Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Everyone is Here!

Protagonist:	Every previous Super Smash Bros. fighter Kirby (World of Light)
Genre:	Fighting
Platforms:	Nintendo Switch
Release Date:	December 7, 2018
Developer:	Bandai Namco Studios Sora Ltd.
Publisher:	Nintendo
Made in:	Japan
Franchise:	Super Smash Bros.
Previous Game:	Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a 2018 crossover fighting game published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. It is the sixth installment in the Super Smash Bros. series, succeeding the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U games Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.

Why It Rocks

It features every single fighter that has ever appeared in any previous Super Smash Bros. game and fittingly uses "Everyone is Here!" as its tagline.
Additionally, new characters are introduced like the Inkling, Princess Daisy, Ridley, Simon Belmont, Richter Belmont, Chrom, Dark Samus, King K. Rool, Isabelle, Ken Masters, Incineroar, Piranha Plant, Joker (Akira Kurusu/ Ren Amamiya) from Persona 5, Hero from the Dragon Quest series, Banjo-Kazooie, Terry Bogard from Fatal Fury/The King of Fighters, Byleth from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Min Min from ARMS, Steve from Minecraft, Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII and Pyra x Mythra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
- Some of the newcomers such as King K. Rool and Banjo Kazooie mark their first appearances in a long time.
- It was confirmed in the September 2019 Direct that there will be more DLC fighters after the first Fighters Pass has finished.
- Steve being not only added into Smash marks the first time a game that isn't known in Japan to be represented in Smash, but also the first indie character to be in this game as a fighter.
- Sephiroth is not only the first third-party villain but also the first third-party franchise that isn't an echo fighter.
- Speaking of Sephiroth, there was a limited-time challenge where you could unlock him and all his DLC content before his release date. Either difficulty doesn’t matter, you still unlock him after you win his battle. (But nowadays it was removed now so it doesn't matter)
- Pyra & Mythra are the first newcomers characters to be transformations, and unlike Zelda and Sheik or the Pokémon Trainer, Pyra and Mythra have separate Final Smashes.
Mii costumes referencing not only represented universes but also indie characters, such as Sans (Undertale) and Cuphead and western third-party characters, like Altair (Assassin's Creed), Vault Boy (Fallout) and Rabbids and not only that, the Wii U / 3DS suits of Geno, Chocobo, and Monster Hunter are also back.
99% of most stages from previous games also return.
Incredibly beautiful and colorful graphics and art-style, very similar to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, they are so beautiful and colorful that you really want to look at them for 5 hours, to the point that this game is often considered one of the best-looking games for Nintendo Switch.
The Nintendo Switch's ability to switch between handheld and TV mode works very well with Super Smash Bros. gameplay and its frame rate is almost perfectly fluid.
The Story Mode finally returns as World of Light, set after the events of Subspace Emissary.
- It has more boss battles than previous games.
- The final boss fight is awesome and epic.
- Not only that, but you can play as Master Hand at one point, possibly mentioning the infamous glitch from Melee where you can play as Master Hand.
As unexpected as it as, Spirits is a really innovative mode, and the idea that characters other than fighters losing their spirits is neat and it is well-executive.
If you were enhanced most of the spirit, they would look very creative and the stats becomes very powerful.
The Spirit Board event includes many themes and it earned bonus rewards that depend on the event, when you beat the spirit battles.
It is a big reference even to side characters from all the universes once you played Spirit Battles.
The DLC Spirit are really enjoyable and the background looks very unique. Unlike the Spirit Board, respectedly, Spirit Battles in this DLC mode can be played as many times as the player wants, and if the player defeats a spirit, they get it right away instead of having to shoot it, much like in World of Light. After you beat all the battles, it will reward you with 10,000 Gold and the support spirit with legend class has unique skills, which is interesting.
Many characters are now more expressive, making the characters look more entertaining than in previous games.
- In addition, There are some DLC fighters that are really entertaining and surprisingly good, A perfect example is Byleth (He has very strong and impressive attacks and quite an excellent recovery), Sephiroth (He has incredibly strong and easy-to-master attacks and good recovery), Joker/Ren Amamiya (He has incredible attacks, especially poison, and a pretty good recovery), Min Min (Her attacks are flexible, strong and impressive, which makes it easy for many players. Like Joker and Byleth, her recovery is surprisingly good.), Hero (While his attacks can be overpowered for many players, Hero has incredibly strong and solid attacks, especially the critical hit, and his recovery is quite good.), and Pyra x Mythra (Pyra has extremely strong and incredible attacks, although it has poor recovery, Mythra has very balanced and surprisingly good attacks, and unlike Sonic, she is quite fast and can jump very high, and her recovery is great.)
There is a load of content. 74 fighters (More with the 10 DLC characters, which in total are 84 fighters), 100+ stages (Which are actually 114 stages), 900+ songs, and even an Adventure mode.
You can finally turn off stage hazards, allowing you to play stages outside of their Omega forms while still not having to worry about cheap deaths.
The amiibos are back, and this time, it can inherit up to three support spirits, permanently consuming them in order to gain their skills, having access to these skills even if spirits are disabled in the rules. Not only that, but the amiibo for characters from other series who are not playable in the game will grant a reward: Gold, Spirit Points, or a spirit corresponding to the character scanned. However, only one reward will be granted per amiibo. Also in 3.1.0, Figure Players can be used online in Battle Arenas, as well as be sent on a journey, where they battle other Figure Players to gain experience.
- Speaking of amiibos, the non-fighter amiibos can instead be used to obtain those spirits.
The rules are comprehensive. Now, you can use a Final Smash meter for a weaker Final Smash, include Spirits in battles, and add custom balance.
Stage Morph has to be one of the best mechanics in gaming history. You can switch between 2 different stages in 1 fight, and you can set how long you play on each stage!
Crazy and awesome effect sounds (only in Final Smashes).
Classic Mode is finally original. Every fighter has their own route and some characters have different final bosses. For example, Mario's final boss is Bowser, then Giga Bowser, Link's is Ganon, Simon's is Dracula, and Kirby's is Marx, which is reference. Not to mention, after a match, your intensity rises and even earned more rewards ever. And while we were topic of Classic Mode, Sephiroth's route "The Chosen Ones" has the boss rush instead of any playable fighters, which is unique theme.
The challenges is actually easier and better than the previous instalment, which it has the categories, and you can see the pictures that has references, which it looks the comic book layout. Not to mention, you can see the number of hammer that you used like the previous instalment.
Besides the adventure mode, the new modes are really fun and can be enjoyed that much.
Awesome and catchy soundtrack with remixes for countless amounts of tracks. It would make you want to try to get it to your head or go to the stages longer to listen to the music, even go to YouTube and download the music on your computer, phone or tablet or if you have the game you can listen as if it were an MP3.
In addition to Omega forms, stages now have Battlefield forms as well.
As of the 3.0 update on April 17th, you can now make your own stage thanks to the Stage Builder.
Absolutely amazing voice acting, especially for English actors/actresses for Roger Craig Smith, David Hayter, Laura Bailey, and Zach Aguilar, and even for many Japanese actors/actresses.
Characters are designed better to fight like their original counterparts. One notable example being Ryu, Ken and Terry always facing their opponents in 1v1 battles, akin to Street Fighter and Fatal Fury.
Mii Fighters are returned in this time, while most of the fighters don't have costume special moves, the Miis still has it, and you can now customize the Mii Fighters' voice clips. 12 voices are selectable, 6 male and 6 female, and there are also three pitch options for each voice. Also change the Mii Fighters' costume colors are no longer dependent on the Miis' favorite colors, and can now be customized.
Addictive and fun gameplay.
- The controls are also extremely fluid and responsive.
The game overall is more properly balanced, overpowered characters were given some very necessary nerfs while weak characters were considerably buffed.
The character and setting designs are really attractive and impressive.
- Even the female characters of Fire Emblem are also very attractive and that includes Lucina, Corrin, Robin, and even Byleth.
The new/updated Final Smash is very entertaining.
Tons of replay value.
You can finally grab and earned scores by KOing Assist Trophies for the first time.
As of the 4.0 update, Online Tourney mode was returned, and this time, the Event Tourney's are quite original and interesting.
Most of the parts of the game have an amazing grasp of the source material, such as Sephiroth's and Joker's victory animation.
The game has the excellent dark tone in it, like other Super Smash Bros. games.
If you have an unpatched Nintendo Switch, the game is moddable just like the previous Smash games, which does an awesome job of it. You can check out for mods for the game at GameBanana.
As of the 8.0 update, you can now rematch the spirit battle, meaning they earned a more higher score total and rewards, even though you don't need to get additional copies for spirits.

Bad Qualities

While it was awesome to see newcomers in the game, it feels overuse of adding in sword-wielding characters especially in the case of Fire Emblem fighters, gaining some controversy. Something even Sakurai himself admitted. These characters tend to have rather diverse movesets, however.
- On that topic, there was a involving one of Steve's victory screens where he holds a steak right in front of his crotch. Luckily, a patch for the game revised this animation.
Some Spirit challenges on both the Spirit Board and World of Light rely on the enemy AI spamming cheap moves rather than actual fun difficulty.
World of Light is flawed. It has slow pacing, very long loading times, and a boss rush that is required to complete it, despite being well-executive.
A large number of bad stages returned in this game like Hanenbow, 75m, Pac-Land, The Great Cave Offensive, and more.
The Ace and Legend-class spirits are frustrating difficult, especially the latter even the infamous Pauline Spirit Battle. Many people have said they won battles only because they somehow had the enemy fall off the stage. Luckily, v4.0 introduced Very Easy mode in World of Light, although Spirit Board spirits still have to be dealt with normally.
Due to the death of Takeshi Aono, the Japanese voice actor for Colonel Roy Campbell, Snake doesn't have any new Codecs for any characters that are absent from Brawl or updated codecs for characters who were in Brawl. It can even lead to misinformation such as Alph being mistaken as Olimar, male pronouns being used for the female Pokémon Trainer, Zero Suit Samus, and Sheik being referred to as transformation characters despite being separate characters, or Brawl being mentioned while talking about Sonic or Jigglypuff. Fortunately, people have been making up Codec Conversations for characters who did not appear in that game.
Unlike its predecessors up to Melee, Ultimate doesn't have more modes like target tests or masterpieces. Some of these features will be added in updates, however (5.0 showed off Home-Run Contest in a preview on September 4th during the Direct and released later that day).
In Classic Mode, the fighters only have 1 stock, compared to the previous games where you could select your number of lives. This is also the case in World of Light.
- On that topic, the final bosses for most Classic Mode routes are Master Hand and Crazy Hand again, rather than a unique boss for most fighters, which is unacceptable because Master Hand and Crazy Hand fights are considered extremely frustrating and difficult for players and its very hard to get 9.9 intensity.
Not all the characters are given properly balanced, some characters were given more nerfs than necessary.
- The DLC characters (Mainly Hero and Banjo-Kazooie) can be a bit improperly overpowered. Hero's down special is completely random with always getting a random four spells to select from every time you input it and their smash attacks have 1/8 chance of striking with a critical hit, whereby becomes a broken fighter, Banjo-Kazooie while they're perfect from a gameplay perspective, are a bit underwhelming as they seem a little too reliant on their absurdly powerful forward-special, which can then leave you feeling helpless once you burn through its limited uses per stock.
Online play is still rather laggy (due to Nintendo using Peer-To-Peer connection and people who don't have a good internet connection can cause matches to lag), especially when playing with more than one other person. Thankfully, it is getting some improvements.
The Fighter Spirits are pointless and serve just as cosmetics since they cannot be equipped for any World of Light battles nor any Smash battles and are just pictures of the characters' original designs and SSBU designs.
Poor localization for Latin America: despite that Nintendo has been giving complete Latin Spanish translations for some games as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the wild and WarioWare: Gold, this game got limited to giving the same voice acting of the European Spanish version adapted to the American region, just as the previous Super Smash Bros. game.
Lack of a Mai Shiranui (one of iconic SNK characters) cameo on The King of Fighters Stadium, placing a black void underneath Princess Peach's dress to cover her panties just like in the previous installment, and altering Palutena's and Lyn's dresses (dresses cover hips) due to maintaining a CERO A (All ages) rating in Japan. This is made, despite Super Mario Odyssey (also game for all ages, which is rated 7 in Europe, 6 in Germany (both cases lower than Super Smash Bros Ultimate) and E+10 in North America) is rated B in Japan (12 years and up). Some mature game element have appeared in this game, however, like Snake's chokehold for his grab.
- On top of this, Pyra's and Mythra's design has been adjusted from her original appearance; Pyra's shorts cover up more of her waist and she wears an additional pair of translucent stockings under them, while Mythra wears black spandex over her legs and back, and the normally open gap in the blouse of her dress is closed up. This design originally came from her spirit in the base game, which was changed due to age ratings—it was later added to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 as the "Massive Melee Mythra" costume, which means her design in Ultimate is based off a costume that was created directly from her appearance in this game. However unlike Mythra, Pyra's change was not present in either her base game spirit or as an alternate costume in her home game.
Even though Square Enix is not that stingy (thanks to Dragon Quest, Mana series, Octopath Traveler and later Final Fantasy VII), Cloud and Sephiroth still lack English voices, even when you use different language than Japanese, although they started speaking English before Fire Emblem characters.
Not all custom moves for every characters returned (save from Mii Fighters).
Most of the veterans' movesets are mostly unchanged, such as:
- Donkey Kong still has the Headbutt and Spinning Kong, two uninteresting moves that could easily be replaced with his Coconut Shooter and a Barrel Cannon.
- All three Links having the same sword, boomerang, and bomb Specials. Link can have his moves reworked from Breath of the Wild, Young Link can use his Transformation masks, and Toon Link should have the Grappling Hook, the Skull Hammer, and the Deku Leaf.
- Kirby's down tilt move can be his slide kick from his own games (rather than a flimsy kick).
- Ganondorf, despite receiving his Sword for his Smash Attacks, still has mostly the same attacks as Captain Falcon.
- Sonic still uses a spindash for his forward special and still has the bad sonic rocket air, instead of something like the Boost or the Light Speed Dash and the Sonic Eagle.
- Robin's Final Smash still has Chrom in it, despite that Chrom is officially playable character.

Reception

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate received universal critical acclaim from both critics and the players, with several critics calling it the best installment in the series. They praised its large amount of content and fine-tuning of existing Smash gameplay elements, although its online mode received criticism. It currently holds an aggregate review score of 93 out of on Metacritic, tying it with Brawl as the highest-rated game in the series on the website, and held a score of 92.17% on GameRankings prior to its shutdown.

Trivia

Because of the size of the USK icon on the game's box art, the German version has a slightly different variation of the said box art: Pikachu is moved upwards, Yoshi is completely missing, and the logo is off-centered.
Ultimate's release date falls one day after the late Satoru Iwata's birthday, December 6 (which was also the release date of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U in Japan).
Following the announcement of Pyra and Mythra as DLC fighters, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 managed to sell out on Amazon in Japan.