Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate takes its name literally, as everything that fans have loved from the series is present and accounted for this time around. It’s the party brawler that lets friends go head-to-head with their favorite game characters, now on Nintendo’s impressive hybrid console. Spirits, featured in the World of Light story mode, introduce an exciting role-playing element for a new level of strategy and creativity. Thankfully, this and other new additions only add to the winning Smash Bros. formula, never taking away from what works.

This is a portable, high-speed party brawler with a massive roster and a host of game modes. Whether you’re into couch co-op or online play, this game comes in hot and heavy. Maybe you, like me, have skipped the last couple entries. Maybe you’re equally unsure about this one. Take it from me: you don’t want to sleep on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Nintendo has knocked it out of the park with this one.

I know Smash has become sort of the modern day Monopoly as the game you play to lose friends to and it has a serious culture around it as perhaps the greatest fighting game of a generation, but above all, it is supposed to be a living gaming museum and Nintendo toy box that can do anything your imagination desires as long as it wants to have fun. Ultimate does all of that and more, providing one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had and almost certainly setting the bar for Game of the Year 2019.