It's only been a couple of weeks since the Hero from the Dragon Quest franchise was added as the most recent dlc character to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but he's already causing some issues among high level players. The Hero just got banned in the South Australian smash community due to the character's over-reliance on random chance elements.
Released in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate at the very end of July, the Hero adds JRPG elements evocative of the Dragon Quest games to a sword-fighting character. The controversial move in question is his Down Special "Command Selection." Through landing sword hits the Hero builds up a mana meter, similar to Robin. "Command Selection" accesses a turn-based JRPG style menu where players choose from four randomly selected spells from a larger pool to cast. The spells that show up in the menu are completely random.
The other mechanic that is causing the Hero to be banned is "critical hits." The way crits work with Hero is completely random as well, an attempt to simulate the random nature of crits in a JRPG like Dragon Quest. Any smash attack could be randomly more powerful than the last due to this system.
South Australian Smash Central is having no part of it. In a TwitLonger post, the organization detailed their reasons for the ban, stating "After deliberation and plenty of discussion we have concluded that Hero's design as a character is fundamentally dependant on randomness to the point that it is not reasonable in a competitive environment."
"While randomness has to varying degrees always been present in competitive games and other Smash games, Hero is so dependent on randomness that it cannot be 'played around' or accounted for in competitive play. The argument is similar to the reason why items are banned in competitive play."
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is becoming one of, if not the, most-watched fighting game in the world. At EVO 2019, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate set the record for highest peak viewership of any game ever broadcast at EVO.
While they may not be a major organization, South Australian Smash Central started the ball rolling for this conversation. Now the Smash community at large has to speak up and decide what to do with the Hero. Do they wait for major tournament play only to let players practice and learn him only to ban the character in 3 months? Or do they follow suit and shut down this character from tournament play in all scenarios for the foreseeable future?
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is out now, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
Source: VG 24/7
