Since Smash Ultimate is an unfortunate victim on occasion of the parts of the Smash fanbase that don't let things that are awesome stay awesome, here's a reminder of 4 things Ultimate did really well.
1 - Everyone is Here
- Let's be real, the only reason this isn't an ideal thing for every Smash game is because it takes a lot of dev time away from making things like brand new characters and other modes. If perfection existed, this would be a great idea as it means no one's favorite characters gets the axe. People got excited when this was first revealed for a reason.
2 - The New Characters
- For both base game and DLC, the line-up of newcomers was top notch in Ultimate. Characters that have been desired for a long time like Ridley, Simon, and K. Rool, the devs getting a chance to throw their own desires into the ring with unique ideas like Piranha Plant and personal picks like Joker, characters that are a blast to play as like the Aegis Duo and Kazuya, and Steve depending on who you ask, and really hype additions like Banjo-Kazooie and Sora. Ultimate has a great roster.
3 - The Music Remixes
- A standard thing of Smash games since Brawl, but man there are a lot of great remixes in Ultimate's Soundtrack
4 - Classic Mode
- The idea they had for classic mode in Ultimate was brilliant. Each character getting their own specialized route that ties into themes for their source material. It's a lot less tedious than classic mode in Smash Wii U as well and the tweaks they made to the difficulty meter added a nice way to take on the challenge of clearing the mode at the 9.9 level. I do wish Master Hand was used as a boss less often, but they really knocked it out of the park with classic mode in Ultimate. It's going to be tough for the next game to top it.