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

It’s tough being the hero. Sometimes you’re adored, every now and then you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. It seemed that Hero from the Dragon Quest series jumped straight to villain status when the Super Smash Bros Ultimate DLC character arrived back in July.

Many players describe the fighter as overpowered and unfair, due to the random nature of the character’s Command Selection move. Some community events banned him from competitive play, and in a surprising move, Nintendo France did exactly that for the upcoming European Team Cup earlier this week.

Now though, it seems the character is back in favour as Nintendo Europe has reversed the decision. Deeming it unfair that one country had omitted a character not banned in other regions, Nintendo has standardised the ruleset for the tournament “to make sure that no community or country is disadvantaged when competing in the pan-European final next year.”

It makes sense. When you’ve got varying countries competing in the same tournament it seems odd that each nation would have a different ruleset. They’ve also seemingly reversed Nintendo France’s decision to ban any upcoming DLC fighters, stating:

In terms of future fighter releases, we’ll create more detailed guidelines for our tournament organisers, to make sure that we maintain a level playing-field through consistent fighter eligibility across Europe.

Good news for Terry Bogard fans who want to employ the Fatal Fury fighters’ services when he eventually joins the game.

Source: Kotaku