Super Smash Brothers Ultimate is a platform fighter video game developed by Bandai Namco Studios and Sora Ltd., and published by Nintendo. It is the fifth and latest installment of the Super Smash Brothers series. Smash Bros. offers a large variety of characters from some of the most influential franchises in all of gaming history such as Mario from the Super Mario Brothers series, Steve from Minecraft, and many more. As of now, the full roster consists of 89 characters (including the echo-fighters and all of the dlc characters).

“It is a very fun and very impressive game,” junior Drake Williams said. “The amount of games represented in Smash is crazy. I continue to play Smash because it keeps me close to my friends who live far from me.”

The latest and final character is Sora from the Kingdom Hearts series. Kingdom Hearts is an action role-playing video game developed by Square Enix. Kingdom Hearts is a collaboration between some of Square Enix’s major properties and the Walt Disney Company’s major properties. What makes Sora’s inclusion so surprising is the fact that Disney would let Nintendo use their property in a non-Disney game considering their stingy history with their IP’s.

“While I haven’t played his series, I feel like Sora is perfect,” senior Isaiah Hardin said. “Sora represents the fans excited and overjoyed for the character they have known for years. It just feels natural.”

One of the pleasures of being a Smash Brothers fan is the anticipation of a new character. Every Nintendo Direct, a Nintendo themed pre-recorded presentation announcing updates coming to games and announces new ones, Smash fans unite to discuss which character they think would be announced and imagine how they would play like.

However, the most surprising conclusions are the characters that seem impossible to be included. Smash Bros. Ultimate has a lot of inclusions that were considered lost causes, such as Simon from Castlevania and Ridley from Metroid. A good example is when Steve from Minecraft was announced, which was so jaw-droppingly surprising that Twitter crashed for a few hours due to the abundance of tweets about his inclusion.

“The most surprising character to be included is Min-Min,” Hardin said. “If it was an Arms character I thought it would be Spring Man. Terry Bogard is a close second though. I would have chosen either Geno from Super Mario RPG or Masked Man from Mother 3 to be the final character.”

What’s so special about Smash Bros. is how every character in the game is unique from one another, so anyone can have a favorite character that they enjoy that is different from their friends and colleagues’s favorite. The roster is ginormous, so it could be nerve-wracking trying to find your favorite character. The best general advice is to try every character and see who you enjoy the most.

“My favorite character is Ganondorf from The Legend of Zelda because he is a very heavy character with powerful attacks,” Junior Benjamin Howell said.

Outside of the standard game mode, there are a plethora of other game modes including classic mode, special smash, and horde mode. The most fleshed out game mode is the World of Light campaign. World of Light is a single player mode where the player builds a team of spirits (a booster that gives you raw power and an extra benefit) against CPUs with stronger spirits. As you progress through the campaign, the world starts to open more.

“World of Light in concept is very cool, however it’s execution leaves much to be desired,” Williams said. “I myself have never completed it.”

Even though the series is at its most hype and prime, it will be difficult trying to top the game that has “everyone” included. It would be upsetting to no longer have everyone included in future installments. The state of the franchise is even more in limbo due to Masahiro Sakurai has officially stated that he doesn’t see a new Smash Bros. game anytime in the near future.

“I feel it was good, but I don’t know how they’ll top it in the future,” junior James Craven said.