Marking the true end of an era for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate after the release of the game's last fighter Sora, comes the title's final balance update and last major change to the game. This is one of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's biggest updates as a whopping 24 characters are getting slight tweaks and adjustments to their balance, which hopefully won't throw off too many people's playing styles.
Update 13.01 was confirmed by the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Japan Twitter account to be the last balance and tweak update for the game's fighters. However, there will still be future updates that will be taking care of general problems with the game as they arise. Essentially, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is finally, after 3 years, fully completed. No doubt this makes director Masahiro Sakurai and team feel exceptionally relieved and accomplished, as they should be.
As mentioned previously, 24 of the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster's fighters have been adjusted as the likes of Street Fighter's Ryu is benefitting from some pretty substantial buffs for his neutral special while his side special is getting reduced vulnerability while on the ground, in addition to an increased attack speed buff overall. Many other characters are getting increased attack speed as well including Link, Cloud and Ice Climbers, while even more characters are getting increased power for certain attacks such as Falco, Mewtwo, Meta Knight (a good thing as many fans think Meta Knight is woefully under-powered), Wario, Ike, Mega Man, Bowser Jr., Inkling and Ridley.
One character who seems to be getting the short stick here is Min-Min from the Arms franchise. Her basic movements have been nerfed to make her less effective against shields and to bring her knocked-down animations on par with other characters. She also has a newly increased vulnerability when landing and her Dragon's beam attack has gotten its duration reduced. Some other characters that have received nerfs courtesy of the final update include Steve, Pyra and Mythra. Visiting Nintendo's support page for the game will reveal every change made in the update.
It has certainly been a long time coming, but Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's final substantial update is here thus marking the game completely finalized. No doubt some may find issues now with their favorite fighters but they will have to wait for the next Smash iteration to see any changes at all, and at this point, who knows what form a new Smash Bros. game will even take. It will be especially interesting to see where the franchise goes from here and if Sakurai will return once again to helm the title.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is available now for Nintendo Switch.
