5 Years of Smash Ultimate Thoughts

Smash Ultimate as a 5-year old game is fascinating. I was finishing up my freshman year of college when it released and played the game for 24+ hours, mistakenly 100%ing World of Light in one sitting. I logged in about 2,000 hours of game time before retiring due to Nintendo being Nintendo and the community having massive internal issues.

The game bringing back all of the characters was the best gimmick; some of the trailers (especially the CGI) were REALLY HYPE, even if the $5.99 character was bad/lame/Steve. It's disappointing that when Sora dropped, so were the final patch notes. Sakurai was done and it genuinely showed.* Neither new modes nor missing stages [from past games] were added, Steve has yet to be majorly nerfed, the online experience remains egregious, and Nintendo continues to slap us in the face with guidelines and such. Not to mention that the SORA AMIIBO is being released early NEXT YEAR when the character has been in the game for more than 2 years now.

It also doesn't help that the community has an issue with human decency, which truly hinders the game's competitive reputation. That was the main thing that really cancelled my interest in improving competitively. However, the community itself is the reason why Smash will never die. People will keep watching their favorite top players, casuals will keep forgetting to press Up-B when they're off the stage, and the clippers will forever post their training mode/practice mod combos. Heck, I'll tune in to a major tournament stream or watch VODs and be marveled at how much the game has evolved since its release in 2018.

While most of my thoughts shared are my negative experiences with the game, I will say that Smash Ultimate did its job of "saving" the series with everything it has to offer: 89 characters, numerous stages, a LARGE soundtrack, and just being the party game that Sakurai wanted it to be. In the competitive scene, a lot of players made names for themselves and developed their platform as competitors and/or creators because of their performance either at popular locals or major events (shoutouts to lockdown). The game has so much replay value that either a 6th game (7th, if you count Smash 4 3DS) is basically Melee or something that is so unique that it rivals Street Fighter 6 and potentially Tekken 8.

Personally, just give the next game an actual Adventure Mode, make Echo Fighters more meaningful than just clones (let Melee be the only excuse), develop more competitive-friendly stages, and regularly address gameplay-experience issues that we as players have.

I play Smash every now and then as it was a childhood series of mine (and to not lose that muscle memory), so after 5 years of the game it'd be pretty cool to in fact see a new game be announced or maybe something for the franchise's 25th anniversary this upcoming new year (watch it be Smash 64 ported to NSO).

Thanks for reading. And most importantly, thank you Sakurai for working so hard on the crossover fighting game we love and enjoy. Feel free to interact with the tweet; I wanted to post a quick ramble about Smash Ultimate's 5th anniversary.

* Note: Sakurai has put so much effort into the games for over 25 years, and developing during lockdown has been a challenge. It's understandable why he made his decisions; but the game needed a balance patch to address glaring complaints fighting against Steve (similar to how Sakurai "nerfed" Bayonetta, but because of how Rage functioned, amongst other things about her gameplay, it didn't matter) and Kazuya--granted that Kazuya quickly became a character with a high skill ceiling.

TL;DR: Smash turning 5 blows my mind. It did everything it needed to do; it is a shame that Nintendo mistreated the game and the community. Sakurai understandably stopped development when Sora was done, but the game needed another balance patch. Smash's competitive reputation has been hindered by gross individuals, but they are doing better without them. I hope to see a new game announced soon, which probably won't happen for a while.