Sephiroth has been announced as the latest DLC guest character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate to great fanfare. I certainly didn’t expect him because I figured they would want to spread their 3rd party characters among as many companies and franchises as possible for the widest marketing reach—let alone having a second Final Fantasy VII character, even if there is a big remake currently.  Why Sephiroth?

The answer, I surmise, is that he fulfills an ongoing theme of having villains to contrast some of the biggest heroes in Ultimate. This is the game that added Ridley and King K. Rool to the roster, and K. Rool’s trailer even emphasizes the different rival pairings that exist in Smash. There’s a special place for the One-Winged Angel in the pantheon of video game villains, and he more than deserves a place among the other all-stars in Smash. Sephiroth is the first third-party villain in the game, and the first villain DLC.

But Sephiroth’s appearance makes me realize something: much to my chagrin, it’s highly unlikely that any antagonist or boss can get into Smash as a playable character without there first being a protagonist to contrast them. I would wager that, in another universe where Cloud had not managed to debut in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS & Wii U, he would have been the one to appear now instead of Sephiroth. It’s understandable why they would go for heroes before villains, given that the bad guys are usually not the most prominent mascots of their video games, and the good guys are usually the player characters. Even a generic hero like, well, Hero, takes precedence over Zoma or Dragonlord from the Dragon Quest series. 

There is a game that has leaned more toward villainy when it comes to its guest characters, though. Tekken 7 has Geese Howard but not Terry Bogard, Akuma but not Ryu, and Neegan but not whoever the protagonist of The Walking Dead is. That’s a very different sort of environment, of course, given that Tekken is a standalone world and not inherently a crossover like Smash is. Again, I see why Smash would not want standalone bosses to take up too much of the roster, but I’ve just always thought it would be a nice way to add some diversity without taking up two slots instead of one.

Of course, nothing is ever set in stone with Smash in terms of how or why new characters are chosen, but I think “villains second” just makes sense, even if I wish it didn’t. The only possible exception I could see is if said antagonist all but defines a certain video game’s identity. Which is to say, maybe Carmen Sandiego still has a shot…?

In any case, I’m looking forward to the Sephiroth gameplay reveal.