The DEFINITIVE Smash DLC Reveal Tier List 

Thanks for watching everyone! Smash DLC has been a pretty incredible journey, this was a really fun opportunity to do some retrospection on of gaming's longest-running hype trains and part of what allows me to do this as a job. I tried to apply at least a bit of an "objective" approach to this list, but who are we kidding, that was never really how things were going to work. Let me know what your list would look like, and the most important thing: have fun! That's a lie. The most important thing is that you don't tell me to play Xenoblade. I am not going to play Xenoblade. -Main channel: ru-vid.com -Twitter: twitter.com/MrMockRock -Twitch: www.twitch.tv/mockrocktwitch -Patreon: www.patreon.com/mockrock -Teespring: teespring.com/stores/mockrock

Sephiroth’s trailer is pretty much just a bunch of Advent Children references. Maximilian Dood made a follow up to his original reaction where he just gushes over all the references. It’s great. Also, Max made his own video rating the fighter reveal trailers including Smash 4 and Ultimate’s base roster. It’s very fun.

The Corrin and Byleth trailers feel like they were intended to be in general Nintendo Directs rather than Smash events. They could actually be decent as fakeout reveals akin to Pyra and Isabelle where they pretend to be trailers for their source games. I suspect the trailers were scripted before the devs had nailed down the exact details of the order/venue for each reveal.

Imagine being hired back as Kirby's voice actor, everytime a new character comes out

Its not talked about a lot but I love the detail in Sephiroth's trailer with his fallen angel/Lucifer inspiration and him killing Galeem who's design is reminiscent of a Seraphim angel. Love that stuff.

I literally don’t even like FF7 and the Sephiroth trailer gave me chills. Easy S Tier.

Sidenote: Sepheroths reveal was just amazing to watch. Literally 8 beats...and everyone rejoiced in absolute terror!

just from what i know, i do actually think people thought the pyra/mythra reveal trailer WAS a xenoblade 2 DLC, most likely because they had already written the series off as rex was made into a mii costume and he's the main character. then again, that could've just been me and alpharad lmao

It really makes me sad to see people in other videos ranking Terry's trailers so low, seeing all those SNK characters in their original pixel art bit designs, all chasing that smash invitation (and even dying/recreating iconic scenes while at it) before it falls dramatically to the floor. All for Terry Bogard to pick it up. Its stylish, extremely nostalgic for SNK fans, and had an amazing build up to the actual fighter. And tbh, a lot of Ultimate's reveals were amazing: Ridley's trailer was an epic escalation to a character everyone knew exactly who it was, but couldn't believe actually made it. Having Megaman and Mario _literally murdered_ just added to the already immaculate moment. Sora's trailer was the last key opening the final door to Ultimate's lifespan, giving the game and all the characters one last ride before they go. It was truly magical, especially with Simple and Clean running in the background with Sora flying in the air as if he's saying "yeah, this is real." Sephiroth's was an absolute nightmare, having debatingly the greatest buildup to any trailer by having Galeem, the boss of Ultimate that pretty much defeated the entire cast except for Kirby, being killed in _one shot,_ and all of the characters (including us the viewers) gasping, waiting in expectance to see who it was only for _one wing angel_ to start playing. The amount of Advent Children references, callbacks, and straight up frame by frame scenes with that Cloud vs Sephiroth scene (and Italian barbeque) just being perfection. And finally, Joker. While his reveal might not be the absolute favorite among most fans; I love it not just because of the character, but it was one of the only characters to not let the viewer know it was Smash until the reveal. Just having Joker running around in P5s beautiful art aesthetic, his teammates getting ready for another infiltration, only for Joker to flip the envelop to reveal a smash logo. It is simply perfection. No other reveal had that type of ambiguity because the rest were in a direct/smash presentation, meaning that people either knew it was a smash reveal no matter what (Byleth, Min-Min), or somewhat expected it (Isabel, Pyra). Joker on the other hand, was at the Game Awards, where Smash announcements never happened. Ultimate being released _the next day_ was just the cherry on top and why its number 1 for me.

"Piranha Plant; A tier, fuck you." I died right there lmao

When the female Byleth comes out and the caption read: Byleth recruits...Byleth!? It was so confusing to me because I was like, "So, are they two separate characters? Do they talk to each other?" I didn't know and I was ultimately underwhelm. Also, I may not have wanted Steve, but that trailer still makes me happy when I watch. I can't imagine him not being in Ultimate.

"Piranha Plant, A Tier. F**k you." is my new favourite MockRock quote.

on Corrin, I'd also add that the game wasn't even out in the west, which gave the reveal a very blatant "oh this is advertising" vibe I also feel like I should defend Min Min's reveal some - I really like that they revealed the series ahead of time and then played with that in the trailer by making it a question of _who_ from ARMS is getting in. she's also like, very much a fan favorite, even winning the in-game popularity contest. obviously it's still a niche franchise, but I think that was about as good an announcement for an ARMS rep as it could've possibly been

When I saw the jiggy bouncing by in the Banjo trailer Well, some emotions were felt. That's for sure.

As some one who didn't know who sephiroth was his reveal was probably my favorite

It's weird comparing smash 4 to ultimate in terms of dlc trailers because ultimate went all out on almost every single dlc trailer while smash 4 was working around it's limitations

I don't think anything can surpass Joker for me. I have no connection to the Persona franchise, but watching live reactions of his announcement never fails to give me a boost of dopamine.

I main Corrin and I really don’t enjoy his trailer and what he represented (advertising for a new FE game). However, I love how he immediately picks Smash. There's so little hesitation. It gave me the impression that he wanted to escape the plot, which I still find quite funny.

I agree byleth is F tier, and I'm a fire emblem Stan. To be fair to them though, they announced the 2nd fighters pass during the Terry demo, so we did know we were getting 6 more by then

Kind of weird that you give Cloud's reveal trailer credit for "rewarding the fans' knowledge" or whatever when the Final Fantasy music starts playing right at the beginning of the trailer, but then when a puzzle piece bounces by for a couple seconds in Banjo's reveal trailer it's somehow giving it away too early.

As someone who wanted Sephiroth since Ultimate’s reveal, holy shit I got SPOILED with that trailer. I had to rewatch it since I was too busy nearly having a heart attack. And then rewatched it thirty times holy shit I love the trailer.

Min mins trailer is so polarizing, because on one hand, the immense lack of excitement for an arms character REALLY brought it down, and having basically no build up at all kinda sucked, But it was SO PRETTY and the trailer had so many cute call backs and little touches and it was just so good

I agree with basically all of this, even if I’d put Hero at A-tier for that goddamn incredible trailer.

14:12 Actually right after Terry was revealed, it was also revealed that there would be a Fighters Pass 2

As a massive Xenoblade fan, tears were shed during the Pyra/Mythra reveal! I know it’s not the most popular choice, but it meant so much to me to see them well represented in that trailer.

About our two F-Tiers: It didn’t exactly help that the first half of Byleths Trailer was pretty much directly ripped from Three Houses, without any changes and Fire Emblem Fates not even being released yet, when the Corrin-in-Smash-Trailer was shown.

It's interesting to hear you talk about the tells in the trailers about specific characters and deduct points for those. Maybe I'm just not as observant, but I didn't really notice that the cave Mario crashed into was made of Minecraft blocks, so Steve was a surprise to me. Same with Pyra and FD. It just kinda looked like some weird "edge of the universe" place that I assumed was an endgame location in Xenoblade 2. That said the Banjo trailer did completely give the game away with the jiggy. If they had just not done that, then people probably would have thought it was Dixie or Funky or something and the Banjo reveal would have hit really hard.

I think the thing you’re missing with some of the reveal trailers is that within their original contexts, we didn’t know that they were smash trailers. In many cases, we thought they were trailers for their original games, so there was still a reverse level of surprise when we saw that they were coming to smash

I like how all the characters in S tier have S in their name Strife Sephiroth Steve Sora

Interesting list, but I think you overrate surprise? A lot of these trailers are going to be watched multiple times, both by people trying to pick them for details before the character releases and by people who just think they're cool and want to enjoy some hype. As such I wouldn't put so much emphasis on whether people will be surprised by the moment of reveal. The vast majority of times any trailer is watched, the viewer already knows who will be revealed, so while surprise factor does matter *a little bit*, I don't think it matters as much as you rate it as. Seen in this light, things like the jiggy in the Banjo trailer aren't really problems. You know it's Banjo (because you've seen it before or just because you're not watching it live), it's a cute little hint, and then the trailer plays around a bit with some jokes before finally landing on Banjo and Kazooie. I think it works. The other concern I have is that it's so hard to separate the quality of the trailer with how much you subjectively wanted the character or how you feel about it. I cheered in the first shot of the Pyra trailer because I knew it was going to be a Xenoblade 2 character and I love that game, whereas in the Sora trailer, I was just confused while they dragged it out, and then I sighed in exasperation when it was Sora, because I just don't like Kingdom Hearts. That's going to make it much harder for me to objectively compare those two trailers. MockRock seems to be in the opposite position to me - not liking Xenoblade very much but being a fan of Kingdom Hearts - so he'll have the opposite problem. Likewise personal knowledge makes a huge difference: I had no idea who Joker was before he was announced for SSBU, whereas I did know who Min Min and Terry were, and I can't imagine I'm unique. And, well, I feel like not all the trailers are trying to do the same thing? Sephiroth is all about the money shot - about building up to a single 'hype moment' when you see the character. Pyra is mimicking the style of a Xenoblade 2 cutscene - it's not remotely trying to hide the fact that it's a Xenoblade character, with the only twist being that it seemed like it might be Rex for a moment. If I try to assess both by how well they create a hype moment, is that fair? Sephiroth was trying to do that and Pyra wasn't, and I'm not sure I can rate Pyra's trailer down because it didn't fit one particular conception of what a trailer should be.

As a FE fan Byleth and Corrin's trailers are...awful. I'm fine with them being in the game even if the choice is uninspired and mainly for promotion but their trailers reuse so much stuff from their game it comes off as low effort and lazy. Those cutscenes minus the mention of Smash are lifted directly from the game, surprised you didn't mention that No CG trailer, no cool animation, bad pacing and awkward dialogue (Byleth trailer isn't even lip synced)

As someone who put tons of hours into Fire Emblem Fates and was a Corrin main for a long time, the thing that bothers me the most about it is that it was obviously treated as a “lesser” character. They were the only non-returning DLC Sm4sh character to not get a stage. They also got completely snubbed in terms of music. Even in Ultimate they only have 1 Fates song repeated like 20 times. It’s like they weren’t even trying to pretend this character wasn’t solely added to hype up Fates.

"Yep, that discord notification was me, I choose to reveal that now" Oh I forgot to like the video! Thanks for reminding me

Not a dig at MockRock at all but I feel like a thing almost everyone misses when judging these Character trailers in the nost 'objective' sense are: 1) The context of when it happens; When was it revealed? What was the time period of said character? How special were they at the time compared to everyone else? Were there leaks? 2) Production levels; Was the trailer clearly on a budget? Did they tell a story with it? How many nice references and fan service were there? Was this animation good and showed an appropriate amount of different characters and interactions? Did they show gameplay or just announced the character was coming? 3) Actual Reveal Method; How did the trailer tell you it was 'X' character in Smash? Did they tell you straight up from the start it was Smash and then showed who it was (Pacman, Hero, Terry, etc)? Did they show a character/game first then built it up to a Smash reveal (Isabel, Pyra/Mythra)? And where did it take place? In a Nintendo Direct? Smash Presentation? E3? Hell, even the Game Awards? All these factors may not necessarily be worth the same, especially to people with all sorts of different priorities, but they all play a huge role in how good, impactful, and unexpected a character trailer is beyond just 'do I like character X,' 'this is CGI = 👍' and whether they are super important and iconic to gaming. It's why Joker's reveal is so incredible to me, as A) there were no signs of it being a Smash trailer besides the Rated E symbol. Although you could argue the same for Pyra, and Isabel for example, those two were in a Nintendo Direct, we _expected or at least knew_ of the potential of a new Smash reveal. And while you could say the same for the Game Awards, that's only after 2018 because Joker _started that trend_. Before him announcing a Smash fighter outside of a Nintendo held event (whether that be a Direct, E3, Smash focused livestream, or even a journalism meeting) was unheard off, and there were _no leaks for it too_. So for Joker's case and his case only, _no one saw it coming_. True, it may not had gameplay, but the audacity of its reveal that came out of practically nowhere more than nakes up for it, as Persona was a solely PlayStation series that only had spinoff on Nintendo platforms. However, unlike Cloud, Joker wasn't nearly as popular to be taken seriously or even brought up in discussions on who was next adding onto its unexpected factor. When discussing the 'next big 3rd party character Sakurai could somehow bring over,' the steadily popular - but nowhere near as mainstream as Final Fantasy - Persona series was _not_ something that was said amongst speculation. Tl;dr: Joker is the ultimate bamboozle Smash reveal due to circumstances, timing, and setting and we'll never get that kind of trailer or surprise ever again.

Honestly I think plant is my favorite. It’s just so stupid it’s beautiful. It was alsp good because there wasn’t any leaks for him (besides one no one believed) and everyone was left in confusion

Personally my favorite part of the Sephiroth reveal is the music. One-Winged Angel starts playing even before we see Cloud’s reaction, and it was awesome seeing how many people recognized the song and started popping off.

For the Pyra/Mythra one, I saw a lot of people think it was Xenoblade 2 DLC (which makes no sense since the devs said they were done with DLC in 2018) or a spin off.

I personally think Terry should have been in A tier. I had never heard of King of Fighters, and yet even I noticed that it was some of the most personalised animation of any trailer, beneath only Joker. It had a series of baits and yet it didn’t feel like you knew who it was until the final bait. But most importantly, Terry was a rep for the game that practically birthed Smash. I’m sure you know Sakurai started his love of fighting games from King of Fighters and I’m certain Smash wouldn’t exist now if it weren’t for KoF.

I think the biggest problem with Byleth's reveal is not just the trailer: the fact it was done in a Sakurai Presents made it WORSE. Because by then you KNOW it's a Smash character. Imagine they did this during a Nintendo Direct where it could have been a fake-out of Fire Emblem DLC and then boom, Smash. But instead we knew we were getting a Smash character, we knew it was the last Fighter Pass 1 fighter, and they don't build anything up.

MockRock: Anime swordfighter burnout is at its peak Also MockRock: Sora is free S tier

A lot of good points, however I feel that Byleth has to be S tier for the sheer audacity of getting the voice actor for discount Ganondorf to unironically say "So joining Smash consumes even the darkness itself".

The irony is, 3 Anime Sword fighters were the most demanded characters in Smash. 4 if your Japanese. I really don’t see the issue, I only see the that the internet bending and flopping around. Simply cannot please everyone. Smash players are also only exclusively playing smash. And these guest characters are really to draw in fans of other games into smash. To recognize them as “worthy” of being in the game. P. Plant earned his way with that trailer alone. End of the day this game has characters like Ice Climbers and Game & Watch and Dr. Mario… all these characters make smash into a play your favorite character of all time. Obscure character, Biggest seller, Recent game, doesn’t matter, you can play them. A few redundant characters isn’t hurting anyone. To my understanding, Fire Emblem characters are well liked and actually see a lot of play. Fire Emblem was forever linked to Smash since Melee with the demand increasing for their original games. The only mistake they make, is to keep being DLC apparently. Unfortunately Fire Emblem Fates released after smash 4. and fire emblem 3 houses released 3 months after Smash U. And unlike other series, they dont normally have reoccurring characters.

Sephiroth is the best imo

I feel like most people didnt think it was steve when mario crashed into the cave (including me)because blocks seem extremely general and can work in context with a lot of characters

Sora's trailer was such a good misdirection that I legitimately thought it was master hand at some point. I thought this because the characters turned into trophies and mario put his gloves (which look like Master Hand) in the fire.

I'm really not sure how I feel about using the argument that "Min-Min/Pyra should have been base roster" against their trailer. For one, it has nothing to do with the actual quality of the reveal, but it was also flat out impossible. If Smash Ultimate started development shortly after Smash 4, then ARMS and XC2 would have been early in development. Actually, Sakurai has made it known several times before Ult released that he wanted an ARMS rep and Rex, but it was infeasible given the development schedule. I actually dislike how much flak first-party DLC gets in general. Not every character can be a crazy 3rd party guest character, nor should they be. At it's core, Smash is a celebration of Nintendo, and Nintendo has changed a lot over the past few years. I think representing modern series like Splatoon, ARMS, and Xenoblade are not just warranted, but necessary if they want to reflect the current status of their IPs. Smash is really the only game series I've seen where these sorts of insanely high expectations are placed on character reveals.

The thing with Terry is that it resulted in so many people having a newfound love for the character

I think the "the next smash character will be from arms" was just they had to delay development because of corona

Jokers was the best, and uh, clearly no bias

14:00 Alternate universe where the byleth reveal trailer was actually edelgarde

Thanks for setting off a nostalgia bomb for me with that animorphs style thumbnail

12:04 I know that Fatal Fury is forgotten in USA, but it is important in LatAm, even facing Street Fighters. They gave some pleasure to eveybody with the DLCs.

14:12 they announced after Terry that there would be another fighters pass, probably because they knew Byleth was the last character. So they started the damage control immediately after Terry’s reveal.

What makes the Byleth trailer worse is that the opening part is just ripped from Three Houses. Plus it makes one of the best moments of the game very weird watching back.

As a Xenoblade fan, the Pyra and Mythra reveal was done very well in my opinion. At first I was very excited because I thought it would be DLC or a sequel. But after seeing FD, you knew what it was. Honestly I was expecting Rex with Pyra and Mythra to become DLC so it wasn’t a huge surprise but still a welcome entry.

I disagree strongly that Pyra and Mythra's trailers were super obvious immediately. Basically every XC2 fan who reacted to it though it was likely DLC up until the arrival at FD. It uses the game's original engine and it starts with the atmosphere of many of XC2's own trailers. I think it did a great job of stringing fans along until the reveal. Then once it happens (if you count it as reaching FD), the pace picks up fast, so I really can't fault the pacing the way I would, say, Byleth's trailer. Also a lot of the other sword fighters the two fight in the trailer are references to enemies in XC2, and a lot of XC2 enemies wield weapons, so the result was inevitable. I can definitely see why someone totally uninvested in XC2 find the opening segment slow, but I don't think they could have done it another way while trying to preserve the reveal impact.

I'm not necessarily against Sephiroth being S-tier by my own criteria, but by yours, it feels like things like sword fighter overdose and franchise representation(specifically second character from FFVII when there's so much more to the FF series) should matter more somehow. Either way, clearly you care about the reveal a lot, and there's no denying this was one of the very best in that regard. Hero at B though did trigger me a little, as I feel that it's widely underappreciated and I really don't get why... I don't think it's about being japanese or not, the production quality is among the highest(honestly I think only the Belmonts top it), the pacing is great, the second reveal is clearly amazing fanservice, it concludes on the final smash which is also a great reveal... The thing is just fantastic. I truly don't get it.

Love the tier list but I do feel like even if you're not Japanese you explain the hype between Hero and Banjo in the east and west. They should've been in the same tier either A or B. Kinda biased to put Banjo above but from your neck of the woods perspective it does make sense.

Byleth rocks as a character and is a great inclusion but God damn that trailer was a slow burn and would have been better if it were in a general direct, maybe as a fake out for the 3h story DLC that was coming out around the same time. byleth also should have had a yuri alt and had some cindered shadows music like god damn how did they not do that

It's pain to be a Fire emblem fan nowadays... Especially since I became one thanks to Smash and Sakurai Ps. Corrin is a victim of Fates' awful writing, and Byleth just ended up at the wrong place and at the wrong time

Terry’s announcement is probably my favorite because before smash, I had never even HEARD of KoF, but when Terry got the envelope I was freaking out. He just looked so cool! It made me hyped for a character that I didn’t know existed before.

Jokers announcement was hype af. Your watching the trailer thinking its going to be a persona announcement. Then he pulls out the smash invitation out of no where and It made people go. "HUH!? WHAT!? SMASH!?". I think that alone should deserve some bonus points

I glad you liked the piranha plant trailer too, I've also enjoyed the "random" fighter picks for each game it's personality still my favorite DLC character. Though I'm still the only person out of the people I talked to that was ecstatic for his reveal.

For Me, Banjo Kazooie was my Sora reveal. I loved the series as a kid, hell had Rare stayed with Nintendo during the Gamecube era, we probably would have had them in Smash by then. I freaked out when they finally were announced for Smash, I made sure to get their amiibo as well too.

I think I liked the Byleth trailer way more than most people because despite the fact that there was little to no suspense, the trailer had me high on spite after years of "too many anime swordsman" jokes and then we proceeded to get 3 more in the 2nd dlc lmao

Honestly, I'd disagree with "Everyone knew it was going to be a Smash trailer" for Pyra. At least for me, I was super into the build up. Honestly I was expecting it to be a DLC or even Xenoblade 2-2. And heck, it wasn't until you mentioned it that I noticed she was on Final Destination. It honestly looked like it fit right into the game's setting.

Isn't Tekken 7 one of the biggest fighting game success stories of the last generation? I think you were underestimating the popularity and influence of the series a tad bit because you personally were not familiar w it 😐

I love the shift of Terry. He went from a “Who’s that?” to one of the most hype characters

When I saw Steve's trailer, I first noticed the blocks Mario fell through, but quickly dismissed it as some odd architecture. Then I saw the endermen and spider eyes in the background, but I was in complete denial that _HE_ could possibly be here. Then a perfect square opened up in the wall with that sound effect I could never forget, and I popped off harder than I had in any trailer ever. I may not play minecraft as much as I used to, but it was a massive part of my life and I thought it was completely impossible for Steve to get in even after the other surprises.

In regards to Min Min, once it was clear it was going to be an Arms character, most people expected, and wanted, Min Min to be the choice. The other option that really came up was Twintelle. Keep in mind that she won an official popularity poll amongst the Arms fighters.

I feel like the Kazuya trailer has the same feeling of the Cloud reveal. The moment I saw Ganondorf being carried like that, I gasped because it was instantly apparent. And, admittedly, both have the same kind of “shame” in someone when I watch a reaction that doesn’t instantly get it.

Pretty much agreed with everything but with Pyra, yes from the outside it was obvious, but as a MASSIVE Xenoblade fan, I was hyped for more content so the idea that it was a Smash reveal completely flew over my head. But yeah, that Sora reveal, literally everything about it was sheer perfection.

I don't think there's anything wrong with putting Min Min and Pyra/Mythra in as DLC characters. They were series where Sakurai would have liked to put characters in the base game, but couldn't because they had already finalized the roster and adding more would have added more development time for it. It made sense they added them in as DLC, since they were highly requested by fans the moment Smash Ultimate was announced. People were expecting an ARMS and Xenoblade 2 character being in there. Of course, when the DLC consists of mainly 3rd party characters, there is absolutely zero slots that could have been the ideal spot to add in a 1st party character, except the very first DLC, which was Joker (Piranha Plant doesn't count). Announcing ARMS as the first DLC of the 2nd pack and having Pyra/Mythra right in the middle instead of the very end is better than what they did with Byleth. Even if they aren't juggernaut characters, they were characters Nintendo fans wanted. Byleth, I would agree, was pointless. He's only in it to promote Fire Emblem Three Houses.

"being self aware is not the same thing as actually changing" - MockRock 2021

Crazy to me how different our perspectives are. Plant is the freest F tier imaginable. Disappointing reveal, a joke that gets old in two days, a character nobody plays or thinks about. If you're gonna do a joke character, never do it like this. The most money Nintendo's ever spent on a bad joke

Sora is 100% my S++ tier. Revisting the smash flame from the announcement trailer, the hold-your-breath suspension as the fire went out, the slow and power keyblade reveal and then the main kh theme drop as sora enters. And the absolute best part of all of it for me was mario shaking sora's hand. Having the literal video game icon that is mario shake sora's hand as an equal made me feel so much validation for my love of the kh franchise over the past 20 years since the first one dropped.

Thank you for including piranha plant some people don’t even consider plant dlc

I didn't put a whole lot of time into Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (I don't even think I met Mythra) but I think Pyra in Smash gets too much hate. I can't think of an actual reason she was a bad inclusion other than just...not being what some people wanted. I don't care if she's "another anime swordfighter", whatever that's supposed to mean these days. Her concept is unique, her attacks are fun and flashy, she's not Marth #5, and she's just a plain likeable character.

In defense to Byleth’s trailer, we knew that there was going to be more DLC after Terry’s presentation (not sure if they said that during the reveal too, but for sure it was announced before Byleth). Additionally, female Byleth wasn’t the big twist reveal, but the other weapons were (and during that same presentation, it was explained how the weapons would work, though not the properties of them). Not gonna say that Byleth’s reveal was great, but to say it’s the worst when also looking at smash 4 DLC feels a bit too harsh (imo at least).

Minecraft Steves Announcement was the beautiful moment when everyone realised: *Literally ANYONE can be announced for this game!*

Alright I'm pretty early on but...talking about fire emblem character burn out? Mentioning how good a final smashes reference is? Seems more like ranking characters, and how you feel about them, not the actual trailers quality. Like yeah, corrins is long and of less interest for people that don't care about the character and people that know, know immediately. But "I immediately know this character" is true for many other characters like cloud and Terry too, but doesn't actually say much about the respective qualities of the trailers, which are very different. It was even praised for clouds. One could say that corrins is too slow paced and doesn't actually show off/introduce the character in a way to build interest for the ones that haven't played the game? But then there is all those complaints when they do show a character early, so.... 🤔 I'm left unsure what kind of trailer for corrin they would have ranked highly.

Firstly, Min Min is actually THE most popular Arms character. She won a fan-favorite poll before her reveal, so to see her being the Arms rep was kinda sweet. Just a stylish and hype trailer overall. Love the music. Secondly, as a non-Fire Emblem fan who LOVES playing Byleth, I don't take too much issue with their trailer honestly. I agree it's slow-paced and plays its hand waaay too early, but I enjoyed the music and Sothis' sass. Their final smash isn't terrible either tbh, but as a non-fan I wouldn't know what better choice there would have been instead of Sothis. Lastly, same goes for Pyra/Mythra. Love playing them despite having no familiarity with Xenoblade. I liked the music and glimpse into their world and the performances. I did recognize they were on Final Destination, but the concentrated excitement of the last half of the trailer overshadows any flaws of it for me. Pyra/Mythra feel very unique for an anime swordfighter! Arguably moreso than Sephiroth who feels a lot like Byleth!

Im gonna add another point to steve for why he deserves to be in s. He literally broke Twitter for a second with how many people were trying to get on Twitter to talk about him. If that dosnt show how much hype or just sheer shock and aww then I dont know what would

The thumbnail is well spot on tho mix with link and hero plus bayo.

You intro is better than every song I've heard on the radio in the past 3 years

Mewtwo along with Ridley were my most wanted character for smash 4 so an S tier for me I had assumed Wolf would come back

I disagree with a loooot of your opinions here, like for example Hero there but then Cloud so up. The Byleth thing that you mention about him morphing to the female alt is funnier in japanese Sothis straights up doubts on his virility and he kinda gives her the point by turning female. Though I guess if you see the english dialogue as a mock up to these kind of fans that just wants more "female representation" just for the sake of it it can also work as a funny interaction.

great video, strong points. Would love to see you include every other reveal outside of dlc characters, considering that three of them practically broke the internet when they happened (snake, sonic, megaman)

I like how the 3 characters that actually know eachother in a different canon (Sora, Cloud, and Sephiroth) are all S Tier and then Steve is also there. Lol.

By the time you got to Hero I felt like this really needed an additional row. I don't think Roy and Ryu's trailers really should have been on the same level as Hero's fantastic presentation. Even if we agree that all three of them were leaked (and it's debatable with Hero since everyone thought it was just Erdrick) the overall quality of the reveal is well beyond what Roy and Ryu had

6:00 Interesting thing about Bayo's popularity: She topped the Smash 4 Fighter Ballot according to Sakurai's definition of "negotiable and realizable characters" at the time, and finished in the top five overall and in first place among European voters. Maybe there were three other characters ahead of her who were also logistical nightmares for Sakurai. Either way, I personally would consider that worthy of being the final sendoff for Smash 4. Also, Min Min: Personal request from ARMS director Kosuke Yabuki. Pythra: IIRC the plan was to include an ARMS rep and a Xenoblade 2 rep in the base game but the team just ran out of time. I wonder if those two would be received better if they'd come in back-to-back in the middle of the Pass (say, second and third). Though the process of getting Sepiroth (and maybe also Steve) might have taken awhile.

MockRock: "Piranha plant, A tier, f*ck you" Me: YES

Solid list! I'd recommend watching Hero's trailer with Holding out for a Hero added in, instantly elevates that trailer to at least A tier, I can't watch the normal one anymore

Finally some Piranha Plant respect. That trailer was as fun as you could reasonably expect one for that character to be. And every fighting game needs a WTF?! character. Now for Byleth. On a personal level Byleth is my favorite DLC character and the only one I've played consistently since release besides Hero. I maintain that when the next generation of Smash finally comes and the roster is inevitably pruned that Byleth deserves a spot over most of the othe Fire Emblem characters since 1.) Their game is now the most successful one in the series and 2.) Their playstyle is unique and completely unlike the rest of the FE picks. But yes their reveal was lame. Just a Corrin 2.0. If you've played the game or are reasonably up on Nintendo current releases you know who it is one second in. If you're not, there's no tension because you know you're looking at the character but you'll never have a solid idea who they are through the whole thing. The trailer recycling in-game footage certainly doesn't help. Also there's the timing aspect. Byleth being announced at the end of the first fighter pack gave it some unintentional weight. I think Byleth would have been better received being announced in the spot Hero was. Some people would have still been salty but the later Banjo reveal would have pulled most of them past that. I love Byleth and hope they stay for future Smashes, but that reveal smudge is going to linger for some people for a good long while.

One minor nitpick, I think Kazuya is the most iconic character in Tekken series. The Mishimas are definitely the face of the series, and of the Mishimas, Kazuya was the first playable main character (Heihachi was the final boss in Tekken 1). Granted, it could have been any of the three and would have worked, but with Heihachi lacking the Devil Gene, and Jin just not being as charismatic as Kazuya, I think Kazuya was the right character to represent Tekken.

I feel like Hero's reveal should still have been in A tier, yes it was better received in Japan, but I don't think it's a reason to bump it down to B tier

I was very busy this October so missed this video on day 1 but yeah. For the most part I actually agree with this tier list except for maybe 1 or 2 things.

The main problem with Kazuya's trailer is the music imo, which combined with what was, at least to me, a very early reveal really turned me off the character with how unexciting he was

I think that Sora was a really bad reveal personally in the same way that you didn’t think Banjos was good. I like the call back to the first trailer but they could have done that regardless of who the last character was and The tension was only related to the time it had taken to get there. There was no indication it was him until they showed the key blade and at that point it was impossible to not know it was him. And the reason why they did that is probably because Disney wouldn’t let them use any assets/references from the series that weren’t already going to end up in smash (with the exception of simple and clean).

The one merit I give Byleth’s reveal trailer is the “Byleth recruits Byleth!” Thing is actually pretty funny.