Our Verdict
There’s zero doubt that Super Smash Bros Ultimate is the most complete love letter to the video game industry for the past 30 or so years. Featuring new and familiar faces, it aims to settle playground arguments once and for all. Just keep in mind that World of Light is an endurance and not a sprint, and that the online modes are still not quite perfect.
No matter which console it appears on, the Super Smash Bros series is always in the picture for the finest fighting multiplayer game on that system. That said, Super Smash Bros Ultimate is perhaps the complete package, with the biggest roster in the series’ history, a huge story mode, online functionality, and a plethora of ways to customize your matches.
Upon first starting Super Smash Bros Ultimate, only eight characters fill the selection screen. However, as you engage with each mode, many more become available, up to an eyewatering 69 individual fighters. These include fighters who have never been in a Smash Bros game in the past such as Ridley or King K. Rool, as well as those who belong to non-Nintendo games like the returning Solid Snake, as well as Bayonetta and Cloud who were previously only available as DLC characters.
The fact that everyone from the series so far is a playable character, with a few much-requested additional fighters on top of that number, makes this the largest roster ever. Unlike many fighting games that fill out their lineups with duplicate characters, most of the ones in Super Smash Bros Ultimate have unique movesets. The exceptions are the Echo fighters such as Ken, Richter Belmont, and Daisy, whose moves functionally match Ryu, Simon Belmont, and Peach respectively. They don’t count toward the official roster total, but provide a nice skin option if you’re a massive fan of Lucina from Fire Emblem Awakening.
Of course, this isn’t counting the 12 DLC characters made available via the multiple Season Passes after Super Smash Bros Ultimate’s release. Newer Nintendo characters such as Byleth from Fire Emblem Three Houses and Min Min from ARMS make their debut and are decent, if somewhat predictable additions.
However, the majority are guest characters for games that have since technically made an appearance on a Nintendo console, even if they weren’t available on the Switch at the time. Fighting game fans will get a kick out of seeing SNK’s Terry Bogard fight both Street Fighter’s Ryu and Tekken’s Kazuya Mishima in the same game, while younger fans will terrorize the arena as Steve/Alex from Minecraft. As a result, there should be at least two or three characters who appeal to just about everyone, and many more to argue about which takes the top spot on the Super Smash Bros Ultimate tier list.
It’s an admirable feat that’s accomplished by giving characters a small amount of moves to work with, and just like every other Smash Bros game since the original, it’s simple to learn. Most match types challenge you to knock your opponent out of bounds or into a death trap if the zone has one. You need to block, dodge, or jump over your opponent’s attacks while countering them with your own to score knockouts. Each stage has a gimmick that you can enable or disable, depending on whether you’re looking for a fun party game or a serious competitive fighter, and the option to do either is welcome.
Every character can attack, jump, and use Smash attacks and Special moves to defeat their enemies or recover from compromising situations. Despite its simplicity, there’s a lot of nuance too, such as knowing when to guard the edge of a stage to try to intercept a recovering opponent. You can also tinker with whether stage-clearing Final Smashes are enabled and how they work (either a destructible emblem floating across the sky that rewards the player with a single charge, or a bar at the bottom of the screen that gives a Final Smash when full). Every match against a real person I’ve ever had in Super Smash Bros Ultimate has been a raucous time and made for memorable moments, but at no point was there any notion of unfairness. Sure, you can play Super Smash Bros Ultimate competitively, but as a party game with items turned on and stage gimmicks enabled, there are more laughs than tears.
Part of what makes Super Smash Bros Ultimate such a good time is that there are plenty of options you can toggle on and off. Items return from previous games, such as the Super Mushroom that makes you grow or shrink depending on the color, or the Maxim Tomato that recovers your health. The new stuff is mostly confined to cameos in Assist Trophies that introduce side characters from newly introduced games to the series, such as Alucard from Castlevania or Shadow from Sonic, and newer Pokemon inside Pokeballs from the more recent generations. These spice up battles for those who want them available and you can tinker with options to toggle which ones are available.
Performance is key in fighting games such as Super Smash Bros Ultimate, and thankfully it’s a smooth experience that looks great no matter if you’re using it in docked or handheld mode. It’s also the best-looking Smash Bros game ever made. Considering the amount of content available, it’s staggering that it’s this polished. Perhaps its most impressive party trick is that you can set a match to swap between two stages mid-match and it doesn’t make a dent in the frame rate or image quality.
Super Smash Bros Ultimate excels in its multiplayer setting, whether on the couch with up to seven of your friends and family or online against up to three other players worldwide. Online offers a limited selection of match types, as well as tournaments for up to 64 players to compete in knockout rounds. That said, the stability of online is still somewhat sketchy at times. When it’s against one person it’s absolutely fine, but against three or four, it largely depends on their connection. In my experience, even after over five years of the game being available, it can slow to a crawl and make the match virtually unplayable. Thankfully, online performance doesn’t seem to matter whether or not the Switch is in docked or handheld mode, so you’re free to play how you want.
As for single-player offerings, you have a Classic mode which challenges each fighter with six matches and a boss battle tailored to their series. For example, Wolf’s route includes all the characters that first appeared in Super Smash Bros Brawl that returned here, including a boss fight against Galleom from that game’s Subspace Emissary storyline. Even DLC characters get in on the fun here, such as Steve/Alex taking on enemies that loosely represent a journey from beginning to end in a Minecraft adventure. Some routes are very loose with their interpretation compared to others, Captain Olimar fights opponents with a space theme, but the effort to give everyone a unique gameplay experience is remarkable.
However, the main draw is the World of Light story mode. In it, all the fighters are evaporated by a universe-ending event. With Kirby as the sole survivor, it’s up to him to free the galaxy by defeating copies imbued with Spirits – a new collectible that’s functionally more useful than trophies in that you can equip them to gain new powers, such as the ability to don metal armor for a short time, or a buff to your attack and defense.
As you progress through the World of Light, you level up your Spirits and sometimes even combine them with others to make more powerful ones to bring into each stage. You also earn Skill Spheres to unlock new buffs on the Skill Tree or shops where you can buy items or power-ups to help prepare for upcoming fights.
Unlike Classic mode, which is meant to be a quick set of themed bouts to be completed in a few minutes, World of Light will take you hours to complete fully, and even then you’re likely to run into some challenges that will take multiple attempts to finish. It’s all worth it though, as you unlock new stages and music to use in multiplayer matches, and it’s also an efficient way of getting new fighters onto the roster. It’s well worth enduring, even if it gets somewhat tedious toward the end.
Other game types are also available for solo play, including Mob Smash and All-Star Smash, which have you either defeating a set number of enemies or trying to beat as many of them as possible with one stock. The Home-Run Contest is also back, challenging players to punch, kick, and otherwise brutalize the sandbag before smashing it with the provided baseball bat. These are good for a bit of a distraction, but you’ll likely spend far more time in Classic or World of Light compared to these modes.
Super Smash Bros Ultimate is an impossible game on paper, and yet it’s very real, works well generally, and will provide many hours of enjoyment as you unlock every character, stage, and music track. As a multiplayer experience, it can’t be topped. While its online offering is still lacking compared to other fighting games, this is by far the most bang for your buck you can possibly get on the Switch.