Nintendo hit us with another one of its Direct presentations this morning entirely focusing on the highly anticipated next entry in the Smash Bros. series. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was officially unveiled at E3 2018 and excitement has been growing ever since. Set to feature every single character from every game in the franchise, today Nintendo and director Masahiro Sakurai dropped another 25+ minutes of new details on the hottest upcoming Switch game of the year.
With such a massive reveal just a couple of months ago now, it was hard to tell what Nintendo would have in store for us today. It has already expanded the insanely massive lineup of fighters with the infamous Metroid boss Ridley and others, but as you’re about to tell, there’s a lot more where that came from.
First up we are getting several new game modes. Squad Strike is a 5-on-5 or 3-on-3 battle where each player uses a series of characters in an elimination-style match to determine the winner. The Smashdown mode forces each player to choose a new character in each consecutive round and a new Training option features an exclusive new stage with grids to help players learn specific details about the way each fighter works and interacts.
Beyond that, the new Tourney mode will auto generate tournament brackets with up to 32 fighters. Clearly this one is going to be great for Smash parties and the like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-kQWJrjRV4
Along with a look at a brand a new Super Mario Odyssey stage, New Donk City, there will be 103 stages in total. There is also an interesting user-controlled “stage morph” option that will transition battles across more than one stage. As you can see in the video footage above, there’s an interesting on-screen effect that happens smoothly carrying the fight from one stage to the next, mid-battle.
Some other highlights from the Direct include the ability to listen to the game’s soundtrack of over 100 songs while you’re on-the-go and a series of new character-specific trophies and achievements have been added. But enough with all that, let’s get on to the new characters.
The event opened up with an ominous trailer before we were treated with the unveil of Simon Belmont from the Castlevania series. As though there weren’t enough fighters already, we are also getting Richter Belmont, King K. Rool from Donkey Kong Country as well as Chroma and Dark Samus.
The Nintendo Switch exclusive’s release date is fast approaching as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is scheduled to launch on December 7th of this year. Just in time for the holiday madness, be sure to stay locked to 9to5Toys for all things Smash Bros. between now and then. And head over to Amazon to pre-order at 20% off.
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