And now it seems we have our answer. Yep, thanks to a trailer posted on the official Pokémon YouTube channel, we can now confirm that Meltan evolves into Melmetal, a Regigigas/Zygarde esque monstrosity standing at 8 feet and 4 inches in height!
Here’s the video showing it in action:
Plus the official artwork provided in the usual style:
As you can easily tell, it’s pretty menacing. Indeed, it’s one hell of a jump from the original in both looks and apparent power, and makes Meltan a lot more interesting than it’d be as yet another plain fairy esque creature like many previous mythicals.
And that’s not all that’s interesting here either. No, as Nintendo themselves point out, Meltan is now the first mythical Pokémon in the history of the series to actually evolve. Yeah we know. Others had extra forms, like Hoopa and its unbound form, or Deoxys and its various forms… but this is the first one to actually evolve into a separate Pokémon at any point. That’s pretty neat really, and goes along well with the other ‘first evolution’ precedents set by recent games (the first cover legendaries as part of an evo line with Solgaleo and Lunala’s line, and the first Ultra Beast evo with Nagnadel).
Given the game releases in about a month or so, it’s honestly a miracle that Super Smash Bros Ultimate hasn’t seen many real leaks yet. After all, every other major Nintendo game gets leaked. Pokémon games do, with every generation from Black and White onwards being dissected days or weeks before its release date. Same goes for Mario titles, with titles like Mario + Rabbids being leaked months beforehand.
In other words, it was all but guaranteed Smash Bros Ultimate would see some credible leaks. Yet for whatever reason… it didn’t. The game wasn’t revealed early, the ESRB didn’t leak anything like with the fourth game, hell, even the rumours about the title weren’t really credible or backed by any evidence.
But that may have now changed. Why? Because a recent post from a French Snapchat user appears to show some promotional material for the game, complete with a banner featuring the game’s entire roster! Here’s the picture if you haven’t seen it already:
As well as a more detailed version outlining who the new reveals may be:
As you can see, it looks pretty credible for the most part. It’s blurry sure, but the presentation is done well, and the effort required to fake all this ‘merch’ is a fair bit beyond the usual piece of paper with names on it seen in previous leaks.
At first glance, it’s as convincing as you can get.
But is it all what it seems?
Well to be honest, we’re not all that sure. Yes, it’s definitely more well done than most leaks have been in the past, and faking the banners like this would certainly have required a bit more work than your standard dodgy screenshot on 4chan.
Yet at the same time, nothing here is beyond the capabilities of a normal fan. I mean, I could probably fake this if I knew Photoshop. I’d certainly be able to print out a giant banner and line it up in a cell phone photo, and a couple of runs through an image editor would probably tank the quality level enough to make it seem as blurry as the photo here does.
And I’m sure many others in the community could do likewise. Hell, someone with the skill level of Artsy Omni or whatever he’s called could probably do this in a matter of minutes.
Above: Like with the Rayman hoax for Smash Bros 4.
So the existence of the picture doesn’t really prove anything here. And the characters don’t help clear things up either.
Because while some of them genuinely do seem to be credible choices (Shadow the Hedgehog and Ken are pretty obvious choices for echo fighters, and Geno certainly has support in the fanbase), others seem rather out of left field. Like Mach Rider, who’s not been relevant in years and who (from what I remember) got rejected from previous Smash games for limited moveset potential. Same with Chorus Kids, who don’t really have a huge fanbase and mostly only seemed credible in the Smash Bros for 3DS/Wii U days.
Additionally, it also lacks characters people predicted may be in too. Like Incineroar or another generation 7 Pokémon, who’s been featured in virtually every other rumour and who seems to have a pretty solid chance of making it into the game.
So the roster choices are… interesting, and may not back up the legitimacy of this thing all that much.
As virtually everyone knows, Super Mario Wiki is by far the best source of Mario information you can find online. With thousands of users adding pages about every character, location and object in the series, and up to date coverage on basically every Mario title ever made, the site is a veritable treasure trove of information about our favourite Italian plumber and his wacky adventures.
Yet like every other wiki and fan site online, it’s not perfect. Sometimes mistakes come up, like when Chargin’ Chucks were initially ‘identified’ in Super Mario Galaxy 2 footage.
Sometimes names aren’t available in English, like with various Super Mario Land and Wario Land enemies. And sometimes users are simply trolling or trying to trick people with vandalised pages and nonsense. It’s rare, but it happens none the less.
Which is why for any ‘credible’ writer or content creator, the site should be used more as a stepping stone to information about the series rather than an end in itself. Yes it’s good for summaries (and places to find out more information), but that’s it… actual research should involve playing the games, looking through reference materials and asking Nintendo about the series and its characters.
Which is in turn is exactly what Dark Horse Books didn’t do. Why? Because in their translation of the recently released Super Mario Bros Encyclopaedia, they copied information wholesale from Mario Wiki. And this led to some… embarrassing mistakes.
Such as this one, involving a familiar enemy from Super Mario Sunshine:
In the book, it’s called a Soarin’ Stu. Which on the face of it, makes sense, since the ground based one is known as a Strollin’ Stu and other Mario Sunshine enemies have the same pattern in their own names.
But it’s not right. The enemy in game is actually called a Winged Strollin’ Stu, with the original name actually being a placeholder/fanon name from some random Mario fan site. It was only on the wiki because they needed something to fill in the gaps.
Yet Dark Horse’s translators didn’t get this. They just went to Mario Wiki, lifted the name from the page and didn’t even bother looking for an accurate source on the thing. Like say, the official strategy guide the wiki’s own editors used to update the name later on.
And it’s not the only time they did this either. No, there’s also this character, with the obviously French name ‘Lumacomète’:
Which obviously isn’t the official English name for the character. No, it’s the French version used as a placeholder in Mario Wiki, which just got copied over by Dark Horse’ translators without checking its accuracy.
Other examples of this copying include the Super Mario Land 2 enemy page, which is equal parts awkwardly transliterated Japanese names and equal parts basic descriptions:
As well as the Mario 64 one, which refers to the Fire Chomp esque enemies from Wet-Dry World as Kuromame instead of Keronpa Ball (or a localised equivalent).
It’s terrible translation work, wastes an opportunity to find out legitimate names for these obscure characters and enemies in favour of copying outdated sources.
But why did it happen? Well, I think this kinda sums it up really:
I can't speak for the other translator, but I referenced the wiki extensively. Not being super-familiar with all of the English-naming conventions that was my go-to source for a lot of things, especially game titles. I found it incredibly helpful!
Yeah, at least one of the translators (Gegege no Zack) wasn’t too familiar with the naming schemes used for the series, and referenced the wiki extensively when working on the Mario book. He also often went with whatever the fans used whenever an official name couldn’t be found, hence all the wiki sourcing for unconfirmed names like Soarin’ Stu and Lumacomète.
So that’s the explanation. Apparently a lack of familiarity with the series and a tendency to rely on fan nicknames for unnamed characters led to the whole affair. No malice or laziness, just inexperience and a need to work on something you didn’t know much about.
But that doesn’t make it right, and it doesn’t justify the results either way. After all, the French and Spanish versions apparently did their research, and got correct translations for names into those languages. And the Japanese one was obviously rather well researched too.
No, it was just the English one that copied from Mario Wiki without really checking its sources, and it’s disappointing to see here. Poor show there Zack and Dark Horse. You had a great opportunity to deliver an indepth, well research reference book about the Mario series, and you screwed it up with untranslated names, fanon conjecture and mistakes taken from outdated versions of the articles.
Let’s hope your future work doesn’t make the same mistakes.
Are you an expert Mario player? If so, by now you’ve probably played through every inch of Super Mario Odyssey on the Switch, having collected every Power Moon and outfit possible to get in the game.
And unfortunately (like with most Nintendo games), there isn’t exactly much to challenge your skills at that point. Oh sure, you could play Luigi’s Balloon World or the high score games, but even those will fall pretty quickly for someone who’s decent at the game.
However, it seems this new mod may have the answer! Why? Because it actually adds a special ‘Superstar’ mode to the game, with the intention of creating something akin to a Master Quest for the original title. Here’s a video showing it in action:
As you can see, it’s a pretty brutal challenge. You’ve got more enemies everywhere, reconfigured level layouts with trickier jumps and obstacles, and heck, even the bosses are a bit more of a challenge now (thanks to their altered arenas and patterns).
And it doesn’t end there either. Nope, as mod creator SKELUX shows off in another video, the original levels have also been expanded in size and complexity too. Like with the Ruined Kingdom, which now has an actual tower to climb to reach the Ruined Dragon boss:
As well as (likely) quite a few other levels too. Plus a few other things, since it’s the creator of Super Mario Star Road we’re talking about here, and the kind of the guy with enough programming skill to do basically anything with any engine he takes on.
So if you’re interested in playing a harder version of the game, check it out. It’s gonna be great!
Back when Super Mario Odyssey was still relatively new, there were a fair few interesting unused outfits found in the game’s code. There was a Santa Claus one, which had Mario donning the familiar red suit and hat (plus beard). There was an eight bit one that turned Mario into a blocky Lego like version of himself inspired by the classics. Hell, there was even one based on Link in the Legend of Zelda series (which unfortunately got scrapped before it could make it into the full game).
But while the costumes were all interesting enough in themselves, one grabbed our attention more than others. Namely, the zombie one.
And that’s because the setup almost seems absurd for a Nintendo game. I mean, undead Mario with an axe through his head? That he can throw at enemies?
People would think you were nuts if you described that in the 80s or 90s. Nintendo was the company who could barely tolerate a cross in a background or a bit of blood in an arcade fighting game. It sounded like the kind of thing playground rumours were made of.
But no, it’s not only real, but Nintendo have now added it to the game. Here’s the official tweet about it:
