Sakurai has outed the latest daily Super Smash Bros pic, and this one confirms something we’d been guessing at for a while. You can choose to play as a female Animal Crossing Villager for Smash.
However, Sakurai and his team went the extra mile. The pic shows two male and two female Villagers, with enough distinguishing characteristics to tell them apart, even from a distance. Astute observers may notice that the eye and hair choices reflect the appearances you could pick for Animal Crossing games throughout the years.
This also places the Villager character in parity with the Wii Fitness Trainer. As we know, you can opt to play either the male or female Trainer, and your choice of gender will not lead to any differences in how the Trainer plays.
Although I would love it if we could customize the Villager to the same extent as they are in the games (dress up a boy in girl’s clothing, anyone?), I’m guessing these four Villagers are the extent of what we will get. These are reasonable limits and for the purposes of Smash, that’s OK.
I like to think this is a good step forward for diversity as well. It puts forward an idea even more radical than the notion that a female character can beat a male character in a fight. It says that your choice of gender does not make a difference at all, although of course some individuals may have different abilites than others. It’s something we hope Capcom, Namco, and other fighting game companies are looking at and consider adding into their games.
Super Smash Bros is releasing to 3DS this summer, and coming to Wii U this winter 2014.