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Where is Shacknews' Super Smash Bros. Ultimate review?

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate reviews have started popping up, but Shacknews' review is not among them. We explain why.
Ozzie Mejia
Ozzie Mejia
3

Reviews for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate are hitting across the internet right about now. However, Shacknews is not among those outlets. After discussion among the editorial staff, we have concluded that we are not quite at a point where we are ready to issue a final review.

Online play goes live on Thursday night, so it wouldn't be a complete review until we've tested it out

We have concluded this for a couple of reasons. The biggest reason is that the online component for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is not set to go live until the game is officially released. Servers will be live at 9PM PT tonight. Because online play is a key component to the Smash Bros. experience, we'll first need to test the game out in a live, real world environment. Once servers go live tonight, Shacknews will put an extensive amount of time with the online environment, testing out the game's online features like four-player online play (both solo and with a friend), preferred rule sets, spectator mode, and monitor for any latency issues within any of those areas.

Reviewing the online component of a game is common sense for most online-enabled games. Shacknews most recently took a similar stance with our Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 review, opting to wait until Blackout was playable in a real world setting before issuing a full review. But for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, it feels essential partly because of the series' history. Long-time followers of the series will remember the subpar online experience for Super Smash Bros. Brawl and the early online hiccups experienced in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS. A bad online experience can impact one's enjoyment of the game and should absolutely factor into an overall review of a complete package.

The other key item that we'll be monitoring is a Day One patch that's set to be deployed on Friday. Shacknews will also look into any potentially egregious issues that may be caused/fixed by the Day One patch. Nintendo will be issuing patch notes for this day one patch soon. Shacknews will report on the patch notes as soon as they're made available.

Shacknews was able to play through Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's offline modes extensively over the review period and because of that, this delay won't be a particularly long one. Check back in with us this weekend, at which point we'll go live with our full Super Smash Bros. Ultimate review.

Senior Editor
Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?

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