Smash Bros: The Ultimate Party-Fighting game!

    When I last spoke about this game, there were still two unknown variables to the most recent Smash Bros. experience, but as of June 15, we only have one left. For those of you who don't remember or didn't read my first post about the Smash Bros. franchise, Super Smash Bros. is a long running fighting game series that began on the N64, and serves as a stage for all your favorite video game characters to fight to their heart's content. Though this series began as just a stage for Nintendo's best and brightest characters, it's been expanded over the years to where it is now, a true museum of video game excellence with characters from many top studios. I am getting a bit ahead of myself though, in my first post about this series, I spoke about the first three games, and in this one, I'll discuss the next two. While many felt that one of them was really the wrong step for the franchise, both of them continued the series to a point that made sense for the time, and ultimately made each version different in its own way. Enough preamble though, let's get into the meat of this issue, the two (or three) games I'm speaking of today.

One game for the price of Two!

    Super Smash Bros. 4 was actually separated into two games, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS. Both of the games featured the same character roster, but they had some individual details that were different between the two. First of all, they had different stages between the two based on different properties for their system, presumably because of the different graphical restraints between the two. The 3DS version obviously couldn't meet the same resolution and size of the Wii U version's stages, a few of which were giant to account for the 8 person smash addition to the home console version. On top on this, there were a few characters that were cut specifically because of the limitations of 3DS, Ice Climbers most notably, and Pokemon Trainer was reduced to only Charizard. Zero Suit Samus became a separate fighter along with Zelda and Sheik being separated and each given their own specific B-down moves instead of just the transform button between the two. The biggest changes between these two versions is definitely the added modes that are completely different between the two. The Wii U version had Smash Tour, a Mario Party-esque mode where you travel around a game board collecting as many fighters, buffs, and power ups as you can pick up, which ends with a battle between the competitors and the fighters that they all pick up throughout the game. The 3DS version got Smash Run, which gives all competitors a chance to run through a labyrinth to pick up different power ups, fighting monsters from various different franchises, which again ends with a competition of some sort which varies between a footrace, a basic battle, or another trial of the sort. Between the two, I think Smash Run is a lot more fun, but both modes were mostly overlooked in favor of just basic battles, which makes sense, as that's the basis for the whole franchise. The selection of characters is always the biggest deal, of course, and this time they really leaned into some bizarre picks. Most notable new inclusions were Pac-Man, Mega Man, Villager from the Animal Crossing series, Wii Fit Trainer from Wii Fit, and the dog from Duck Hunt, which has now teamed up with a duck to take on the competition. The trophies were still a good addition to this title, along with the stickers that they added in Brawl along with the music selection, allowing you to choose what music played on what stage. It was a nice game overall, and people were generally happier with it than the previous title, which many people considered to be too slow. The next game in the series, however, took that speed to an even higher level, along with many other improvements.

Everyone is Here!

    Where were you when you heard about Smash Bros. Ultimate? The most recent game in the series has to be the most ambitious game so far in the series for many reasons. At first the fans didn't have much to go off of other than Inkling from Splatoon being in it, along with the release window of 2018, so speculation went wild. People were yelling at each other on the internet, debating whether it was going to be a new game in the series, or just a port of the Wii U/3DS game after the Wii U's early demise. At E3 2018, however, this speculation was put to rest. The trailer laid it out on the table. "Everyone is here!" Every character that had ever been in Smash was on the table, with the addition of a few new fighters. Among these new characters came the most requested characters from the beginning, such as Ridley from Metroid and King K. Rool from Donkey Kong Country. Other notable additions include Simon and Richter Belmont from the Castlevania Franchise and the adorable Isabelle from Animal Crossing: New Leaf. This game saw the return of Adventure Mode in the form of "World of Light." It's a much darker story this time around, with all kinds of video game characters actually being killed by a god-like being named Galeem, and their spirits being forced into the cloned bodies of the different Smash fighters. Unlike "Subspace Emissary" from Brawl, which mostly focused on platforming and fighting original enemies and bosses, World of Light focuses on what Smash Bros does best, battles. The event mode was done away with in this game for all of the spirit battles, allowing you to play against characters that weren't actually added to Smash Ultimate with some pretty unique battles with different challenges to play against. The downside of Spirits is that they also took the place of Trophies and Stickers, but didn't give any information about the characters this time around, lending a feeling of quantity over quality, even though that was always just a bonus thing to look at for a while. The gameplay in this one is sped up even more than the previous game in the series, which led to its status as the second most competitive Smash Bros. game after Melee (which they still play in tournaments 20 years after release).

    The surprises for this game just keep on coming as well, the first surprise came at the Game Awards in 2018, the day before Smash Bros. Ultimate's release. The Phantom Thieves from Persona 5 infiltrated the theater where the ceremony was being held, but this time, instead of stealing a treasure, it was so that Joker could accept the invitation to join Smash Bros. as the first DLC fighter! This was a completely unexpected inclusion and when people saw this one, the speculation machine started going off the rails really fast. Joker had really barely been on a Nintendo console at this point, so this opened the door to anyone. With DLC Fighters Pass 1, we also saw the addition of Hero from Dragon Quest, Banjo and Kazooie from Banjo-Kazooie (which I was especially excited about), Terry Bogard from Fatal Frame, and Byleth from Fire Emblem: Three Houses. While not all of these were met with universal acclaim (Byleth was pretty much hated when he/she was revealed), I really enjoyed all of these DLC fighters, which made me even more excited when a second fighters pass was announced once the first one ended in December of 2019. Fighters Pass 2 is still a work in progress, though so far five characters have been announced with one still to come. So far we've had Min Min from ARMS, Steve/Alex/Zombie/Enderman (All work the same, just different skins) from Minecraft, Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII, Pyra/Mythra (which work like Zelda/Sheik before they became separate characters) from Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and Kazuya from Tekken. All of these DLC characters are really interesting and play very differently from most of the base roster in the game, all featuring some sort of weird gimmicks save a few. A few, like Banjo and Kazooie still play mostly like normal fighters, but I truly am just more than happy to get them in here, since they started on Nintendo 64, and they even brought in the incredible Grant Kirkhope (composer for Banjo-Kazooie) to make a new version of the Spiral Mountain theme. All of the DLC fighters really add to the base game to feel like this is the "ultimate" game in the series, and goes a long way to pay tribute to so many different series, it definitely lives up to the idea of a little kid imagining in his head who would win, in a far greater way than the original title did back in 1997.

    I have to say that Smash Bros. Ultimate is my favorite game in the series so far, though that is always how I feel about new Smash Bros. games, I truly feel like each of them have taken steps in the right direction, and I'm always so happy to play more and more of them. As of last week, I've played over 3000 matches, and I'm really looking forward to playing a lot more over the next few years with friends and family. Smash Bros. has always been an important series to me, deeply rooted in my relationship with video games, and I'd love to see them continue to drive people to love all kinds of different games for years and years to come. I'd like to end this by just saying a big thank you to Masahiro Sakurai for continuing to drive the Smash team to excellence for all these years, as well as the late Satoru Iwata for driving Sakurai to make the best product that he could for the series's beginning. 

    Thanks so much for sticking with me on today's post, friends. I just love Super Smash Bros. a lot, so I felt the need to write a rather lengthy post that turned into two lengthy posts. Let me know if there are any favorite characters that you have, as well as if there are any predictions for the last DLC fighter in pass 2 down in the comments below. Again, thank you all so much for reading this, and I hope you've all had a good week! I've been your Self-Proclaimed Smash Bros. fan, and I'll talk to you next week.