A Month of Smash Ultimate

[Dai]

Hard to believe, isn't it? After all that time waiting for the game from the initial announcement, time's just flown by for the first month since its release. Has it lived up to its hype for you? Did it disappoint you initially, or has it improved?

I've never really had a problem with any Smash game that I've played. There are issues with them, yes, but I've never outright disliked them. Smash Ultimate is the same. I love this game, and I've had a lot of fun with it. Though I will admit, I do miss staples like Home Run Contest (Even though it didn't change for over two games, if memory serves), and I kind of wish that the "Race to the Finish"-esque game in Classic Mode had a randomized layout, instead of just the same one over and over.

Spirits are a lot more fun than I initially expected, though I do kind of wish some of the events were a little more varied. A lot of them feel samey to me. I almost have all the spirits released (Work has made the process a bit slow to complete). I do kind of hope they don't make the whole LTO spirits a common occurrence, or they at least ensure they are added into the pool permanently later on.

The online is still...very frustrating. While I'm glad that the recommended rules thing seems to have gotten better, it still rather aggravating that they made switching characters such a hassle, and I do hope they patch that out soon.

[Anacybele]

It's great, yeah. I just miss things like Home Run Contest and Target Smash, like you said.

My only major disappointment is that Frederick is not a spirit. How could he not be one while Jagen is? Or while minor characters like Bord and Cord got there? I really thought Frederick was a shoe-in here. And yet he's not there. What makes it worse is that he's the only character in the FE Warriors base roster to not be there. Sure, he isn't super popular, but neither is Jagen...or Bord, Cord, and Barst...etc. This just really upset me when I had my hopes up so high and thought it was a reasonable expectation...

But the game is amazing otherwise, imo. I got my most wanted newcomer in Daisy, even if she's just an echo, and WoL was pretty fun, though a few spirit battles are stupid imo.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Ultimate is great, I love it so far. No playable Lyn is terrible and should have been rectified ages ago, staples like Home Run Contest and Target Smash are definitely missed, and yeah I REALLY hope limited time only Spirits aren't a recurring thing. But yeah, it's great.

[a bear]

More of the same, basically. Plays great, has a completely fucked balance of content, online is lacking but tolerable, etc.

Yay: Overall a very excellent good:bad newcomer ratio; Stamina as a regular mode; Spirits as a far more varied handicap system than ever before; Spirit fights themselves are awesome; the addition of online rooms with strangers; new items and ATs aren't overpowered; Beedle is in the game somewhere finally.

Nay: Single player modes are still poop, particularly WoL (which strangely lacks co-op); questionable menu decisions like having to design rulesets first and not remembering previous characters; online is still barebones and full of arbitrary problems with both Quickplay and Arena; far too much focus on older stages over new ones.

My expectations for DLC are extraordinarily low given the first two they've revealed so far, but eh. It's still gonna be the game my brother and I inevitably play everytime we hang out at his house.

[DarthR0xas]

It's pretty good overall, I for one am glad to see Home Run Contest and Target Smash go, they were both horridly dull and boring. All the event were pretty good, I'm only about a fourth done with all the spirits but they're still pretty fun.

10 hours ago, Anacybele said:

My only major disappointment is that Frederick is not a spirit. How could he not be one while Jagen is? Or while minor characters like Bord and Cord got there? I really thought Frederick was a shoe-in here. And yet he's not there. What makes it worse is that he's the only character in the FE Warriors base roster to not be there. Sure, he isn't super popular, but neither is Jagen...or Bord, Cord, and Barst...etc. This just really upset me when I had my hopes up so high and thought it was a reasonable expectation...

While I can't explain why Freddy isn't there (maybe they couldn't think of a good spirit battle, I dunno), I can say why those dudes are. Jagen is iconic in a way, spawning his own archetype, he had to be a spirit. He might not be the most popular unit, but everyone in the FE fanbase knows who he is, and knows his archetype. As for the axe trio, I'm going to bet because Sakurai could think of a Spirit battle for them pretty fast.

1 hour ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

No playable Lyn is terrible and should have been rectified ages ago

I mean, she's an assist trophy. For her status, I'd consider that pretty good. If there is another Smash game, I would assume she is the next FE character they would include. It's not like she could've really been in any game. She wasn't around for 64 or Melee, Brawl was Ike's game, and 4 was Awakening's game.

41 minutes ago, a bear said:

questionable menu decisions like having to design rulesets first

I personally think this is actually a smarter choice as opposed to the Smash 4 way of doing things. You select a ruleset, then you pick a stage conducive to that ruleset, and then you pick a character that works with the stage. That and rules are actually saved as opposed to needing to go back into the menu to change it to stock everytime you wanted to play with stocks.

I don't own Switch Online, so I can't comment on how good it is, although I won't be buying it if the issues I keep hearing with it and with Smash's online aren't resolved.

Edited January 8, 2019 by DarthR0xas

[Anacybele]

15 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

While I can't explain why Freddy isn't there (maybe they couldn't think of a good spirit battle, I dunno), I can say why those dudes are. Jagen is iconic in a way, spawning his own archetype, he had to be a spirit. He might not be the most popular unit, but everyone in the FE fanbase knows who he is, and knows his archetype. As for the axe trio, I'm going to bet because Sakurai could think of a Spirit battle for them pretty fast.

Yeah, I suppose those things could be true. As for Freddy though, I just felt he was definitely important enough to Awakening and liked/known enough to be a spirit and when I found he wasn't there, well...yeah. :(

[Fire Emblem Fan]

1 hour ago, DarthR0xas said:

It's not like she could've really been in any game. She wasn't around for 64 or Melee, Brawl was Ike's game, and 4 was Awakening's game.

Eh, not really. She couldn't be in 64 or Melee, obviously, but honestly she should have been added alongside Ike in Brawl. At that point in time, FE7 was still the most popular and best-selling game in the franchise. Smash 4 also wasn't really "Awakening's game," Lucina wasn't even originally going to be in it and Corrin was DLC. She (Lyn) could have been in three Smash games now, she's really overdue imo.

[a bear]

2 hours ago, DarthR0xas said:

I personally think this is actually a smarter choice as opposed to the Smash 4 way of doing things. You select a ruleset, then you pick a stage conducive to that ruleset, and then you pick a character that works with the stage. That and rules are actually saved as opposed to needing to go back into the menu to change it to stock everytime you wanted to play with stocks.

I don't own Switch Online, so I can't comment on how good it is, although I won't be buying it if the issues I keep hearing with it and with Smash's online aren't resolved.

The ruleset thing actually isn't bad for long-time fans, but newcomers are gonna want to pick characters first and sort out details later. Even as someone who knows everything I'm getting into, I like picking my character first just to set the mood. Not remembering who you picked last is pretty dumb though.

Online itself is actually decent in terms of connection, it mostly just needs some enhancements with flexibility. Arena in particular needs to allow multiple users per Switch, CPU opponents, up to four fights running at a time instead of a queue, and to stay open when the owner leaves (assign a new owner instead, duh). If you found previous games' online to be acceptable, you'll probably feel the same about Ultimate.

[Jedi]

21 hours ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

Eh, not really. She couldn't be in 64 or Melee, obviously, but honestly she should have been added alongside Ike in Brawl. At that point in time, FE7 was still the most popular and best-selling game in the franchise. Smash 4 also wasn't really "Awakening's game," Lucina wasn't even originally going to be in it and Corrin was DLC. She (Lyn) could have been in three Smash games now, she's really overdue imo.

FE3 was still the best selling game in the franchise at that point actually.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

2 hours ago, Jedi said:

FE3 was still the best selling game in the franchise at that point actually.

*Internationally-released game

[Sub Zero]

I'm having fun with it so far! The roster is great and the World Of Light mode is great! I can't find any big problems yet, game is amazing overall. A solid 9/10.

[Book Bro]

It's amazing how much more fun this is than Wii U. A change of hardware makes a world of difference.

I've not stopped playing yet and I still have a ton of single player stuff to do. While having everyone back is cool in its own way, the roster still has some questionable characters in it and glaring omissions. DLC doesn't excite me at all at this point since the plant is there just for the sake of being shocking and while I'll probably buy Joker (and Erdrick if he's added) none of the rumoured third party characters are what I was hoping for.

Still, this is the most fun I've had with Smash probably since Melee. And that's not a diss to Brawl and 3DS since I had a ton of fun with them too, it's just Ultimate is so good.

[Silverly]

I got this game for Christmas and my verdict is it’s a damn fine game. I’ve never played a SSB game and considered it anything less than good, and this is no exception. Now, would I say this is my favorite? No, I prefer Brawl and especially Smash 4 over this, but I consider it better than Melee. 

The music, graphics, gameplay, stages, items and such as fantastic as always. I think the classic campaign is pretty cleverly designed. There are lot of references in the WoL (which I’ll discuss later), so there is a lot of love and passion that went into this game.

However, the game doesn’t really feel complete to me. I think it might be because of the relatively short time frame they had to work on it compared to the other ones. I wasn’t wowed by a single newcomer either; my reactions at best were “Oh so they actually made it in. Good for them I guess” and at worst “Uggggggggggggh”. I’m not particularly impressed with the World of Light either. It’s just the threesome lovechild of event matches, Master Orders, and Smash Tour (yes, I went there). Look, I’ll give credit where credit is due for the refs and such, but the endless matchups grow so tiring and eventually I decided to cheese everything with the broken Ore Club. It’s cutscenes aren’t even that interesting aside from the one we already saw from the Smash direct, though I won’t spoil what they’re of. As for the spirits themselves, eh, they exist. I can understand why trophies were omitted since it’d be so time consuming to make all those models, and I don’t really miss trophies themselves. However, the implementation of these is just disengaging and dull. I wish they stuck with custom moves and tweaked them so more.To top it all off, the single player options are as barren as ever, with the previously existing ones gimped or removed entirely. I don’t have a online subscription (or personal WiFi for that matter), so I won’t be playing matches online, but I haven’t heard good things about it and I’m not even a competitive Smash player anyways.

Speaking of which, I have a suspicion this game was made specifically to cater to those who’re well versed in the metagame, which to that I say fine, but... I dunno. I don’t feel like this game was really made for me, but I can’t say I’m not having fun.

[Arcphoenix]

So has anyone else found themselves with Smash fatigue?

One thing I'm realizing is that in this game, there isn't really anything but Smash now. Everything in SSBU is Smash: Spirits Board, Multiman, World of Light, Online Smash, Offline Smash, Classic Mode. Other games in the series offered other things to do: read trophies, home run contest, target smash, a platformer story, trophy posing, stage builder and stage sharing, minigames for collecting trophies, Smash Run, etc. In other games I'd go into other modes to try to get more things and to change things up.

Also, is it just me or is it a lot harder to regain GSP? I never paid attention to it in SSB4 (probably my mistake paying attention to it now).

I've really wound up with a burnout on the game and I wish there was more I could do in it. It is a great game, no denying that and I appreciate the work that was put in it. Smash's mechanics changes and character changes were well done. And the newcomers were great

Minor things I wish were different though:

Spoiler

• I wish Spirits were upgradable, if nothing else were to be added to them. Is your favorite character that you'd love to have equipped at all times a one star, low max stat spirit? Too bad. On that note, most of the spirits in the game havve no viability simply because they aren't as high in power as others, and some of the weaker main spirits don't even have an ability to make up for their lower power.
• Making World of Light more interesting. I know, easier said than done. It was great the first time. I was addicted to it. Just that first time though. I have no motivation to play through it again. Apart from the unique bosses, cutscenes, and I guess puzzles, World of Light didn't really have too much to offer unique to itself. Especially if a player intends on doing a second playthrough. The fact that the map is so gosh darn big and that a second playthrough would offer much less than the first also makes playing through it again a bit less attractive.
• I wish Spirits had flavortext if not full descriptions like trophies did. Also the fact that support spirits don't show what game they're from bugs the heck out of me.
• I feel trophies were better than spirits in some ways. Spirits are just art, a name, some stats and a rarity. Some spirits don't even have abilities, and support spirits don't say hat game they're from. For anyone unfamiliar with the games these spirits were from, that's all they are. Brawl's trophy descriptions explained what each were while also giving some more information on the worlds the fighters came from. Not only did they do a better job as a celebration of Nintendo history, but they also could better spark interest for people to try other games they haven't. The effect really isn't there when it's just the art and a name.
• Stage selection screen: Why didn't they put this on multiple pages. I wish I had a magnifying glass whenever I get on this screen.

While I'm glad we have this game, my only real motivation as of late for playing is to kill time.

That said, I look forward to trying out Piranha Plant and definitely Joker when he comes out.

Edited January 23, 2019 by Arcphoenix