Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Game Review

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The “ultimate” in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate implies that it may be the last rodeo for this historic franchise, or that it’s the grandest, most complete offering to date.

It’s fitting, really, as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a marvel of a video game.  It is moldable and so massive in its ability to be whatever a player wants it to be, that it’s hard to imagine adding anything else. Similar to the games that came before, SSBU can be played as a casual party game, a single-player timesink, a competitive global esport, or a museum of all things Nintendo. It’s a digital action-figure toy box overflowing with the childhood memories of countless gamers.

Developed by Sora Ltd. and Bandai Namco Studios, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate adopts “do what the fans want” as its main compass. It has everything. All the characters, the ever-present ones, and even the half-joke rumors. It has possibly every stage in the series’ history. It feels primed to satiate its most passionate players first, but the developers didn’t throw out its party game soul during its creation.

The Ultimate Roster

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s most notable feature, besides being available on the Nintendo Switch, is its roster. The game has the largest roster in fighting game history. You can unlock 74 fighters in the base game and a few more add-ons as a bonus feature. 

Characters from Nintendo’s decades of history, as well as partners alongside Mario and Princess Peach (Simon Belmont of the Castlevania series, and Ryu and Ken from Street Fighter, for example), are a part of the ultimate roster. Nintendo included 10 playable Pokémon, three versions of Metroid protagonist Samus Aran, and six characters from the Fire Emblem series. The game has six “echo fighters,” characters with different models who share a common rule set, like princesses Peach and Daisy.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has a roster of more than 74 fighters

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has a roster of more than 74 fighters

The abundance of fighters means an abundance of combat styles. Even with echo fighters and a few cloned characters, the game caters to every single player type. The tweaks made to the classic characters mostly improve their feel—Link’s remote bombs allow you to be more creative, and Ness’ bat feels powerful again—and Ultimate’s new class has some standouts such as Ridley and Incineroar.

Graphics and Gameplay

SSBU is a colorful, enticing game, not that anyone expected any less. The full processing power of the Switch is on display, and the game is amazing in motion, with something like an Animal Crossing village coming to life in the background.

When it comes to individual fighters, the game really shines, as the game seamlessly blends a bevvy of different styles at once. A Samus or Snake squaring off with a villager from Animal Crossing, while an Inkling from Splatoon splatters the stage in paint, among other variables, all come together nicely. It’s the same scenario in the handheld mode as well. However, things tend to get harder to track in this format the more the camera zooms out to keep all the fighters in the frame. Sometimes, keeping track of the action can be a problem.

SSBU also has an amazing 800-track soundtrack. We’re talking about original orchestra pieces and scores that span generations of games and styles, all available on the main menu. 

In the presentation department, there have been a few enhancements that provide a boost to the gaming experience. Something like a slo-mo and zoom on a game-winning hit is brilliant for any setting, casual or competitive gaming, and a mini-map that shows the location of off-screen characters trying to get back to the stage is smart.

SSBU is still a platform fighter that’s both customizable and accessible. The accessibility of Smash remains and continues to be unmatched. Major changes seem few and far between. The gameplay overall feels faster than before, though a more measured approach is required. Elsewhere, damage in solo fights has been increased, and attacking out of a sprint is back on the menu.

Ultimate has 103 playable stages, and they’re all jammed onto one crowded grid. Nintendo hasn’t included basic options, like sorting by franchise or level type. It’s all too complex, favouring Nintendo fan service over accessibility. Customizing Ultimate is blissfully easy. Granular options for multiplayer can be tweaked and modified in near-infinite ways, and an excellent menu system makes most options easy to find.

World of Light: Features and more

The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate map is expansive

The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate map is expansive

Ultimate’s single-player Spirits mode has embedded the World of Light campaign and the Spirit Board. 

Spirits are collectable PNGs with a loose narrative peg, and they’re mined mostly from Nintendo’s secondary and tertiary characters. You can encounter characters from Castlevania, a Metroid Fusion boss, a character from the horror series Fatal Frame, Blaze the Cat from the Sonic universe, and more. 

With World of Light, Nintendo attempts to one-up itself in the single-player department and largely succeeds. The journey has the narrative of a pro wrestling royal rumble from a WWE knockoff. 

All creatures in Smash Land have been captured by an unknown villain, who is puppeteering their bodies for his own ends. By traversing a sprawling overworld map, you are slowly set out to save these spirits, and you can harness them to increase your attack or defence during your own travels. 

You pick a fighter and progress through the map. Different paths might require a certain spirit or become blocked off in a trial-and-error sort of manner. But the map itself is stunningly captivating, and it smartly offers fitting characters in proper surroundings. 

The matches are diverse and challenging. Challenges ranged from an army of large Jigglypuffs that favoured an extra-powerful sleep attack to a floor covered in lava, sticky muck, or poison. The mode warns of each battle in advance. 

To counter the fights, the game advised selecting spirits that would boost the player’s stats. This has a JRPG feel to it, with spirits essentially acting as Pokemon of sorts and providing boosts or immunities or even admission to certain encounters. Mixing and matching the team in an effort to gain an advantage is a great time.

World of Light does lose some of its challenges rather quickly, based on the unlocks a player gets. There are around 1,300 spirits, but locking down a few core pieces to build around for almost any sort of encounter doesn’t take too long. 

Impact of Esports

A few of the changes and an overall increase in speed should help SSBU regain some of the past glory the series experienced in the esports realm. 

It all boils down to potential with SSBU. The launch movement changing to a quicker slowdown shakes things up a bit. SSBU in the competitive scene will always find itself compared to Melee, a one-hit-wonder of perfect elements for a pro scene. Perfect shields necessitate timing on release, and shields, in general, deplete faster during gameplay.

Skill will still be the only factor in the item-less pro scene. Other than the movement abilities, the nuance between character types will still shine through. Juggling is still going to be a problem for heavy characters like Bowser because they have a harder time getting back down to the ground. 

As for the roster itself, Bayonetta’s reign of terror is over. The nice thing about so many characters being carryovers from past games is that they come from a competitive slant. The game is incredibly balanced for a 70-plus roster, though ranged attacks with Richter and Isabelle, for example, seem like early standouts.

At its core, this release requires top-tier players to commit more to their intent with movements. It also isn’t as defensive as the last release and hit stun and shield changes mean an attractive base for a competitive community to explore and expand upon.  

Little things like picking the stage before fighters are a quality-of-life and strategy detail that competitive-minded players should enjoy.

Display alterations like player resume and flashing the stock count on the entire screen after a KO slot in here as well. It allows 3v3 and 5v5 tournaments with hidden lineups.

Atop all of this is an online offering that, while in need of ironing out a few issues, should help the community thrive. The features of the Switch as a whole should help, too. 

Classifying a game as perfect or with a perfect score these days is a fleeting pursuit, yet Super Smash Bros. Ultimate gets as close as games can probably get these days. The simple-but-complex concept behind the base gameplay leaves something for all players.

Topping it off is a gorgeous, flawless-running offering on an innovative system, making it usable on the go, at home or online with various input options and endless customization within the game itself.

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