What if Smash Wii U, 3DS, and Ultimate were 1 game?

Welcome to part 3 of the Blessed Timeline series, where we look at an alternative universe where each Smash game was a console launch title and a strategic marketing play from the start. This is by far the most absurd theoretical entry in the series. It doesn't get more fan service than this. To recap the events of this fictitious timeline so far, we had the initial Super Smash Bros. release as a GameCube launch title in 2001, followed by Super Smash Bros. Deluxe as a launch title for Wii in 2006, which now brings us to the next game in the series. If you're expecting a Smash 4 related video, you might be surprised, because in this timeline, Wii U was branded as a system upgrade for Wii, akin to something like the New 3DS. This console allowed for HD play of both Wii and GameCube titles, had cartridge slots, for DS and 3DS allowed porting over existing Virtual Console purchases and a new Nintendo account to link your Wii, DSiWare, 3DS, and Wii U digital purchases. Hardware-wise, it came with all the GameCube peripherals as well as a dedicated high-speed Ethernet port with 64GB and 128GB options. Along with this upgrade came network enhancements for compatible titles, you could upgrade your online play experience from delay-based netcode to the recently developed rollback netcode. Super Smash Bros. Deluxe for Wii was one of those titles. Sakurai and team were able to apply a Wii U-specific software patch to the title that shaved off even more latency and let players compete online with smooth, responsive gameplay. This was Nintendo's way of throwing a bone to the competitive scene. Which was quite large and growing by 2012 when the Wii U launched. However, Iwata and Sakurai's sights were set on the prize: Nintendo NX. The entire video game industry would be expecting a new Smash Bros. game as the launch title whenever the console would be announced. This title would have to be even bigger and more grand than Super Smash Bros. Deluxe, which is one reason a new title wasn't made for the Wii U. Sakurai and team would need to pull out all the stops. More third-party companies were reaching out to Nintendo than ever, eager to have their IP be part of a theoretical sequel title. With a team of over 1,000, Sakurai began work on Smash for NX in 2011, even before Wii U's launch. A 5-year dev cycle would mean it would be ready just in time for the NX's launch window of Christmas 2016. To differentiate this title from its predecessors, he wanted to ensure the game ran as smoothly as possible in portable mode, making it the first portable Smash title. He would also ensure 8-player Smash would finally come to the series. He decided to develop a mode called Smash Run to fully realize these new capabilities. It would be similar to Kirby Air Ride's City Trial, where up to 4 players with local wireless or up to 8 players online are thrown into one of 5 large open-world areas, either free-for-all or on teams, defeating enemies and attacking each other to get as many character upgrades as possible. You could focus on carving out your own area as a player, or stealing opponents' treasures by attacking or knocking them out. At the end of the initial period, all players would participate in a final battle. For example, doing the most damage to a final boss battle versus opponents or a special round of Squad Strike, or getting through a level of Adventure Mode the fastest. The list of fighters would be the most impressive collection of characters yet. This roster would offer an astounding 107 character roster slots, with more third-party character inclusions than Nintendo and fans ever thought was possible. Possible. Each character got 10 costume slots, with some characters even having more with optional paid DLC. Generally speaking, palette swaps were available by default, with semi-alt costumes available as the extended costume slots. All previous characters and costumes would be included, but this time they would have a new art style that would give the game a more modern look away from the grittier, more photorealistic look of the previous title. With the most popular and recognizable IP in gaming history, Nintendo had no problem securing the rights to characters from previous Smash Bros. entries. There would be 18 first-party newcomers. The team would add Rosalina and Luma, along with Bowser Jr. from the Super Mario series. Bowser Jr. would not have Koopalings as alternative costumes, and he would not predominantly be in his clown car. Rather, he'd have a moveset inspired from his appearances in the Super Mario series and magical abilities from Kamek. Birdo would be included as a semi-clone of Yoshi, and Dixie Kong would be a semi-clone of Diddy Kong. Skull Kid would join as a newcomer for The Legend of Zelda series, featuring his magical abilities. Krystal would join the roster as another Star Fox rep, utilizing attacks and movements with her that. "Leave it to me!" Ninten would join as a semi-clone of Ness from the Mother series. Lucario, Greninja, and Decidueye would join as new Pokémon reps, as many new generations of Pokémon would be released in the 10-year span from 2006 until this game's release. Sylux from the Metroid series would join the roster and would be inspired by Metroid Prime Hunters and Metroid Prime 4. Robin would join the cast of Fire Emblem characters with both male and female options and would harness a magic-based kit. Newcomer first-party characters included Inkling, Shulk, Duck Hunt, Villager, Mii, and Spring Man. Mii's default costumes would be default Mii appearances from the Nintendo Wii's lineup. The Mii's moveset is inspired from Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Play, and Tomodachi Life. You could also customize their voice and their color of clothing. To promote the eminently releasing title ARMS, Nintendo would include Spring Man along with an Assist Trophy, Min Min. This game would feature 5 new third-party characters bundled with the game and 2 separate Fighters Passes with 5 new third-party characters in each. The initial 5 third-party characters would be: Bayonetta, Joker from Persona 5, Rayman, Klonoa, and Shantae. Bayonetta became a Nintendo exclusive series, Persona 5 was a favorite of Sakurai's, Rayman was a highly popular pick, and Namco was working with Nintendo on other characters, so Klonoa was added as a surprise pick. WayForward partnered with Nintendo to get Shantae on Nintendo consoles just a year before, so this partnership was also natural. The first Fighters Pass would include Crash Bandicoot, Master Chief from Halo, Sackboy from LittleBigPlanet, Conker the Squirrel, and Spyro the Dragon. Crash, Master Chief, Sackboy, and Spyro were recognizable gaming giants from Nintendo's competitors, and Conker just reemerged from his retirement, when Conker's Other Bad Day was released on Wii U. The final Fighters Pass included Kratos from God of War, Altaïr from Assassin's Creed, Steve from Minecraft, Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, and Doom Slayer. Steve would have Alex as a second set of costumes, and similar to the Miis, you'd be able to add your own skins onto the avatar characters. Each of these fighters were iconic, and well-known from well-established franchises. With everything this game had to offer, Sakurai and team felt Super Smash Bros. Special was the right title for the game. Gameplay would be incredibly similar to the previous games, with some changes. Waveland snapping allowed for smoother movement options, meaning you whiffed far less often on your wavelands. Smooth landing, also known as L-canceling, was removed in favor of little landing lag universally applied to all aerial moves. Characters can grab the ledges when facing the opposite direction. Parrying was added, done by holding shield and pressing B at the same time. Additional tech added included: edge canceling, shield stopping, shield slide-off follow-up, glide tossing, crouch out of run, taunting on respawn platform, and teeter canceling. This game was optimized and the least laggy of the series. With just 1 frame of lag across all input devices and controllers. No physics delay or input buffer on by default made it feel much smoother and much more responsive. This game would also feature the largest number of stages of any Smash title. Sakurai identified the stages embraced by the competitive scene and decided each stage would have 1-to-1 reskins of those stages. Battlefield, Final Destination, Frozen Pokémon Stadium, Smashville, Yoshi's Story, Fountain of Dreams, and Dream Land would each be layout options for every stage. On top of that, the stage builder would have the most sophisticated amount of options ever. You could insert custom terrain, add hazards, apply automatic X and Y axis flattening, adjust collision boxes, insert platforms, and adjust their motion, as well as adjust blast zones, spawn points, etc. This was built so the community could create their own stages for casual or tournament play, with a feature to swap out the background with 10 unique options, or use existing backgrounds from all the other stages included in the game, and any music track from the game as well. Online play would have casual, arena, unranked, and ranked. Casual would randomly pick between any player settings and allow the player to choose between 2-8 player matches, either free-for-all or teams. No other restrictions. Arena is a custom lobby where the host can define the rules. You can join open lobbies or use codes to connect to private lobbies. Unranked would lock the game's rules to be tournament-friendly, either for singles or for doubles, and let you play against anyone with no bearing on your rank. Ranked is the same as Unranked, but would pair you with people near your skill level and affect your rank based on your performance. You'd also have to start on a random tourney stage and do stage striking afterwards for a best-of-3 match. Like Smash Bros. Deluxe's Wii U upgrade, Smash Bros. Special would use online rollback netcode connectivity for online play. Custom controls could be saved to a nametag and optionally paired with a Nintendo ID and cloud synced. You'd have an optional online rank badge next to your tag name on the character selection screen. Players could enable an optional 3-frame buffer specific to that player, akin to Mario Kart 8's auto-steering options. It would apply per player and not universally. All these settings could be paired with your tag as well as paired with your new GameCube controller. That's right, Nintendo would release a special new GameCube controller for this title that allowed you to sync your profile with it, so when you plugged it in, all your controls were set up by default. Tournament mode interfaced directly with Smash.gg, which Nintendo would purchase shortly after its launch in 2015, and pulled the latest tournament rule defaults but allowed for custom options as well. Winnings would be saved separately from online rankings but would sync between Nintendo ID and Smash.gg accounts. Rotation, Squad Strike, and Iron Man were also versus mode options. Single-player modes would include Adventure Mode, with unlockable Chapter Select and Bosh Brush modes within it, Classic Mode, All-Star Mode, Break the Targets, which were unique for each character, Home Run Contest, Multi-Man Smash, and Training Mode. Each of these single-player modes allowed for 2-player co-op as well, and all had optional online leaderboards for high scores, top completion times, and more, with each being tied to your Nintendo ID. Adventure Mode would be so similar to the Adventure Mode present within Smash Bros. Deluxe and the original, but with branching paths in each character's worlds, and would serve as the continuation of the story told in the previous games. This time, high-quality CGI cutscenes would help tell the story, and depending on which path you went, you might discover something new. Embedded within it would be event match style matches, bosses to defeat, multi-man battles to fight, and more. Each of these episodes could be played separately in the chapter select mode, and once each branch of the adventure mode was fully complete, a boss rush mode as well. As far as the content of this adventure mode, that might have to be saved for a different video. Classic mode would follow the familiar formula of the previous game but would be customized for the character being played. Instead of branching paths, It would be an arcade-style mode with thematic matches, akin to what we got in Ultimate's Classic Mode. All-Star Mode would feature you facing every character on the roster in waves, sometimes by series, sometimes by thematic relevance, and would be a true test of the player's grit. Break the targets would be unique for each character, and not a trivial development investment considering the sheer size of the 107-character roster. Training Mode would give you tons of options with even more freedom than before. You'd be able to enable hurtbox and hitbox bubbles, show DI draw lines, create and load save states, and upload and share training sessions online. Trophies would be present, as would stickers, to represent as much about video games as they could possibly cram into the game. Challenges would encourage players to try every mode, character and feature available. Replays could be saved of matches and pictures could be taken with a free-form pause camera. Super Smash Bros. Special released on Nintendo Switch on launch day, November 14, 2016. In addition, a dozen or so custom costumes for characters became available for each update that could be purchased as separate DLC. By the game's first birthday on November 14th, 2017, it had received its final content patch and continued to work with the community's proposed stage list. It received 3 final updates in the form of balance patches based on the community's findings and feedback, meaning its final update occurred in July of 2018. The game would be praised for its casual appeal and also for its competitive qualities. Never before had so many disparate video game franchises from different companies been represented in one title. If you enjoyed the gameplay elements from this video, I encourage you to check out the mod of Ultimate called "Hudraw Remix" or "HdR." I'll link it in the description below. If you're interested in the custom characters, costumes, or other aspects that you've seen, I've linked to each individual download below as well. Rocket launchers ready. Thank you for watching, and God bless.