Out of all the new stuff in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, the thing that makes me happiest
is this, right here.
The last hit in a one-on-one match.
Both players freeze,
the camera zooms in,
the screen lights up with a solar flare,
and the victim trembles with potential energy before blasting off.
In a game as fast, and chaotic as Super Smash Brothers, a moment of stillness can do so
much.
It gives the winner time to revel in their victory; it gives the loser time to soak in
defeat; and it gives the audience time to get hype.
While this dramatic finish is new for Smash, it’s not new for fighting games.
they’ve been refining the last hit for three decades.
This moment should feel special.
Capcom figured it out in 1991 with the ur-text of fighting games, Street Fighter 2.
When the last hit would land, the game would pause for 7-8 frames, then continue to play
out in slow motion as the loser went flying, screaming.
It was a big step up from the the first entry in the Street Fighter series, where the loser
would just sort of fall over.
This was the case for most fighting games before Street Fighter 2.
Before Street Fighter 2, maybe the most satisfying last hit was courtesy of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out,
where your opponent would reel and then stagger away before finally collapsing.
The landscape after Street Fighter II was another story, as the hit-stop into slow mo
finish would become an industry standard for 2d fighting games.
A year later, Fatal Fury used the same finish, adding these meaty crashes.
World heroes followed suit.
Samurai Shodown would add a full-screen flash of red and stretch the freeze frame to an
agonizing full second before the slow-mo payoff.
For the rest of the ‘90s, if you made a 2D fighting game, this is how your matches
ended.
Games would add tweaks like flashy effects and camera zooms, but the formula was the
same.
Western fighting games countered this trend, in favor of extending punishment.
The last hit in a Mortal Kombat game didn’t come with any pomp and circumstance, but it
did leave the loser vulnerable to a gnarly fatality.
Same deal in Primal Rage.
Killer Instinct let you keep an ultra combo going after your opponent was super dead.
3D fighters also skirted the standard set by Street Fighter 2.
After 20 years and 5 numbered franchise entries, Virtua Fighter still doesn’t do anything
to highlight its final hit.
Tekken toyed with instant replays, but stuck to the “loser falls over” school of finales
until Tekken 7, when they added a long, dramatic pause along with flashy effects
Tekken 7 also added something else new: predictive finales.
In every other game that uses the SF II finish, the last hit lands, depletes the loser’s
HP, and triggers the finale.
In Tekken 7, if two opponents launch into an attack at the same time, and those attacks
could potentially do enough damage to end the match,
then the game drops into super slow motion as the animations play out -
and you find out which hit will land first.
A finale that doesn’t just celebrate the last hit, but preempts it, creating even more
anticipation and excitement.
This brings us back to Smash Ultimate, which is doing a bit of predictive work of its own.
Unlike fighting games that use a health bar, getting killed in Smash Brothers means getting
knocked off the level.
This involves angles, momentum, gravity, and the victim's ability to push back.
In other words: physics.
Smash Ultimate doesn’t do anything before the impact – but on the precise frame of
the last hit, a whole bunch of calculations take place.
What was the angle of attack?
Are there any obstacles in the flight path?
Can the victim conceivably get back on the stage?
If it’s checkmate, then the action freezes, and the climactic animation kicks off.
This grande finale is something that Smash has been lacking for two decades.
Characters who get knocked off the stage have always exploded into a column of light, but
until Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, it was up to the community to highlight the precise
hit that would end the fight.
Some of the brashest, boldest players would do this by pausing the game only frames before
a deadly hit landed.
It’s hilarious grandstanding;
Babe Ruth pointing to the outfield to call a home run.
While it’s mostly pure flexing, it also serves an important purpose for spectators:
It’s a photo finish.
A moment where you know who won, and how they did it.
Ultimate’s finales bring Smash closer in line with the rest of the fighting game world,
and show that Nintendo understands how people play—and enjoy—these games.
When the final hit lands, the winner should feel good, and the room
should get loud.