Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Review: 5 Ups & 3 Downs

2. Unlocking Characters Is A Pointless Chore

This criticism is sure to be divisive among fans, but it's absolutely baffling that in a game designed primarily with local multiplayer mayhem in mind, players only start with eight of the 74 players unlocked, requiring them to grind their way to collecting a full set.

You can of course do this the hard way by slogging through World of Light mode or playing Classic mode ad nauseum.

Many players, however, have resorted to using an "exploit" of sorts, of playing a round of Smash, immediately killing themselves, battling the Challenger who shows up, defeating said opponent to unlock them, resetting the game to negate the 10-minute unlock cooldown and then repeating the process.

This can get you roughly two-thirds of the fighters in a few short hours, though after this point the unlocks start to become more scarce as the player is required to have travelled a certain distance before a new Challenger will emerge.

Also, some of the later unlockable fighters can prove extremely difficult to defeat. There's nothing quite like battling Ganandorf down to his final throes, only for him to deliver a one-hit kill out of nowhere.

The blow clearly would've been softened if perhaps 15-20 fighters were unlocked from the start, but whatever way you go about it, getting the full 74 is more of a job to get done than it is enjoyable.

In the very least, could there not have been a delineated practice mode where all the fighters were already unlocked for the sake of fast, easy local multiplayer?