Sephiroth (SSBU)

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Sephiroth in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
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Universe	Final Fantasy
Availability	Downloadable
Final Smash	Supernova

“	Sephiroth Descends to Battle!	”
—Introduction Tagline

Sephiroth (セフィロス, Sephiroth) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and the third third-party fighter from Square Enix after Cloud and Hero. He was confirmed as a playable character on December 10th, 2020 at The Game Awards 2020, and is planned for release on December 22nd, 2020 as the third downloadable character from Fighters Pass Vol. 2; however, he was playable as early as December 17th, 2020 by defeating him in the limited-time Sephiroth Challenge event that ran from December 17th-22nd. Sephiroth is classified as Fighter #78.

Toshiyuki Morikawa, who has voiced Sephiroth since Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, reprises his role as the character in all regions.

Known moveset

Sephiroth's full moveset was showcased on his respective Mr. Sakurai Presents video presentation on December 17th.

• His base design for Ultimate is based on his design from Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, while his Coatless design is from the final boss fight in the original Final Fantasy VII.
• Sephiroth wields his signature weapon, Masamune, which, like Simon and Richter's Vampire Killer and Min Min's ARMS, possesses extremely long reach but a relatively slow attack speed. It has different sweetspots depending on the attack used:
  • For slashing attacks, it has a sweetspot located around the middle of the blade, a sourspot covering the inner blade and hilt, and a mediumspot on the tip of the blade.
  • For stabbing attacks, its sweetspot on the tip of the sword.
• His neutral attack consists of two kicks, followed by a hilt thrust. It is his fastest option up close.
• His forward tilt is an outward slash at an upward angle, which can be angled up or down. It can only hit most prone opponents if angled down.
• His up tilt is an upward stab with extremely high reach. It has a sweetspot at the tip of the sword and possesses a grounded hitbox that leads into the main hit.
• His down tilt is a sliding kick, similar to Cloud's.
• His dash attack involves dashing forward while striking with his energy-infused hand, similarly to Mewtwo. It is powerful but has noticeable startup.
• His forward smash is a two-handed upward slash. It has very high reach and powerful knockback, but has high overall lag, making it punishable.
• His up smash is a wide upward swing, similar to Hero's up tilt. Its range is impressive, as it is able to hit medium-sized characters a few character lengths away from him.
• His down smash is a wind-up stab forward, piercing the ground and sending debris forward for a wider range of attack. The debris will not be launched if the attack is not grounded, but Masamune itself can poke past the ledge to hit opponents grabbing it. The tip of the sword also deals extreme shield damage.
• His neutral aerial involves snapping his fingers and creating an aura of energy surrounding himself. It is his fastest aerial with the lowest landing lag, and has decent combo potential.
• His forward aerial is a thrusting stab with Masamune. It can be used to stab into walls, allowing Sephiroth to jump afterward, with the move acting somewhat similarly to a wall grapple or Corrin's Dragon Lunge.
• His back aerial involves swinging his sword horizontally behind himself in an arc. It is slower than his forward aerial, but more powerful.
• His up aerial is a backflipping slash above himself. It is extremely slow for an attack of its type, and has high landing lag; however, it covers an extremely wide arc above him, and the starting hitbox can even catch opponents while landing.
• His down aerial is Hell's Gate, a downward stab (a homage to an infamous scene in Final Fantasy VII where he kills Aerith with a stab from above). It is a stall-then-fall aerial that meteor smashes aerial opponents during its initial frames.
• His grab involves reaching out with his right hand, and he telekinetically grabs the foe using dark magic.
• His neutral special is Flare / Megaflare / Gigaflare, consisting of launching a slow Flare fireball, which can be charged and canceled (but not stored). Each level of charge has less range but possesses more power and a larger explosion, and the stronger Gigaflare can potentially create an opening for Sephiroth to follow up with another attack.
• His side special is Shadow Flare, a weak but fast move that causes dark spheres to orbit around the target, which explode some time afterward. The projectile can be charged, creating more dark spheres per hit, to a maximum of three per hit. Up to five spheres may be orbiting each opponent at once. The dark spheres are susceptible to the usual reflection and absorption, but are thrown as standard projectiles when pocketed.
• His up special is Blade Dash / Octaslash, an omnidirectional slash forward which functions similarly to moves such as Fire Fox. If the special move button is held down at the beginning of the move, it becomes the multi-strike Octaslash, gaining more power and distance but becoming unreliable at snapping to the ledge.
• His down special is Scintilla, a unique counterattack consisting of a honeycomb-like barrier that deals multiple hits upon counterattacking. While only able to destroy and not reflect projectiles (in addition to being susceptible to breaking), it counterattacks even when an attack is not present, and grows stronger depending on the damage it has taken.
• His Final Smash, Supernova, consists of Sephiroth performing a wide slash to trap foes in the attack before transforming into Safer∙Sephiroth (his final boss form) to summon Meteor and trigger a supernova in an extremely similar manner to its use in Final Fantasy VII, wiping out the earth and causing random status effects to foes who survive the attack. These status effects include an automatic shield break, being slowed down, having reversed controls (indicated by a mushroom on the victim's head), having a flower planted on the victim's head, being put to sleep, or a simple darkness effect, which is accompanied by more knockback than usual, albeit still on the lower end for a Final Smash. Fighters caught in the Final Smash face towards him with their backs to the camera, much like Cloud and his party do in his final boss battle.
• Some of his taunts and idle animations were shown:
  • He has two variations of him readying Masamune in a battle pose, one of which is a ko gasumi samurai stance which is a direct reference to the final duel between him and Cloud from Final Fantasy VII.
• He possesses a unique fighter ability where he unfurls his single black wing (which takes on a purple glow) and enter his Winged Form, based on the amount of damage he has taken and how far ahead/behind he is in stocks. This increases his power, speed and grants his smash attacks super armor, though he loses the form after being KOed or after scoring a KO. This is inspired by Reunion, his EX Mode from Dissidia Final Fantasy.
• All of Sephiroth's victory poses show him in front of a flaming background, referencing the Nibelheim Incident from Final Fantasy VII. The ending notes of his theme from Advent Children are heard for his victory theme, followed by a long drowning note:
• One of his victory poses is a direct reference to the Nibelheim Incident, where Sephiroth (facing away from the camera) looks behind him to chuckle menacingly, before walking into the flaming background and out of sight.
• One of his victory poses has him do a sword slash while facing his back towards the camera.
• One of his victory poses has him look up menacingly and say something in Japanese.
• If Sephiroth is in a team battle and he is not the leader of the team, then he will have an exclusive animation where he simply looks off to the side without doing anything.

Moveset

Note: All numbers are listed as base damage, without the 1v1 multiplier.

		Name	Damage	Description
Neutral attack
Forward tilt
Up tilt
Down tilt
Dash attack
Forward smash
Up smash
Down smash
Neutral aerial
Forward aerial
Back aerial
Up aerial
Down aerial		Hell's Gate
Grab			—
Pummel
Forward throw
Back throw
Up throw
Down throw
Forward roll Back roll Spot dodge Air dodge		—	—
Techs		—	—
Floor attack (front) Floor getups (front)
Floor attack (back) Floor getups (back)
Floor attack (trip) Floor getups (trip)
Edge attack Edge getups
Neutral special		Flare
Side special		Shadow Flare
Up special		Blade Dash
Down special		Scintilla
Final Smash		Supernova

Classic Mode: The Chosen Ones

Uniquely, Sephiroth's classic mode route has him facing off against various bosses in the game in a Boss Rush, referencing his status as a final boss in Final Fantasy VII.

Round	Opponent	Stage	Music	Notes
1	Rathalos	Forest Hill	Roar/Rathalos
2	Galleom	Base	Boss Battle - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
3	Marx	Mysterious Dimension	Vs. Marx
4	Dracula	Dracula's Castle	Phase 1: Nothing to Lose Phase 2: Black Night
5	Ganon	Sacred Land	Calamity Ganon Battle - Second Form
6	Giga Bowser	Final Destination	Giga Bowser
Bonus Stage
Final	Master Hand & Crazy Hand	Northern Cave (Ω Form)	One-Winged Angel	References the final battle of Final Fantasy VII where multiple characters team up to defeat Sephiroth.

Credits roll after completing Classic Mode. Completing it as Sephiroth has JENOVA accompany the credits.

Role in World of Light

Due to his status as downloadable content, Sephiroth does not have a legitimate role in World of Light. Instead, he is unlocked for use in the mode after freeing 10 fighters from Galeem's control. If loading an existing save file that meets this condition before downloading Sephiroth, he is immediately unlocked.

Interestingly, Sephiroth’s trailer takes place during World of Light, where he makes his presence known by slicing Galeem in half and fighting the heroes himself.

Spirit

Sephiroth's fighter spirit can be obtained by completing Classic Mode. It is also available periodically for purchase in the shop for 300 coins. Unlocking Sephiroth in World of Light allows the player to preview the first spirit below in the Spirit List under the name "???". As a fighter spirit, it cannot be used in Spirit Battles and is purely aesthetic. Each fighter spirit has an alternate version that replaces them with their artwork in Ultimate.

• 

  1439. Sephiroth

Alternate costumes

							File:SephirothHeadCoatless VioletSSBU.png

Gallery

• 

  Sephiroth's splash art.

• 

  Sephiroth's unlock notice after downloading him from the Nintendo eShop.

• 

  Sephiroth standing and holding Masamune on Northern Cave.

• 

  Attacking Captain Falcon on Umbra Clock Tower.

• 

  Casting Flare on Dracula's Castle.

• 

  In his coatless alternate costume on Northern Cave.

• 

  Sephiroth in his Safer form facing Ness, Bowser, and Robin.

• 

  Fighting Cloud in his Advent Children alternate costume on Midgar.

Trivia

The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate × Final Fantasy at the end of The Game Awards 2020 video.

• Sephiroth is the second character to be revealed at a non-Nintendo event/presentation, the first being Joker. Both of them were revealed at The Game Awards (in 2018 and 2020, respectively).
  • Unlike Joker's, however, Sephiroth's featured actual gameplay footage, was announced ahead of time, and was a standard world premiere trailer, rather than an "intruding" announcement.
  • Oddly, Sephiroth's English trailer shown during The Game Awards is slightly different from the one uploaded to Nintendo's official channels later: the crossover card states Super Smash Bros. Ultimate × Final Fantasy during The Game Awards, whereas in later uploads it displays Super Smash Bros. Ultimate × Final Fantasy VII, in line with Cloud's trailer for Super Smash Bros. 4.
• Sephiroth's internal codename is "edge", a likely reference to his famously long sword Masamune.
• Sephiroth is the fourth enemy to be available as DLC, after Piranha Plant, Zombie, and Enderman, and the first to be the primary antagonist of his game.
• Sephiroth is the first:
  • DLC character from a universe that was introduced as DLC in a previous installment.
  • Third-party playable antagonist (not counting Steve's Zombie and Enderman alternate costumes)
  • To have a stage cinematic depicting their ending story line.
  • Ultimate DLC character to not have their full Final Smash shown in their reveal trailer.
  • Ultimate character to be unlockable through an event before official release.
• Sephiroth is the second character whose trailer references World of Light, the first being Hero's.
  • Coincidentally, both are downloadable fighters from Square Enix, and both fight opposing forces from the World of Light, as Hero fought Dharkon and its controlled puppet fighters and Sephiroth sliced through Galeem. Additionally, they each hail from one of the two companies that merged into Square Enix, as Sephiroth comes from Squaresoft and the Hero from Enix.
• Sephiroth's trailer makes several references to both the original Final Fantasy VII game, and the CGI-animated film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, with much of his and Cloud's dialogue being adapted from the latter. Several shots in the trailer are direct recreations of shots from Advent Children.
• Sephiroth's trailer currently features the most playable characters in the animated portion of any reveal trailer (excluding himself), with 18 characters.
  • Aside from Erdrick, Banjo, and Kazooie, who are DLC characters, Bowser Jr., Cloud, and Richter are the only characters of these that do not appear in the World of Light opening cutscene.
    • Sephiroth’s trailer marks the first time that Cloud has appeared in CGI in the Smash series, with all of his other appearances in trailers and cutscenes using his in-game model. Cloud's CGI model is, notably, based on his Advent Children design.
• Like Cloud, Smash marks the third time that Sephiroth has been playable in a fighting game/series, with the first two being Ehrgeiz and the Dissidia: Final Fantasy series.
• Sephiroth is the third DLC fighter in Ultimate to hail from a series already represented by a fighter, with the first two being Piranha Plant and Byleth. Out of these, he is the first to come from a third-party series.
• Sephiroth's render resembles a flipped version of his original Dissidia render (albeit in 3D and with his wing displayed).
  • Sephiroth's coatless render uses his battle pose from his fight against Cloud in Final Fantasy VII, similar to his taunt.
• Sephiroth is one of only five characters to predominantly use his left hand to wield his weapon, sharing this trait with Young Link, Toon Link, Ice Climbers, and Rosalina & Luma.
• Sephiroth is the first DLC character who must be unlocked through fighting him, although this is only for an early access and not a permanent feature.
  • The is also the first time an early access to the DLC was not in the form of a free promotion, unlike Mewtwo in Smash 4 and Piranha Plant.
• Sephiroth is the first character whose Classic Mode consists entirely of bosses.
  • As a result, Sephiroth is the first character whose Classic Mode does not contain fighters as opponents.
  • Because of this, Sephiroth is the only non-The Legend of Zelda character to fight Ganon as a boss.
  • Sephiroth's Classic Mode is also one of only four to feature a fight against a boss outside of the final round, the others being Bowser, Mega Man and Hero.
    • It is also the only one that features multiple "traditional" bosses, not counting the fact that Master Hand and Crazy Hand can be fought simultaneously.
  • Galeem and Dharkon are the only bosses in Ultimate not fought in Sephiroth's Classic Mode, likely due to their status as World of Light antagonists, thus being exclusive to it.