A bombshell was dropped today by Masahiro Sakurai, one of the creators of the best selling runaway hit Smash Brothers. In his development blog Masahiro has been revealing exciting bits of information, such as the ability to "footstool jump" off the heads of enemies. This ability is akin to bouncing off the heads of enemies as it was introduced in Mario 3, where if you time a jump to coincide with landing on the enemys head perfectly you will launch much higher than a regular jump. He also revealed a new item, the pitfall trap, which causes enemies to fall through floors if they accidentally wander onto it. Today however brought a much more important announcement; a new playable character named Ike from the game Fire Emblem has been unveiled!

In the previous version of Smash (Melee) you could choose to play as Marth or Roy, two sword wielding fighters who are also from Fire Emblem and very much resemble Ike. Marth was certainly extremely powerfull, but Roy was lacking due to his slow attack speed and large cooldown time after a "wiff" (a missed attack) which left him extremely vulnerable. The fact that Marth was overused while Roy was underused leads me and many others to assume Ike is a hybrid of the two who will be replacing them in the roster of playable fighters. This is just an assumption at this point, but I would be surprised to say the least to see all three swordsmen in the game.

The only thing we really know about Ike at this point is that he has a special move called "Aether". There is also an ominous quote "Try for a single stroke finishing blow with his mighty blade." I think I've just discovered the character I will be focusing on mastering first, seeing how I was a huge Marth fan when I wasn't playing Shiek.