So much happening.
Look, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a big deal; Smash Bros. games always are. And since this is the ultimate game in the series, it’s got some heft to the additions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-kQWJrjRV4
They started off with the death of Luigi; taken from us by Death himself. Now both of the Mario Bros. are dead.
But no; it is, in fact, the intro for Simon Belmont to come in and whip it. And this time he doesn’t look like he’s dressed to go out to a gay leather club. He’s rockin’ the classic look.
His stage, Dracula’s Castle, has all of the good shit, too. You can have bosses pop up as stage hazards, from the lowly werewolf (who is now a normal-ass enemy, just like all those axe armors) all the way up to the D-Man himself. It also has a whopping 34 tracks from the series to go with it, too.
And it finally completes that Captain N reunion in Smash.
But, he’s not in the fight alone…
…because Richter joins in as Simon’s echo fighter. And since there’s a number of moves they have in common, it’s hard to tell who is the echo fighter of whom. And to go along with the both of them, you have Genya Arikado Alucard as an assist trophy. Sort of a shame he isn’t an actual character, but what can you do?
They also announced two more echo fighters to go along with announced characters:
Dark Samus was long requested, and Chrom was teased back when they added Lucina. So it’s nice to have them.
You can also set the game up to either display all echo fighters separately, or compact them into their base character’s portrait so that you can switch between them with a single button push.
STAGES
All stages from past games are making a return. In total, the game has over 100 stages; counting the battlefield and omega variants, well over 300. In addition, they’ve got a Mario Odyssey stage in New Donk City.
Also, they’re giving the past stages a bit of sprucing up to make them look nice. Well, with one set of exceptions: the N64 levels are being kept near their original shape for posterity.
You can also make it so that stages morph from one to another, from two selected, at either random or set intervals.
Also, you can fully customize the music in these stages. Speaking of which, they have a lot of it this time around. If you count everything in the game there are over 800 stage tracks, over 900 tracks if you count menus and fanfares.
And, in handheld mode, you can play the music with the screen turned off. They’re cramming so much into this game.
MODES & SETTINGS
You now have the ability to set rules up first. You can even set up custom rule sets in advance. Stages are selected before fighters, allowing strategy when it comes to picking characters for stages, and it can even be set to loser’s pick. Another big thing are chargeable final smash moves. They’re weaker than the regular final smash, but you can use them more often. And they lock all other final smashes until such time as the current one is finished.
There are new modes to go along with these settings, too. Squad Strike is a 5 on 5 or 3 on 3 elimination mode; each player gets 5 consecutive fighters to use in one battle. There’s is also a tourney mode, which can automatically set up a bracket. Finally, there’s Smashdown; after each battle, the fighters used become locked, and can’t be used by anyone in the next battle. Oh yeah, the training mode also gives you a number of metrics to understand the metrics of your launches and moves.
Single Player is also there, offering that traditional challenge with Classic Mode. You’ll fight a specific set of opponents given your chosen character.
ITEMS
Honestly, there’s so much new stuff here, that I can’t reasonably cover it all in detail. But they have added a few things I’d like to note. They start off with a banana gun which has one (powerful) bullet, afterwards becoming a mere hazard. You also have Fire Emblem‘s Killing Edge, which crits when lit up. Also, Death’s Scythe, which insta-kills heavily damage opponents.
As for Pokémon, well, they finally made Abra useful. They’ve also added Alolan Exeggcutor and two variants of Vulpix. As well as the legendaries from Sun and Moon. Oh, yeah, and Ditto.
As for Assist trophies, we’re getting Mega Man X‘s Zero. We also get Nipples the Enchilada Punchy Sonichu Knuckles. And a number of others: Krystal, Chef Kawasaki, Klaptrap, Kapp’n (hilarious, by the way), Gray Fox, Nikki, Shovel Knight, Ashley. Oh, yes, and how could I forget THE MOON?!
But there’s one more, and hopefully it means something: Rathalos. Not only is he an assist trophy, he’s a boss.
And that was our lot.
But not really. there was one more thing…
That’s right! After an almost equal amount of time as Ridley, we finally get King K. Rool.
As an aside, We’re also getting a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate bundle for the Switch, with a limited edition Switch Smash Bros. Gamecube controller plus an adapter, and the game.
Releasing alongside the regular edition on 07/12, Super #SmashBros Ultimate – Limited Edition contains a copy of the game, a Nintendo GameCube Controller Super Smash Bros. edition and a Nintendo GameCube Controller adapter! pic.twitter.com/ltNavLsbtD
— Nintendo of Europe (@NintendoEurope) August 8, 2018