Dragon Ball Fans Are Furious Smash Ultimate’s Last Fighter Isn’t Goku

Kingdom Hearts fans are celebrating the recent announcement that Sora would be the last guest to join Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's massive 82-character roster, but Dragon Ball fans are disappointed that the last spot wasn't reserved for the Earth's mightiest warrior.

Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai confirmed today that Sora, the protagonist of Disney and Square Enix's hit crossover series Kingdom Hearts, will be the final character to join Nintendo's own crossover mega-hit, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. While the announcement was generally well received -- or about as well received as Smash Bros. character announcements can get -- fans of several other popular candidates for the series, including Doom's Doom Slayer, Halo's Master Chief, Crash Bandicoot, and of course, Dragon Ball's Goku, were disappointed that their favorites didn't make the cut for Nintendo's massive celebration of video game history. Dragon Ball fans seemed particularly let down, as their expressions of disappointment were enough to get "Goku" trending worldwide shortly after Nintendo's presentation ended.

To be fair to Nintendo, Sakurai has stated many times that Smash Bros. is intended to be a celebration of video game history, and he doesn't want to include characters whose origins lie outside of gaming. Despite that, Dragon Ball fans argue that Akira Toriyama's hit shonen manga has had an outsized influence on the medium of video games as a whole, which can be seen in numerous games, such as the Kamehameha-like pose Ryu, Ken, and other Street Fighter characters take when they toss a hadouken, to Sonic the Hedgehog's very Super Saiyan-esque ultimate form. Some have pointed out that thanks to the dozens of Dragon Ball games that have been released ever since the Famicom/NES era, Goku has appeared in more video games than many of the existing Smash Bros. characters. Prior to the reveal, several Nintendo social media accounts hinted that the new character would be of interest to people who don't play Super Smash Bros., which lead some to assume that the final fighter was not a traditional video game character and would presumably be Goku.

Despite the disappointment from some fans, no one can argue that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate hasn't been a massive success for Nintendo: since its launch in December of 2018, the game has sold 25 million copies, making it the best selling fighting game of all time. The immediate sales success of the game spurred the development of two seasons of DLC fighters for the title, which included characters such as Joker, the protagonist of the still Playstation-exclusive JRPG Persona 5; Banjo-Kazooie, who originally debuted on the Nintendo 64 but are now owned by Nintendo's console competitor Microsoft; and Steve, the avatar character from Mojang's Minecraft. Sora will be the final fighter to join the game's 82-character roster, and will be available to download on Oct. 18.

Source: Twitter