While my primary issue with them is their insistance on having genuine stakes instead of just being a silly fun adventure with multiversal friends, I think one of the things serverely missing from Smash's story modes is an element of "meta" - not in the sense of "Isn't this all a bit weird? Wink wink nudge nudge" but in the sense of "these are video game characters inside a video game." The only thing Smash's characters have in common - even within just the first party lineup - is video games, it makes no sense to put them together into a story and not tell a story that is directly, non-allegorically (in case someone brings up the MatPat theories) about video games. They don't even have to be aware they're in a video game necessarily