Super Smash Bros 4 Roundup Of The Week: Robin's Nosferatu, New Stages And The 3DS Menu

It was a little odd to see Sakurai posting Miiverse pics at irregular dates this week. It can only be a sign that development is wrapping up on Super Smash Bros 4.

On Sunday, Sakurai revealed a new ability for Robin’s Nosferatu. This move will give Robin some of his life back as it deals damage to other players. In fact, it’s the first move that does this in any Smash game. It also deals more damage if Robin is facing away from the opponent he or she is attacking. Sakurai explained they added this quality to make him unique, and hints that when they do things like this, they occasionally come back to the original games themselves.

On Wednesday, Sakurai revealed a stage many were anticipating; Star Fox. Surprisingly, he opted for the Great Fox from Star Fox: Assault. Sakurai hints that, just like the Pilotwings stage, the fighters will be fighting on top of the ship while it’s moving, without the pilot’s consent. One wonders who will be flying it if Fox is fighting.

Thursday saw a bunch of posts about the different stages in the game.

First, Sakurai explained that they opted to make Wily Castle and the boxing ring stages the same for both the 3DS and Wii U versions of the game. Slight differences will remain between them. For example, the Wily Castle in 3DS will always be daytime.

The Tomodachi Life stage was also revealed, and Sakurai explained that, sensibly, the walls disappear so that you can see when the fighters overlap. The rooms are randomized, and better yet, your Miis (not your Tomodachis) will be running around in them. Sakurai hints at using the X Bomb as an effective strategy in this stage, although he did not quite explain why.

Finally, today we see the main menu forSuper Smash Brothers for 3DS. The UI designers went the extra mile with this one, as Sakurai revealed the bottom screen will reflect the menu choices on the top screen with unique pictures. If you can imagine the number of potential menus that can be selected, that’s a lot of work just to leverage two screens. It’s only typical of Sakurai, and Nintendo, to pay so much attention to details like these.