Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Sephiroth Challenge Is Live, And It's Very Easy

The newest Super Smash Bros. Ultimate fighter, Final Fantasy VII's Sephiroth, is here--provided you earn him. Smash players who have purchased the Fighters Pass Volume 2 or the Sephiroth DLC can now take on what's called the Sephiroth Challenge. Beat it, and you can start playing as Sephiroth right now, otherwise you'll have to wait for him to unlock normally for DLC owners on December 22. Fortunately for those who are eager to put the FFVII baddie through his paces, the fight to unlock him is very easy. Here's how it works.

When you start Smash Ultimate, if you have the Fighters Pass, the Sephiroth Challenge will appear on the main menu, and you can start it by pressing the + button.

The Sephiroth Challenge is an HP battle on his new stage, Northern Cave, and there are three difficulty settings you can fight the Final Fantasy villain at. Doing so is not much of a challenge, especially on Easy, meaning that Sephiroth is effectively available now for players of almost all skill levels.

On Easy, Sephiroth will have 100HP, on Normal, he'll have 150HP, and on Very Hard he'll have 200HP. The description for "Easy" difficulty reads "For players who want a near-certain victory," which is more or less accurate, as your attacks do more damage at this difficulty, too. On Normal, I was able to defeat Sephiroth with ease as Cloud, taking just 4% damage. Very Hard is much more of a challenge, although Smash Bros. pros are unlikely to break too much of a sweat.

Defeat Sephiroth on any difficulty and the character, as well as the Northern Cave stage and all of its associated music tracks, will be unlocked immediately. As discussed a stream dedicated to the new fighter, Nintendo toyed with the idea of locking you into your difficulty of choice and only giving you one shot to unlock him, but ultimately they went with the arrangement outlined above.

There are also new Final Fantasy Mii Fighter costumes releasing, but you'll need to wait until Sephiroth's official launch on December 22 to get these.