Super Smash Bros. Ultimate brought revisions across the board in order to make it truly the best possible game in the series, with the Final Smash mechanic receiving some slight alterations. One modder was able to successfully restore Final Smashes to their fully controllable state, a feature that was dropped in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Depending on the player, Final Smashes are either one of Super Smash Bros.' most fun mechanics or one of its least. Introduced in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, a player can beat up a floating item known as a Smash Ball, and after dealing enough damage, they will be able to perform an ultra-powerful, character-specific attack known as a Final Smash. These are typically flashy and stylish moves, many of which can instant-KO players, making for an entertaining mechanic in a casual setting, but a frustrating one in a more competitive environment. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate simplified the Final Smash so that players just have to press a single button rather than assume full control of an attack.
Claude1308 on Twitter shared a new Super Smash Bros. Ultimate mod that gives players control over transformation-based Final Smashes. In their post, Claude1308 is messing around in Ultimate's training mode, where they deploy a Smash Ball as Ganondorf and proceed to break it. Rather than performing the Beast Ganon charge attack though, Claude1308 assumes complete control over Beast Ganon as if they were fighting it at the end of Link's Classic Mode campaign. Ironically, Ganondorf has never had a transformation-based Final Smash, only directional ones, so Claude1308 is actually adding functionality here.
Briefly mentioned before, Ultimate simplified Final Smashes in order to streamline the gameplay experience, in turn cutting transformation-based Final Smashes. This affected characters like Sonic who transforms into Super Sonic, Fox who summons his Landmaster, Bowser who grows into Giga Bowser, and a handful of other fights. In some cases, the transformations were left in the game aesthetically—Sonic still becoming Super Sonic, for example—but instead of letting the player control him on-screen, Super Sonic will fly around in a pre-determined path, cutting back and forth through the center of the screen.
Accessibility-wise, Ultimate's removal of fully controllable Final Smashes was an obvious improvement for the game. Rather than having to learn a whole additional set of moves and attacks for the transformers, all players need to know is that they have a powerful, single-use attack stored up when they destroy the Smash Ball. At the same time though, it diminishes the creativity and freedom of play that was granted by wholly unique Final Smashes. If there is ever another Super Smash Bros. game, maybe Nintendo will provide options for both types of Final Smashes, though that would mean double the work most likely.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is available on Nintendo Switch.
