Dec. 7, 2018 is a date many gaming fans have marked on their calendars. With the much anticipated “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” finally hitting store shelves, players are excited to get their hands on the fifth game of the beloved crossover series. There have been multiple Nintendo Directs that cover the new game’s features, which leads to a wealth of info for both new and experienced players.

Nintendo Direct – March 2018

It all started with a Nintendo Direct in March of 2018. No one was expecting a new “Smash” game, so fans were pleasantly surprised by the game’s announcement. The Direct showed off plenty of new Nintendo games and ended with a typical, “We have one more thing to show you,” which then cut to a scene of two Inklings battling each other. This lead everyone to expect that it was a trailer for a new “Splatoon” game; however, the scene faded to a more darker lighting with a fire-like reflection coming off the Inklings. The camera then panned into the female Inkling’s eye, which showed the reflection of a flaming “Smash Ball.” The trailer concluded with a closeup on the shadowed faces of Mario and Link, who were standing across from the Inklings, ominously inviting them to the game as new characters.

With this being the first fans have heard from “Super Smash Bros.” in a long time, people were not sure what to think about the trailer. Many simply speculated that the trailer was for new DLC (Downloadable Content) or an announcement of a port game for the Switch. Others thought that this might be a completely new game for the Switch, and on June 12, 2018, this was confirmed.

E3 Conference – June 12, 2018

During E3 2018, Masahiro Sakurai, director of “Super Smash Bros,” and the Super Smash Bros.” team finally put together a video about the game. This presentation confirmed that the game will be called “Super Smash Bros Ultimate,” and it will in fact be a brand new series on the Nintendo Switch.

The main reveal of this video was the character roster. Many people speculated which characters were going to be cut and which new characters would join the fight. Sakurai, however, decided to not cut anyone from this game. Instead, he chose to include every single fighter in the history of the “Super Smash Bros.” series. This meant that veteran fighters such as Wolf, Snake, the Ice Climbers and many more would all be making their glorious returns to “Smash.”

Not only did Sakurai confirm that all these characters would be returning but decided to add some more. The first was a new type of character called “echo fighters.” Echo fighters are fighters that are modeled after pre-existing characters, and Sakurai labeled fighters from previous games such as Lucina and Dark Pit as the first two echo fighters of the series. With this being a new theme, Sakurai added Daisy from the “Super Mario” series to the roster as an echo fighter of Peach. Additionally, Sakurai added a brand new, long requested character, previously denied because of his size, Ridley from the “Metroid” series was added as the 65th character.

Super Smash Bros Direct August 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-kQWJrjRV4

In August, Nintendo decided to give “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” its own Direct. They started out with a trailer for two new fighters, Simon and Richter Belmont from the “Castlevania” series. Simon, a highly requested character, was introduced along with Richter, his brother, who was labeled as an echo fighter of Simon. Additionally, they announced two additional echo fighters: Dark Samus from “Metroid” (an echo of Samus) and Chrom from “Fire Emblem” (an echo of Roy.)

Character trailers were not the only thing this Direct had to share. Sakurai confirmed that a total of 103 stages were to be included, which would be complimented by 900 music tracks. New features and game modes, such as stage morphing, squad strike and the return of boss battles, were all revealed in this Direct.

After Sakurai signed off, the screen started shaking. A trailer was then shown that revealed another highly requested Nintendo villain as a playable character — King K. Rool from the “Donkey Kong” series. With this, the anticipation was at an all time high.

Nintendo Direct September 2018

Fan theories and breakdown videos were made, speculation was high, but nothing was higher than the hype for the game itself. This Direct wasn’t specifically for “Super Smash Bros.” This meant that many fans had to wait to see if Nintendo would say anything more about the game. There was only one trailer for a new character, Isabelle from the “Animal Crossing” series–becoming the 68th fighter.

Super Smash Bros Direct November 2018

Finally, the final “Super Smash Bros.” Direct was revealed on Nov. 1, 2018, which gave more details about the game than any of the prior Directs. It started off with a trailer for two new fighters: Ken from “Street Fighter” (an echo of Ryu) and Incineroar from “Pokemon.” With these two announced, the entire roster for the original release of “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” was revealed to include 69 original fighters.

But still, Sakurai wasn’t done. Just like “Smash 4,” this game would again feature DLC. This time, DLC would be in the form of five new characters who would come with their own stage and multiple music tracks after the games initial release. These characters are set to be released sometime around 2020, and Sakurai has confirmed that he has already decided which characters will be added. These five fighters will in a bundle for $24.99, or available individually for $5.99.

Sakurai gave us a taste of one fighter that will be available through a free, limited time offer to those who purchase the game early. No one had predicted the character that Sakurai announced would be Piranha Plant, an enemy from the “Super Mario” series. This caused a lot of fan discussion–some good and some bad. Many people were angry with the announcement, as a potted plant was chosen over other characters such as Waluigi, King Boo or Geno.

Others were delighted to see the unique nature of Piranha Plant’s move-set and happy that Sakurai was able to express his creativity. Many have stated that Nintendo likes to put obscure characters in the roster to keep fans guessing. This argument makes some sense as we now have Jigglypuff in “Smash 64,” Pichu in “Melee,” Wii Fit Trainer in “Smash 4,” and Piranha Plant in “Smash Ultimate.”

World of Light

In addition to all of the new features, a brand new adventure mode titled “World of Light” was announced. Sakurai didn’t explain how this new adventure mode would play, instead showing a cinematic trailer followed by some examples of game play.

The cinematic trailer started off with all 75 characters standing on a cliff. The camera then showed hundreds on Master Hands (one of the villains of the series) surrounded by a new character called Galeem. The Master Hands began to fly towards the fighters to attack them. One by one, beloved gaming characters were shown being disintegrated despite their efforts to run, hide, deflect or counterattack the beams. Only one character was able to survive: Kirby.

The trailer then revealed some game play footage that showed how “World of Light” had a similar concept to that of “The Great Maze” in the “Subspace Emissary” of “Super Smash Bros. Brawl.” The main objective of this story mode was to fight the evil versions of all fighters, as well as some other gaming characters, so that you could free them of their evil spirits. Many speculate about this game mode–wondering if it will be as good as adventure modes of the series past.