Things came in pairs this week at the dojo.
The announcements over at the Dojo this week have been a bit strange. Two game modes were described in some detail, two final smashes were revealed, and an Animal Crossing themed assist trophy was revealed to round out the week.
New Game Mode: Trophies
We already know that we'll be collecting stickers and CDs while we play the game. On Monday we received confirmation that the collectible that started it all will be making a return. Players will still collect trophies while they play, and viewing them will display a quick explanation of where the character or object came from as well as give the player the ability to rotate around and zoom in on different features. Some improvements have been made to how the trophies can be sorted as well. Pictures are displayed next to them in the list and they can be organized by the game series they came from. There will also be a mode that allows players to set their trophies up in interesting ways against a background of their choice. Interestingly enough, nothing was really said about a direct connection between these trophies and the assist trophies.
New Final Smash: Diddy's Rocketbarrel Barrage
Diddy's final smash will make use of his special move arsenal. When he grabs a Smash Ball, he'll break out both the Rocketbarrel Boost and the Peanut Popguns to fly around and rain peanuts down on his foes. The control stick will be used to tilt and control the flight "like you're flying with a rocket pack." The peanuts fire straight down, so this same tilting will be used to aim. At the end of the attack, the Rocketbarrels explode, damaging any opponent in range. Finally, the peanut popguns will leave a collection of edible peanuts on the ground at the end.
New Assist Trophy: Mr. Resetti
We still haven't seen a playable character to go along with the Smashville Animal Crossing stage, but an Assist Trophy from the universe was revealed on Wednesday. Mr. Resetti can pop out of a trophy case and just slowly belittle every player watching the screen. It's possible that the speech bubble that pops up over his head will obstruct the view of the battle, but Mr. Resetti may take more of a Goldeen approach and be a bust of an Assist Trophy.
New Final Smash: Pokemon Trainer's Triple Finish
If Squirtle, Ivysaur, or Charizard picks up a Smash Ball, the other two Pokemon will come out to the battle to join them. All at once, Squirtle will unleash a Hydro Pump, Ivysaur will fire off a Solar Beam, and Charizard will let out a Fire Blast. The three attacks will combine to form one massive attack, hitting all combatants in its path while dealing more damage to those closest to the start of the beam.
New Game Mode: Tourney
One of the most overlooked features of Melee will be returning to Brawl. The Brawl tournament mode sounds very similar to what was done in Melee. Different rules can be set up prior to the start of the tournament. Computer players can be mixed with the human controlled players to fill out the ranks. It's currently unclear as to whether this mode will be able to be taken online, but based on preliminary screenshots and descriptions, it looks doubtful.
That's it for this weeks announcements. In another nod to the great conversations going on in our Smash Bros. Discussion Forum, The Sailerman has taken the time to rigorously cut out all of the characters from the official artwork for the game and made a great wallpaper out of them. He promises to continue to update it as more characters are revealed. Check it out in his thread.