Sunday, July 15, 2018

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: DLC Dos & Don'ts


In general I'm a friend of DLC, as long as the pricing is reasonable and it keeps the game alive for a while, without changing the game to the worse. But... Nintendo rarely ever pulled this off so far. A positive example is probably Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U, where the extra courses, racers and kart parts were certainly a good addition for a good price. Sometimes Nintendo even supports a title with new contents for free, like ARMS.

But there are also bad examples, where Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS & Wii U is probably one of the front-runners. It was severely overpriced, where purchasing all the fighters and stages already costs you about as much as one of the games. And we're talking only about seven additional fighters and seven/eight additional stages, a small portion of what the games have to offer. If you were to purchase all of the Mii Fighter Costumes as well, all contents for both versions, you would pay well over a $100...

While there are other games out there, who charge you as much and more for cosmetics items, it feels out of place for Nintendo standards with DLC. The available bundles don't even offer any discounts, which is unusual for Nintendo as well. It's all money that's better saved for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which most likely will offer you all of the DLC contents and much more.

To this day I haven't gotten all of the DLC yet. I got Mewtwo for free, because I owned both versions of the game, and then I only purchased Bayonetta and the two Zelda stages, because that's the stuff that I really wanted. Later on I also got Ryu, Lucas and Corrin, as well as the Dream Land (64) stage out of interest or nostalgia, but I've never gotten the rest of the fighters and stages. And certainly not any of the Mii costume stuff.

And I hope that I won't be as hesitant with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Of course we're talking hypothetically here, because it's apparently not decided yet whether the game will get DLC or not, which would be a good thing, if it were true. You want DLC to be expansions, not cut content. But Smash is a money maker and they will certainly offer some DLC, even if it's just to promote some recent games on Switch, like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 or Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

Ideally, the DLC will take a note from Mario Kart or Hyrule Warriors. Instead of selling the contents primarily each on their own, there should be real DLC packs, where stuff like Mii costumes, alt costumes and new songs are a bonus. The real meat are the new fighters and stages, which may as well be bundled for a fair price. And for those, who want it all anyway, there should be a "Season Pass" to purchase all packs upfront.

Some free DLC here there is also always considered as a nice gesture. The 3DS and Wii U games got a free stage each (Duck Hunt on the 3DS and Miiverse on the Wii U), which was better than nothing, but not overly exciting. Echo Fighters could potentially be good free DLC material, because they are essentially just new versions of existing characters in the game.

But it's more likely that Nintendo will just keep doing with what they kept doing on 3DS and Wii U... Together with amiibo it's their way of making as much money with Smash as possible.

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