Is the Super Smash Brothers Ultimate “Adventure Mode” Worth Your Time?

I finally played the Adventure Mode in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, also known as “World of Light”. I know that game has been out forever. But I literally pushed it off because I had more interesting story mode games to play. If I could describe the Adventure Mode in one word, I would use “disappointing”. In my opinion I absolutely HATED the Adventure Mode in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. I disliked it so much, I was frustrated for probably at least half of the game (which equaled about 10 hours of gameplay). The game puts you in matches that are totally unfair, and doesn’t do a great job motivating you to keep playing because there is an absolute lack in story. Today, I’m going to talk about the very few pros I did manage to find while playing the Adventure Mode in Ultimate, and the very many cons of the Adventure Mode in Ultimate.

Also, just a heads up, there are spoilers ahead for those of you who haven’t played the game before. But there’s not really a plot with this game, so its not like if you keep reading you’re going to have some huge secret spoiled. Still, read at your own risk of spoilers.

Pros

I’ll start off with the positive things I enjoyed while playing. The beginning cutscene for World of Light is actually really good. It pulls you in, and is a good intro for what the Adventure Mode is going to be about.

There’s huge maps you explore while playing World of Light, and on these maps are shops run by famous merchants such as Anna (from Fire Emblem), Beedle (from Legend of Zelda), and Timmy and Tommy (from Animal Crossing). Visiting their shops and hearing their lingo they use was a ton of fun! And was a good nod to their various series.

You get to play as an iconic villain in the Smash Brothers series, that’s never been playable before. You get to play as the one and only Master Hand! That’s right! You actually get to control Master Hand for a bit and fight a hoard of Smash characters! Being able to play as Master Hand for a battle was a really unique and fun twist to the game. I apparently get a ton of satisfaction slapping fighters off of the stage. Nintendo should really consider adding Master Hand and Crazy Hand as fighters in Super Smash Brothers!

Cons

The only way to win a lot of the battles is by using “Spirits” (which are unique to the story of Ultimate). Spirits give the user an advantage, or take away an automatic disadvantage that comes with playing through that specific battle. I don’t like using Spirits. I enjoy playing Smash Brothers without items, and without special effects to stages. I feel like when you play with items or special effects, it means you rely less on skill and you also rely less on the character’s special abilities you’re playing with. So the fact I had to play with Spirits, whose sole purpose is to give you items and affect the stage, really frustrated me because it forced me to play in a way I don’t enjoy.

I was also frustrated that there was an apparent lack in the story. Yes, the beginning cutscene was really good, and it pulled me in. But then they didn’t have a whole lot more cutscenes after that, and the cutscenes they did have were incredibly boring and didn’t really show the Smash Brothers characters. When I started playing World of Light, I expected a story mode like in Super Smash Brothers Brawl. The story mode in Brawl, also known as “The Subspace Emissary”, had tons of cutscenes where you got to see the characters in action. There isn’t even any dialogue in The Subspace Emissary story, and I still love it and know exactly what’s going on! The creators of the Brawl story did an amazing job with storytelling! Because I went into World of Light, expecting an interesting story like in The Subspace Emissary, I was left disappointed and wishing for more. Plus, in World of Light they had to throw in a bunch of explanatory subtitles because it was THAT hard to tell what was going on. I feel like they shouldn’t have hyped up the story of Ultimate right at the beginning, and then not followed through with an interesting storyline.

And to add to the thought train of why World of Light’s story is weak, there is absolutely no character development! In Brawl’s story mode, every character has a story, and you get to see what happens with their story as the game goes on. Brawl’s story mode also forces you to play with certain characters each round, which allows you to get to know that character and their abilities better! In Ultimate’s story mode however, you earn characters back, but still can play with one character the whole time if you really want. So, there’s no exploration of characters and their stories. If a story lacks interesting characters and good plot developments with those characters, the story is weak.

So there you have it. My very honest opinion about the good and bad of the Super Smash Brothers Ultimate Adventure Mode: World of Light. Yeah I wouldn’t recommend the Adventure Mode in Ultimate to anyone. Despite Adventure Mode being terrible, I still like Super Smash Brothers Ultimate! I enjoy regular Smash battles with real people and not CPUs. I have really good memories playing the various Super Smash Brothers stories that date back all the way to my childhood. And Super Smash Brothers Ultimate is included in those memories! So I guess what I’m saying is the game itself is worth buying, just not for the Adventure Mode.

That’s it for this post! Thanks for reading! If you liked reading today’s post, make sure you click that follow button so you can be notified when I put up new blog posts!

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For those of you who play Super Smash Brothers, who is your favorite character? Let me know in the comments below!