If you've tried Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's latest character addition, Piranha Plant, you'll likely be aware that its aerial capabilities are rather strong. With two decent jumps and a really impressive recovery which sees it fly through the air, keeping Piranha Plant down and out can be a real challenge.
As it turns out, the fighter was originally going to be even more of a nuisance to beat. Data miner @Meshima_ has discovered that Piranha Plant originally had three jumps available to it, meaning that it would have been able to reach even greater heights and dodge other aerial attacks more easily, but this third jump was actually removed in a day one patch (before it was available to play with, essentially).
This would suggest that the development team felt relatively late concern that it might be a little overpowered with an extra jump, tweaking things just at the vital moment. As you can see above, the third jump animation has been discovered in the game's files.
Have you played as Piranha Plant? Do you like how it plays, or will you be sticking with someone else? Tell us below.
[source twitter.com, via nintendosoup.com]
Comments 63
people all across the Internet need to stop assuming the plant is a "he"
@Charlie_Girl Well, it is almost a Venus flytrap, so you may have a point to call it a she. On the other hand it's literally a plant, so that would be an "it".
There was a named Pete Piranha IIRC, and Pete is a masculine name.
It was fun playing against a guy who brought a GC controller to a party and insisted on battlefield no items 1-on-1 games rather than the party style I brought the game for and flabbergast him with the plant. Doubly so as I played a single Joy Con and he even asked me to switch to grip controller (but I remained adamant at single joy-con).
I don't think I managed to present Smash for the madness it is to the group at large, but I think the two of us had fun.
@Charlie_Girl
Why do you need to turn every Piranha Plant topic into a gender war?
@Charlie_Girl Yeah, how could anyone assume that such a hot piece of booty is anything other than female?
EDIT: ...ok, so I originally had attached an image to this comment of Piranha Plant with the Super Crown on (think Bowsette), but apparently the mods edited it out. So, just use your imagination, I guess?
Well, I just tried it yesterday in Spirit Board and I have to say maybe tried it in the wrong fight, but had to switch to my usual character (Link) again because I couldn't win.
The only worthy attack it has, to me, is this jump, but you can't win a fight with just one attack. Or you can, but it's not funny.
I got Smash Ultimate at the 11th hour (actually 1150h) just to get Piranha Plant whilst it was still free DLC. I have absolutely loved playing as it.
@SmaggTheSmug @Charlie_Girl
Technically The Venus Fly Trap is a flowering plant so it has both male and female parts. Although the trap is not the flower so Piranha Plant is both neither and both genders in a sense.
With that said the Venus Fly Trap is literally named after Venus, the goddess of love and fertility. So if anything it probably makes sense to call Piranha Plant a girl. Which also fits with the general convention of plant names being a bit more feminine. Think about it... Ivy, Rose, Lilly and Violet aren't masculine names
Glad to see they actually care about keeping the DLC characters balanced this time around.
They didnt even give him a chance to find out if he needed to be nerfed?
Isn't Pirahna a fish? Maybe Ninty didn't want it to have any gender at all? Neither male not female?
The character is not super good, so I'd have kept the third jump in. It would have given PP more combo/juggling potential. It does have some cool stuff with nB and dB, but nothing that should be a concern balance-wise.
@Moroboshi876 It actually has many great moves. All of its specials are pretty good, its up-throw is a kill move, its down-air spikes, its smashes are pretty good also... I haven't played it that much, but it seemed like a pretty good character.
@Charlie_Girl Especially when Viridi said that it is a "SHE" !!!!
@Charlie_Girl you need to realize that it’s neither a he or a she...
@mr12calvin I'm going to have to warn you about using profanity on this site, as it is against commentator rules.
@Krisi Pirahna Plant is a fantastic character whose only weakness is landing lag and easy-to-see heavy attacks.
@Charlie_Girl Piranha Plant is referred to as a He by Nintendo. And while Genders is a confusing topic in the Mario series since Toadette is neither a boy nor girl, and Birdo is referred to as both male and female, pretty much anyone can call Piranha Plant either a he or she and it should be fine.
@Krisi It's biggest strength is Ledge Guarding.
Honestly, his jump always felt so weird to me. Not natural, compared to other fighters. Maybe this is why.
@Charlie_Girl
One day, one fateful day sometime in the future, we'll get an article in the "random" category, you know, the "Nintendo officially clarifies [insert detail about ambiguously something, er, thing here]" one. Should the Plant be anything but female, I will tag you.
@Seanmyster6
Holy cow, I'm usually not for ludicrously lewd (lewdicrous) jokes on NL (I prefer my innuendos to be subtle), but wow, that's oughta be the most contextually audacious counter-joke I've ever seen here. You had me clapping, you madman, it's brilliant.
@Sandro89
Not to mention said material is ripe for jokes, albeit jokes that need to be explained for everyone's comfort. Didn't we already have enough in our hands with Sheik? And God almighty help us if a certain Kingdom Hearts character - not Sora - makes it to Smash...
For anyone who wants to complain about people "Assuming" Piranha Plants gender. Just remember that Nintendo encourages people not to care so much about a characters genders. Toadette is neither a boy nor girl, Birdo is referred to as both a he and she. And several other Mario characters have gender mixups like the Shadow girl/guy from Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door. So ya, call Piranha Plant whatever you want, Nintendo doesn't care and neither should you.
@skywake Ivy, Rose, Lily, Violet, Venus...Piranha. Fits right in. Also, in the Pokemon world the collective noun for professors is a forest, because they're all named for trees. So like, according to the rules we've laid out, girls are flowers and boys are trees, but a Piranha is a fish so where does that leave us?
I am not being serious in the least.
@Moroboshi876 it’s moveset isn’t viable for spirit battle, you typically want to go into those with an all out blitz designed to quickly KO using the likes of Ganondorf or Ike while PP’s moves are edgeguarding and setup oriented.
@Moroboshi876 it’s moveset isn’t viable for spirit battle, you typically want to go into those with an all out blitz designed to quickly KO using the likes of Ganondorf or Ike while PP’s moves are edgeguarding and setup oriented.
@SalvorHardin It's just what I've been playing until now has been Spirit stuff. In great part because of those time-limited events.
My main could have been even better? What!?
@Charlie_Girl how can it be a girl when they are so weak and flimsy?
No amount of nerfing can settle this plant down.
@Charlie_Girl
You need to stop presuming plants are female. They are hermaphrodite (each flower of each individual has both male and female structures).
In cases when something has both genders/unknown, the following can be used (well in English anyway):
** Their actual name, in this case Piranha Plant
** He/His
** It/Its
** They/Their
I'm curious what the the game uses, but the Smash Ultimate wiki uses "It". https://www.ssbwiki.com/Piranha_Plant_(SSBU)
He is also acceptable if the gender is unknown/has both. The gender for Nights from the Sega series is unknown, but Sonic Riders does refer to the character as "he".
The point is, using "he" isn't used to discriminate any females, and I'm sure that is not what the author was trying to do.
Now can we please just go back to talking about how amazing Piranha Plant is in Smash?
EDIT: SSBU does use They/Their/It when talking about the Piranha Plant.
@Sandro89 Because "PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEEEEEE!"
That's why.
@CurryPowderKeg79
My bad. Google results mentioned Bisexual, and then showed the bit about the plants being male and female.
You are correct, plants are hermaphrodite.
@Charlie_Girl
Nowhere in the article is it refered to as "he". Maybe your feminism is clouding your view a little bit?🙁
@MrBlacky
Perhaps @ryancraddock updated the article? Or @Charlie_Girl is is talking a load of rubbish.
A fun character to use. Thinking about maining it.
I just had to look it up... most plants are hermaphrodites...
Venus fly traps have both male and female parts... so gender neutral
I like the plant! I'm not the biggest fan outside of his up & down specials, but his smash moves are terrific. I find it very hard to utilize it's neutral special and it's tilt special in a consistent way. Having a third jump doesn't seem like it would have made the PP unbeatable but I trust the development team that they made the right decision. I'll stick to just playing the game.
But, I think the Piranha Plant is a very good addition to the game. I can't wait for the next DLC to land.
I got a handful of games from late October up to now but all I've played is Smash. Every chance I get to do some gaming, I'll say I'm going to finally start playing one of my other new games but I can't bring myself to take the Smash cart out of the Switch. I'm really enjoying the spirit board. Every fight feels fresh. Sorry, I got off topic a bit.
@SmaggTheSmug Wow! I don't even know this person or you but I'm very happy you educated him and hopefully brought his ego back down to planet Earth.
So after you beat him with a single joy con, he tried to make you play with a different control style? My guess is that he think's he's the greatest Smash player and somehow you were cheating by using the single joy con.
@dkxcalibur Actually he was a pretty chill dude and suggested the grip because it would be more comfortable. I was a little bummed that I didn't get to experience 8-people Smash (the whole reason why I brought my Switch and Joy Cons along), but a third person later joined for some fun-time with items Smash. Also I think this may have been his first time playing Ultimate, as he was eager to try out some new guys like the Belmonts (he was a Link main).
I Don't remember if I actually won a game against the guy, but I held out longer than I expected.
@SmaggTheSmug That's cool. I had the opposite experience a month ago. We planned a Smash tournament for a family function because there's 5 (including me) that all own a Switch and Smash but our internet sucked and we couldn't figure out how to set up a tournament in game by linking our systems together; so we just did 5 players all items turned on, on random stages. It was awesome!
@Charlie_Girl if you derail another thread, I'll have to give you a ban. So please stop.
@Xiarno That just isn’t true, Palutena referred to Viridi as ‘she’, but that has been frequently misconstrued around the internet.
@Charlie_Girl don’t you just need to stop policing pronouns instead?
The funny thing is you’re even doing it wrong, since plants are referred to as “it”, having them both male and female parts. So, next time you wanna bother a whole site and have everyone make fun of you, think about it and verify your “correction” is actually that.
The funniest thing though is that, from what I’ve seen, noone has ever told you anything, it’s just you forcing your (wrong) facts onto people just to rile them up and start a ruckus.
That’s what makes you so freaking annoying.
Edit: if you wanna call PP a “she”, I don’t think anyone in here has a problem with that; just don’t try to shove it down people’s throats, please.
@Delibheel thank you, this was long overdue.
Common can't we all get along here...crunch says the plant..
@AlexSora89 tbh, a kingdom hearts character winding up in smash would make more since then it should, but all it would do is cause more *!#@+ing about anime characters and sword wielders
Am I the only one that thinks the 3rd jump is just the extra jump spirit or the world of light bonus?
Also piranha plant has quickly become my second favorite fighter, it is just so fun to play, it's neutral special is a really good edge guard.
@Charlie_Girl I recognise Piranha plant as a cute girl plant :3
@Charlie_Girl Imo I feel that since the gender isn't specified, it should be up to the player to choose. Freedom of choice for each player's piranha
@Xiarno Palutena was referring to Viridi when she said “she”.
@Seanmyster6 Oh, gosh. What has just been awakened in me?
@AlexSora89 #EMOKAIRISMASH Who will Roxas have ice cream with if she leaves to join Smash?
@Shadowmoon522
If you don't want Sora in, nor another anime-ish swordfighter, then neither one of us might get what we actually want.
@NIN10DOXD
You mean she, or he? Or it?
Hint: in good ol' KH canon, all three answers are correct regarding Xion, but I assume you already knew that (and the "topical" representation it entails), didn't you?
@NoxAeturnus
Except piranha plant is a flower not a tree or a fish.....
People, stop responding to an obvious troll.
@AlexSora89 i didn't say i was against anime sword fighters, just that people would complain about them.
@Delibheel Now that would be a glorious day.
> Day one nerfing
> Save file corruptions
> Download code scalping (for whatever reason)
Now I'm almost happy I didn't hurry to get this guy.
@Shadowmoon522
Well, of course people would complain. I have a bit to complain about too, what with them slowly outnumbering the platforming-based and/or generally fluffier characters in the game; then again, most fiction does feature swords (the fantasy genre is a neverending fountain of inspiration, no doubt thanks to swords themselves being weaponry from a bygone era) and, well, the more humanoid characters do feel more... how should I say, "fighting game-ish"...? I guess?
@whereswarren Yeah I think piranha is Male. Doesn't mean people shouldn't be allowed to choose if their character is Male or female if its ambiguous. However if someone slams someone else for assuming a character like Mario's identity then they're just stupid (also the suffix thing assumes all piranha plants are Male which probably isn't true. And if we go by proper plant biology, piranha would be both male AND female due to both male and female body parts. Theres a lot of problems with your Packun theory buddy)
@Reigestugatensho What!? This is a gaming community. No LGBTI community, or whatever its called. People should keep this nonsense for themselves. Its toxic.
@mr12calvin That's no excuse for profanity. The site clearly forbids it, you should listen to the rules before you end up banned! I'm trying to help you! (I know people who are no longer on this site because of it!).
@Reigestugatensho I’m sorry, I never intended to do that.
I was just angry cuz people mess up this community with things that are totally unnecessary. Let us just enjoy games. That’s what we are here on NL for, after all.
Are you working for NL btw?
@mr12calvin I do not work for NL but I do advocate for their rules. Just remember not to do it again!
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