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Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Game Adds Incineroar, Piranha Plant, Ken

Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Direct presentation revealed on Thursday that the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate crossover fighting game will add the Pokémon franchise's Incineroar and the Mario franchise's Piranha Plant as playable characters.

Piranha Plant will be available as a limited-time free DLC character for people who register their games on their Nintendo accounts by January 21. The presentation stated that the character is still in development and will be available several months after the game launches. Nintendo will release an amiibo figure for the character.

Five additional DLC characters will be released after the game launches. The presentation stated that it may take a year for all of the DLC characters to debut in the game. Each character pack will include one character, stage, and song for US$5.99. A Fighters Pass will give players access to all five characters. People who purchase the pass will receive a Mii Fighter costume of Xenoblade Chronicles 2's Rex, which will launch on December 7.

Street Fighter's Ken will join the game as the Echo Fighter for Ryu. Previously revealed Echo Fighters include Castlevania's Richter (for Simon), Fire Emblem's Chrom (for Ike), Metroid's Dark Samus (for Samus), Daisy (for Peach), Lucina (for Marth), and Dark Pit (for Pit). Echo Fighters will have moves and properties that closely match another character's.

The presentation revealed Spirits Mode, which will let players utilize the abilities of characters from many franchises who have lost their bodies. Spirit classes will include Novice, Advanced, Ace, and Legend. Each fighter character will be able to have one primary spirit and three support spirits. In Spirit battles, players will select opponents from the Target List on the Spirit Board. After battles, players will have a chance to acquire the primary Spirit from the battle. Players will be able to use their acquired Spirits in battle against other players online.

A trailer for the World of Light adventure mode debuted during the presentation. The video teases the story that caused characters to transform into Spirits.

In addition, the presentation revealed that the Smash World app is in development for release on iOS and Android in 2019. Players will be able to post and watch gameplay videos and check statistics in the app. The app will continue to receive updates after its launch, and staff will reveal more details about the app in the future.

The presentation also detailed the game's multiplayer mode. Various multiplayer modes will let players play offline or online, as well as offer the ability to spectate. The Nintendo Online app will support multiplayer features, and the app will also support voice chat for the game.

The game will feature 103 stages, and new stages will include Dracula's Castle from Castlevania and New Donk City Hall from Super Mario Odyssey. Each stage in the game will also have Battlefield and Omega forms. The new Stage Morph option will allow battles that transition between two stages.

The game will include all previous playable characters and support eight-player battles. New characters include Animal Crossing: New Leaf's Isabelle, Metroid's Ridley, Castlevania's Simon, and Donkey Kong's King K. Rool.

Monster Hunter's Rathalos will be the game series' first character that will be both a boss and assist trophy. Other new assist trophies will include Zero from Mega Man X, Knuckles from Sonic The Hedgehog, Krystal from Star Fox Adventures, Shovel Knight from Shovel Knight, and the Moon from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Previously announced characters that will appear as assist trophies include Bomberman, the Squid Sisters from Splatoon, and additional Pokémon such as Bewear and Solgaleo. More than 50 assist trophies will appear in the game.

The game's modes will include Classic Mode, Stamina Battle, Squad Strike, Tourney Mode, Smashdown, and Training.

More than 900 music tracks for more than 28 hours of music will be available. Players will be able to choose tracks be series, and music from a series will be available to listen to while playing any of its related stages.

New items will include the Banana Gun, Killing Edge, Bomber, Death's Scythe, Staff, Ramblin' Evil Mushroom, and Rage Blaster.

Update: Ken's role as Ryu's Echo Fighter corrected. Thanks, Cyclone1993.

Source: Nintendo's YouTube channel via Siliconera (link 2, link 3, link 4, link 5, link 6, link 7, link 8)