Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a loving tribute to Nintendo and gaming history. A terrific multiplayer fighter in its own right, even single-player fans have plenty to love this time. Extra DLC characters will flesh out the already enormous roster of famous fighters and will keep Switch owners occupied for a long time.<\/b>
\nThe Super Smash Bros. series has evolved dramatically since it made its debut on the Nintendo 64 back in 1999. What began as a party game soon morphed into a full-fledged competitive fighter, but Nintendo and director Masahiro Sakurai never forgot what made it so successful: fandom.
Whether you love Pok\u00e9mon, Mario, Zelda, Splatoon, or even Final Fantasy, Super Smash Bros. has something to offer you, and in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the number of options you have is downright ludicrous. It certainly lives up to its Ultimate name, and it has instantly become one of the Switch\u2019s must-have games.
Forget about checking a roster list to see if your favorite character made the cut \u2013 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has every single fighter in the series available to play, even if they share an identical move-set to someone else. There are more than 70 different fighters to choose from, and though it can be a little overwhelming to pick your main and start honing your skills, it\u2019s impressive that the development team would even consider such a feat.
Prefer Young Link to his replacement, Toon Link, or want to use Mewtwo instead of Lucario? You won\u2019t find much difference in their styles, but that comes secondary to just living out your fantasy of controlling your favorite character in a massive brawl.
Like all other games in the series, you don\u2019t start with all the characters right off the bat, and in Ultimate, you\u2019re going to need to set aside quite a bit of time to unlock them all. Being limited to just a handful from the start does seem a little incompatible with Ultimate given its premise, but you don\u2019t have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get your favorites.
Playing the game as you normally would prompt random challenges from new fighters. When you finally get that one newcomer you\u2019ve been itching to try out, it\u2019s like opening a new present on Christmas morning, only its one you can beat you up and will leave you disappointed if you can\u2019t win.
There are, however, likely to be some Nintendo fans annoyed by how far the roster skews towards a few key series. The number of Pok\u00e9mon you can use is now at 10, if counting the Pok\u00e9mon trainer as three, and there are seven Fire Emblem heroes. Of those seven, all use swords, and four have blue hair. Mixing in a few different types of heroes would have been welcome, though with the game\u2019s design philosophy this means it would have likely ballooned the roster even more.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate \u2019s kitchen sink approach extends to the stages, with more than 100 available at launch. All of them support special Battlefield and Omega variants, so competitive players don\u2019t have to look at the same boring backgrounds for hours on end.
Among our favorite new stages are Great Plateau Tower from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Dracula\u2019s Castle from Castlevania, both of which perfectly replicate the tone of their original games without sacrificing playability. The returning favorites are still more than welcome, with the Super Mario Maker and Final Fantasy VII stages particularly standing out.
If you\u2019ve played Super Smash Bros. for Wii U or Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, you\u2019ll be familiar with the basic flow of battles in Ultimate. It\u2019s quick, but far from the lightning-fast pace of Melee, and the mix of characters vary wildly in their attack and movement speed.
Fox can still run circles around someone like Bowser, but with the moves available for even these heavy hitters, you never feel like you\u2019re at a disadvantage. An optional Final Smash meter, which builds up over the course of a fight, also allows those struggling to unleash their best attack without needing to break the Smash Ball, though that is also an option.
Players used to the GameCube controller, which has been a staple of the series since Melee, still have the option to use it in Ultimate, but it\u2019s far from your only choice this time around. The game supports the Switch Pro controller, though it feels a bit odd, and you can also play the game with the Switch in handheld mode or with one Joy-Con turned sideways.
None of them feel as perfect as using the tried-and-true option (or in our case, a close alternative) but you don\u2019t absolutely need to rush out and spend extra cash for when your friends come over. Even the single Joy-Con option works well enough, and surprisingly more so than in other Switch games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
Before you do battle your friends, however, there are beefy single-player options in Smash Ultimate, and they see the game at its most creative. The World of Light campaign mode isn\u2019t exactly like Brawl \u2019s Subspace Emissary, as there is no platforming and limited cinematics, but its world-colliding journey takes you to several series\u2019 most iconic locations.
After a mysterious and powerful being transforms nearly all Nintendo characters into possessed slaves, it\u2019s up to Kirby to free them and utilize spirits in order to power up the growing team and return balance to the universe. It\u2019s not drastically different from the limited stories we\u2019ve seen from Smash Bros. before, but through a mix of puzzles and stage design, World of Light truly feels like a comprehensive look at Nintendo history.
The spirits introduced in World of Light can also be used in other modes, and they essentially act like your leveling and power-up system. By battling enemies who aren\u2019t part of the main roster, such as a legendary Pok\u00e9mon or a minor Fire Emblem character, you gain the ability to use them as your Primary spirit, which determines your power level during battles. Other characters can be equipped as Support spirits, which give you immunity to certain stage effects, a starting weapon, or an extra bonus during fights.
It\u2019s a clever system that isn\u2019t particularly necessary outside of World of Light, but the single-player mode makes it interesting by how it presents the spirits to you in battle. For example, Rabbid Donkey Kong isn\u2019t a playable hero in Ultimate, but you still have to battle him. The game mimics his look by turning Donkey Kong into a Rabbid, placing bunny ears on his head and all. It\u2019s like Nintendo characters are playing dress-up in their backyard, and seeing which heroes Ultimate would use to replicate certain characters put a smile on our face for hours.
The shorter Classic mode returns, complete with more bosses than just Master Hand this time. There are also a couple of additional modes for those looking to mix things up. Smashdown forces you and your opponent to pick a new character each round, and requires mastery in more than just a few heroes.
You can also fight in an elimination-style three-on-three or five-on-five brawl in Squad Strike. None of these are likely to hold your attention for too long individually, but they do serve as great training tools before you take on other players.
Multiplayer is at the heart of the Smash Bros. experience, and this is still the case in Ultimate, though it\u2019s also where the game could still use some work. Local battles work flawlessly, as you\u2019d expect from Nintendo, but when things go online, the experience is more mixed. We used Wi-Fi rather than a LAN adapter and ran into a few hitching and disconnecting issues, as well as trouble getting our matchmaking preferences to consistently be honored.
Searching for a solo match often still results in getting a team battle instead, but the system does seem to pair players of similar skill level together. Nearly every fight we had was close, occasionally even going into overtime after neither side could get a definitive final kill.
These moments are when newcomers can understand why others love the series so much. As you struggle with an enemy you can\u2019t defeat and the two of you size each other up, you begin reacting and adjusting on the fly, with quick dodges and hit-and-run attacks.
The final blow usually comes after one player makes a wrong move, and that feeling of being this close to winning means you\u2019re inevitably going to play another match. One more turns into five more, and before you know it, it\u2019s 3 a.m. and you\u2019re struggling to stay awake. We wouldn\u2019t want it any other way, and as more DLC characters are released in the future, it could become a recurring event.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a game so comprehensive and engaging that it\u2019s difficult to see where Nintendo and Sakurai can take the series next. The sheer number of options and modes you have to choose from can keep you and your friends busy for hours or days at a time, and even those uninterested in fighting games will be impressed by the reverence and love that its developers showed to every included franchise. You can\u2019t own a Switch without owning Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and for some, it might even be the only game you need on the system.
Is there a better alternative?
No. Even Melee might be on its way out.
How long will it last?
World of Light took us just under 19 hours to complete. Multiplayer will likely thrive for the rest of the Switch\u2019s lifespan.
Should you buy it?
Yes, even if you lean more toward single-player games.<\/p>\n