About unlocking characters through a potential story mode...

[Negazina]

Am I the only one that wants an alternative way to unlock characters like Brawl if the so called “Spirits” mode is actually a thing?

Honestly? As much as I’m a fan of Smash Bros. I probably will be turned off completely if I have to play a 10-20 hour story to unlock who I want. Even worse if the bosses are difficult.

I said something like this on r/smashbros and was downvoted to oblivion. I’d much prefer to grind VS. mode to practice against actual opponents than having to go through long cutscenes and ridiculously difficult boss battles that have nothing to do with the competitive aspect of Smash. As I’m a competitively fueled player, story is the last thing I want to indulge in.

I know it’s pretty likely VS is going to open up options like the last 4 games, but with Sakurai saying unlockables are “streamlined” and the shear amount of characters locked makes me second guess it hard.

 

[CrusherMania1592]

I would actually be down for this. I hated how we got so little unlock able in the previous games so for them to bump it up in Ultimate shows how much they're considering doing the unlockables

 

[Frizz]

There's honestly no real downside to having an alternative method of unlocking characters. If people want to unlock them through story mode? That's fine, let them. If people want to unlock them through conditions such as amount of matches played or through classic mode? That's also fine, let them.

 

[Pit93]

The only thing I hope is that they will NOT be unlockable via a Story-Mode. In Brawl, the SSE was the first Mode I played and after my first play session on launch-day I already hat the entire roster unlocked. Felt totally unrewarding. I hope it's gonna be like it was in Melee.

 

[SvartWolf]

there should be a free dlc that lets you unlock everyone designed only for TOs and the like, since i'm sure unlocking characters in this game will be a blast. but won't be such a blast having to do it 10 times for different setups.

 

[Yuya-Noboru]

Am I the only one that wants an alternative way to unlock characters like Brawl if the so called “Spirits” mode is actually a thing? Honestly? As much as I’m a fan of Smash Bros. I probably will be turned off completely if I have to play a 10-20 hour story to unlock who I want. Even worse if the bosses are difficult.

I said something like this on r/smashbros and was downvoted to oblivion. I’d much prefer to grind VS. mode to practice against actual opponents than having to go through long cutscenes and ridiculously difficult boss battles that have nothing to do with the competitive aspect of Smash. As I’m a competitively fueled player, story is the last thing I want to indulge in.

I know it’s pretty likely VS is going to open up options like the last 4 games, but with Sakurai saying unlockables are “streamlined” and the shear amount of characters locked makes me second guess it hard.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl's story-mode wasn't difficult at all, even for casuals (except if they selected intense difficulty), and it was the faster way to unlock characters. Also, if you could unlock everything in one day (like in SSB4), then I don't see the point of having stuff to unlock. Anyway, since Super Smash Bros. Melee, they always give the player several ways to unlock stuff so there is no needs to debate.

 

[Bayopuff]

First off, I really like the idea of having most characters being unlockable instead of only unlocking 10-something characters, feels a lot more rewarding.
Secondly, if the Story Mode is the only way to unlock them, my enjoyment for the game will plummet, I'd much rather the unlocking process be akin to the one in Smash 4, where you have to do a specific objective or play x battles.
As with Brawl and Smash 4, there'll probably be more ways to unlock characters, so I'm not concerned.

 

[nuclearneo577]

I say that you should be able to unlock everybody using the Konami code, which is followed by Snake saying "I learned that trick from the Contra guys*".

*Yes I know that their names are Bill Rizer and Lance Bean and that the Konami code isn't originally from Contra, but most people know the code from the game, and "the Contra guys" just sounds funnier.

 

[FirestormNeos]

Any additional method of unlocking characters is always welcome in my eyes.

 

[ZeroJinKui]

people, we've had multiple ways of unlocking characters since melee... they're not going to limit our ways in unlocking them, i'm sure.

 

[Dixie Kong]

My favorite way is by unlocking them after playing enough melee matches.

 

[Deleted member]

The only thing I hope is that they will NOT be unlockable via a Story-Mode. In Brawl, the SSE was the first Mode I played and after my first play session on launch-day I already hat the entire roster unlocked. Felt totally unrewarding. I hope it's gonna be like it was in Melee.

I myself unlocked most of the characters via SSE in Brawl. I don't fault them for making that possible, it just makes too much sense to do it that way. But if we do get a story mode in Ultimate, then I am unlocking every character via other methods before even touching it.

 

[Pit93]

I myself unlocked most of the characters via SSE in Brawl. I don't fault them for making that possible, it just makes too much sense to do it that way. But if we do get a story mode in Ultimate, then I am unlocking every character via other methods before even touching it.

I also don't fault them for doing that, I fault them for making the mode accessible before having unlocked the characters by actually doing something.
But anyway, I don't think it's gonna be like it was in Brawl. Like Sakurai said, new characters should feel like constant rewards. I hope that holds true, because the way it was in SSE was more like a rain of characters and didn't feel like a reward at all to me. ^^'

 

[Deleted member]

I also don't fault them for doing that, I fault them for making the mode accessible before having unlocked the characters by actually doing something.
But anyway, I don't think it's gonna be like it was in Brawl. Like Sakurai said, new characters should feel like constant rewards. I hope that holds true, because the way it was in SSE was more like a rain of characters and didn't feel like a reward at all to me. ^^'

Personally I think locking SSE until you unlocked everyone would have been a bad idea. For how much they were hyping that mode up it just would have left a bad taste it people's mouths.

But I'm not worried about a potential story mode in Ultimate. Even Brawl had methods of unlocking all the characters without any need for SSE so I think it will be fine.

 

[Pit93]

Personally I think locking SSE until you unlocked everyone would have been a bad idea. For how much they were hyping that mode up it just would have left a bad taste it people's mouths.

Oh yes, sure I agree with you there. I still don't like it though and would have preferred it differently.

But I'm not worried about a potential story mode in Ultimate. Even Brawl had methods of unlocking all the characters without any need for SSE so I think it will be fine.

Sure, but I feel stupid for avoiding a mode I might actually interested in to feel some "reward" from getting the characters. XD

 

[Heatswave]

I'll definetly use the story mode for unlocking, if that's possible, but I voted for the first option, let everyone decide for themselves how fast and in which way to unlock characters...

 

[ZeroJinKui]

I also don't fault them for doing that, I fault them for making the mode accessible before having unlocked the characters by actually doing something.
But anyway, I don't think it's gonna be like it was in Brawl. Like Sakurai said, new characters should feel like constant rewards. I hope that holds true, because the way it was in SSE was more like a rain of characters and didn't feel like a reward at all to me. ^^'

wait... did you think about that before typing it?

you don't fault them for making characters unlockable in SSE... you fault them for making SSE available before unlocking the characters?

...NANI?!

 

[Pit93]

wait... did you think about that before typing it?

you don't fault them for making characters unlockable in SSE... you fault them for making SSE available before unlocking the characters?

...NANI?!

Correct. IF the SSE is available without having to unlock all the characters, then I don't fault them for making them unlockable there. (for example, they also could have made the SSE available without being able to unlock the characters through that mode; you could still use them inside SSE but not outside of it, I would have preferred if they did that, but I get why they didn't do it that way because most people probably wouldn't have liked that)

What I AM faulting them therefore for, is that they made SSE available right from the start (which admittedly a lot of people ALSO wouldn't have liked, but oh well).

Well in whatever shape, way or form, they would never have made everyone happy.

 

[ZeroJinKui]

Correct. IF the SSE is available without having to unlock all the characters, then I don't fault them for making them unlockable there. (for example, they also could have made the SSE available without being able to unlock the characters through that mode; you could still use them inside SSE but not outside of it, I would have preferred if they did that, but I get why they didn't do it that way because most people probably wouldn't have liked that)

What I AM faulting them therefore for, is that they made SSE available right from the start (which admittedly a lot of people ALSO wouldn't have liked, but oh well).

Well in whatever shape, way or form, they would never have made everyone happy.

...why WOULDN'T SSE be available from the start, though... it's the story mode.

no other game in the history of anything has had a story mode that needed to be unlocked, unless i am missing some kinda strangely-developed game that has fallen into obscurity.

story modes in fighting games, and most games in general, typically unlock things, and are available from the start... it's just how things work.

so i'm not entirely sure why anyone would fault them for following that pretty standard logic.

 

[Sabrewulf238]

I'm not sure if I like the idea of unlocking characters through the story mode. So I might just wait until I've unlocked every character outside of that mode before playing it.

In Brawl when you unlocked characters through subspace you missed out on getting the indimidating "challenger approaching" screen and having to fight them afterwards. That's the best part!

 

[Yosher]

Yeah I'm gonna be on the boat of 'Avoid Story Mode until all characters are unlocked through other methods', because there will be alternate methods no doubt. Really I didn't mind unlocking them through Subspace Emissary that much back in Brawl, it's the fact that we didn't get a New Challenger Approaching battle when we met the conditions through SSE.

Of course this all depends on whether or not there really IS a Story Mode, of course. I'm not entirely convinced, because like, it was probably already rough finding a place in the story for all characters in Brawl which had about half the characters we currently have in Ultimate. So y'know, I kinda feel sorry for the guys having to fit all these characters into this game's Story mode if there really is one. Even if they're not going to put ALL characters in there, it's still likely going to be the vast majority of them. I could see them including at least 60 characters in there, which is absolutely bonkers, and this would necessitate a large amount of chapters too if they wanna tell a proper-ish story for each of those characters even if you group them together (for reference, SSE had 31 chapters including the Great Maze).

And I do hope people don't get their hopes up too high for this reason too; plenty of people already disliked the SubSpace Emissary because the story was stupid in their eyes (though it probably also wasn't really helped by the fact that most areas looked pretty bland, which should be an easy enough fix), and while I don't doubt their skills on actually making a fun story out of it here, the difficulty of it, along with time constraints, balancing issues and whatnot might just hinder it a lot. So uh.. whatever the case... I'm not convinced that this so-called ''Spirits'' mode is a story mode yet, not until they officially reveal what it is anyway. And as such, I'm also not really worried about unlocking characters through this story mode either.

 

[ChozoRidley]

I agree with Yosher.

Given that the main priority of the game seems to have been bringing back all the characters and most of the old stages, it just seems unlikely they would also have added a commitment to a whole new SSE-style story mode. With the sheer scale involved, it seems like a one-or-the-other choice they would have had to make early in development.

For a game of this size, it would be more likely that any story mode would be self-contained chapters that centre on a character and lead to them being unlocked in-game. Maybe the Ridley cutscene forms the intro to a standalone fight with Ridley that leads to him being unlocked. If the 'Spirits' stories could be tackled in pretty much any order and took about five minutes each, that would make it much easier to unlock any characters you wanted to play as first. Most of them probably wouldn't even need cutscenes.

The only way I could see a SSE-style story mode working is as something episodic that gets rolled out steadily as post-release DLC. It could be something where they put out a new chapter once a month, and depending on how well it does they could wrap it up after a year or keep it going for as long as interest in the game lasts.

Yeah I'm gonna be on the boat of 'Avoid Story Mode until all characters are unlocked through other methods', because there will be alternate methods no doubt. Really I didn't mind unlocking them through Subspace Emissary that much back in Brawl, it's the fact that we didn't get a New Challenger Approaching battle when we met the conditions through SSE.

Of course this all depends on whether or not there really IS a Story Mode, of course. I'm not entirely convinced, because like, it was probably already rough finding a place in the story for all characters in Brawl which had about half the characters we currently have in Ultimate. So y'know, I kinda feel sorry for the guys having to fit all these characters into this game's Story mode if there really is one. Even if they're not going to put ALL characters in there, it's still likely going to be the vast majority of them. I could see them including at least 60 characters in there, which is absolutely bonkers, and this would necessitate a large amount of chapters too if they wanna tell a proper-ish story for each of those characters even if you group them together (for reference, SSE had 31 chapters including the Great Maze).

And I do hope people don't get their hopes up too high for this reason too; plenty of people already disliked the SubSpace Emissary because the story was stupid in their eyes (though it probably also wasn't really helped by the fact that most areas looked pretty bland, which should be an easy enough fix), and while I don't doubt their skills on actually making a fun story out of it here, the difficulty of it, along with time constraints, balancing issues and whatnot might just hinder it a lot. So uh.. whatever the case... I'm not convinced that this so-called ''Spirits'' mode is a story mode yet, not until they officially reveal what it is anyway. And as such, I'm also not really worried about unlocking characters through this story mode either.