Earlier this month at The Game Awards, Nintendo revealed that Final Fantasy VII antagonist Sephiroth will be joining the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster. The announcement was made with a trailer that showed the villain appearing to execute Mario. The meme’s that followed were extra spicy.
Smash Bros. Director Masahiro Sakurai provided more information on Sephiroth’s inclusion in the game last week during a “Mr. Sakurai Presents” stream on YouTube. The half-hour presentation featured details on Sephiroth’s move set, new stages, and more.
Sakurai also discussed alternate costumes for the character:
“Regarding costumes, [Sephiroth will] appear shirtless when you select his P7 or P8 variation.”
And just like with Mario in Super Mario Odyssey, Nintendo freed the nipple with Sephiroth’s new character design.
Twitter user Storm Yorha was among the first to point out the exciting news.
“Sephiroth’s shirtless alt in Smash is the first official piece of media in which he has been depicted with nipples. Everyone say thank you Sakurai,” Yorha said in a viral tweet.
As evidence of their claim, they provided screenshots of a shirtless Sephiroth without nipples from the Dissidia Final Fantasy series.
Some people argued the validity of this being Sephiroth’s nipple debut, stating that his character model has “fully textured nipples” in Final Fantasy VII: Remake. Aitai☆Kuji CEO Audrey brought up the life-sized Sephiroth statue from the Square Enix Showcase in 2009.
Yorha was quick to refute, however, saying that, “A STATUE DOES NOT COUNT AS A MEDIA.”
Regardless of your stance in this extremely important debate, Sephiroth in all of his nipped out glory will be available as part of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s Fighter Pass Vol. 2 on December 23.
