Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – US Version

Bueno

Fui un fiel fan de Melee pero este tiene lo mejor de todo. Siento que es el más equilibrado siempre y cuando sepas usar a tus personajes. En lo que flaquea es en la historia, prácticamente no tiene, son meros combates al azar porque sí unidos a cinemáticas. Pero las horas de diversión que puedes crear con este juego son incontables, me ha dado las mejores tardes con amigos.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the US Version is an absolute gaming masterpiece that lives up to its title as the “ultimate” fighting game. This game brings together an extensive roster of iconic characters from various video game franchises, creating a thrilling and action-packed gaming experience like no other.

The gameplay is fast-paced, fluid, and incredibly fun. Each character has a unique set of moves and abilities, allowing for diverse and strategic battles. Whether playing with friends locally or challenging opponents online, the game offers endless hours of entertainment and competition.

The attention to detail in the game is remarkable, from the meticulously designed stages inspired by classic video games to the faithfully recreated character models and animations. The visuals are crisp and vibrant, adding to the immersive gaming experience.

The game’s sound design is exceptional, with a dynamic soundtrack that features remixes of iconic video game tunes. The audio enhances the excitement of battles and nostalgia for fans of the various franchises represented.

One of the most significant strengths of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is its replay value. The game’s single-player modes, online multiplayer battles, and numerous unlockable characters and spirits ensure that players will keep coming back for more.

Let me begin by saying Super Smash Bros. has always been a fighting game franchise I’ve held dear since my childhood. Each new entry seemed to completely raise the bar, thereby raising my expectations for what kind of surprises were in store for us. And as far as the character reveals go, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate boasted a good amount of surprises for the fans. Lots of heavily requested fighters such as King K. Rool, Ridley and Simon Belmont finally graced the roster. However, I just don’t see how they can call this the “Ultimate” version of Smash when so much was taken out in exchange for a larger than normal stage and fighter number. So this brings me to the ultimate question (sorry for the overuse of the word “ultimate” btw). Was what we gained better than what we lost? That’s a difficult question for me to answer. Instead, I’ll just spill my thoughts. Let’s continue with the review.

Part 1: Presentation. The formula of Super Smash Bros has remained relatively the same since its debut in 1999. Its control scheme is pretty unique for a fighting game. But, it works excellently. There are no 15-button combos, but a series of standard, special, and aerial attacks that can be used in whichever sequence you see fit. The objective of the game is to rack up damage on your opponents by beating them to a pulp using your wide variety of moves, items, assists etc. and then launching them off the stage. I simply adore the chaotic gameplay of Smash bros. and so do millions of people, hence the large fanbase. However, there are some people in this world who have never played a Smash game before (shocking, right?). I just feel the game could do a better job in presenting itself to newcomers. The “how to play” video doesn’t show up until after the game’s opening. How will people know to wait after the logo comes on the screen? Other than that, the menu is very clean and straightforward this time around. It only takes 3 button presses to get into a match with you and your buds. I also want to take this time and applaud the beautiful design of the menus. There is a nice mix between simplistic graphics and in-game images. It honestly deserves an award. Not only that, its easier than ever to add up to 8 players to a match, set up custom match rules and edit controller configurations. So much care went into making the experience pleasurable.

Part 2: Gameplay. Like I mentioned above, the gameplay of Smash Bros. remained the same. But, this time around, the overall speed has been upped a bit, making the gameplay a tad faster than Smash 4, but a tad slower than Melee. And I gotta say, it really feels great. Since the speed of the game changed, so did some of the animations of the fighters. Taunts, for instance, are quicker and don’t leave you vulnerable for as long. And when you launch a fighter, they propel a lot faster and a lot farther. This makes it a bit harder to execute combos, sadly. Despite the faster gameplay, I am AMAZED at how fluid the movements of the fighters still are, as well as how nicely animated some of their new moves are. This game runs at a buttery-smooth 60 fps, despite all the chaos happening on the screen. I’d give this game an A+ in this department. It’s not hard to understand why the gameplay of Smash hasn’t changed. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Part 3: Content. This is where things get dicey. One could argue that having 70+ characters and 100+ stage options qualifies as a hefty amount of content. However,a lot-and I mean ALOT of the features/modes from the prior smash bros. games have been cut. I’m going to start by telling you what you get with this game. There is your standard “Smash” mode, which houses local multiplayer matches. Standard Smash is for 2-8 players. If you have an even larger group of people wanting to play, you’ll be glad to know there’s a tournament mode. A new multiplayer mode called “squad strike” makes its debut in this game. In this mode, you can challenge a buddy and both of you use a “squad” of 3 or 5 characters to participate in elimination-style matches. Other than that, you can also mess around with the rules in the multiplayer matches. The mode “special” smash makes a return. Playing this mode, will allow you to fight with a variety of battle parameters (make your fighter faint after taking a certain amount of damage, make your fighters large, make them metallic, etc). Next, we have “Spirits mode”, which houses this game’s campaign mode, “World of Light”. This could take a while to wrap up, so i’ll try to be brief. Those of you who are familiar with Smash Bros may remember collecting “trophies” which are in-game collectible 3D models of characters who are both in and not in the game. In prior games, there were tons of ways you could unlock trophies, which added hours upon hours of more content. In this game, trophies are gone, but their spirits are carried through…well, spirits. The whole gimmick of “Spirits mode” is fighting,collecting and leveling up spirits, which are obtained by completing matches with a plethora of wacky parameters. So, what are spirits? They’re basically the souls of characters who appeared in various games. In this game, they’re represented by flat 2D images, rather than 3D models like the trophies were. When you “equip” a spirit, you attain its powers, which in some way, are related to the spirit itself. In super smash bros. brawl for wii, you may remember “stickers”, which are almost the exact same thing, but you can’t level them up. The whole mechanic of “spirits” is fully brought into play in the “World of Light” campaign mode. This time around, a new foe named “Galeem” has reared his ugly head and claimed the bodies of all the fighters (except Kirby) and is making clones of them. To make these clones fight, he uses the spirits he claimed from non-important characters and embeds them into the clones so that they become animate. Your job is to rescue all of your fallen comrades and restore light to the world. In this mode, you traverse a large, and I mean LARGE map, taking on the clones (with spirits inside them) in a variety of silly matches. Should you beat the clone at their own game, you free the spirit within and you can use their powers to help you free more spirits. Spirits are leveled up naturally by fighting. The better you do in a fight, the more EXP your spirit gets. Playing a good match can also net you “skill points” which can be used to unlock extra stats on top of the ones you get with spirits. When you travel across the map, you will run into your comrades being held captive. If you defeat them in a regular match, you will free them and that means you not only get to use then in World of Light, but in every other mode in the game as well. Each section of World of Light’s map has a boss. Defeat that boss and you’re one step closer to confronting Galeem. Anyway, you keep going through the cycle of fighting,rescuing spirits,rescuing fighters and taking down bosses for the whole campaign mode. I have yet to complete this mode, but it goes on for a while. My gripe with “World of Light” is that it becomes repetitive after a while. These matches with the crazy battle parameters make up about 90% of the campaign and are, in theory, just matches that you can replicate by messing around with the rules in “Smash mode”. This honestly feels like event matches with an unnecessary rpg mechanic slapped on it. Also, the difficulty is all over the place. Some matches are fairly easy and in others, you’ll get your can kicked to and fro. Anyhoo, let’s keep going. Next, we have “Classic Mode”, which is no stranger to us Smash fans. In this mode, you select a character, take on a series of matches and fight a boss at the end. However, this classic mode is a bit different than the “classic” modes we’re used to. And by “different”, I mean worse. First off, classic mode has been shortened by like 5 matches. Second, there is only one bonus game that you play between matches, and its the same for every fighter and every difficulty you choose. It’s a little obstacle course where you collect yellow orbs and race to the end before a black hole swallows you. I just don’t understand why they couldn’t have at least added different layouts for the obstacle course. In prior games, there were “break the targets” bonus stages that had multiple layouts. Lastly, classic mode ends with a boss. **SPOILER ALERT IN 3…2….1…(SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED)There are only 6 bosses in the game. And in a game with over 70 characters, this means you’ll be fighting the same ones over and over. And lo and behold, these are the EXACT six bosses you’ll fight in the campaign mode.

**SPOILERS OVER**Alright, next I want to cover the online mode. I knew from when it was first unveiled, it would be a mess and I was right. There is no longer the “For fun” and “For Glory” options that were in Smash Bros. for Wii U. There is only the Quickplay option in which you set your match preferences and HOPE you and another player have the same idea of a good match. More often than not, you will be forced to play in 4-player matches if you don’t want to play 4-player matches and 1-on-1 matches when you don’t feel like playing a 1-on-1. Also, there is noticeable lag (Oh boy, what a surprise) when playing online. Apparently, the game does its best to set you up against players close to you, but if one player has bad internet, everyone suffers.

Part 4(UPDATED AS OF AUGUST 2019):The Cutting Board. This is where I want to talk about features than many considered to be standard for Smash games, but for some reason, don’t show up in Ultimate. My main problem with this game is that I feel Nintendo stripped the extra content and modes that made Smash Bros. a truly enjoyable experience, leaving behind what the game is at its core: a party fighting game. Nintendo seems to be on this trend lately with games like Mario Tennis Aces, ARMS, Star Fox Zero and Mario Kart 8, where modes that offered a great subsidiary to the main gameplay formula (multiplayer modes, mini game modes, battle modes etc) that were present in PAST TITLES are nowhere to be seen. And I absolutely HATE that Smash had to be a part of this trend. And this most disappointing part of this is that the Switch is Nintendo’s 2nd HD game console. We should be getting games that absolutely push the boundaries of what past games were restricted to. Other developers are making their sequels bigger and better, but for some reason, Nintendo is holding back content from their games. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s as if whenever they take 1 step forward, they have to take 2 steps back. Sorry for the small rant, here are the features that Smash Ultimate lacks. First, mini-games like “Break the Targets”, “board the platforms” and “Home run contest” are absent. I feel these games would have been PERFECT for an online leader board functionality. Second, Single player modes like “All-star” and “event match” are absent.
UPDATE: Stage Builder mode, which was a feature of the last 2 Smash games, was added via an update and it’s amazing how much care went into designing the new components and objects you can play around with. This stage builder easily trumps the other two. Not only that, Tournament mode was added. I’ ve decided to bump up my rating by one star to accommodate these additions. Thanks for listening to the fans, Mr. Sakurai.

Lastly, I want to talk about unlocking methods. You start the game with the original 8 characters that you started with in the Nintendo 64 game, yet all of the stages are unlocked. This baffling to me. In prior smash games, you would have to unlock stages and characters by completing certain requirements. Some of which were very unique and creative, making unlocking the character/stage a truly rewarding experience. With Ultimate, all of that is gone. You simply unlock characters by playing multiplayer matches, classic mode matches or via the “World of Light” campaign. If you want to bring back the nostalgic feel of putting effort towards unlocking something, you need to do it with the stages as well.

Part 5: The verdict: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a truly great game at its core. Its gameplay has even been tweaked and refined, further enhancing the experience. However, most of what you’ll be doing in this game is playing standard matches, whether it be against a CPU or a few buddies. Many of us were looking forward to a fully fleshed-out adventure mode, but its basically a series of event matches-something we’ve seen before. And all of the great passtimes like home-run batting, trophy collecting,”break the targets” or stage building are nowhere to be seen. And the one mode we do have that was present in past games, “Classic” mode has been watered down. By no means am I saying this is a terrible game. It’s just that I was expected what added to the charm of Smash Bros. to be included in this installment. And I’m very well sure the developers know that we sometimes can’t get everything we want. I don’t feel ripped off, because there is very well $60 worth of content in this game. And with the addition of fan favorite characters like Banjo-Kazooie coming soon, I am very grateful to the dedication of the development team. Thanks for reading and happy gaming.