We have always known that Smash Bros. would be coming to the Switch. Its existence was confirmed some time ago, but we never heard anything beyond “It’s coming”. At least that was the case until last week when Nintendo finally showed us a teaser at last Thursday’s Nintendo Direct:
As one might have expected, the internet completely exploded and it was glorious. People started releasing videos with their live reactions, attendees at the New York Nintendo store went collectively crazy, it is safe to say that every Nintendo fan was pleased beyond belief, I still get chills when I watch the video and see the flaming logo, making it my second favorite Smash video of all time (the original Mega Man reveal takes the #1 spot). However, there is now a very hot debate: Is this a new iteration of Smash or is it just a deluxe port like many others Nintendo has re-released for the Switch? Let me share with you the reasons I think this will be Smash Bros. 5.
Disclaimer: It has been brought to my attention that Sakurai himself considers Smash for the 3DS as Smash 4 and the Wii U version Smash 5. For the sake of clarity (and because I haven’t actually confirmed the previous statement) I will refer to Smash 5 as the Switch sequel.
Timing
The Switch has already been out for a whole year and its current library is nothing short of stellar. 2017 was a great year for Nintendo with heavy hitters like Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey, many even refer to 2017 as the year of Nintendo due to the massive success of its new console. Long gone are the days when people were skeptical of the Switch’s success. Nintendo’s new approach was bold and took many risks, one of it being a lack of retro compatibility, so Nintendo needed to ensure the console’s first year was nothing short of fantastic.
During the Switch’s first year Nintendo had a mix of new games and old staples. Among the new games were Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, ARMS and Xenoblade chronicles. Among the old staples we had re-releases of old Wii U games like Mario Kart 8 and Pokken Tournament. It was during this first year that a Smash 4 DX would have been a no brainer, with it having a combined 14 millions sales split between the 3DS and the Wii U. Smash 4 is also a title that would benefit from a deluxe edition sporting all of the previous downloadable content, as well as remixing the 3DS content that was missing from the Wii U version. Smash 4 was the 4th best selling Wii U game ever, and its release on the first year would have been a huge boost to the Switch library.
The fact that we’ve had to wait this long, not for a release, but to even get a glimpse of the game in the form of a small teaser is to me a sign that a Smash sequel is being worked on, as opposed to a deluxe edition which would have easily been an “easy release” during its first year.
The way Nintendo is handling the ports
It is no surprise that Nintendo has been capitalizing on the success of the Switch by re-releasing some of the better games the Wii U had. If you owned a Wii U, you know that it had some really outstanding game that sadly not many people played due to the low user base of the Wii U. Bringing these undersold games to a popular console is a great move by Nintendo, and I hope more of the Wii U library is salvaged, however it is not a simple “Port everything” plan Nintendo is following.
It might not seem obvious, but there is actually a pattern to which games are being ported. A lot of the ported games are high quality Wii U releases that stand on its own. Games like Captain Toad, Hyrule Warriors and DKC Tropical freeze are games released for exposure. Another thing they have in common is that there no announced sequel to any of these games, making it more of a salvage situation. The Bayonetta re-releases are a stepping stone for the already announced Bayonetta 3. With no immediate plans of a Mario Kart 9, Mario Kart 8 DX was necessary to popularize the Switch with a casual audience.
The HYPE
Brawl and Smash 4 both had fantastic pre-release seasons. Brawl had the Smash Dojo, a page which was updated daily with information regarding Brawl. Waking up every morning just to check which new update was going to be updated was extremely hype! You never knew when a character would be announced, but you could also wake up and find meaningless updates like the sound library, all part of the excitement! Smash 4 also had video teasers for the newcomers. I will never forget watching the Nintendo Direct early in the morning just to find out Mega Man’s announcement, I literally woke up the entire house with my reaction screams! Smash Bros. releases are usually trailed with months of excitement and expectations, I would expect Nintendo to try and recreate the hype with a new release.
The amount of hype Nintendo fans can generate is also staggering. Even things like the leaks of a direct are enough to get the internet in a frenzy. Waiting more than a year for any smash news, only to have it be a deluxe port would be a massive disappointment to the fans. It would fall along the lines of “Yeah, we knew it was coming” and fizzle there.
Just because a game is good doesn’t mean we can’t get anything better
I’ve been soaking as much into the hype of this announcement as possible, and one argument I hear very much is “Smash 4 is a really good game, there is no need to make a new one if we can still have this one”. This argument infuriates me to say the least. When did we become people to settle with whatever we can get? We, as fans, are responsible for the success of the Switch, we are very much in a position where we can demand new amazing experiences for Nintendo.
True, we’ve had really good games in the past, but does that mean we shouldn’t expect anything bigger from Nintendo? Definitely not! If we had settled in the past, we wouldn’t have gotten Mario Odyssey because 64 was so good, we wouldn’t have had Metroid Prime because Super Metroid was so good. Even Mario Kart Wii, which was an outstanding game and Mario Kart’s best selling game EVER didn’t settle for a re-release for the Wii U and we got Mario Kart 8 as a result, which might very well be the best Mario Kart game so far. Games are full, but also full of opportunities to get even better.
We have been asking for so much ports that at this point people are closing themselves to the idea that they can play something better.
Splatoon, or what actually constitutes a sequel
We know for a fact the Inklings will be playable at the next Smash game, but is that enough to make a sequel? Perhaps an even better question is, what constitutes a sequel? Think about a game and its sequels, from Mario Kart 6 to Mario Kart 7 the gliders were added, coin mechanic was reinstated, we got new tracks, new karts and new characters. Now think of the Brawl to Smash 4 upgrade. Custom moves were added, fighting mechanics were polished, new characters were added and new stage were added. Sequels usually add content to the game, but things have changed over the years thanks to DLC.
Downloadable content offers a chance to add content to a base game, making it a bigger one. One could say for the Mario Karts that the tracks and characters could easily be DLC. Other games like Street Fighter 5 have offered beefy updates, with Arcade Edition adding a bunch of new content to the game, as well as adding a V-triggers for every member of the cast. DLC usually comes in the way of adding content to beef up a game or toss in variety.
There is a notable outlier and that is Splatoon. According to official Nintendo stats, Splatoon is the Wii U’s 6th best selling games. It is also part of a new generation of IPs that Nintendo i very interested in pushing forward. So why did we get Splatoon 2 for the Switch? The core Splatoon gameplay remains intact, but a bunch of content was added to the game including the PvE game modes. One could argue that Splatoon was also a prime candidate for a port, given the console it was originally released on, yet the updates came in the form of a sequel and not as paid DLC (Just for the record, the octo DLC which was announced at the Direct also constitutes a hefty content update).
I would expect Nintendo to push Smash to evolve once more instead of staying at its comfort zone. While I personally did not like Smash 4 as its predecessors, I still think it is a great game and it also has my favorite cast of any given Smash game. I think we, the fans, are ready for the next big thing regarding Smash.
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