King K Rool’s Long Awaited Arrival to Smash Brothers
For the longest time, King K Rool was a character many felt should be a new character in the Smash Brothers series. He fit perfectly. He is quirky, has different forms through the Donkey Kong games that could add up to a moveset and many more justifications. He was and still is an iconic Nintendo villain.
However, each installment it seemed he was more and more passed over. He didn’t make it into Super Smash Brothers Melee, Brawl, or Smash for Wii-U. Would there be reason to get hyped for King K Rool with Smash Ultimate on the horizon, or would it lead to crushed dreams for yet another iteration of Smash?
If you ever browsed Gamefaqs or other forums that rose in popularity in the early 2000’s, you’ll find his name mentioned on a lot of wish lists for new Smash titles. In some ways, it’s hard to believe Cloud, Snake, Ryu, and even Mega-Man came before him.
The pure joy the internet felt with Nintendo’s clever King K Rool reveal was surreal. So many people grew up with two villains: Bowser and King K Rool. Some would argue that although both of these villains have personality, that King K Rool may have even more flare and style than Bowser. Regardless, he was one that so many people grew up and although Rare and Nintendo had parted ways, it felt like they could still use the iconic villain as there wasn’t a rights and property issue.
Nintendo UK posted a match featuring King K Rool and you can see that his move set features multiple different game iterations of the King K Rool that we all grew up loving. The cannons and crown toss trigger the nostalgia when you first face him in Donkey Kong Country 1 as he throws the crown across the ship. The cannon shot where it does the wind motion animation is reminiscent of the final fight against him in Donkey Kong Country 2 as he spins the cannon shots towards you. His final smash is homage to none other than Donkey Kong 64. He is full of content from the early era games he was featured in and it’s beautiful.
My first thought when I watched the Nintendo UK match posted was that he reminds me of Ganondorf but with projectiles. Ganondorf is traditionally a hard hitting character whose at his best when he strings multiple big hits together, especially aerials. In the match against Snake, we got to see that you have combo potential with his crown toss and the cannon shots. King K Rool shoots the cannon, then hits the player into the cannon killing him. If we can strategically have setups that are hard to avoid that leads to consistent kills, King K Rool may be a heavyweight to look out for in the competitive Smash Ultimate scene as well.
I was so happy as a long time Nintendo and Donkey Kong Country fan to see King K Rool finally make it into Super Smash Brothers. The reaction the internet had was proof enough. If you’re looking for a combo based heavyweight character with style like no other, King K Rool may be the character for you in Smash Ultimate!
