In a recently translated Famitsu column, Smash Bros creator Masahiro Sakurai reveals how the highly requested Sora from the Kingdom Hearts franchise came to be in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. As we already know, Sora was the most requested new character in the Fighter Ballot, however, Mr. Sakurai thought it was going to be near on impossible to get Disney to agree to feature the lovable character in Smash Bros. Mr. Sakurai said that the key chance came when he was invited to a certain awards venue where he was given the chance to meet with a Disney representative.
Sakurai thought it would be hard work to get the representative to agree to feature Sora in Smash, but the representative thought that it would be great if Sora could become part of the Super Smash Bros Ultimate roster. While the representative gave the ok for Sora in Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Sakurai knew that the higher ups at the corporation might be averse to the the decision, so it then turned into a long and thoughtful discussion between the managers at Nintendo, Disney and Square Enix, and naturally he was eventually given the go ahead to include Sora in Fighter Pass 2.
Sakurai also mentioned in the column that they had originally decided that Fighter Pass 2 would feature five fighters like the original Fighter Pass. The lineup had been decided, but because they had all agreed that Sora should feature, and that he was given the go ahead by all involved, they increased the number of fighters in Fighter Pass 2. Sora’s development was heavily supervised by both Disney and Square Enix, meaning that there were a lot of hurdles to his inclusion into the game and numerous guidelines to follow. Sora is available right now in Super Smash Bros Ultimate on the Nintendo Switch as DLC.
Damn, that’s actually pretty impressive, by all of the parties involved!
…that said, if the second Fighter’s Pass had ended with Kazuya, that would still have been pretty cool.
So it actually WAS that difficult to get Sora into the game, huh? That makes me all the more impressed they actually made it happen.
Not gonna say I’m surprise with this interview, but it is extremely hard work to get Sora in the game that Kingdom Hearts fans has been waiting for and now they finally made it happened. I’m a bit impressed.
Still a bad pick and more a disney icon then gaming. Sometimes fan ideas are not the right ones when it comes to the integrity of your ip or product. Hopefully next game has no 3rd party and returns franchise to its roots.
bruh….
All about perspective as I see Sora as more Squeenix than Disney.
sora? he looks more like chucky.
I wish they would go and improve on the old nintendo characters the same way they went into making sure all 3rd parties were all op and had crazy array of moves.
He’s actually pretty fun to play as, too. I haven’t played KH since the original 20 years ago, and the sound effects of both Sora and the Hollow Bastion level instantly unlocked nostalgia shivers.
Not surprised by the difficulty after how much studio interference made KH3 into one of the weakest entries in the franchise. That disappointing Frozen world, for starters…
Please Square Enix. Make Kingdom Hearts 2.5 digital for Nintendo Switch.