We need to talk about Unlocking Characters in Smash Ultimate.

[SweetVermouth]

The shittiest part about this is that if you lose your save game then good luck unlocking every single character again!! I've lost my Smash Melee save like 6 times or something and it took me 5 minutes to download a save from the internet and have all my characters and stages back.

 

[shaneo632]

Yeah even with the reset exploit it's still a slog

 

[norealmx]

I think is great. It add the sense of accomplishment, plus, you get 66 chance to be surpised! (plus seen that new challenger screen is always a treat).

 

[super moustique]

Unlocking characters feels too good to not be a thing in fighting games.

That's one of the main reasons why I loved Soulcalibur so much back then !

 

[Guaraná]

There will always be someone complaining, no matter the decision you make.

I found the unlock system very nice.

 

[Deleted member 3010]

Unlocking characters feels too good to not be a thing in fighting games.

That's one of the main reasons why I loved Soulcalibur so much back then !

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Spot on, my thoughts exactly!

 

[TheMissingLink]

I mean, I GET the reason they have to be unlocked...they always have been. It gets people to play, etc.

Anyone who WANTS to unlock them relatively fastish just needs to Google search it.

I played all night one night with the 'core' set. Which gave me the distance requirement. Then I did the unlock method, followed by quitting out of the game, and unlocked half the characters in about an hour. Plus I played as each new unlocked character. So, really, I think it's fine.

 

[Phantom_Snake]

As someone who hasn't played Smash since Melee, im pretty much a newcomer. My friends and I really enjoyed unlocking all the characters, and we'll do it again in a couple weeks when one of my friends gets his own copy.

If you lost the Challenger Match, when you rematch them choose a character the can do a lot of damage quick. Early on I found Link and Kirby can be those guys, if you unlocked them, Little Mac; Ganandorf; Meta Knight and Captain Falcon can do it too. I struggled plenty with unlocking characters (particularly Snake). It takes less than 10 hours to unlock every character, complaining about this sounds like there's some sense of entitlement to these characters.

 

[Kraq]

Starting with the Original 8 was my dream for Smash Bros. This was the perfect result as far as I'm concerned.

Half the fun in fighting games is unlocking all of the characters.

 

[Watchtower]

The commitment is just too small relatively speaking for me to be up in arms over this. The cheesing method takes 2-3 hours, maybe 3-4 accounting for losses. And even playing "normally" I still got everyone in about a day and a half.

If I'd change anything, it'd be keeping the AI low (because holy fuck some of the AIs are fucking ridiculous) and making Challenger Approach both instantly available when you lose and available as long as it takes you to win. Maybe nixing the time restriction entirely too, though more torn on that.

 

[Cathcart]

This game has been out for 2 days and I've already got 66 available characters. For a game that I'll likely play for years I just don't see it as a problem that we unlock characters for the first weekend. If this is really a thing OP has time to write half a book about maybe turn on the news. Unlocking characters in Smash is like 12 billionth on the list of actual problems. "We need to talk about", like someone needs surgery or some shit. Jesus.

 

[Razgriz417]

Fair. But it should show up after a couple battles at most, at least that's been the case for me

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fail that rematch and you will have to wait to try again. What a half assed design. It should allow you to rematch as much as you want until you beat it

The shittiest part about this is that if you lose your save game then good luck unlocking every single character again!! I've lost my Smash Melee save like 6 times or something and it took me 5 minutes to download a save from the internet and have all my characters and stages back.

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good thing you can pay to backup your cloud save but paying for online

 

[shaneo632]

They should add an option to unlock all the characters for $5. I don't have enough time for unlock characters, I just want to have a good time with my friends.

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Nah fuck this. Reward them for gating 90% of the roster? Lmao

 

[Mammoth Jones]

It doesn't bother me as much as I have zero interest in competitive play. I just enjoy playing the cpu on the train. But if I were invested like I used to be I'd kinda be pissed too. Character locks take a LOT of time investment to grind through.

 

[JusDoIt]

Image Call of Duty players. They have to unlock most of the game's weapons, perks and gadgets up to level 55, and then when they enter prestige they loose everything altogether and have to unlock it again.

So basically they're constantly playing for weeks and months but not having fun because they are still busy unlocking stuff 200 hours in.

And they're doing this for over a decade now!

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Call of Duty is not a fighting game.

 

[ZeoVGM]

That isn't a problem. It's exactly how it should be. Unlocking characters leads to a feeling of accomplishment.

 

[Error 52]

That isn't a problem. It's exactly how it should be. Unlocking characters leads to a feeling of accomplishment.

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Really? You gonna go with that wording?

 

[XxLeonV]

I love the unlocking method. I'm putting more time in this game because of it. I really wish other Fighters would return to this method, as it helps me put in more time offline. If there is little to no incentive for playing 1 player offline, it's hard for me to continue to do it. There has been too many recent fighters where I play the arcade mode once and never play it again.

 

[QisTopTier]

That isn't a problem. It's exactly how it should be. Unlocking characters leads to a feeling of accomplishment.

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I don't feel like I'm accomplishing shit, I feel like Im running through a pointless treadmill just to play the characters I'm interested in using online.

You know what feels like an actual accomplishment. Beating an actual player that actually has a functioning brain.

The only place where you should have to unlock shit like this is for the WoL mode.

 

[Old School Gamer]

I think it's great that you have to actually play the game to unlock things. What I don't like is how the CPU seems to be getting harder the farther I get. I'm at like 60+ and I've had matches where the CPU almost perfected me. CPU level should be stuck at whatever difficulty you're playing on. I could see some newbies never ever getting all characters if they don't touch WoL.

 

[QisTopTier]

I think it's great that you have to actually play the game to unlock things. What I don't like is how the CPU seems to be getting harder the farther I get. I'm at like 60+ and I've had matches where the CPU almost perfected me. CPU level should be stuck at whatever difficulty you're playing on. I could see some newbies never ever getting all characters if they don't touch WoL.

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If you are unlocking them at the proper time spacing people should be typically good enough to handle them by that point of the time unlocks.

 

[francium87]

Not a Smash player, but figured my friends (who are casual gamers, at least in recent years) would enjoy playing this with me over the holidays (they probably recognize Sonic, Ice Climber, Megaman, Duckhunt, and a couple more)

Now I have to either commit to the grind and get those characters unlocked in the next two weeks, while juggling finishing up work, or just sell my copy of Smash off. There's always KoF97 for us.

It's just annoying that there's no option (I'd pay $5) or cheat code to unlock things for casual players.

 

[TheYanger]

Not a Smash player, but figured my friends (who are casual gamers, at least in recent years) would enjoy playing this with me over the holidays (they probably recognize Sonic, Ice Climber, Megaman, Duckhunt, and a couple more)

Now I have to either commit to the grind and get those characters unlocked in the next two weeks, while juggling finishing up work, or just sell my copy of Smash off. There's always KoF97 for us.

It's just annoying that there's no option (I'd pay $5) or cheat code to unlock things for casual players.

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Or you guys can just play, have fun, and also have fun when the CHALLENGER screen pops up, like every other casual group of smash fans.

 

[molnizzle]

I don't feel like I'm accomplishing shit, I feel like Im running through a pointless treadmill just to play the characters I'm interested in using online.

You know what feels like an actual accomplishment. Beating an actual player that actually has a functioning brain.

The only place where you should have to unlock shit like this is for the WoL mode.

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100% agree.

 

[Error 52]

Or you guys can just play, have fun, and also have fun when the CHALLENGER screen pops up, like every other casual group of smash fans.

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"No TRUE casual smash fan..."

Honestly, the fact that a lot of people on this thread can't even comprehend the idea that some don't enjoy unlocking characters makes them come across like, well, to put it bluntly, self-centred idiots.

If you enjoy unlocking characters, fine, like, I get it even if I think the way Ultimate does it is pretty lousy, but dear god at least open your mind a little.

Like for fuck's sake stop telling people they're playing the game wrong.

 

[francium87]

Or you guys can just play, have fun, and also have fun when the CHALLENGER screen pops up, like every other casual group of smash fans.

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The community goes batshit (in the good way) for every new character reveal, because people want to see these characters they have attachment to. Playing (probably only a few hours during the holidays) with just 8 characters, with only Mario and Pikachu being ones my friends can recognize, is getting way less out of the experience.

Yes, the message sent by Nintendo is essentially that very casual fans won't get everything out of the game. So I just need to make a choice on whether to get on that train.

 

[apathetic]

Unlocking characters feels too good to not be a thing in fighting games.

That's one of the main reasons why I loved Soulcalibur so much back then !

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I think that may be why I like this so much, it's pretty close to the Soul Calibur experience. A single player that I can do alone and doesn't feel like an afterthought and a lot of characters to unlock in a normal fight mode on top of it.

 

[2shd]

I don't feel like I'm accomplishing shit, I feel like Im running through a pointless treadmill just to play the characters I'm interested in using online.

You know what feels like an actual accomplishment. Beating an actual player that actually has a functioning brain.

The only place where you should have to unlock shit like this is for the WoL mode.

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Yup agree with all this. Roster locking would be fine for the single player modes like WoL, but not for jump-in and play with friends or online.

This is a head-to-head multiplayer fighting game at it's core despite any extra stuff you build on top of it, not an RPG. All of the characters are ideally balanced, so there is no real progression in unlocking a character for a multiplayer head-to-head game. It's a sideways progression and completely arbitrary.

Notice how many people say it gives them a "sense of progression". Well, that's right it's a sense. It's an illusion of progression, it's not true progression. It's some contrived sense of progression that doesn't jive with the core nature of the gameplay.

It's absurd they didn't at least put in an optional code that unlocks the roster for the multiplayer mode alone. That would have been the best way to please everyone.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

There will always be someone complaining, no matter the decision you make.

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Who would be complaining if they gave people the option to start with at least smash 4's lineup? Unlocking newcomers was fine in the older games which had smaller rosters but this time you have to unlock 60+ characters, most of which you likely already played a lot of in the previous games, only now they took them away again to drip feed players "content".

 

[OrangeNova]

There needs to be a shortcut for sure, for people organizing tournaments.

But I had no problem going between multiple modes to unlock stuff. Played the game with friends for a few hours, played the Spirit Mode thing, got a couple from Classic Mode. It was fun.

 

[ZeoVGM]

I don't feel like I'm accomplishing shit, I feel like Im running through a pointless treadmill just to play the characters I'm interested in using online.

You know what feels like an actual accomplishment. Beating an actual player that actually has a functioning brain.

The only place where you should have to unlock shit like this is for the WoL mode.

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Just keep playing and enjoying the game man. Everything will unlock eventually (and fairly quickly, if we're being honest). Try out some new characters you wouldn't play as otherwise.

 

[ZeoVGM]

Really? You gonna go with that wording?

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Those are the words I typed. So, yes.

 

[PMS341]

The game has been out for ~two days and my friends and I have all unlocked the full roster. We've just been playing each other naturally or doing a few Classic runs. The Challengers are tough, but you get the option to refight them incredibly quickly. This is a game most players will be playing for years on end, spending a weekend to unlock each fighter isn't exactly a grand commitment.

The only thing that does feel a bit sad in this regard is Tournament play, but I imagine most "stations" will just have save files with the roster unlocked anyways.

 

[Deleted member 42484]

I absolutely love unlocking characters. In a series I've always wondered 'what do I do now' when playing alone, unlocking everyone has been surprisintly engaging and satisfying. Each time the new challenger screen comes on I'm full of excitement. Then when they are unlocked I need to try them.

I think the issues with this are far far overstated, and a sad sign of the mindset of gamers these days. The unlocks are not confusing or wierdly hidden. If you lose to the new challenger, it will be easier the next time you face them. I've has the game since Friday and I've nearly unlocked everyone.

The only thing I can think is a special way to unlock everyone for tournaments. That might make sense.

 

[Jawmuncher]

Yeah the unlocking of characters is honestly something that if I was a official reviewer. I might have hit the game for more than anything else from my time with it. I'm unsure why they didn't just keep the WiiU/3DS way of unlocking characters. That was a pretty fair way to do it. So if you wanted to just die X amount of time you could or just play regular and/or do other modes for the characters.

I actually do wonder how many people are gonna have the game and not have everyone unlocked. A lot of this could've been eliminated if maybe the starting roster wasn't so small.

 

[modsbox]

As a fairly objective observer here (haven't gotten in to Smash yet) it seems fairly obvious that nearly everyone could be made happy by them simply offering an unlock code that would temporarily unlock all characters for tournament / vs play.

Still need to grind to unlock permanently and in World of Light so there's the incentive to do it, but if you have friends over or are running a tournament and need everyone available you put in the code and you're good to go.

I think this shows my age. Back in the day they always had hidden codes to do unlocks...

 

[Omnistalgic]

The way you unlock characters is great!! I love it, and gave me a good reason to play the game and feel rewarded right away...

 

[QisTopTier]

Just keep playing and enjoying the game man. Everything will unlock eventually (and fairly quickly, if we're being honest). Try out some new characters you wouldn't play as otherwise.

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I've been playing smash since 64. The only characters I haven't tried at all are the new ones and I put time into them as they unlock. This is a waste everyone who enjoy's the competitive side of the game time.

This is a fighting game at the end of the day and certain movesets / characters click with people, you take those things away and it burns interest.

Unlocking stuff can be fun sure but not freaking 60 characters.

I'm almost done unlocking but that was time I would have rather spent learning how the characters i gave a shit about played in this game.

Even worse was moments when I wanted to see how a certain move worked after I fought someone online and I couldnt

 

[mute]

As a primarily single player character/whatever unlocks are a huge part of the motivation to keep going.

 

[SasaBassa]

I'm old now so time is limited. The optional "unlock button for versus mode/non-adventure modes" solution would be perfect for everyone.

TBH i probably would've paid 3 bucks or something to unlock everyone. It's a pain in the ass and my time is more important, part of the problem sure but eh a game like this is one where the roster IS the game.

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That being said -- if I had the type of time that I did when Melee came out, this would probably be the greatest game of all time and I'd unlock slowly. I just prefer seeing high-level stuff and am coming at it from a TO/more traditional FG perspective.

 

[Zyrokai]

I really, really value unlocking them as slowly as possible. I want to savor every moment of this and gradually add characters to play as. I'd be okay if it took a year to get them all. I feel that it's FAR too easy/fast to unlock characters.

 

[JayBee]

This game has been out for 2 days and I've already got 66 available characters. For a game that I'll likely play for years I just don't see it as a problem that we unlock characters for the first weekend. If this is really a thing OP has time to write half a book about maybe turn on the news. Unlocking characters in Smash is like 12 billionth on the list of actual problems. "We need to talk about", like someone needs surgery or some shit. Jesus.

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Yeah. Got em all in 2 days and i'm not even the best at the game. I think they become easier the more u lose against them. Cloud was hard af and then 2nd time doable

 

[competentcuttlefish]

I really can't help but think people are being giant babies about a lot of aspects of this game (aside from online, it's pretty ass). I unlocked all of the characters over the course of two days by playing VS matches with my gf. Just.... enjoy the game and unlock the characters as they come. I don't get the rush.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

I don't feel like I'm accomplishing shit, I feel like Im running through a pointless treadmill just to play the characters I'm interested in using online.

You know what feels like an actual accomplishment. Beating an actual player that actually has a functioning brain.

The only place where you should have to unlock shit like this is for the WoL mode.

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For real man.

Singleplayer is weak and getting through this is a chore, not an accomplishment.

 

[TechnicPuppet]

This has put me off the game to be honest.

 

[2shd]

As a primarily single player character/whatever unlocks are a huge part of the motivation to keep going.

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What will you do after you unlock everyone? What will be your motivation to keep playing?

I'm honestly curious if at that point people consider the game finshed and move on, in which case it would seem pretty clear why Nintendo keeps the unlocks.

 

[theotherMittens]

Ridley keeps wrecking me lol. The character I want the most, dang it.

 

[Psychonaut]

This is a borderline non-issue. The only concession I will make is to admit that the Challenger Room should be available at all times. It makes no sense for you to have to wait until you can challenge them again. As for complaints of new people being gated... That's what World of Light is for. Unlocks are SIGNIFICANTLY easier there and can be retried immediately. If you insist on sticking with the more difficult method, then and only then will my response be "get good."

Unlocks came too quickly through basic Smash modes, in my opinion. I mostly played World of Light and enjoyed the pace of unlocks there. They felt substantial. Once I bounced out and started doing work on the Spirit Board, I got a challenger every other match and the whole process felt superfluous. I had to retry three challengers from the Challenger Door (one because of a random stage hazard, one because of a dropped input, and one that just beat my ass), and yes that was certainly frustrating. Again, that's what World of Light is for.

 

[jts]

We're having a blast at home with unlocking the characters. That is basically 'the' game. Concerned I won't have as much motivation to go back to it once they are all unlocked. To each their own.

 

[mute]

What will you do after you unlock everyone? What will be your motivation to keep playing?

I'm honestly curious if at that point people consider the game finshed and move on, in which case it would seem pretty clear why Nintendo keeps the unlocks.

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I don't know, I'll see how much the game grabs me by that point. What else is left to do. Each day I'm weighing several games at a time deciding on what to play, and if I'm looking at a game such as this with everything unlocked, then that knocks it down the priority list.