Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

North American Box Art.
Developer(s)	Sora Ltd. Bandai Namco
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Release Date(s)
Nintendo Switch	WW: December 7, 2018
Nintendo Switch	WW: December 7, 2018
Platform(s)
Classification(s)	This game has playable Miis
Sales	31.09 million
Genre(s)	Fighting
Rating(s)
ESRB	04
PEGI	03
CERO	01
USK	03
ACB	02
GRAC	01

Key Personnel
Director(s)	Masahiro Sakurai (director)
Producer(s)	Shinya Saito (producer) Yoshito Higuchi (producer) Shinya Takahashi (general producer) Hajime Nakatani (general producer) Shigeru Yokoyama (general producer) Shuntaro Furukawa (executive producer)
Sound Director(s)	Junichi Nakatsuru (sound management)
Composer(s)	Hideki Sakamoto (Main Theme Music; Music Composition) Various arrangers

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate ^{(JPJapanese: 大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズ SPECIAL)} (also called SSBU, Super Smash Bros. 5, Smash 5, or SSB5) is the fifth and latest entry in the Super Smash Bros. series. It was released on December 7, 2018 for the Nintendo Switch worldwide and follows Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. It includes all the characters and most stages from across the series. The game was announced through a teaser trailer in the March 2018 Nintendo Direct and was released on December 7, 2018. The game features 103 base stages and 76 base playable characters (with 13 more characters and 11 more stages as downloadable content), making it the largest Super Smash Bros. game in terms of content in the series.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was made available for pre-order and pre-loading from the Nintendo eShop beginning November 1, 2018. The game takes up approximately 14.3 GB of the Nintendo Switch's memory when downloaded from the Nintendo eShop.

Gameplay

Though on the surface the game appears to be mostly similar to Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, various quality of life improvements and additions were made in order to streamline this entry for competitive play. This time, players can customize their ruleset and save it before fighting. Additionally, the stage is decided before character selection with options for Battlefield and Omega (Final Destination) variations. Damage output is increased for one-on-one fights. Directional Air Dodges return but, dodging will be slower with increased use. When a fighter is going to fly off the screen or if certain attacks connect, the camera will slow down and zoom in on the hit. A mini-map will appear in the corner of the screen when a fighter is knocked a considerable distance and into the blast zone.

Final Smashes have changed for several characters with most becoming short cinematic finishers, such as Donkey Kong's Jungle Rush, and Bowser's Giga Bowser Punch. They can also be used with the Final Smash Meter which fills up during the fight, however this feature can be toggled off and Final Smashes have their power reduced when you use them with the meter. The game features a new Stage Morph option which allows two stages to be selected at once, transitioning between each other during a match.

New modes including Squad Strike (a 3v3 or 5v5 battle similar to the end of Smash Bros. for Wii U's Smash Tour mode) and Smashdown (in which players are forced to select a different fighter every match they play) have been added. The game features a new expansive Adventure Mode titled World of Light, in which players travel a massive map in search of Spirits (the replacement of Trophies for this iteration; visually and functionally similar to the Stickers from Super Smash Bros. Brawl).

Assist Trophies have been changed so that some of them can be attacked and KO'd. KO'd trophies can earn points for the player that defeats them. There are over 50 different Assist Trophies, including cameos from third parties.

Roster

The game includes only 76 (74 counting Pokémon Trainer as one) characters from across the series. Players begin with the game with the original 8 characters from the first Super Smash Bros. game -- Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Fox, and Pikachu. A new classification of fighter known as the Echo Fighter, who share virtually the same moveset as another fighter, is introduced. Characters below marked with an epsilon (ε) are classified as Echoes.

Mario (S) Donkey Kong (S) Link (S) Samus (S) Dark Samus (ε) Yoshi (S) Kirby (S) Fox (S) Pikachu (S) Luigi Ness Captain Falcon Jigglypuff Peach Daisy (ε) Bowser Ice Climbers Sheik Zelda Dr. Mario Pichu Falco Marth Lucina (ε) Young Link Ganondorf Mewtwo Roy Chrom (ε) Mr. Game & Watch

Meta Knight Pit Dark Pit (ε) Zero Suit Samus Wario Solid Snake Ike Pokémon Trainer Squirtle Ivysaur Charizard Diddy Kong Lucas Sonic King Dedede Olimar Lucario R.O.B. Toon Link Wolf Villager Mega Man Wii Fit Trainer Rosalina Little Mac Greninja Mii Fighter Mii Brawler Mii Swordfighter Mii Gunner

Palutena Pac-Man Robin Shulk Bowser Jr. Duck Hunt Ryu Ken (ε) Cloud Corrin Bayonetta Inkling Ridley Simon Belmont Richter Belmont (ε) King K. Rool Isabelle Incineroar Piranha Plant (DLC) Joker (DLC) Hero (DLC) Banjo & Kazooie (DLC) Terry Bogard (DLC) Byleth (DLC) Min Min (DLC) Steve (DLC) Sephiroth (DLC) Pyra & Mythra (DLC) Kazuya Mishima (DLC) Sora (DLC)

In addition, the Koopalings (Larry, Roy, Lemmy, Wendy, Iggy, Morton, and Ludwig) are alternate costumes for Bowser Jr., Alph is an alternate costume for Olimar, Leaf is an alternate costume for Pokémon Trainer, Erdrick, Solo, and Eight are alternate costumes for Hero, and Alex, Zombie, and Enderman are alternate costumes for Steve.

Stages

There are a total of 103 stages in the game. All of them have Battlefield and Omega (Final Destination) variants. Some features of the stage can be deactivated with the Stage Hazards turned off.

Battlefield Big Battlefield Final Destination 3D Land 75m Arena Ferox Balloon Fight Big Blue Boxing Ring Bridge of Eldin Brinstar Brinstar Depths Castle Siege Coliseum Corneria Distant Planet Dream Land Dream Land GB Duck Hunt Find Mii Figure-8 Circuit Flat Zone X Fountain of Dreams Fourside Frigate Orpheon Gamer Gaur Plain Garden of Hope Gerudo Valley Golden Plains Great Bay Great Cave Offensive

Green Greens Green Hill Zone Halberd Hyrule Castle Jungle Japes Kalos Pokémon League Kongo Falls Kongo Jungle Living Room Luigi's Mansion Lylat Cruise Magicant Mario Circuit Mario Galaxy Midgar Kingdom II Mushroom Kingdom U Mushroomy Kingdom Mute City SNES New Pork City Norfair Onett Pac-Land Palutena's Temple Paper Mario Peach's Castle PictoChat 2 Pilotwings Pokémon Stadium 1 Pokémon Stadium 2 Port Town Aero Dive

Princess Peach's Castle Prism Tower Rainbow Cruise Reset Bomb Forest Shadow Moses Island Saffron City Skyloft Skyworld Smashville Spear Pillar Spirit Train Super Happy Tree Super Mario Maker Suzaku Castle Temple The Summit Tomodachi Life Tortimer Island Town and City Umbra Clock Tower Unova Pokémon League Venom WarioWare, Inc. Wii Fit Studio Wily Castle Windy Hill Zone Wrecking Crew Wuhu Island Yoshi's Island (SSBM) Yoshi's Island (SSBB) Yoshi's Story

New Stages

• Great Plateau Tower
• New Donk City Hall
• Moray Towers
• Dracula's Castle
• Mementos (Downloadable)
• Yggdrasil's Altar (Downloadable)
• Spiral Mountain (Downloadable)
• King of Fighters Stadium (Downloadable)
• Garreg Mach Monastery (Downloadable)
• Spring Stadium (Downloadable)
• Minecraft World (Downloadable)
• Northern Cave (Downloadable)
• Cloud Sea of Alrest (Downloadable)
• Mishima Dojo (Downloadable)
• Hollow Bastion (Downloadable)
• Small Battlefield (Downloadable)

(Bold is for downloadable content that is obtained by updating the game)

Items

Below are the new items introduced in this game.

• Banana Gun
• Black Hole
• Bomber
• Death's Scythe
• Fake Smash Ball
• Healing Field
• Healing Sprout
• Killing Edge
• Launch Star
• Rage Blaster
• Ramblin' Evil Mushroom
• Staff

Assist Trophies and Pokémon

Like previous games, various characters can be summoned from Assist Trophy or from a Poké Ball with new 3rd party series getting representation as Assist Trophies. The new Pokémon are mostly from Pokémon Sun and Moon.

Music

Main Article: List of music in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

The game includes over 900 tracks with 800 of them being used on stages, with all music from a series able to be played on stages from that same series. As in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, music can be played while the Switch is in sleep mode. This time, the music can also be organized into playlists.

Character Trivia

• Ultimate marks the first physical appearance of Solid Snake and Joker (DLC), and the second for Bayonetta, in a game with an "E10+" rating from the ESRB, to have all appeared in a game or franchise rated "M".
  • Joker's likeliness has previously appeared as an avatar costume in Sonic Forces, while Snake's likeliness has appeared in style of Bomberman's design in Super Bomberman R; both of which are rated "E10+".
• This is the first Super Smash Bros. game to have no veteran characters cut since Melee.
• So far, Sonic is the only third party character with more than one stage representing his series.
• In the German version of the game, Yoshi has been removed from the cover in order to fit the country's large rating icon. Many have joked it to be due to the character's infamous "tax fraud" meme.
• This game marks the 100th performance credit of Charles Martinet as the voice of Mario (despite being archived voices from Brawl), a landmark for which he received a Guinness World Record for the "Most Video Game Voice-Over Performances of a Single Character".
• Ultimate marks the official return of Banjo & Kazooies' (DLC) appearance on a Nintendo platform since Banjo-Pilot after Microsoft's purchase of Rare in 2002. Up until 2021, they were the only remaining characters to not appear in a game released on the Switch.
  • Banjo was intended to appear in Melee until the takeover started to materialize.
  • While Banjo-Kazooie was created by Rare, its ownership credit is Microsoft which currently owns all rights to all Rare properties. This was also the case for Diddy Kong and King K. Rool who were created by the former company but are owned by Nintendo itself.
• Incineroar marks one of the last voice acting roles for Unsho Ishizuka, who died on August 13, 2018, four months before the release of Ultimate.
• The game is also one of the last voice acting roles for Keiji Fujiwara (Mewtwo), who died on April 13, 2020, one year and four months later.
• Luminary's voice actress, Mitsuki Saiga, reprises her role from Dragon Quest XI S, thus technically making Ultimate her debut voicing the character. However, she was directed to have more energy in her vocals to better fit the style of the Super Smash Bros. series. Saiga previously voiced Link in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.
• Erdrick's voice actor, Nobuyuki Hiyama, who voiced Link in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and the first two Super Smash Bros. games. Of the four Heroes, his recording session was completed the fastest because of his extensive experience. Sakurai also notes that his performance can be recognized as Guy Shishioh from The King of Braves GaoGaiGar.
• Solo's voice actor, Takeshi Kusao, asked for a lot of detail on the backstory of the protagonist to help improve his performance. Kusao is the Hero voice actor did not voice Link in a past The Legend of Zelda game.
• Eight's voice actor, Yuki Kaji, apparently dreamed of doing voice work for the Dragon Quest and Super Smash Bros. series, and he was enthusiastic to fulfill both at the same time in Ultimate. His wife, Ayana Taketatsu voice Jessica Albert in Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King. Kaji previously voiced Link in Hyrule Warriors.
• Sora is the only fighter to have a "celebrity voice actor", in case Haley Joel Osment. He is also the only Square Enix fighter to have an English voice actor.
• Richter Belmont's Japanese voice actor, Kiyoyuki Yanada, died on November 14, 2022, almost four years after the game's release. Ultimate is one of his final voice acting roles.

Bosses

• Crazy Hand
• Dharkon
• Dracula
• Galeem
• Galleom (Returns from Super Smash Bros. Brawl)
• Ganon (Also Ganondorf's Final Smash)
• Giga Bowser (Returns from Super Smash Bros. Melee)
• Master Hand
• Marx
• Rathalos (Also an Assist Trophy)

Stage Bosses

• Dark Emperor
• Metal Face
• Yellow Devil

Downloadable content

The game also has paid post-launch downloadable content available for purchase.

Fighters Pass

Additional fighters, stages, spirits, and soundtracks are also available in sets though the game's Fighters Pass. They can be purchased altogether or individually. There are a total of 11 packs.

Extra Mii Costumes

Aside from fighters, sets of extra paid costumes (headgear and suits) have also been added with each release of a Challenger Pack. There are also two bonus costumes once the players purchase each of the two Fighters Pass. A few costumes also come with individual music tracks alongside.

New modes

In addition to paid downloadable content, new modes through free updates have also been added.

• Stage Builder (3.0.0)
• Nintendo Labo VR Goggles support (3.1.0)
• Home Run Contest (5.0.0)

Development

The game was first revealed during a Nintendo Direct broadcast on March 8, 2018, in which the Inkling was hinted to be a newcomer. Masahiro Sakurai, the director of the series, revealed afterwards that the game was in development for an unspecified amount of time beforehand. According to him, the game was not ready to be shown beyond the working title during this first trailer. The project plan was finished in late 2015, while development on the Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS DLC was still ongoing.

The game was fully unveiled at E3 2018 during Nintendo's presentation, with "Everyone Is Here!" (all previous fighters were returning) as the main focus. The changes to the fighters were presented in-depth by Masahiro Sakurai, with Daisy and Ridley being revealed as new characters. Starting with this date, Nintendo started a series of near daily updates to the Super Smash Blog which detailed various parts of the game each day along with a new music arrangement each week.

Another Nintendo Direct (this time entirely Smash-oriented), on August 8, 2018, went into more details about the modes and revealed the Belmonts, Chrom, Dark Samus, and King K. Rool.

A Nintendo Direct on September 13, 2018 revealed a hardware bundle with an Ultimate styled dock and set of Joy-Con Controllers. Isabelle was revealed as a newcomer.

In the final pre-launch Smash Bros. Nintendo Direct on November 1st, 2018, Ken and Incineroar were revealed and the mysterious Spirits mode was detailed. At the end, it revealed the game's Adventure Mode. The trailer shows Galeem (The antagonist), with an army of Master Hands. Galeem sends out beams of light that brutally murder almost every character instantly and the entire galaxy, except for Kirby, who is shown to be the protagonist in the Adventure Mode, in which he must revive and rescue the other fighters.

During The Game Awards 2018, Nintendo revealed the first challenger pack introducing Persona 5 to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate with the fighter, Joker.

At E3 2019, Nintendo announced Hero and Banjo & Kazooie to be joining as DLC, as well as being released in Summer and Fall respectively.

In the September 2019 Nintendo Direct, Nintendo revealed the fourth challenger pack introducing Terry Bogard from the Fatal Fury series as DLC, as well as released in November 2019. It also reveals that more DLC is coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

A Mr. Sakurai Presents Direct reveals Byleth from Fire Emblem: Three Houses as the final challenger pack for the Fighters Pass, as well as the reveal of 6 challenger packs for Fighters Pass Vol. 2.

The Nintendo Direct Mini reveals that an ARMS character is coming to Smash as the first fighter for Fighters Pass Vol. 2. It was later revealed to be Min Min.

Later on, another Mr. Sakurai Presents Direct has revealed Steve from Minecraft, along with his alternate costumes like, Alex, Zombie, and Enderman.

The Game Awards 2020 revealed Sephiroth on December. Sakurai revealed four more fighters via Mr. Sakurai Presents: Pyra and Mythra (February), Kazuya Mishima (June) and Sora (October).

Reception

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is tagged as a "Must Play" game and receives "universal acclaim" in Metacritic holding a metascore of 93/100 based on 99 critic reviews.

Sales

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sold 1.3 million copies on its first weekend in Japan, making it the best Japanese launch in the history of the Super Smash Bros. series. It is the biggest Nintendo launch in the region excluding Pokémon. The game sold over 3 million copies in the US in its first 11 days in the market, breaking the record of the fastest selling Nintendo Switch game as well as the fastest selling Super Smash Bros. game in the region. According to Nintendo, in the same 11 days period, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate became the fastest selling game on a Nintendo home console in Europe. As of the end of December 2018, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sold 12.08 million copies, immediately making it the third best selling Nintendo Switch game behind Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Super Mario Odyssey. As of January 31, 2019, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has sold 12.08 million units worldwide, making it the third best-selling first-party game on the Nintendo Switch. By the end of September 2019, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sold 15.71 million units making it the second best selling Nintendo Switch game. As of the end of December 2019, the game sold 17.68 million units worldwide.

It reached 18.84 units sold by the end of March 2020. The game sold more than 19.99 units by the end of June 2020. The game fell to the 3rd spot when it comes to best selling Nintendo Switch game as it was outsold by Animal Crossing: New Horizons. By the end of September 2020, the game sold 21.10 million units, making it the third 20 million seller on the system after Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizon. The game reached 22.85 million units sold at the end of 2020.The game reached 23.84 million units sold at the end of march 2021. The game reached 24.77 million units sold by the end of June 2021. It reached 25.71 million units by the end of September 2021. As of the end of 2021, it reached 27.40 million units sold. The game surpassed 28.17 million units sold as of the end of March 2022. As of June 30th, it reached 28.82 million units sold.

Others

• The best-selling Smash Bros. game of all time with 17.68 million copies sold worldwide, beating out Brawl. It is also the fastest-selling game in the series.
• Weeks prior to release, retailers in Mexico have received copies of the game early, in which many internet users share pre-release footage, soundtracks, and screenshots online. This prompted Nintendo to remove them from the public and even had several YouTube channels be to be terminated.
  • Ironically, after release, some of the fans in Mexico have received random copies of DVDs instead of Ultimate from Amazon; though it is not certain if this was a direct punishment for the piracy.
• It was originally rumored that the game's amiibo support will instantly unlock the characters, claimed by Best Buy. This was later confirmed false.

Gallery

Main article: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate/gallery

Trivia

• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the series' first game to:
  • Have a vocal theme song in English.
  • Have the same announcer voice actor reprise his role from a previous game; Xander Mobus who was previously the announcer in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U.
    • Moreover, Mobus is the series' first voice actor to voice both the announcer and a playable character, Joker from Persona 5 which Mobus voices.
  • Lack of the feature of "Trophies" since its introduction in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
  • Not have any playable characters cut since Super Smash Bros. Melee.
  • Have an Adventure Mode since Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
  • Have characters that can be unlocked without battling them in World of Light, Just like Brawl in The Subspace Emissary.
  • Not feature the involvement of Satoru Iwata since his death in July 2015.
  • Have all of its veterans announced prior to launch and at the same time.
  • Feature a third-party universe with more than one character; Castlevania's Simon Belmont and Richter Belmont.
  • Include music tracks and references from a non-video game source: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, a 2005 animated film.
  • Be released in the same year it was announced.
    • Ultimate is the series' first game since the original N64 game to be announced after their respective console's release. Previous Smash games since Melee for the Nintendo GameCube were announced prior to the release of their origin consoles.
  • Feature a music arrangement from a composer outside of Japan.
  • Include Western third-party newcomers; Banjo-Kazooie created by UK-based Rare, Minecraft's Steve by Sweden-based Mojang Studios and Sora created by The Walt Disney Company. Steve is also the first Indie newcomer.
  • Include a newcomer that's is from a media company: Sora created by The Walt Disney Company, but the Kingdom Hearts series is a collaboration of both Disney and Square Enix.
  • Use a "Versus" screen before the start of a match rather than a loading screen in vein to many traditional fighter games.
  • To have a "celebrity voice actor", in case, Haley Joel Osment reprising Sora.
  • Marth and Roy to have English voice acting.
• On the German cover for the game, Yoshi was omitted from the boxart in order to fit the USK rating in the bottom left corner, while Pikachu, who was placed lower than Yoshi, was moved up due to its greater popularity.
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the eighth Mario-related game to receive a PEGI 12+ rating in Europe, being preceded by the five prior Super Smash Bros. installments and the Virtual Console releases of Super Mario 64 DS and New Super Mario Bros.
• Decimals have always been used for damage calculations since Super Smash Bros. Melee, but the damage percentages were always displayed as an integer on-screen. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the first time that decimal notations are shown in-game.
• This game marks the 100th performance credit of Charles Martinet as the voice of Mario, a landmark for which he received a Guinness World Record for the most video game voice-over performances of a single character.
• The game marks the final voice acting and video game appearances of Unsho Ishizuka (Incineroar), Keiji Fujiwara (Mewtwo) and Kiyoyuki Yanada (Richter Belmont) who died on August 13, 2018 (4 months before the game's release), April 12, 2020, and November 14, 2022. All three of them completed their voice clips prior to their deaths.
• Luigi dies in Simon and Richter's announcement trailer after having his soul taken by Death. In response, BBC News made an article on Luigi's death.
• With the sales of 30.44 million copies sold, it is the first and only Smash game to sell over the 20 and 30 million-marks. It is the best-selling game in the entire series, and the best-selling fighting game of all time.
• As of the June 2020 report, the game has sold 19.99 million copies at the time, which is can be a reference to the year 1999 when the original Smash Bros. game was released on the Nintendo 64 that year.

See also

• List of Assist Trophy characters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

External links

• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate at GameFAQs
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate at MobyGames
• Japanese website
• North American website
• European website
• Australian website