Cloud joins Super Smash Bros. roster

Late yesterday, Nintendo streamed one last Smash Direct show to bring Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (and of course Nintendo 3DS) to its conclusion. As promised, they had new stuff to reveal about Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII - who was revealed as a guest character for the game recently - no-one watching was disappointed.

It turns out we won't have to wait long until we can start playing with him, since he will be released... today. Cloud is a little bit different that the rest of the bunch since he actually has his Limit Break intact. It is a charge gauge similar to Little Mac's KO gauge, and he even has Omnislash as Final Smash. That's fan service.

But it actually gets better. Cloud will of course have a new arena to fight on, inspired by Midgar. In the background, legendary summons Bahamut Zero, Ifrit, Leviathan, Ramuh and even Odin will interfere in the bouts.

Here is some art showing off the new characters, drawn by original Final Fantasy VII character designer Tetsuya Nomura.