It’s mad to me that this game is already over five years old. I remember getting this on release and have since periodically played it on and off. So, all these years later I randomly decided to restart this brawler from Nintendo. I say restart, I mean the adventure mode the World of Light.
This fighting game now has spanned multi generations and this iteration is the culmination of years of refining and perfecting this genre. It’s now somewhat of a crossover game having playable characters from the likes of Sonic, Metal Gear, Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy to name a few. At it’s core it’s your standard fighting game, with 74 base fighters to choose from and over 100 different stages to fight across.
Now, with the Smash series, your aim is to be the first to send the other fighters literally flying off the stage like team rocket and this has never changed. However, your opponents aren’t your only thing to contend with, the stages themselves are out to get you a lot of the time. This can be from bits being destroyed actively falling away, spewing lava, hit by cars or starships, random things being shot at you, bits of the environment also out to get you. Combine this with the abundance of items that do anything from spawning Pokemon, throw-able bombs, guns, familiar pick ups from the Mario series, NPC side characters from your chosen fighter and I’m barely scratching the surface. Everything about the fight is tightly contained into quick 2.30 min rounds as standard or first to reach three KO’s. This can be shorter or far longer if choose in setting up a custom match.
Now you can do as I said standard smash, but you also can do tournaments, as well as every character having their own mini adventure. So if you choose Link it ends fighting Ganon, you can choose how hard you want this to be rising all the way up to 9.9 intensity. You also have mini games like century smash where your aim is to defeat 100 mob enemies, home run, where you raise damage on a punch bag then smack it as far as you can with a baseball bat and a few others. These can be played alone or local/online co-op. Along with this comes with the online mode which I’m utter dog shit at. Now this doesn’t bother me really as I can just ignore it’s existence and play everything else which for the most part I do. It doesn’t help I’m only just about competent with Captain Falcon, I like using Kirby, Bayonetta and Ness as well. I pretty much never win online in standard Smash mode or arena. It doesn’t help it has a match making system based of your GSP, but you’ll constantly be playing against players far better then you, so you don’t really stand much of a chance of improving.
Now back to the World of Light adventure, it’s a rough story based around what I’d guess to be at least 600 fights where you roam around a map unlocking all the playable characters. Along the way you find obstacles that can be cleared via spirits or a specific action on the map. So, spirit cards are a new addition to the series. Easily over a 1000 of them. Each battle you get rewards you with a new one. The battles within the adventure aren’t necessarily a standard 1 v 1 situation. It can be all surfaces are electrified, controls flip, your opponents a giant, has instant smash, increased damage, defence, fogged map, harder to lauch etc. This is probably less then half of the variety of matches put to you. These spirts not only increase your stats, the come with boost that counter act the previous mentioned problems or give you boons like increased punches, triple jumps, character specific increased move damage. This all rolls into the skill tree boosts you unlock as well, standard stuff you’d expect, better defence, attack received less damage, shield lasts for longer. Now with these spirits as well if they are a support rather then a skill one, you can upgrade them to level 99. You do this with snacks, you get from battles or bought from shops you unlock and some can be enhanced. This resets them to level 1 but bumps there stats up and can add a better boost or extra skill slot. They can be used in standard smash as well outside of adventure. You can buy them from the daily updated game store in the menu, as well as the own spirit board where you can summon them via beating them in battle. You do have battle items that aid you in this pursuit. I don’t have any of the DLC fighters for some unknown reason but they add series specific spirits as well as new stages and music that comes with them.
This game is full of countless hours, and I’d say about the 30 hour mark to 100% the adventure. As per early entries and a lot of Nintendo exclusive games you have in game achievements this comes in the form of the tiles board. Once you’ve done the pre-requisite condition it smashes giving you a picture and an in game reward. If you enjoy stats, fear not this game is fucking loaded. They have milestones markers and a complete set of stats of everything you’ve done online and offline.
With the game coming into it’s sixth year since release, you can see it’s starting to age graphically. It’s by no means bad looking though. It still holds up by it’s own merits and is clearly a title that’s helped by incredible art design and direction. This is seen in the extra details of the stages themselves. Each stage is treated like the fighters themselves, all of them designed to have individuality and feel independent. This can be from being attacked by a homing strike from a starship, washed away by the rain, attacked by the stage themselves. Attention to detail from the Pokemon stage shifting to different stages, arenas lifting up, F- Zero race courses with the race happening underneath you, battling it out in the emerald hill of Sonic. The list goes on, I can’t speak to the DLC additions but I’d guess they have been given the same dedication making for even more variety at your hands.
I should probably mention the fighting itself considering that’s the main selling point of this game. It’s simple, yet perfectly executed. You can play this game with one joy con. You have basic melee combo, specials that are triggered with directional buttons input, upwards strikes, downward strikes, throws, shield for defence and parrying some what and lastly each characters finisher the final smash. Each character has there own unique move set that reflects them individually as well as their series they hail from. Each character truly feel like they hit at different speeds, move in their own unique manor all from such easy controls. Again I’d mention not easy to master though because as previously mentioned I’m dog shit.
Overall I’d rate this game a full 10/10, Real Fuckin’ Tasty.
If I only had three words to describe this game I’d used sleek, streamlined and refined. Everything about this game is years and years of improving on everything that worked before. Using what was great and making it fantastic. I know I should mention bad points of the game as well. However, other than the online which again can be completely ignored I’d say for a fighting game it’s just everything it needs to be. Filled to the brim with variety in all areas and fun as can be.
Released 7th December on Nintendo Switch.
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