Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Official Site
The official website for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate launched on March 8th, 2018, shortly after the game's reveal trailer. It was later updated on June 12th, 2018, to accommodate for all the information about the game that was revealed.
Overview
The language selection offered by the site includes English, Japanese, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and Russian, like its predecessor, but also includes Chinese and Korean translations, the former in both Traditional and Simplified. Portuguese is no longer available; instead, there is a link to a Facebook page.
The Home page has the looping panoramic artwork of all revealed playable characters (including DLC), scrolling horizontally; below are the recent videos and the recent Smash Blog posts. The About page gives a brief overview of the game's content, with links to the subpages within the site regarding characters, stages, items, and music. There is also a How to Smash page, detailing how to play the game in a similar manner to the in-game How to Play videos in past installments, the advanced techniques such as Perfect Shield, and other elements such as spirits and modes.
The Fighters page has a list of playable characters confirmed for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which can be sorted in ascending or descending order. This page can also be displayed by universe (in the order of each universe's first fighter). Each character has their own character page. These pages can be accessed by clicking on the picture displaying the fighter on the website's Fighter page. Each character page contains the characters' official render in front of a background with a number, being larger depending on how late into the series they were introduced, and a stage in the game. After the game's launch, an option was added to change the character's palette by clicking on the characters on desktop versions and shaking the user's device on mobile. Lower on the page, a small 20-second video can be seen showing off the character's appearance in-game, with six additional screenshots, and links to other characters from the same universe (if the universe has multiple characters). The background color of the page changes according to character. However, the character showcase lack voice clips, presumably to make them easier to translate.
The Stages page has new stages highlighted in the header; below is a grid of confirmed stages which can be selected to display in the middle of the grid. The Items page has the list of confirmed items, Poké Ball Pokémon, and Assist Trophies, accompanied with screenshots.
The Music page updated every week until the game's launch with a new theme for viewers to listen to; a list can be found here. There is also a Videos page, which can be viewed uploaded videos, such as character reveal trailers and commercials.
Finally, there is a Super Smash Blog page, similar to the daily updates on the DOJO!! and the Pics of the Day section on the Smash 4 site, where series director Masahiro Sakurai posts about information regarding the game, discussing playable characters, stages, Assist Trophies, music, and items. The Japanese, Korean and Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) sites receive an additional post for some playable characters, labelled as "memories", where Sakurai discusses the origins of the character in question; however, on October 3, 2018, the American site received one as well. As of November 14, 2018, the site received four posts labeled "gameplay", where it talks about spirits and various subjects about it. These posts are posted five days a week, Sunday through Thursday (in North American timezones; in Japan, they are weekday updates); the first week these updates went live is an exception, as the updates started on a Tuesday and ended on Friday.
Similar to the previous website, certain characters would receive links to the games that they appeared in. Unlike the previous website, they only appear for downloadable characters whose home games are available on Nintendo Switch.
Trivia
- The British English version of the site uses Commonwealth English where appropriate; however, the Australian English version does not.
- For unknown reasons, the "Today's Flashback" for the original Star Fox is the only "Memory" to be translated on the American website.
- Copyright information related to Final Fantasy VII, its logo, and Cloud's design appear at the bottom of Cloud's page. He is the only one with this distinction, with not even other third party characters, including Sephiroth, having this oddity.
- Before the site was updated on August 8, 2018, the How to Smash page was originally titled as How to Play. The URLs for pages related to this still refer to the old name.
- The picture for "Challenges" under How to Smash's "Game Modes" section has seven pages and says "45/111" when referring to the number of challenges in the game, showing that it was taken on version 1.0.0, before the Online page of challenges was added.
- As almost all characters' debut games were never released in Chinese, the Chinese language versions of this site mark the very first time several older games have ever received official titles in Chinese (such as 精灵宝可梦 钻石/珍珠, the Simplified Chinese names for Pokémon Diamond and Pearl).
- Upon the respective confirmations of Banjo & Kazooie and Terry, although they each were listed on the Fighter page, their dedicated Fighter pages were grayed out and inaccessible prior to their respective releases.
- Byleth and Steve are the only characters whose alternate costumes are displayed alongside their default costumes on the official Ultimate site, with female Byleth and Alex also appearing separately on the slideshow at the top of the page.
- Additionally, because male and female Byleth have different names in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, the lists of fighters on the website names both of them in those languages.
- Joker and Banjo & Kazooie are the only downloadable characters who do not have a link to their home game which is due to not having their games of origin on the Nintendo Switch.
- Pyra and Mythra are the only characters with an ESRB reminder below the link to their game. This oddly does not apply to other Teen rated titles with game links, such as Dragon Quest XI or Final Fantasy VII. This same warning can be found in their trailer.
