In all seriousness, if you really have no idea what Smash Bros is, imagine throwing together dozens upon dozens of video game characters across the generations and pitting them in a free-for-all battle royale. The roster includes pop culture icons such as Mario (Super Mario), Link (Legend of Zelda) and Pikachu (Pokemon), along with more obscure characters, such as Pit (Kid Icarus), Fox McCloud (Star Fox), and Shulk (Xenoblade Chronicles). Evidently, video game marketing teams realized that putting lesser known video games in Smash Bros (which is literally the best selling and most highly anticipated video game franchise ever) is a sure fire way to increase sales for the lesser-known title, as many gamers admitted that they got introduced to their favorite games through Smash Bros. Myself included! I mean, c'mon now, who here has heard of Metroid or Fire Emblem before playing Smash Bros? Anyway, the basics of Smash Bros are simple. In a match of 2-8 players, everyone tries to knock the other players off the screen using regular attacks, Smash Attacks (which are slower, but have more knockback and can be charged for addition damage) Special Attacks (a set of five abilities that are unique to each character, and can do anything from shooting a laser, to teleporting, to giving you temporary flight), and various weapons and items that spawn somewhere on the stage at random intervals. Unlike most fighting games, which show the amount of damage taken as a gauge, Smash Bros does something unique: Damage Percentages. Basically, getting hit by an unblocked attack will build up Percentage. The more Percentage you have, the more knockback you take. For example, a regular punch from, say, Ganondorf at 0% will only push you back ever so slightly. That same punch at 100% will send you flying halfway across the stage.
Naturally, Nintendo announced a few months back that their working on the fifth entry in this quirky, half-platformer, half-fighting game, and without it being even out yet people are already expecting to be the greatest game ever. Why is that, you ask? First of all, Masahiro Sakurai, creator of the franchise and the guy that's in charge of which characters make it in Smash Bros and which ones don't, has evidently been listening to the fanbase.
Where's Waldo, Video Game Edition!
First of all, prior to this game, characters from one game would get scrapped to make room for newer characters in the next game. Sakurai, being the madman he is, decided to bring back every character who has ever appeared as a playable character (including the ones who have been absent for over a decade!) while scrapping... Nobody. How Sakurai and his team found time to make a roster this massive is a mystery.
Second of all, the Inklings from Splatoon are now playable characters. Everybody saw this coming, though, since Splatoon is Nintendo's newest IP in a while and is incredibly popular with casuals/kids and hardcore gamers/adults alike. The squid kids were on a Top Ten Most Wanted list I wrote a few years ago, so I am very pleased that we can now ink everything up in Smash (and, hopefully, spam "WOOMY!" in taunt parties). But here's an interesting question. The Inkling's forte is weaponizing brightly colored ink. Their game is on the Nintendo Switch. You know what other ink-based game is coming to the Nintendo Switch? Bendy & The Ink Machine. Imagine they bring back the Smash Ballot and everybody votes for Bendy as a joke. That would be hilarious. I mean, it's never going to happen, for obvious reasons. It's like how people joke-voted for Freddy Fazbear back in Smash 4. But I'm satisfied with the roster, and there is absolutely no way they could top the Inklings-
Oh. Welp. It finally happened. Ridley, the main villain from the Metroid franchise as well as (debatably) the coolest bad guy in gaming is also playable. After 20+ years of begging, memeing, discussing how he would work given his rather large size, and wishing against all odds, Sakurai made everyone's favorite Pirate Dragon FROM SPACE playable. And, without him taking up half the screen. Given Ridley's popularity, and being a frequent fan-request, it's pretty safe to say that the Internet nuked itself upon his reveal.
Also, Ridley's reveal trailer is so unexpectedly dark in it's execution it's almost worth a chuckle. I mean, they basically reenact Alien, Ridley literally KILLS Mega Man (by impaling him, no less), and either throws Mario off the bridge into the pitch-black abyss or crushes his neck. Neither of which are pleasant. And then Ridley has the nerve to twirl Mario's hat around on his finger/claw/talon. But on the bright side, Ridley's moveset looks fun, as it mostly revolves around throwing caution to the wind to beat the daylights out of his opponent. Oh, and one of his Special Attacks deals 50% damage if it hits.But now that the most highly requested character for Smash has made it in, and the roster is getting humongous as is, there probably won't be any other new-
Oh. Never mind then. Simon Belmont, the main hero of Castlevania is also in Smash now. This is a little unsurprising, seeing as how rumors and leaks spread like wildfire about Simon being playable. I've never played Castlevania, but I do know the series is popular, and I have played games that draw heavy inspiration from Castlevania (Cave Story, Shovel Knight, Dust: An Elysian Tail, Shantae, Hollow Knight, etc). But because I've never played a Castlevania game directly, I know next to nothing about his franchise, aside from the fact that Simon Belmont looks like a cooler version of He-Man and he fights with a chain whip (and an assortment of anti-monster weaponry, like holy water and crosses), which is actually pretty cool. And just like Ridley, his moveset looks really fun to use as well. Then again, I'm a sucker for long range fighters, and Simon's signature whip gives him the longest reach in the game. Combine this with his crosses, holy water, and axes and he has several ways to force enemies to back off. His fighting style seems to focus more on defense, judging from the trailer and how his weapons work, which I am perfectly okay with. But NOW, SURELY, the roster is finished, right?
Nope! Richter Belmont, who is ALSO from Castlevania, is playable, albeit as a moveset clone of Simon. But as Sakurai pointed out in the Smash Direct, the Belmonts' moveset is a mixture of abilities from Simon's games, and abilities from Richter's games. So really, who is the clone of whom? Oh, and the Smash Direct had Richter say his now infamous line that has been parodied to death at this point; "Begone, Monster! You don't BELONG in this world!". Intended to sound like a cool one-liner, but wounded up being a lot cheesier than desired. Hence the parodies and memes revolving around this line. But anyway, NOW, for real this time, they got all the obvious and most wanted characters in Smash now (ignoring joke requests like Freddy Fazbear), so there is absolutely no way the roster can get any bigger-
*Applauds* Good job, Sakurai. You managed to get the Internet to nuke itself twice. King K. Rool, the main villain of Donkey Kong Country, is now in Smash Bros. And he actually looks fun to play as. He's got a Counter, he can throw his crown like a boomerang (somehow), he can whip out a blunderbuss, he can fly around on a jetpack, and his finisher has him gleefully nuke entire islands just to kill his opponents. Now, I do like the Donkey Kong Country games, but whenever people suggested King K. Rool for Smash Bros, I rolled my eyes and respond with some variation of "King K. Rool is basically a walking meme at this point, he hasn't shown up in over a decade. Heck, Nintendo probably forgot he existed.". Clearly, they have not. And they clearly like him enough to give him a fun and visually interesting moveset.
Everyone's reaction to seeing King K. Rool in Smash.
Also this image needs to become the second coming of
Surprised Patrick.
Also, King K. Rool's trailer is the epitome of hilarious. It gets mildly ominous with it showing all the Nintendo Heroes duking it out with their respective arch-nemeses, then shows good old DK and Diddy Kong chilling in their tree house. Then it goes full Jurassic Park with ominous foot steps shaking the ground itself. And then the Kongs see a familiar silhouette stomping up to their yard, and at this point you've probably figured out who the newcomer is, and then...
It's just King Dedede trolling everybody. Which gets even more hilarious when you realize that Masahiro Sakurai himself voices Dedede, which means the creator of this very franchise is having a laugh at his own shenanigans. And then the REAL King K. Rool smacks Dedede out of existence, this time officially confirming that King K. Rool is here. The whole thing is much funnier than it probably needed to be, but still, it's easily one of the better character reveals, and in terms of fun factor they won't be able to-
...This... Is not actually a Internet-Nuke like the other character reveals. I mean, yeah, sure, plenty of people wanted to see Isabelle from Animal Crossing in the game, though it's less that they want Isabelle specifically and more they just want more Animal Crossing characters in general. Seriously, the only Animal Crossing rep in Smash Bros was Villager, who is a generic blank slate to serve as a self-insert. Isabelle on the other hand is a character with an established personality and mannerisms. Frankly, the most surprising thing about Isabelle is that she has a unique moveset, which is strange, but neat, because everyone thought that if ANY Animal Crossing characters got in Smash Bros Ultimate, they would be moveset clones (more on that later) of the Villager.
Speaking of clones, on top of everything you just read up above, Chrom (Fire Emblem) and Dark Samus (Metroid) have now joined Smash Bros, albeit in the form of moveset clones of Roy and Samus, respectively. Well, more specifically, they are Echo Fighters. Which is Sakurai's way of dissuading fears that moveset clones "steal" spots on the roster from other characters, when in fact they don't. The way Echo Fighters work is when two characters have identical fighting styles, they literally share the spot on the roster together. Meaning, unless you go to the settings and set it up so Echo Fighters are displayed separately, they will pretty much count as the same character on the character select screen (you can switch between them with a button press).
And thus, thanks to the Echo Fighter system, the second biggest joke character in Super Mario makes a triumphant return to form... And by that I mean Daisy. Because let's be real, this was the only way for Daisy to make it in Smash. Seriously, if I so much as see another roster prediction where someone suggests that Daisy could actually have a unique moveset I will personally find a way to make the Internet nuke itself a third time. How I will accomplish that I have no idea.
Oh yeah, this guy got confirmed. You might know him from a little franchise, kind of obscure, called Street Fighter? Okay, you should realize I'm being sarcastic. Street Fighter is huge! It's like one of the most well-known hardcore fighter games ever. But anyway, Ken Masters, also known as the very first moveset clone (or in this case, Echo Fighter) in history. He has all the same combos and abilities that Ryu (a returning character from Smash 4) has, only with an emphasis on fire. And kicks. Ken does a lot of kicking, so much so his spin kick (the official name of that move is in Japanese) hits multiple times, something that Ryu's spin kick doesn't do. Also he runs faster. So he is objectively better because Smash Bros will always favor the more agile characters. But now the roster is getting ridi- Oh, why am I even trying to fake you out? Just scroll downwards!
Incineroar! In Smash Bros! Very Excite! Much Joy! In all seriousness, Incineroar, hailing from Pokemon Sun & Moon, is a Fire-Dark Type Pokemon that is based off of two things. Wildcats (tigers, lions, bobcats, panthers, etc) and... Pro wrestling? Okay then. I'm not sure how fire and darkness equal pro-wrestling. But apparently he's a heel wrestler, so the powers of darkness kind of make sense. Now, personally, Incineroar isn't my favorite Pokemon from Sun & Moon (Araquanid and Salazzle say hi), but I do like his wrestling aesthetic. Even if his moveset winds up being terrible to play as, it will definitely be fun to watch. And those are all the characters that are the vanilla game. A whopping 74 playable characters! Truly, Smash Bros Ultimate is the most ambitious fighting game in history. But Sakurai, being the madman he is, announced he's working on DLC characters, so their's going to be even more characters coming post launch! He even offered a sneak peak at one of them...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Oh, this is the greatest joke character ever! I'm not making this up! The first DLC fighter is literally just a Piranha Plant from Super Mario Bros! He can fly! Of course he can fly! I can't even be mad at this! Every leaker, rumor-spreader, and theorist could not have seen this coming. As soon as this guy drops I'm maining him! Nothing will stop my reign of leafy terror! I can see it now; Spencer, King of the Piranha Plants!
There's also a whopping 103 stages to fight on, and now, a feature that has been begged for since the dawn of time; The ability to turn Stage Hazards off! Because let's be real, some of the stage hazards are simply unfair. So now we can (hopefully) stop with using nothing but variations of Final Destination and Battlefield when playing. I mean, Omega stages were a step in the right direction, transforming the stage into a copy of Final Destination while keeping the textures and music from the original stage. Also, there's a new mechanic known as Stage Morph, where the stages will swap around mid-battle. So if you ever wanted to go from dueling on the Bridge of Eldin to throwing fools around in Luigi's Mansion in the span of 30 seconds, here you go. Of course, you can't change characters during Stage Morph. If you want to do that you have to actually finish the match (and start a new one).
And just as how Smash Bros represents over 40 years of gaming with it's playable roster, it represents even more games and franchises through Assist characters, who lend a helping hand to whoever grabs the Assist Trophy (an item that spawns randomly during matches. You can increase the frequency or turn it off completely). Examples of Assist characters include Zero from Mega Man, Knuckles the Echidna from Sonic the Hedgehog, Ghirahim from Legend of Zelda, and Krystal from Star Fox. And thus, the tears of those characters' fans filled up the bitter-sweet Sea of Second-rate Characters. We salute you all, Assists. Without you... Casual multiplayer would not be as fun. Also, can we have some real talk here? Krystal basically had no chance. The other characters, I could see them as playable characters. But Krystal? She literally spent her debut game as a glorified tutorial, her second appearance was in a third person shooter where the main cast didn't have that much differentiating each other aside from stats, and her third game was so polarizing everyone likes to pretend it never existed. So why do people want her in Smash Bros? Female representation? We already have plenty of girls in Smash Bros. Unique Moveset Potential thanks to the magic staff she had that one time? She only had the staff one time, and she only uses magic once in the entire game. Krystal would be the first spear-based character in Smash Bros history? I... actually can't argue with that. And now that I think about it, the fact there ISN'T a spear-based character in Smash Bros is actually kind of sad. Here's hoping Bandana Dee gets in!
But the most important thing about Super Smash Bros Ultimate is this. Rathalos (a boss from Monster Hunter) is an Assist character. There's a Monster Hunter themed stage. Which means one of two things. One, the Monster Hunter representation is foreshadowing a playable Hunter as DLC. Which would be awesome. Or two, Monster Hunter music in Smash Bros. Which is a good thing, since I'd argue that Monster Hunter is tied with UNDERTALE for having the best soundtrack in video game history. But Monster Hunter not getting a playable representative is incredibly bizarre, since Monster Hunter is owned by Capcom, which is a 3rd Party company. It's like how Rayman, also a 3rd Party-owned character, has a trophy in Smash Bros 4 but isn't playable at all (he's not even an Assist!).
Also, Shovel Knight is in the game! ...As an Assist character. So on one hand, Shovel Knight is the first indie character to appear in Smash Bros in any way shape or form. On the other hand, his fanbase is probably salty at him not being playable, though I don't really mind since out of all the potential indie representatives, Shovel Knight is one with the least moveset potential. Seriously, in his home game he has two attacks, not counting his sub-weapons, and if Shovel Knight's moveset consists mostly of his sub-weapons, does he deserve to be called "Shovel" Knight? If anything, Shantae, Quote from Cave Story and yes, even Sans the Skeleton of UNDERTALE fame have more moveset potential. Speaking of, a friend and I were making DLC predictions and and wish-lists and I asked my friend "So, if you could choose the DLC fighters, who would you pick?" and he said he would nothing but UNDERTALE characters. Which would tick off everyone. And he wasn't joking, because he is the most literal and serious person I know. If it up to me, though I'm adding Shantae and nothing is going to stop me. And Spyro the Dragon.
But for the people who ARE salty about Shovel Knight's status as an Assist, think of it like this. Would you rather have your favorite video game character get acknowledged by Smash Bros even if it doesn't make him playable, or have him be completely ignored? I personally follow the former line of thinking. Like, my personal most wanted characters are Shantae, Rayman, Wonder-Red, and Spyro the Dragon. But if they all get the Assist Character treatment (or, as I talk about later, the Spirit treatment) I would be cool with that, since I would rather have my most wanted get in in some way shape or form than not show up at all.
Back on topic, every returning character is getting tweaks to their movesets, mostly to make less liked characters more enjoyable, such as The Pokemon Trainer no longer getting penalized for going too long without switching Pokemon out, or to set similar characters apart. Namely, Ganondorf finally integrates swordsmanship into his attacks instead of being a slower, less nimble Captain Falcon (they still share some moves, but Ganondorf is now different enough to not get the Echo Fighter treatment).
They also have this thing for online multiplayer known as Elite Smash, basically where the pros can do their thing and be better at the game than everyone else. What's interesting about this game mode is the devs will look at data gathered from Elite Smash to balance out the game with post-launch updates. Now watch as no matter how much buffing and nerfing they do, Bayonetta is still the best character in the game (from a competitive perspective, casual players just use whoever they have emotional attachment to). And people will STILL make "Better Nerf Greninja" jokes. (for those not in the know, because Greninja got nerfed exactly one time in Smash Bros 4, despite being mid-tier at best, the fanbase gained a bizarre fixation on this rather unjust nerf, leading people to joke that every update somehow nerfs Greninja when it doesn't have anything to do with him).
But the main attraction of Ultimate (besides the absurdly huge roster of beloved gaming icons) is the Spirit system. So you know how previous Smash Bros games had a Trophy collection, which consisted of viewable 3D models and a description about the Trophy's game of origin? It's been scrapped, but not really scrapped. By that, I mean the main collectible are Spirits, 2D sprites of characters that simply couldn't make it into the roster or as an Assist character. Spirits serve largely the same role Trophies did, being video game memorabilia that let's you look back onto the video games of yesteryear. But now Spirits are an equippable thing that boost the power of the playable fighters and some even grant additional abilities (immunity to fire, starting the match with an item, etc). Of course, Spirits can only be used in some game modes, and you can bet they'll be banned in competitive tournaments, since those kind of people don't like fun. But there is a lot of stuff the Spirits can do, they can level up (which boosts the effects they grant), be sacrificed in the name of getting better spirits, or be sent on treasure hunts to farm gold (which is used to buy more Spirits, outfits and hats for your Mii characters, and music tracks). Frankly, the fact that the Spirits replace Trophies is kind of lame, but hey, something had to go in order for this game to get finished on time. It was either this, or Adventure Mode. And I would rather lose Trophies than lose Adventure Mode.
Speaking of which, Adventure Mode is back! This time, it's titled the World of Light. They even had a awesome/depressing cinematic of all 74 fighters coming together to face a mysterious new villain that I shall refer to as #SquidAngel (yes I know the real name is Galeem, but #SquidAngel is funnier). It's awesome, in much the same way Avengers: Infinity War was awesome, bringing all these characters together. It's depressing, because #SquidAngel decides to pull a Thanos and wipe out almost all the fighters. It's also filled with little nods to the characters' lore and personality, as they all react exactly how they would in their home games. For example, you see the Inklings try to hide in their ink puddles while "WOOMY"-ing. And then #SquidAngel kills them anyway. Bringing a swift end to the WOOMY. Another example, Sonic the Hedgehog and Pikachu are running max speed (don't ask how Pikachu can keep up with Sonic), Pikachu starts struggling to keep up. Sonic, being the pure-hearted softie he is, actually slows down to lend a helping hand, which is perfectly in character for him. Too bad it didn't make a difference. BUT!!! KIRBY!!!! MAKES IT OUT ALIVE!!! And considering Kirby is Sakurai's poster boy, I will make the obligatory "Sakurai Bias!" joke. World of Light as a game mode looks rather extensive, as you can travel on an Overworld and fight evil clones of the playable roster, as well as gimmick/specialty fighters designed to emulate characters that are not currently in the game. for example, a giant red Mega Man that only attacks with grabbing/throwing moves is supposed to resemble Guts Man. Or three Sonic the Hedgehogs armed with drills to stand in for the Able Sisters from Animal Crossing. And an orange Zero Suit!Samus to emulate Shantae (Shantae is a Spirit, by the way). Anyway, I'm assuming that World of Light is how you unlock characters, since when you first boot up the game you only have access to the original eight characters from the original Smash Bros and unlock the others as you play through the game. Because Smash Bros follows the principles of classic fighter games, having you unlock/earn additional characters through in-game accomplishments and challenges. Not buying an excessive amount of DLC! I know, this game has DLC too, but it's only five characters. The vanilla game comes with 70+ and most of the characters I wanted are in (Inklings especially!), so unless the DLC fighters include Shantae (or Spyro the Dragon, or I feel no motivation to buy any DLC. Yet.
They also unveiled some other new game modes, such as a tournament mode, a mode where you are not allowed to use the same fighter twice (known as Smashdown), and an interesting little mode that plays out like a regular match, but each player switches out to another character as soon as they get KO'd (as in, each fighter counts as one "life", with each player getting five "lives" each). They all look interesting, and I will be messing around with those game modes a fair bit. Not as much as Classic Mode (a feature in every Smash Bros game where you fight several battles in a row, ending in a boss battle against a creature that takes up most of the screen) and World of Light, though. Those two game modes are the things I'm looking forward to most.
But if you didn't quite catch all that, basically... Smash Bros. And Smash Bros is good. So maybe we should all go pick it up some time? Because Smash Bros. But in seriousness, are you excited for Super Smash Bros Ultimate? But of course the most important question ever; If you could add any video game character to Smash Bros Ultimate (don't ask how, just roll with it), who would you add? Let me know with a comment or something.
