Hands on with Super Smash Bros Ultimate (in Australia!)

Last week a few of the Vooks crew got to go hands-on with Super Smash Bros Ultimate, it was the first time the game was playable in Australia. There were two events, one in Sydney and one in Melbourne – we got to go both!

Here’s what the crew thought;

I’m one of the ones who grew up with Smash Bros, from the 64 and every one since. Melee was where I spent the most time. I’ve always enjoyed the series, and with Ultimate being a culmination of all that history with new stuff added in, count me in!

The Melbourne build had Ridley to try out, and there was the Inkling as well. It was great to get to try out these new characters, although given that we were all jumping into 4-person timed matches there wasn’t much chance to really get a good practice to see how they control. I wanted to make the most of my experience so spent a lot of my time with the new characters. Ridley combines the size of Bowser with the flying of the winged smash contestants. Ridley’s Down + B is particularly brutal, similar to the E3 announcement where Mario and Megaman were tail stabbed in horrifying fashion. The camera zooms in slightly and draws attention to when you land a good hit with the tail. I am looking forward to getting more time when the game is out to see just what Ridley is capable of.

I didn’t spend as much time with the Inkling. Without the time to experiment without getting smashed, it felt like they involve a bit more work to get the most out of their moveset, especially with the use of ink for damage and movement. But when the game is released I hope to be able to be brought back around and get to splatting as well as smashing.

There wasn’t the full roster available, but I mucked around with a few characters. Having had some time away from playing the Wii U/3DS versions, I noticed how some of them seemed to move much faster. Little Mac darted around almost too fast, I worried I was about to fall off of the level whenever I moved too much. But once I got used to the faster pace I enjoyed it.

There were a bunch of stages on offer, the most notable new ones being Moray Towers from Splatoon and Great Plateau Tower from Breath of the Wild. Moray Towers had a lot of verticality to the level while keeping all the action close together. While the Great Plateau was mostly a platform with a regenerating roof, it was nice to see some BotW representation.  But there wasn’t much to it.

A few of the set ups had the new GameCube controller. I haven’t used one since the GameCube days, despite having the adaptor for the Wii U. When I got my hands on one of the controllers, all that old muscle memory came flooding back. Turns out I still enjoy smashing with that controller and chances are if you prefer that layout over the more modern controllers, you’ll still love it here. I actually had a much better time using the GCN controllers than I did the Pro Controllers. Not that the Pros aren’t great, but I guess all that Melee time has conditioned me.

I was looking forward to Smash Ultimate just because I like playing them, but it’s kind of out of habit too. After getting my hands on the game for two hours I’m fired up and really looking forward to playing the full game in December.

It was immediately apparent upon starting a match that Ultimate is a very different beast to the 3DS and Wii U Smash games. The base gameplay felt faster and less floaty than the last games and dodges are much less safe, so it took me a couple of matches to adjust. As a result, the gameplay will likely be more aggressive than Smash 3DS and Wii U, which is much more appealing to me. There’s been a lot of changes made to each individual character as well, in particular, those that we haven’t seen since Brawl. My favourite character in the demo was the Pokemon Trainer – Charizard has received a few nice improvements since last time, but more exciting is the multitude of buffs that Squirtle has received. His special moves are mostly the same, but his regular attacks have been overhauled. He’s got more powerful attacks and some with better range than he did before. He’s especially potent in the air, able to land lots of quick and strong attacks on enemies.

In Sydney, we got an older build which unfortunately meant that we didn’t get to try out a lot of the new content, but one of the new characters (Inkling from Splatoon) and a couple of new stages were available to play. Despite being one of my most-wanted new characters I didn’t click with the Inkling during this session, but I think that could be because their gimmick isn’t well-suited to four-player free-for-all matches. Some of their attacks cover enemies with ink, which will increase the damage they take from the Inkling’s attacks. When you’ve got three opponents jumping all over the place and trying to kill each other it can be hard to focus your attacks on someone enough in order to coat them in enough ink, and Inkling’s attacks had very little killpower so when enemies weren’t inked up the Inkling wasn’t very effective at all. I imagine they’ll be a much more useful character in 1v1 matches though.

The stage selection had some old favourites like Saffron City, and fixed-up versions of stages from the 3DS and Wii U games like the Spirit Train. They all look fantastic and noticeably different from the last time each of them has appeared in the series. There were two new stages as well. The Great Plateau Tower from Breath of the Wild has characters fighting right at the top of the first tower players climb in the game. It’s a simple stage that keeps the focus on the fighting rather than hazards and gimmicks. Moray Towers from Splatoon was also present, but I didn’t like this one as much. It’s a series of inclines that zig-zag across the screen, with a few small flat surfaces connecting them. The majority of the stage is taken up by the awkward slopes that are a bit hard to move between, and the sloping surfaces make hitting your opponents awkward because you’re not all at even heights.

I was already excited for Smash Bros. Ultimate but getting to play the game with other people, roaring and cheering at all the frantic action, got me even more hyped than I already was.

Getting the chance to play more Super Smash Bros Ultimate was something I thought would not happen until PAX Australia, but with Nintendo Australia holding a few sessions ahead of that, I jumped at the chance.

While what was offered was the same build from E3 (at least for us in Melbourne, sorry Sydney) the lack of the recently announced characters meant that I could focus on trying to see how the other new ones, Inkling and Ridley. Watching other people play as these characters highlighted two facts, first up was that I am not as great at Smash as I thought and secondly, the characters are far more powerful than I was thinking, based on my own experience playing as them back at E3.

Inkling was the one that surprised me the most, I understood that in order to deal more damage you needed to spray ink onto the other fighters, but seeing people attempt it with varying levels of success had me changing my tune. There were a few matches that I saw where people would use a little ink and then go in for the hit, resulting in a completely different level of impact than those that would stay back and ink until they were dry, and then attempt to defeat them. There was one match I watched which took place on Onett and I recall the stage very well; watching someone take Inkling and waste their ink and then try to survive, resulting in a quick defeat for them. On the flip side of that, there was another match on Battlefield where one player as an Inkling devastated most other fighters, keeping them covered in ink but also making sure that they kept their reserves up.

Ridley though, well… watching people use him in a fight proved again that he is a slow fighter, but when you add in how powerful he is, attacks that landed would usually result in someone flying away from the battle. I can easily see Ridley becoming a favourite of people that want a more technical fighter because again, you need to ensure that the move you are aiming to achieve has enough time to begin the attack before you take damage yourself. I saw a few people obtain the Smash Ball, but never have enough time to actually have it activate, so I am still wanting to see that in action.

The event was well done – there were plenty of stations for people to enjoy, with two of them rocking a full set of Gamecube controllers. These were the new ones, coming out the same day as the game. While I am not a Gamecube controller purist, it was nice to play with that controller on this version of the game. There may be a long wait between now and the game’s release but I for one am ok with it, because I know that in that time we shall get a lot more information which shall make the game even better.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate arrives on December 7th. Thanks to Nintendo Australia for inviting us to check it out.