This article was originally written for TheNintendoVillage.com, a website I founded and ran from 2018 to 2021.

There was some controversy in the competitive Smash community when Hero first launched. The Dragon Quest DLC character was thought by many to be overpowered, though many argued that he had plenty of drawbacks that people could exploit once they understood how to combat him.

Now though, the character has received his first ban from competition, and it’s no community tournament either. Nintendo France has deemed Hero and any unreleased DLC characters as ineligible in the upcoming European Team Cup. Given that it would be kinda tricky for any unreleased characters to be used, this singles out Hero as the only one not allowed to join the fight.

There’s a feeling amongst some players that the character’s randomly generating moves - with variable power - makes him unviable for competition. This is a view shared by Dragon Quest XI S producer Hokuto Okamoto as it happens. But others are saying the omission could just be down to the language barrier, as some combatants would be unable to read or understand what moves are available from Hero’s Command Selection menu.

Do you guys think Hero still suffers from being OP? Let us know down in the comments.

Source: Nintendo via Nintendo Life