It’s Thursday—AKA, RELEASE NIGHT!

We’ve endured the long wait for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, although if you think about it… the wait really hasn’t been that long! We only learned about this title in March, and development faced zero known delays, something that’s almost unheard of for this series.

Word on the street (read: Reddit) is that eShop servers will update at midnight Eastern, which is fortunately 9pm in Pacific timezone where I live. If you preloaded the game digitally, that’s when it should unlock on your home screen!

Simeon and I are ready and extremely excited to play. I just wanted to share a quick post about our plans for release night.

• Get done with a meeting about 8:15pm. It absolutely must NOT go late, or there will be consequences!
• Rush to Best Buy so I can pick up my physical copy at 9pm.
• Simeon will accompany me, and will then use his phone’s mobile-hotspot feature to connect his Switch and unlock his digital copy.
• Speed through every red light and stop sign to arrive at home. Periodically shoot Simeon dirty looks of jealousy as his Switch’s speakers emit sounds of smashing in the passenger seat.
• Scale the 3 flights of stairs up to my apartment in about 7.3 seconds.
• Slam the cartridge into my Switch (after a quick lick).
• Start up a stream on our YouTube channel [ring that bell to get notified when we go live].
• Unlock characters as fast as possible.
• Kick Simeon’s sorry tushy with Dark Samus.

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If you’re not picking up the game and playing it right away, we’d love to have you join our release night stream!

I’ve got one more blog post in this series, publishing tomorrow, Dec. 7th at noon Pacific.

Hello, Super Smash Beginner! You must be excited to get your hands on Smash Ultimate in a few weeks, but also a bit nervous about getting destroyed online.

You’re in luck, because I’ve written a quick guide! This won’t make you a pro in an instant, but it will begin to transform your mindset!

• Spend half the time in the air. Your aerial A moves are your fastest attacks, and are a great way to rack up damage! While jumping, you are less predictable and harder to hit as well.
• Don’t forget grabs. When not pressuring with aerials, grab your opponent! You can throw and often follow up with an aerial. Whenever the enemy has their shield activated is a perfect time to go for a grab.
• Smashes and specials are situational. In general, B moves and Smash Attacks are for kills (once you’ve racked up damage with aerials and throws). They are also for punishes; say your opponent whiffs a laggy move like Falcon Punch, you’ll be able to punish that with a stronger attack.
• Hold onto your double jump. You only get one double jump before touching the ground, so treat it like an emergency fund you don’t want to spend unless you need it in order to get back to the stage. You’ll often be able to recover with just your Up-B, so hold onto that second jump in case you get edge-guarded. It’s also not very safe to use on-stage, because once it’s expended the other player knows you’ll have to land, and can get an easy projectile hit on you.
• Don’t roll to move around. Rolls seem like a fast way to get from point A to Point B, but they’re actually quite predictable because your character travels the same distance every time! And in Smash Ultimate, if you roll too much the animation actually starts to slow down (as if rolls weren’t punishable enough already). Instead, run or jump to a safer spot.
• Learn. If your opponent hits you with something, they will more than likely attempt the same attack again. Don’t be discouraged that you took damage once, but remember to avoid the same setup the next time. You’ll be ready to strike back.
• No Johns. That means don’t make excuses. It’s easy to call a character “cheap” or a move “overpowered,” but this mindset lands you in the blastzone. Super Smash Bros. is a giant collection of rock-paper-scissors scenarios, so you can always find an answer to whatever challenge you’re facing.
• Play every character but specialize with a few. It’s important to know how everybody plays so that you can anticipate strategies from the whole cast. But trying to master a 75-character roster is a waste of time. Hone in on a couple of your favorite characters and put the most practice in with your mains. It doesn’t matter if your selections are the most popular or “high-tier”—there will be so many balance patches that the best strategy is to stick with characters you’re comfortable with and ride the waves of nerfs and buffs.

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If you have any specific questions, I’d love to respond in the comments!

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is here! This blog post concludes the Ultimate Countdown.

What a wait it has been! It’s been so fun to see glimpses of this game over the past nine months, and the next character reveal was always an event to look forward to.

Now we have the game in our hands, and our wait has been rewarded.

Savor it.

To savor is to enjoy completely. 

This game has to be the title with the most content, the most replayability, of any Nintendo game ever!

Nintendo fans have a horrible reputation for being insatiable, for calling a game “old news” the week after it hits store shelves.

It be tempting to start calling for certain balance patches, to create campaigns for additional DLC…

But this time, what about being content? How about being satiated? Let’s appreciate Sakurai, the development team, the marketing folks at Nintendo, the Treehouse testers, everyone who was involved in making this superb title.

And let’s enjoy it fully for years to come.

Super Smash Bros. is an extremely ambitious proposition; a game which takes a massively popular and diverse array of characters and combines them seamlessly into one fighting game. This is impressive for a number of reasons:

✅ Taking all of Nintendo’s cute characters and making them believable in battle
✅ Navigating all the different IP, studios, directors, and legal rights to make this happen (including 3rd parties)
✅ Doing it successfully where all other companies’ attempts have failed

But the most impressive thing about Super Smash Bros. is it does it all in a cohesive graphic style. Smash Bros. just wouldn’t be the same without the incredibly talented work of the designers who make Mario look good standing next to a witch twice his height, or who make a regal swordfighter match the graphic style of a water-shooting-squirrel-turtle.

Super Smash Bros. wouldn’t work without the unifying art style. It would just be too jarring.

And that’s why I hate the look of Spirits. They are disembodied key art, floating around in a rainbow aura. Oftentimes, this is lifted straight from art that shipped on boxes, posters, or was otherwise used in online marketing for Nintendo’s games.

It’s disconcerting to see in-game, especially when some of it is hand-drawn, some is 3D-modeled, others are cell-shaded…

I know Sakurai said that “trophies are a lot of work,” but I’m really going to miss them! I’ll remain open-minded about Spirits, but it’s going to take some work to convince me.

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How about you? Are you on board with Spirits?

It’s Black Friday, so I think it’s safe to say we’ve all got money on the mind!

But we can’t blow all our cash the day after Thanksgiving, because Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is coming out in two weeks! And not just the game, but a whole lot of merchandise and peripherals.

(At least two weeks’ time is enough for another paycheck to come in, right?)

Some people reading this blog will just purchase the base game, and others… well, it could get spendy for them.

Let’s look at all the ways that Smash 5 could take our money in 14 days.

The Game

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is going to cost you a base price of $60. If you walk into a store, or boot up the eShop, this is the price you’re going to see. However, savvy shoppers might be able to swing the purchase for $48 (20% off) if you have any membership left in Best Buy Gamers Club Unlocked or an old Amazon pre-order with the price honored. Note: Best Buy is also giving a $10 reward for preordering through My Best Buy, so if you want to look at the price of the game as $38 when all is said and done, go for it! If you plan on going digital, you can also cash in gold coins in the eShop to knock a few bucks off your purchase.
If you want to go really fancy and pay extra for the base game, Best Buy is offering a steelbook case. You can only get this in a box set that includes a stylized Pro Controller, and that package will run you $140!

Controllers & Adapters

Speaking of controllers, the Smash faithful won’t be content to play the game with standard Switch Joy-Con! You’ll most likely want to pick up a $30 GameCube controller, and if you don’t have one already, a $20 adapter that utilizes the Switch dock’s USB ports. However, there are quite a few more options this time around! The Pro Controller is a competent alternative for some (even tournament players), and the specially branded one will set you back $75. There are also several 3rd parties—most notably PowerA—offering different solutions like Wireless GameCube controllers (Pro Controller innards in a GCN controller shell) for $50, Wired GameCube controllers that plug in via USB for $25, and a $20 adapter called “GBros.” that will let you plug an old GameCube controller in and make it work wirelessly with Switch. There is no shortage of ways to play. Just tell your friend to “BYOC” so you don’t have to multiply these price tags by 4!

The Bundle

Maybe you’ve sat out on the Switch action until now, and you’re ready to join the rooftop party! Karen would be so proud. If you don’t have a Switch, the $360 bundle including Smash Ultimate digitally might do just the trick! You won’t save any money or get any pack-in bonuses, but the Joy-Con and dock will both be Smashified.

DLC

As if 75 characters weren’t enough, Nintendo will be delivering 5 individual packs of downloadable characters, stages, and bonuses over the year following launch. You can pay $30 over the life of the DLC, or save a few dollars by paying $25 upfront, “pre-ordering” the new characters. I’m sure this bundle will stick around if you’d prefer to wait and see a couple of the offerings before taking the plunge, but players who are eager to don the Xenoblade Chronicles outfit will have to fork over the money now.

amiibo

Inkling, Ridley, and Wolf will be launching alongside the game. The figurines have become more detailed, and in some cases larger, so Nintendo is charging more for these new additions: $16 a pop. Depending on what you’re collecting, these are going to add $0, $16, $32, or $48 to the pricetag, and again you can knock 20% if you’ve still got months left in the discontinued GCU program, which also applies to toys-to-life figures!

Strategy Guide

Although Prima is sadly closing their doors, they were able to finish a few different guides for Smash Bros. Ultimate. Depending on the edition you select, you’ll pay $15-40. Unless of course, you opt to simply look information up online, which seems to be the popular choice these days. Still, you may want to pick up one of the last printed guides that will ever be sold!

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That concludes the breakdown! So, how much will you be paying out on December 7th?
I haven’t decided which format to buy the game in, but I already have an adapter and controllers. I’ll get another $30 first-party controller though, because I’m hard on them and want to take advantage of brand new models being on the market. I’d like one amiibo; Ridley, and I’ll hold off on the DLC bundle until the first character becomes available. So with the game, one amiibo, and one controller, I’m looking at about $94-106 depending on if I go digital or physical. More on that choice later.

P.S. Apologies for including only USD, hopefully the conversion isn’t too much trouble for my international friends!