By Bryan Smith on November 22, 2015 at 1:36pm
(Note: This is an opinion piece, but will be instilling humor at "PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale's" expense. Please bare in mind that this article is in good humor and not to be malicious towards anyone)
Awhile back, I wrote an article about "PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale," where I discussed the game's problems and how a simple "How to Fix" wouldn't exactly save the game from being a "Super Smash Bros." clone. One of the biggest problems, that everyone can agree on, was the lack of fighters that made the PlayStation (the first one at least) the big console brand so well known. No Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Lara Croft, or Solid Snake? That's pretty laughable. Hell, Solid Snake appeared in "Super Smash Bros. Brawl," where Raiden had to fill in as "Metal Gear's" representation for "PSASBR."
So then there's Cloud Strife. I made this comment when looking at "PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale," in regards to characters appearing where they would have been their strongest for Sony and Nintendo:
Nintendo has the excuse that they been Nintendo-only for their first two crossover fighters before adding in Sonic and Solid Snake. While Raiden is a good character, he isn’t a face for the PlayStation. Snake is, along with Regular Dante. I think that having Raiden and Twilight Fan-Fiction Dante might be a depressing reminder that “PSASBR” has these characters… while Snake and Regular Dante are elsewhere in more interesting crossovers.
Come November 2015 with the Nintendo Direct and Cloud Strife was revealed... for "Super Smash Bros." for Wii U/3DS. Cloud, the protagonist of one of the most beloved and recognized RPGs to ever exist, "Final Fantasy VII," and one of the best PlayStation RPGs at that, is appearing as a fighter for Nintendo's "Super Smash Bros." He's in "Super Smash Bros." before Sony could get him in for "PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale." The irony here hurts so much, I can't put it to words.
I also made this comment on Square Enix and rumors of what went down with "PSASBR:"
I hear some rumblings that Square Enix didn’t want any part of this game, and judging how rarely the game gets talked about, I think I see why that may be the case now.
Now while that may have been true or not, Sony and Square Enix had to have some form of discussions about it. I can tell both Sony and Superbot Entertainment really wanted these characters in, but Enix simply said no, whether it was because of the quality in question or agreements due to copyrights (damn things making crossovers like this near impossible). Then Nintendo comes along and, well... Cloud will finally have that legendary duel with Link.
Cloud, who, at most, appeared in "Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories," "Kingdom Hearts: ReCoded," "Final Fantasy Explorers," and the "Theatrhythm Final Fantasy" games, has never made a starring appearance on Nintendo consoles. At the very least, Ryu had "Street Fighter II" and Solid Snake had his games remade on the Nintendo GameCube.
For the record, I'm absolutely loving and fangasming over this inclusion. I'm for most character inclusions for "Smash" as long as it makes sense with video games (I'd be upset if Shrek or Goku somehow got in, though). With that said, how on earth did this decision happen? I have absolutely no idea where this came from. Did Square Enix just get upset with Sony and Microsoft with deals and agreements (i.e. "Rise of the Tomb Raider") that they wanted some form of solace with Nintendo? Did they and Nintendo speak about a possibility of having the "Final Fantasy VII" remake on the Nintendo NX, or whatever the new console will be called? Are there more games for Nintendo on the horizon? There was a rumor that Sora or Riku from "Kingdom Hearts" being in "Super Smash Bros." thanks to an IMDB page a while back, so this could also them warming up for Sora getting in there.
However this idea came down, I don't think I'll find out for a while. This does, however, open the door for many more game characters that haven't been on Nintendo consoles. There's still that Nintendo Broadcast in December 2015, so who knows what else Nintendo has in store. For all we know, we could see Crash Bandicoot popping in next.
To end this, I'm justing going laugh that Nintendo managed to get Solid Snake, Cloud Strife, and Ryu in "Super Smash Bros." while Sony didn't with "PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale," because that's just hilarious.
Sorry Sony, but you still dropped the ball on that one, even if the other companies didn't play along.
