I always felt somewhat off about this game for the 5 years it's been out, and I could never really articulate why. But after finally dedicating more hours to playing it recently, I've come to realize the clear issues I have with this game that I now feel comfortable enough to address and just accept it as is -- my least favorite smash bros experience :p
Also, if you like this game, then my attempt at articulating my issues will probably come off as annoying, and I'm sorry if so -- you don't have to read this, lol. I'm purely writing this for my own journaling purposes, as well as for anyone who may have felt similarly to how I feel, looking for someone else to relate to. That said, these thoughts are how I think of the game largely from my own single-player casual experience, in complete spite of the hype and pre-release marketing for it.
Overall I feel like this game suffers from a "quantity > quality" approach. That's not to say quantity is inherently bad, but more-so that I feel the focus on quantity overshadowed a priority for a more nuanced sense of quality (that I especially feel wasn't lacking for brawl). It feels loosely like the mario odyssey of the smash series -- calling itself a return to form, while essentially milking the same base game-play ad nauseam, through shallow variations of basic elements, and calling that "content".
In my opinion, the best thing they could've easily done for this game is pan out the unique unlocks more (characters, stages, songs -- you know, the actual content of the game) throughout a longer time period when playing the game. Considering just how much there is to take in, start with say 10 characters, 20 stages, and 100 songs, and set specific varied conditions or (as a fail-safe alternative) just really long time frames to unlock a new one. Keep it long enough to make each new unlock feel special and rewarding, but also to allow the player some time to learn and appreciate the nuance of each unique piece of content. I feel like melee and brawl did this really well (probably helped with the smaller amount of things to unlock, and the more varied ways to unlock them), and there's no reason they couldn't have implemented the same feeling for ultimate by accounting for its higher quantity (besides catering to a content-hungry consumerist mindset).
Imagine if the game started out as small as smash 64's scope. That would be really easy to take in, but it wouldn't sacrifice quality -- I mean quite the opposite, I think it would help accentuate a sense of quality and ease of becoming comfortably attached to as you use specific characters and play (better) modes to unlock more characters. Now it's true that it does this to an extent -- but for ultimate, unlocking every unique piece of content within just about 15 hours makes it all a bit overwhelming and feels rather meaningless in the end, especially given that that's all there is for the game to offer at a meaningful level. It's like they got all the parts together, threw it into a package and said "idk you figure it out". It's the same reason I find the freedom to meander around a relatively directionless open world or sandbox game (or, breath of the wild) to be a rather shallow video game experience in the end. It's not doing much to provide a specifically hand-crafted, curated experience for me to immerse myself in moment to moment. It instead asks more for me to come up with the fun myself, which feels like a shallow and lazy strategy for video game companies to find profit in (let the players do the work!).
And I guess this ultimately boils down to how I function as a person naturally (at least when it comes to consuming media). I think I just want specifically hand-crafted experiences with intentional nuance, limitations, and challenges to work through, not another world to feel lack of direction or purpose in -- I already feel that way with our current world, lol. That's why I'm escaping to the fantasy of video games. and 'world of light' almost does that, but surprisingly it does a pretty good job at becoming the same thing over and over again without much inherent rhyme or reason, besides the lazy approach of being a shallow representation of other games and ... more content!!!
I know I'm definitely in the minority saying all of this, but I just wanted to share it all here, because the main issue i have with ultimate (to summarize) is that it all just feels rather mindless.
(okay but really my problem is the buffer system, input delay, lack of trophies, all-star, targets, event matches, or any sense of a respectful single player experience. ... i could go on. i feel like mostly everyone just accepts this game purely as it is largely because it's popular, because they did a good job marketing... because a sheer focus on quantity speaks louder than quality. v(. _ .)v )
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