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“Ever since the birth of the video game mascot as a concept, many have dreamed of who would win in a fight: the arcade giants of the 80’s, Donkey Kong vs Pac Man or the 16 Bit rivalry, Mario vs Sonic and while we may never get a game that satisfies every possible match up let’s judge Super Smash Bros.” on its own merits. The quoted section was the opening of review which I wrote for Super Smash Bros. for 3DS four years ago. I look back on that review with a modicum of reservation, mostly due to the grammatical awkwardness of that run-on sentence. In spite of this, I still see it as a good tone setter.

Super Smash Bros. is a series that, for casual fans, is about gathering people for some farcical fun or watching fan fiction play out. Super Smash Bros Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch is an entry in that series which seeks to offer more options for players of that disposition than ever, but as with any mortal endeavour is bound by the shackles of practicality.

For the uninitiated, the standard gameplay of a Super Smash Bros game involves 2 to 8 players selecting a character from a pantheon of classic video game characters. Originally the selection was comprised solely of Nintendo characters, but has since expanded to include the stars of many long running third party series, such as Pac Man. The players then take to a scene from a classic game where they battle with a simple and universal control scheme, attempting to knock each other off the screen. The simplicity of the game’s core makes it easily accessible to new players and the core has undergone little change since the series’ inception.  

Super Smash Bros Ultimate sees the return of every playable character featured in the games thus far. To the current roster is added, returning absentees from  Wii U and 3DS games such as Solid Snake and the Ice Climbers and newcomers such as the Inklings (Splatoon) and Incineroar (Pokemon), for a total of  around 70 characters. This number is both enticing and  daunting for new players. Wisely, the game will only present the player with 8 characters when it is first booted up. The sheer wealth of characters to be unlocked allows for their steady introduction over the course of many hours of play. The new player’s pleasure may be  a disappointment for diehards, however, as the sheer effort of bringing the returning fighters to the Nintendo Switch was clearly a drain on the team’s resources. This is evidenced by the total of 11 newcomers, a low for the series. 5 are the new echo fighters, characters who differ only in name and a few minor attributes such as speed and strength from previous character.  While I far prefer quality over content for content’s sake, the lack of novelty does colour Super Smash Bros Ultimate something of a greatest hits record, which is something that has its pros and cons.

These cutbacks extend further. Gone are the series standard trophies, which were lavishly created models, immortalising side characters and more niche video games. These have been replaced by spirits, typically pieces of artwork from a plethora of games which embody a particular character. They can also be equipped to characters in “spirit battles” where they grant various abilities. While these kinds of clever cost saving tricks would normally not bother me, the precedent set by the series so far makes the spirits feel like one more piece of evidence that this game was pushed out after a short development cycle. As a result, the quality of the game’s content has suffered, from the repetitive single player world of light mode, to the baffling absence of series staple modes such as target smash.

In spite of all of this, I love Super Smash Bros Ultimate for one simple fact. The night I sat down to play it for the first time I encouraged my housemates to try the game and sure enough, until an hour which I really should not state we played and played and played, having a blast all the way. This is a testament to the core of Super Smash Bros’ gameplay. It is enduring and endlessly fun. For this reason, I love Super Smash Bros Ultimate.

Normally I would leave a review on a conclusion such as that, but if you have read this review in full you may feel as I do, that such a conclusion neglects the full story. This does not change my subjective rating of 4 stars. I cannot step outside myself and pretend to give an empirically verifiable judgement of this game. I do feel however that this game lacks a certain spark. While the game does stand above its predecessors technically, it feels by the numbers. When series director Masahiro Sakurai has said, “if I left someone else in charge, the customers and the people who originally worked on smash might be disappointed. If that happened, it would deeply hurt. I couldn’t ignore these demands as the original author”. It is clear that he is passionate. The statement also shows a hint of obligation, however. Unlike the games of the characters featured in Super Smash Bros., the series has not evolved much since its inception. I wonder if developers like Masahiro Sakurai do feel chained to specific series that have little room to evolve and many the expectations surrounding them. We have seen through games such as Kid Icarus Uprising that Masahiro Sakurai certainly has many novel ideas to offer. Just as I do not want to write a review in the same way that I did 4 years ago, I wonder if Masahiro Sakurai feels the same about that game he is making.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate brings the series to a new platform and hopefully to new people, but just as stories are re-interpreted throughout the generations, I do wonder if it is time for the original author to let someone else tell his story.