Sora has an idle animation of looking left, then right, then left again. This is straight out of his Kingdom Hearts 1 idle combat loop, and returns in Kingdom Hearts 2. He has a bit better posture in Smash Bros., but it's nice to see the return of this animation.
Another idle animation has Sora spin the keyblade in his off-hand, which is somewhat reminiscent of the Wisdom Form idle keyblade spin.
Another idle animation has Sora twirling the keyblade in front of himself. It resembles the beginning of the Tinker Bell summon animation from Kingdom Hearts 1.
All in all, pretty good idle animations! I most appreciate the first one.
The stopga, aeroga, curaga taunt is really nice. Definitely all straight from Kingdom Hearts 1.
At least one other taunt seems to be Sora jumping up with his fist in the air and saying "here we go!" It seems familiar to me, but I can't remember where it comes from.
Sora's jump animation is clearly based on his Kingdom Hearts 1 jump, but even more exaggerated, with his legs spread much further than normal. It's a bit strange to see such a high jump without using the high jump animation, but base jump is pretty iconic, so it's a good choice.
The second jump is a bizarre floaty midair twirl that I don't think we've seen before. Personally, I would have preferred something like aerial dodge from Kingdom Hearts 2 -- a fast, short, spinning aerial jump that deflects attacks and quickly redirects your momentum. Doubleflight would also have made sense.
Sakurai calling Sora floaty is amusing because "floaty" has been a derogatory term in the history of the Kingdom Hearts series to describe the slow, laggy, awkward combos of the handheld games like Birth by Sleep and Dream Drop Distance.
Including the outfits of Kingdom Hearts 1, 2, and 3 is a no-brainer, and they all look great. Sora's proportions and hair stay the same, which makes sense for Smash Bros., and doesn't look too bad at all.
The Dream Drop Distance outfit is a decent choice, but I don't think that's anyone's favorite.
It's interesting to note that the Smash Bros. renders are all based on existing renders of Sora for Kingdom Hearts 2 and 3, and Dream Drop Distance. His Kingdom Hearts 1 render is based on art drawn by Tetsuya Nomura.
Valor Form and Wisdom Form are also excellent choices for alt costumes. It would have been nice to see Master Form, but I don't think it deserves a spot over either of those two, and Limit Form definitely doesn't.
Choosing Ultimate Form over Final Form makes sense. They look similar, and repping Kingdom Hearts 3 for a form outfit is appropriate.
The Timeless River design was totally unexpected, and is a brilliant idea! The custom facial expressions look faithful and great.
The trail that follows the keyblade when swinging it quickly, the sounds made on contact, and the star particles are extremely accurate to the Kingdom Hearts series, and look great!
Sora appears to be using his voice quotes from Dream Drop Distance. This is a bit disappointing, since this game is widely considered to have the worst vocal performance for Sora in the series.
For context, in this game, Sora is sent back in time and is basically controlling his younger body with his older self. He sounds and acts rather immature and foolishly, which was thankfully corrected in Kingdom Hearts 3.
The three-hit combo jab is nothing new for Smash Bros. characters, but it perfectly fits with Sora's typical moveset. The overhead slash, thrust, and outward swing are identical to the Kingdom Hearts 1 base combo, and the animations seem perfect.
This starts with a quick uppercut, followed with a thrust, and ends with an overhead swing. The quick uppercut is actually an ability called slapshot. The overhead swing could be referencing the ability blitz, but it looks pretty much identical to the neutral attack combo starter to me.
This combo looks very Kingdom Hearts 2-like to me. It starts with an ability called aerial spiral, then a generic hit, and ends with the Kingdom Hearts 2 base air finisher that makes Sora do a frontflip and sends him quickly to the ground.
This looks the same as neutral air, but the first hit is instead the Kingdom Hearts 1 air combo opener, with Sora swinging the keyblade down between his legs.
It looks like you can whiff the first hit of any of these combos and still catch opponents in subsequent hits. That's typical for Smash Bros., but in Kingdom Hearts, that is an ability called combo master.
The ability to drop your combo and switch to a different follow-up is also consistent with the Kingdom Hearts series. Sometimes a finisher will send an enemy flying, so instead you want to reset your combo and save the finisher for the next attack. The difference in Smash Bros. is that a single hit still sends flying, so you have to do exactly two hits to avoid that.
This seems like a new attack. It's basically Palutena's up tilt. Not particularly interesting, but the animation is nice and it seems effective as an anti-air and combo starter.
Another new attack, which seems to be basically Byleth's down tilt. Since the purpose of this attack is to hit enemies low to send them into the air for a follow-up, it would have been super easy to base this attack on the ability upper slash from Kingdom Hearts 2.
The animation does kind of resemble it, but since Sora is crouching down, it's hard to move the keyblade in the same range of motion as upper slash.
Just a boring strong slash. In my opinion, this is a hugely missed opportunity to use the ability zantetsuken as the animation, since it's slow, extremely strong, has a clear "charging" state and "unleashing" state, and even emits a flash of light. That all sounds perfect for a smash attack to me, so I'm not sure why an unnamed swing was chosen.
This vaguely resembles the finisher ability magic flash from Kingdom Hearts 3. Not much else to say about it.
This strongly resembles the ability finishing leap from Kingdom Hearts 2. Finishing leap strongly staggers enemies into the air at the end of a ground combo, allowing you to transition seamlessly into a fresh air combo.
Ironically, as a smash attack, the airtime Sora gets from using this move isn't an opportunity to start a new combo, but rather probably just end lag.
Also, it's hard to tell in the demonstration video, but the charge animation for up smash and down smash seems to resemble the "charge" animation Sora does when using the Simba summon in Kingdom Hearts 1.
Very generic hit, nothing to say about this.
This attack also doesn't appear to be inspired by anything, which makes sense considering an attack like this would be pretty useless in Kingdom Hearts.
I like how the momentum of the swing carries Sora into a flip. It resembles the high jump animation and the overall weightiness and momentum of Kingdom Hearts 2 combos.
This is the ability hurricane spiral, explicitly described as such. In Kingdom Hearts 1, this ability doesn't send you flying to the ground (and in Kingdom Hearts 2 you actually gain a bit of height when using it), but it works for this attack.
The forward throw looks exactly like the forward air opener.
Back throw resembles the animation Sora can perform on Larxene in Kingdom Hearts 2 when merging her clones together.
Up throw and down throw both look new.
It's definitely nice to see Sora using magic. The choice to cycle between spells seems to be a solid one, and it's reminiscent of the command deck style of gameplay from the handheld games. The animation of the spells switching reinforces this similarity.
Firaga is clearly based on Kingdom Hearts 1, with Sora's pose, the projectile fire, keyblade recoil, and ability to repeatedly cast it.
Thundaga is a bit more abstract, not necessarily taking direct inspiration from any particular game. In Kingdom Hearts 1, casting thunder after jumping was advantageous, because landing on the ground would cancel your ending lag and allow you to jump and cast again. In Smash Bros., it appears this is not the case.
Blizzaga also appears to be based on Kingdom Hearts 1, with its shotgun-esque spray pattern. Only in Kingdom Hearts 3 can it freeze enemies though.
Sonic Blade, a solid choice for a limit attack on the moveset. It's very reminiscent of Bayonetta's combos. The lock-on icon that appears on top of opponents is an excellent detail.
In Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, you can only use Sonic Blade on the ground, and Sora sticks to it tightly while ramming back and forth. Extending it to the air as a recovery move is a natural adaptation for Smash Bros.
This is another named ability, aerial sweep. Even though it's basically identical to Link's up special, it makes sense and perfectly recreates the ability.
In Kingdom Hearts, aerial sweep is a combo starter, so it doesn't leave you vulnerable or finish off enemies, but it makes sense to work differently in Smash Bros.
The ability to chain this attack directly into side special is very interesting. Obviously, it makes Sora's recovery excellent, and his ability to survive and stay aggressive off-stage rather strong. In the Kingdom Hearts series, though, these two kinds of moves would never appear together in a combo string, which is a bit unusual, since Sora's moveset has plenty of moves that would appear in a combo string but don't appear to naturally form one in Smash Bros.
Honestly, it's a bit unfortunate to see yet another counter attack. This is obviously based on the ability guard (specifically the Kingdom Hearts 1 version), and the counter resembles the counter slash ability from Kingdom Hearts 3.
It seems an odd choice to choose a generic guard + reprisal as Sora's counter instead of reflega, an infamous spell from Kingdom Hearts 2 that's unique to the series.
The staggering of enemies when guarded is a nice touch, but hardly meaningful. Projectiles being deflected but not reflected is also odd, since in Kingdom Hearts, guarding a projectile will almost always either reflect it at the sender, or simply nullify it in place.
Just a sliding kick? Huge missed opportunity to use the ability slide dash, which is a ubiquitious combo starter, and satisfying to both watch and use.
Neat callback to the ending of Kingdom Hearts 1, but I don't think this is particularly interesting. Which is fine, since final smashes aren't particularly interesting.
Hollow Bastion is an excellent choice, as one of the most iconic and atmospheric video game locations of all time. The stage layout is simple, possibly simple enough to be tournament legal, which would be a treat.
The transition to Dive to the Heart is just a cherry on top. The character stained glass art is beautiful as always, although it's actually hilarious that Donald and Goofy were replaced with a paopu fruit and raft on Sora's.
I've got to say, I'm disappointed in the music selection. Series composer Yoko Shimomura has been working with Smash Bros. this whole time, producing quality arrangements for all the new fighters, but wasn't asked for any new arrangements for her beloved series? Besides a five-second fanfare, of course.
All of the tracks are from Kingdom Hearts 1. And while that game did have an excellent musical soundscape, I think the series really stepped it up for the second game, with some truly excellent boss tracks.
All of these tracks are just spooky heartless battle themes, more or less. Why couldn't we get something like The 13th Struggle, Rage Awakened, or The Other Promise? Even Sinister Shadows or Working Together would have been solid picks. Who asked for a gummi ship theme? None of the selections are bad songs, but practically none fit as Smash Bros. battle themes.