Super Smash Bros. Director Says Dragon Quest’s Hero “Difficult” to Get for Ultimate, Banjo-Kazooie Easier to Obtain
Posted on June 29 2019 by Kristen G. Rosario
Who would have thought we would be post-E3 not with one, but two DLC fighter announcements for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate? In a very pleasant surprise, Nintendo unveiled the next two characters that are a part of the Fighters Pass: The Hero from Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, and Banjo-Kazooie. Even though some people assumed getting Banjo-Kazooie would be a real challenge (considering Microsoft owns the rights to the bear-bird duo), apparently that wasn’t the case.
In fact, according to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate director Masahiro Sakurai, the real challenge was getting The Hero. In a recent interview about the new DLC fighters with Famitsu, Sakurai talked about how “difficult” it was to get The Hero in the game. According to him, Square Enix has interaction restrictions on how many of the Dragon Quest Heroes could interact.
Game Informer speculates that this fact explains why there aren’t female skins for Erdrick and Sofia from Dragon Quest IV, since Sakurai usually gives players that gender swap option when available. And speaking of skins, The Hero from Dragon Quest VIII was added because of multiple requests from Western fans.
Then when it came to Banjo-Kazooie, Sakurai thought that the characters would have been the real challenge for the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate team to obtain. To his surprise though, it went a whole lot smoother than expected. The developers of Rare actually helped out, but Sakurai didn’t say anything more from the interview other than that. Even the help received from Banjo-Kazooie composer Grant Kirkhope went great, regardless of the language barrier.
And in a bit of additional news, Sakurai mentions at the end of the interview he does not care for the console wars between Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. He says all the consoles have great games, and thus, he will respect the games, instead of which system they come out on.
What do you think of this news? Are you surprised by how easy it was to get Banjo-Kazooie into Super Smash Bros. Ultimate? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: Famitsu (via PushDustin, Game Informer)
Kristen G. Rosario is an Editor who joined Zelda Dungeon back in September of 2015. His current goal is to become a full-time video game journalist, hoping to eventually gain a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism. While he pursues that dream, he not only takes care of his adorable dachshund Angel, but also helps run a YouTube channel with his brother. The Zelda series is a quest he hasn’t fully completed yet, but hopes to get there one day.
