There's not a lot of variety in what you're actually experiencing throughout the game. Smash Bros. as a series has the issue of homogenizing its mode experiences with each successive entry, and it's at its most pronounced in Ultimate. The most egregious examples here, besides the obvious I'm not addressing at the moment, are the Spirits losing Trophy descriptions and All-Stars Mode becoming Multi-Man Melee, but you see that in much of what the game has to offer. Heck, Home Run Contest had to be patched in long after the game's release. If that variety in gameplay modes is what you look for in Smash Bros., this is not the game for you.
That is my only complaint of any real consequence.
Smash Bros. games are always impossibly special releases to me. That first playthrough is always a golden day, or couple of days, as I experience it all for the first time. With time, it becomes easier for me to see and come to terms with the game's failings, and it eventually becomes an exercise in how much remains of that first blush.
So it said a lot to me that Ultimate has stayed as comfortably on top of the throne for me as it did during my initial four-day weekend playing it. In fact, when I replayed World of Light over three years later, on-stream no less, I found myself feeling a lot of the same simple joy I did that first time around.
Let's not beat around the bush - World of Light is putting all of its eggs in one basket. If you find the Spirit Battles repetitive, you're sadly out of luck, as that's all the game has to offer for singleplayer content (not just in World of Light; Spirit fights is where most of the game's longevity comes from besides multiplayer). I completely understand that Ultimate is not for everyone.
Me, I think all the Spirit stuff brilliant. An Adventure Mode like Melee or Subspace Emissary has more potential, but I love the self-imposed challenge the developers had with Spirit Fights: convey the essence and soul of over a thousand video games, characters, items, and properties in the limited context of a single Smash Bros. battle. And so much is accomplished with this! The mechanics of Smash Bros. itself has become a language used to communicate very specific ideas, and it impresses me how over and over and over again, these ideas are fairly well-communicated. The Elite Beat Agents being fought in Saffron City with "Escape from the City" playing is one of those things that FEELS correct, and there's little moments like that with every fight. It's a bit old-school, in the sense that you have to suspend disbelief and play along with the intended illusion in places (you aren't beating up Green Dedede and three Dr. Marios; you're beating up Gruntilda and running through the three Klungo fights from Tooie), but I'm all right with that.
Smash Ultimate for me is hype, in the sense that I STILL look back at certain character reveals with fondness. But it's also a quietly meditative game in a lot of places. Running through Spirit fights and World of Light, I find myself thinking a lot about all the efforts of various creators, distilled into each of the individual battles, all collected under a single title. I don't expect that to be everyone's take, but that's mine: a game that encapsulates so, so much of the history of gaming itself. I'm so grateful it exists.
We definitely need a different direction for the next game, if they do make another one. It's unfair to expect the impossible miracle of "Everyone is Here" to happen again. A complete shift in direction would make a reduced roster more palatable, for sure...
That is my only complaint of any real consequence.
Smash Bros. games are always impossibly special releases to me. That first playthrough is always a golden day, or couple of days, as I experience it all for the first time. With time, it becomes easier for me to see and come to terms with the game's failings, and it eventually becomes an exercise in how much remains of that first blush.
So it said a lot to me that Ultimate has stayed as comfortably on top of the throne for me as it did during my initial four-day weekend playing it. In fact, when I replayed World of Light over three years later, on-stream no less, I found myself feeling a lot of the same simple joy I did that first time around.
Let's not beat around the bush - World of Light is putting all of its eggs in one basket. If you find the Spirit Battles repetitive, you're sadly out of luck, as that's all the game has to offer for singleplayer content (not just in World of Light; Spirit fights is where most of the game's longevity comes from besides multiplayer). I completely understand that Ultimate is not for everyone.
Me, I think all the Spirit stuff brilliant. An Adventure Mode like Melee or Subspace Emissary has more potential, but I love the self-imposed challenge the developers had with Spirit Fights: convey the essence and soul of over a thousand video games, characters, items, and properties in the limited context of a single Smash Bros. battle. And so much is accomplished with this! The mechanics of Smash Bros. itself has become a language used to communicate very specific ideas, and it impresses me how over and over and over again, these ideas are fairly well-communicated. The Elite Beat Agents being fought in Saffron City with "Escape from the City" playing is one of those things that FEELS correct, and there's little moments like that with every fight. It's a bit old-school, in the sense that you have to suspend disbelief and play along with the intended illusion in places (you aren't beating up Green Dedede and three Dr. Marios; you're beating up Gruntilda and running through the three Klungo fights from Tooie), but I'm all right with that.
Smash Ultimate for me is hype, in the sense that I STILL look back at certain character reveals with fondness. But it's also a quietly meditative game in a lot of places. Running through Spirit fights and World of Light, I find myself thinking a lot about all the efforts of various creators, distilled into each of the individual battles, all collected under a single title. I don't expect that to be everyone's take, but that's mine: a game that encapsulates so, so much of the history of gaming itself. I'm so grateful it exists.
We definitely need a different direction for the next game, if they do make another one. It's unfair to expect the impossible miracle of "Everyone is Here" to happen again. A complete shift in direction would make a reduced roster more palatable, for sure...