As someone who desperately wanted Xenoblade Chronicles 2 to be represented in — as we at one time knew it — Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo Switch, I was let down when E3 2018 left my prayers unanswered. If anything the reverse happened, where Shulk (who at that time I only knew through Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS) was confirmed along with Fiora (who I knew so little about that I thought her name was “Fiona” who is actually a hippopotamus at the Cincinnati Zoo) to appear in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 as DLC Blades.

Not only that, but famous playable Nopon “Riki” (40-years-old and father of 11, for the record) was incorporated into the same wave of DLC. Specifically as the penultimate boss of a challenge where Tora aims to claim the title of “Heropon” by defeating ~50 Nopon from Xenoblade Chronicles 1, Xenoblade Chronicles X, and Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

It took over nine minutes to make it to Riki. That’s enough Nopon to choke a horse. (A really big horse, of course.)

This was my non-Smash introduction to Riki, and an additional motivator after Shulk and Fiora’s Blade activity to go back and play the first game. It’s worth noting that Tora’s off-screen power source — a Nopon-engineered robot girl by the name of Poppi — is the biggest reason I decided to purchase Xenoblade Chronicles 2 in the first place after I made a joke about her and opioids. Are Nopon behind everything? (Oh yeah, and the ultimate boss of This Year’s Heropon is “Monopon”. The Monopon of Xenoblade Twitter mascot fame who even introduces herself as a Monolith Soft employee before the fight. It’s pretty meta.)

Anyway, Riki has always been important. He’s an extremely helpful party member in the first Xenoblade Chronicles and played a significant role in Super Smash Bros. before now. It’s just that in the time since, Xenoblade Chronicles became a series (yes, it’s been a long-ass time), and it’s been made clear that Nopon are literally the only thing that all three of the Xenoblade Chronicles games have in common. (Blame Xenoblade Chronicles X for a lot of that, but some believe that Xenoblade Chronicles 2‘s more anime-influenced style made for even more disparity. And yes, this fanbase really hates each other.)

As someone who was prepared to label Xenoblade the “Donkey Kong of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” (for reasons I shouldn’t have to go into as a former Smash 4-era Rare apologist), there’s one element that’s inescapably prevalent. That element is Riki, and I’m about to tell you why he’s the most important character (aka not Kirby!) in the game.

Riki the Assist Trophy

*insert “WE NEED FULL POWER, RIKI!” or other Shulk quote here*

Returning from Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, Riki’s Assist Trophy is basically a way cooler Togepi. But before any of that let’s first rewind to the E3 2018 Smash Nintendo Direct in which Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was officially revealed. Riki is featured as one of ~15 demonstrated Assist Trophies, particularly as an example of one that “will remain unbeatable” (alongside other examples Andross and Nintendog) now that Assist Trophies can be KO’d.

“Riki”. As opposed to someone else.

The narrator really could have waited until Riki was off-screen before reading the line “Maybe an unexpected guest will photobomb the battle.” (referencing Bomberman) since all that did was fuel half-second conspiracy for me, but the important thing is that we were spared the anguish suffered by Shadow the Hedgehog and Isaac fans who spent months wondering whether their favorite characters had been A) promoted to Fighter status or B) retired completely, when it turned out C) Sakurai simply waited for forever to reveal them and for no real reason. If Riki had stayed classified for another five months, he very well might have ended up as part of the Grinch Hoax! (Aaand…we should probably move on from that, considering I 100% believed it. )

When summoned, Riki appears and uses a random combination of four of the six following Arts: Happy Happy (increases the launch and attack power of all dudes), Freezinate (freezes dudes), Yoink! (pulls items close to him), Bedtime (puts dudes to sleep), You Can Do It (heals dudes), and Roly-Poly keep on Rolling! (trips dudes if they’re on the ground). It’s a moveset more compelling than many playable Fighters’, and lavish enough to only be fully beholdable after multiple summons.

Riki’s “Happy Happy” puts a twinkle in Jigglypuff’s eye.

Riki F-F-F-FREEZINATES the air over Kongo Falls, a place that should feel quite familiar.

While Riki’s performance is otherwise identical to the one in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, it previously ended after only three Arts which means Riki has been significantly buffed. Also, Assist Trophies currently play a larger role in online play due to players’ current lack of control on whether they want items appearing. That obviously means more Riki, even if the larger AT selection this time around means Riki’s RNG has more to compete with.

Like most other Assist Trophies, Riki is also available as a Smash Tag icon. That means if you beat the right person online you can then sell Riki for gold. (Not that you should ever want to do that…but hey, purpose is purpose.)

Riki the Final Smash

Riki sticks it to dumb silent protagonist homs. “SMASH POW!”

(Followed by an independent Riki encore, something I do believe will never be happening again ever.)

Riki returns as a key element of Shulk’s Final Smash. While there’s now less of a chance of Shulk shouting “RIKI!” when activating it due to Fiora’s added inclusion (which we still don’t know the point of, since the whole point of a Chain Attack is that it involves three people), Riki’s role in the animation is undiminished. Just like in For 3DS/Wii U, Riki delivers the first hit. In Xenoblade Chronicles, the first hit of a Chain Attack is always performed by the first member of the party, implying Riki is in fact the party leader during Shulk’s Final Smash as opposed to Shulk himself. He then follows up with Lurgy, a poison-based Ether Art not included in the Arts he employs as an Assist Trophy.

Riki uses Lurgy to spew forth poison during a fatal Chain Attack.

Final Smashes have far greater significance in Ultimate than in For 3DS/Wii U, and unlike with Assist Trophies I’m not basing that off of their presence in a more broad-based competitive online play with randoms. Instead, this is largely a consequence of the new game mechanic known as the Final Smash Meter. The Final Smash Meter, similar to a Super Meter in other fighting games, allows for chargeable, weaker Final Smashes — meaning more people will entertain the thought of multiplayer Final Smashes since these won’t effortlessly kill everyone. The Final Smash Meter is also an always-active staple mechanic in Spirit Battles, aka the meat of Ultimate’s single-player experience. There are unlockable skills on the World of Light skill tree that allow for a faster-charging Smash Meter + even the ability to use two Final Smashes consecutively! Truly Riki’s time to shine.

Well, Shulk does the actual shining, but you know what I mean.

P.S. I can’t remember if we went on to win that match against Link and Corrin. At the end we technically statistically were not ahead, but momentum was certainly in our favor, yes? So let’s say we did.

Riki the Alternate Costume

Sorry for obscuring, but the finger is so everyone knows where to look.

For Riki, it’s about what’s at the very top!

Shulk’s alternate costumes in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U were based off of the color schemes of the seven Xenoblade Chronicles party members (hence why the eighth is wearing nothing). One of the biggest changes to alts going from the last game to this one is that Shulk’s hair also changes colors to reflect that. This makes Melia Shulk look like he’s Shulk and Melia’s Fire Emblem: Awakening kid, and puts the tip-top of Riki’s head-fur on top of Riki Shulk’s head. Riki is already an Assist Trophy and part of a Final Smash, but now he’s an alternate costume that affects his Fighter biologically.

And why yes, Riki’s hair is au naturel:

Artificial? Don’t make me laugh. Do you think Riki has the funds to reapply unnecessary cosmetics every time he gets out of the pool? Dude may be a Heropon, but it’s confirmed his debt is equal to that of 20,000 fish eggs.

Much like with Big the Cat Incineroar, I’m pretty certain this change was adopted specifically for the sake of Spirit Battles. I’m not an enormous fan of Sakurai doing this (remember, Sakurai gets all credit and all blame for everything that happens with this series) since there’s such little consistency among Shulk designs as is, but hey, these alts were originally conceived as tributes to the other party members. And with all the “use characters who look like other characters” going on, this leads us to the next thing…

Riki the Master Spirit

Nice house! (Would be better if it was inside a tree though.)

Much like with the E3 2017 Super Mario Odyssey trailer, Ultimate’s World of Light trailer got a lot of people excited for something that never really happened. No one had any excuse to believe World of Light would be the next Subspace Emissary, considering we were straight-up told not to expect anything like it despite the former’s very dramatic and cinematic intro, but people didn’t think that meant the opposite either. People expected the occasional exposition. People expected some character interaction outside of everyone killing each other. If Zelda told everyone to stow their fears at the beginning, then maybe someone else might say something by the end.

Well, the “Master Spirits” were typically all you were gonna get. Master Spirits invite the player to make use of their various facilities. You have one Master Spirit who runs the gym, five Master Spirits who run the shops, and 15 “Dojo” Master Spirits who train your Spirits to specialize in one or more attributes at the expense of others. And to my absolute surprise, it turned out one of these latter Master Spirits was Riki!

I wanted dialogue in World of Light. Riki gave me at least ten words. That’s more than every trophy in the game combined.

“Strategist Style” symbolizes Riki’s affinity for Arts as opposed to basic pleb moves. If you don’t use A attacks, throw (I don’t), use items, or perform any other offensive action except for Specials, then Riki’s Strategist Style is the style for you. Few Fighters will make reasonable use of it, but unlike Big-Bee Style (increases Defense, Jump, and Weight at the cost of Offense and Move Speed), it’s an uncomplicated doctrine that you can actually remember. …Oh yeah, and there’s a reason why all of Riki’s special sidekicks in my game are bird people. It’s because he likes them.

This isn’t taken out of context. There’s a reason why Melia is his favorite party member. (…And he might make an exception for Canary Mary, but who wouldn’t.)

Like with all Master Spirits, you first have to fight him before receiving what he has to offer. And since Master Riki’s Spirit Battle isn’t the only Spirit Battle in which Riki takes part, I suppose that calls for its own section.

Riki the Spirit Battle

That’s a lot of Rules and Conditions. It’s like Riki has his own ToS!

There’s a lot to take in regarding Master Riki’s Spirit Battle. First of all, Riki’s Puppet Fighter is one of the seven Koopalings, Roy Koopa, who actually has a lot in common with Riki besides his name starting with the same letter. In addition to a roundish figure and salmon-y color scheme, take a look at Roy’s own personal combat history. Roy’s magic wand can be seen as a parallel to Riki’s Monapon when you consider its wide range of use, and Roy’s fortress battle shockwave stomps are pretty much his version of Roly-Poly. (Not to mention how Super Mario World even has Roy lording over a forest.) As for this particular battle’s Roy, you’re going to be fighting an “enhanced Specials” version; so basically he’s employing Strategist Style but with none of the drawbacks. Roy is aided by Riki Shulk and for a short period even Riki himself (as the mentioned “hostile assist trophy”), who appears at the beginning and assists for as long as an Assist Trophy generally would. There are also occasional Earthquakes (aka Roly-Poly), and your Fighter will be Flower’d due to Riki’s penchant for Damage over Time strategies (or as they say in RPG land, “DoT”).

Piranha Plant gives “Riki” a taste of his own “medicine.”

Emerge from all this victorious and you’ll gain entrance into the Strategist Style dojo, which I’ve already gone into the specifics of.

Despite the fact that Master Spirits are limited in where they can go (they have their facilities to keep up after all), Riki’s proven flexibility is as evident in the Spirit world as anywhere else — specifically in that his “hostile Assist Trophy” status is the solitary Rule/Condition active during two Spirit Battles that aren’t his own: Tatsu’s and Mecha-Fiora’s.

I wonder how many people even knew Xenoblade Chronicles X had Nopon in it before now.

Regardless of whose will they’re acting on, “Riki happy to join friends!”

Tatsu — notably one of two other Nopon to be featured in Ultimate as Spirits — is represented by a team of Jigglypuff. Jigglypuff’s round composure, circular eyes, curled hair tuft, and green nightcap alt made her a pretty serviceable choice (just fortunately the Jigglypuffs don’t spend the match going on about their feared edibility). Riki is also present except unlike in Master Riki’s Spirit Battle he actually never goes away (presumably because the Novice-level Tatsu needs all the help he can get), making this match into what is essentially a nebulous Nopon tribute since Tatsu isn’t even represented by a solo Fighter in the first place. (Note: “Jigglypon” aren’t an isolated concept, or else Tora wouldn’t be masquerading as one in your fight against him and Daisy Poppi.)

Looks can be deceiving, because Riki isn’t Shulk’s friendpon here. Nor was he Shulk’s friendpon in my pic demonstrating the Smash Meter which was snapped only seconds prior. (Continuity!)

In the third Riki-relevant Spirit Battle, you’re confronted by Mecha-Fiora (Corrin), Shulk (the Fiora-colored one who happens to be my main), and Riki who is summoned at the start and fulfills the same purpose as in his Master Spirit Battle. It takes place in Reset Bomb Forest (not Gaur Plain for a change!), which symbolizes Xenoblade Chronicles‘s late-game apocalyptic themes quite well, and captures the feeling of it being a damn challenging fight even with some of the more esteemed Spirits by your side.

“Fiora have fun! Riki want fun too!”

Unlike his own, the Tatsu and Mecha-Fiora Spirit Battles allow for Riki’s influence to extend to the Spirit Board, the most active component of Ultimate’s single-player and a submenu Nintendo expects us to visit for months to come. There’s even already been the “Hard ‘n’ Heavy Metal” Spirit Board event in which Mecha-Fiora was the most sought-after Spirit alongside “Ness’s Dad” (aka a phone). Acquiring the Mecha-Fiora Spirit of course first meant going through Riki and Shulk, so her battle explicitly being advertised by official social media accounts over the course of three days meant Riki’s fame was getting post-release support!



Mecha-Fiora is also a prominent, mandatory battle in a part of World of Light highly distinguished from the one in which Riki operates his facility. (He’s got the whole World in his hands…or whatever you call those floppy Nopon appendages.) Suffice it to say, the player is being inexcusably ignorant if they’re still going “Who even is that?” at this point. Which brings us to…

Riki the “You should probably know who that is so you have a higher chance of knowing what Nopon are”

This struck me as the funniest thing from the mode. Especially considering there were stakes.

It’s true that Nopon have their own Riki-less identity (like I said, they’re the one thing that brings all three Xenoblade Chronicles games together), but let’s not forget that Xenoblade is the definition of a “niche” franchise. There’s a reason why Sakurai said Shulk was “not the type of character that would usually appear in the Smash Bros. series.” There’s a reason why Rex, Nia, Tora, Mòrag, and Zeke don’t have their own Switch user icons. As things are now, “Nopon” aren’t something you attain awareness of via casual social osmosis (though Noponic obviously aims to change that!)… And that’s why I believe it was Riki’s immense clout contained within Smash Bros. itself that allowed Mysterious Dimension to feel comfortable with its most hardcore and culturally demanding question, “Which spirit is a Nopon?”; a case of Riki affecting Super Smash Bros. Ultimate gameplay even further.

Well, there you go; a summary of Riki’s significance in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and why there’s no other character in the game with such massive purview. His established-ness is unrivaled, and I’m happy you made it this far down the page so that you could find that out! (You might even say I’m…Happy Happy.)



P.S. Earlier I was going to make a joke about how Riki would (probably) never eat me for dinner since Riki is okay with bird people, but it turns out that the quote isn’t “Riki eat that one for din-din!”, it’s “Riki leave that one for Dun-Dun!”



(…Yeah, I’ll be working on my Noponese.)