The moment you pick up a game and it just feels right, you know that’s an incredibly positive sign. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the highly anticipated platform fighter from Nintendo, and it caters to just about anyone. Whether you’re just in it for the love of Nintendo and its incredible legacy of characters, along with other prolific franchises, or you love the fierce competition, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has it all. It’s an amalgamation of everything you’ve dreamed about! It has a remarkably large music collection, every Smash character from previous titles, and modes that you can enjoy for an infinite amount of hours. There’s never a shortage of things to do and if you ever find yourself feeling bored, selecting from the abundant cast of characters will keep you entertained. Whether you’re playing solo or with a group of friends, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate celebrates gaming history in such a way that will leave a long lasting impression on you for years to come.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is your quintessential platform fighter, a game that comes with all the bells and whistles that make the franchise such an illustrious one. Whether you’re racing against time to defeat the evil that lies ahead in World of Light, or simply unlocking characters via Classic and Solo Battles, this game is jam-packed with content and always provides you with plenty of surprises. There are so many characters in this game that we honestly never even heard of but it was so fun to learn about them, and come to appreciate it. Sakurai truly went above and beyond with this title, and anyone who’s a Nintendo fan or simply even just a fan of video games in general will have an absolute blast with this title.

Online features allow you to play against other players across the globe, or if you just want to focus on your local territory, the option to change it is there as well. That isn’t it however, as DLC via the Fighters Pass will give players even more content to enjoy, which includes music, new characters, and stages. This is truly the ULTIMATE package for Smash Bros fans.

Those who follow the competitive landscape will immediately recognize that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate resembles that of its predecessor, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, from a visual standpoint. The major differences however really shine in gameplay, which we’ll get into later, but the Nintendo Switch just provides a very seamless experience with faster frame rates and smoother animations. From the get-go, the main menu interface has received a significant overhaul, opting for a more simplistic approach and making it much easier for players to navigate around the game. Since the game is marketed towards a much larger demographic, aside from just the core competitive side, this very minimalistic theme really works and is easy on the eyes as well. Sakurai himself even stated in a very early interview prior to the game release that his intention was to make an interface that’s easy for a child to navigate around.

Outside of the menu interface, small little details have been implemented to really give the game more spunk, such as the more vibrant looking character select screen. Colors look more vivid and when everything is in motion you’re truly getting the ultimate experience. Other changes like the score on the screen after losing a stock is a nice welcoming addition, especially for the competitive Smash community who need to keep up with the score in the heat of the battle. Its small changes like this that really make up for a lot, and Nintendo scored big time in this area.

With over 700+ music tracks available, and more on the way via DLC, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has by far the largest gaming music library out of any game in the history of gaming. You’re paying 60 bucks for basically a Nintendo version of Spotify within the game, and it doesn’t just include Nintendo-themed music as well! You have support from the likes of Konami, Bandai Namco, Square Enix and much more, many of whom you’re likely familiar with. It’s an eargasm and it constantly feels so satisfying when you’re able to listen to iconic music from your favorite franchise, like Star Fox or even Pokémon. Outside of the music, the overall sound in the game has vastly improved, from attacks sounding a lot more powerful when connected to the voicing of characters being sharper. You’re definitely getting your money’s worth in this area all the way.

For the sake of the review, and avoiding spoilers for World of Light, we’ll only touch base on what the overall premise is, and what to look forward to while playing. We were greeted with some gameplay footage which features the adorable Kirby finding himself in a world unknown, and must now try to save the world from peril. World of Light is the brand new story-based adventure that sees you collect Spirits to help you along your path, defeating bosses and characters to bring you closer to the final battle. As you progress through the mode, you’ll unlock new characters which you can then use in other modes of the game, such as the aforementioned Spirits.

Spirits Mode is the brand new mode that Nintendo introduced, which lets you embark on a journey to essentially collect all of the Spirits that perished during the opening movie. Your goal is simple: fight a Spirit and unlock them, then take them into battle to gain experience. Each Spirit comes with their own strengths and weaknesses which you’ll have to learn to manage effectively, since these very elements play a major role in whether you’ll have the advantage or not. Spirits Mode is pretty much an awesome feature where you can collect an abundance of historical video game characters, and just appreciate them in their glory. It’s like having a virtual trophy room with all of your iconic and classic gaming characters all to bask in.

Classic Mode is a throwback to the Melee days, which is a huge plus and steps away from the Subspace Emissary which to be quite frank, wasn’t very well executed. Classic Mode feels just as it should, a way for you to play through the game with your favorite characters and unlock more over time. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate just tries to keep things simple without really taking away much of that allure that makes it so beautiful. Every character in Classic Mode will have their own unique boss to fight against, which is respective of their entry into the series. For example, Mario will duke it out against Giga Bowser while Link and Zelda will go up against Ganon in his beast form. All of these little intricate details seemingly just blow over your head as you play, but the deeper you dive into this game, the more treasure you continue to come across, which is amazing.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is everything we could truly ask for in a Smash game, but there are still some gripes with the game, most notably in the online area. For now, we have matchmaking but even that has its problems. Despite having our settings in place for a more competitive match layout, the matchmaking feature isn’t consistent. It matches you up with people who have somewhat similar requirements as you, but even then, a lot of the time you’re queued up in free-for-alls when we clearly asked for 1-v-1 battles. Hopefully, this issue gets ironed out at some point, but for now our take on the online portion is that it’s not as complete as we initially were expecting. Once we do get over 500,000 Global Smash Power Points however, that’s where things will be fun as Elite Battles will take place!

Nevertheless, the overall package is truly satisfying and no matter what, this will go down as the best Smash Bros game in history.

Now that you know our verdict, what’s yours? Let us know your thoughts about Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in the comments below, and show us that love while you’re at it! Be sure to follow us on Twitter and our brand new Facebook page to know when we drop new reviews, but also to just be a part of such an awesome community! We’ll be sure to give you a shoutout if you say hi!

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