waluigi, this just isn't your year. 2020 belongs to the one-winged angel.