Year in Review 2018 Letter Series: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate-Simply Smashing

The last Super Smash game I played with any amount of seriousness was Melee. It was one of the four or five games I had for my GameCube, and my childhood best friend and I played it religiously whenever he came over. Since then, my interest in the franchise has dropped pretty drastically, now limited to mostly playing at parties and get togethers with friends.

Shockingly, Ultimate has changed that. I had no real interest in the game up until a week or two ago when I played it at a friend’s house. Though it seemed fun and interesting, and I aspire to play every game Bayonetta appears in, I just didn’t think it would be worth the investment, especially without Switch Online. Playing with my friend, I had fun but as I left, I still hadn’t been convinced to make the leap.

As the week went on though, something unexpected happened. My mind kept wandering back to the experience of playing it, I found my feelings growing more and more positive. This hasn’t been the case for any other game this year. I’ve liked the ones I’ve liked consistently, and the ones I was ambivalent or just blatantly didn’t enjoy only felt worse as time went on.

I kept finding myself wanting to play, to unlock new characters, to figure out whatever the hell World of Light was. So I decided to buy it, and it’s been a joy ever since. This past weekend I spent like 3 hours on the phone with my friend Jo just playing the game. We had played a few rounds of online, then decided to play different modes on our own. A highlight was me getting through Luigi’s path in Classic Mode, realizing Dracula was the final boss, and absolutely losing my shit over how awesome and ridiculous that is.

Smash scratches an itch similar to what Kingdom Hearts and the Interstitial actual play podcast do: combining franchises in unexpected and wacky ways to create something that absolutely shouldn’t work, but does. There’s such a sense of charm and whimsy to this game, one that I had honestly kind of forgotten. It feels so good to play a game that relishes in how silly it is and invites its players to do the same.

I’ve also put a bit more time into fighting games this year, and while Smash is a lot different than the other games I’ve been trying out, there’s still plenty there for me to chew on and learn about, which is unbelievably exciting. While the combat of games like Bloodborne and the other Souls-likes are interesting to me, but often super frustrating, learning how fighting games work is something that I genuinely enjoy and like practicing.

I love Bayonetta, and want to main her, but I’m not great with her currently. I can’t wait to spend the downtime between now and the Kingdom Hearts 3 release to keep learning her and start getting some wins. But it’s not just Bayo I’m interested in. Figuring out how all of the characters work, and what basic tactics translate across all of them has been really fun and I’m excited to keep going.

In a year where not much has connected with me, Smash has been such a fun surprise. I’m so excited to keep learning how the game works, to play with friends in person and online, and to see what other wackiness lies in store.