Bought this on release day to play with my friends that were visiting. I was excited to get to try at least some of my favorites from the last game. But nope, you start with the original 8. The previous game gave you forty starting characters. This one gives you 8. Regardless of whether or not you think its "Fun" to unlock all these characters you paid for, I would at least appreciate the choice of what size roster to start with.

I shouldn't have to look up cheese unlocking strats to get quick access to the majority of the roster I paid for. I can't believe anyone defends this decision.

I loved that decision. It made the game better, giving you time to play every fighter and making each one valuable, giving you a chance to try them out and maybe discover some new favorites.

They should have done it for the stages as well, it was a missed opportunity not to do so.

And no, you shouldn't be trying to cheese the unlocks, that's cheating.

I'm with you. I can appreciate people being happy to unlock the characters, but it's completely nuts that there isn't also an option to just unlock them all (or at least, most of them) with the flick of a button. It's just an unnecessary disregard for the time that the player has, especially with a game where the number of characters was a huge marketing point.

I like it, made me experiment with characters I wouldn't otherwise play.

Yeah this was really obnoxious. The only way I ever plan on playing this is with friends locally so to me it’s super lame.

Yeah, I feel like the world of light mode already gives you the satisfaction of unlocking your favourite characters as you progress without limiting your roster in multiplayer. These fights that unlock characters also get in the way of playing with friends.

I guess it really depends on what type of player you are. If you wanted to just jump straight into Online or have a lot of friends to play with locally, being limited to so few fighters would be a bummer. As someone who wants to play all the way through world of light and classic mode, I really like having something to look forward to unlocking, and it doesn't feel overwhelming.

@doctordonkey: I understand that, but I do think it's absurd that the option isn't there to just outright unlock AT LEAST the roster from the Wii U Smash for the people that ARE in the former group that you listed. It's just completely ignoring the wants of a large number of players.

Sounds like it could have really easily fit both needs.. all the progression and unlocking for the single player stuff and over in the Party mode or whatever here are all the toys you and your friends can play with.

It's kinda a forced mechanic to beef the "single player," but I enjoy it all the same. Rosters filling up pretty quick. But I am upset that my main man Shirtless Shulk is still nowhere to be seen. :(

Also I am persomally quite liking the Spirits board matches. Fun pick up and play stuff.

Also also I am coming to the realization that Smash is becoming a glorified Mugen clone.

"Cheesing" is a pretty weird word for just restarting the game and hopping into another match, imo. For what it's worth, I found some of the actual unlocking fights to be such a challenge that making them appear was simply the first step. It then becomes somewhat of a boss gauntlet to unlock all the characters you've actually failed to unlock, which is fun in a different sense. I got to at least 12 characters in the first hour, which isn't too bad.

I agree, this was an incredibly frustrating decision. I don't see myself ever unlocking everyone as I really only play Smash as a party game a few hours at a time when friends are over. At this point I'd probably buy a $5 DLC to just unlock everyone. I've been cheesing the unlocks which has been fine, but I'm already tired of doing that so I'll probably just stick with the 15 people I have unlocked and slowly unlock the remaining 60 over the next 5 years of having people over every few months :|

@a_cute_squirtle: That's still way more than I should do when I've paid 60 dollars for a game.

Yeah I feel the same way to be honest. I have been slowly grinding out all of the characters by restarting over and over again. I just want to play with my friends and goof off with random fighters.

I don't take smash seriously since it is a game for me to boot and have some light harden fun. But man, it sucks grinding the characters out.

I enjoyed unlocking them all even with the challenge they gave. I had to do some fights 3 times before winning. Also I don't understand what cheese means anymore.... Damn kids and their words that mean other things everyday!

Unlocking characters is my jam, so I was into it. I do agree though that it's a shame there's no option somewhere to just get 'em all for people who aren't interested / running a tournament. Honestly if games like Marvel vs Capcom 2 had unlocking features for most of its cast it'd probably be in my top ten games of all time kinda thing.

Progression is fun but not in games that have potential to be the games you pop in to just play with friends (especially on the console that loves to promote that kind of play). Keep some sort of progression system contained within the single player mode.

I would've been much more disappointed if they were all unlocked from the start; it's one of the reasons Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was such a bummer for me.

I actually wish they had gone farther and made the unlocks require specific things again like in Melee.

@ajamafalous: Why not both options though? I haven't seen many rational people say they would want the unlocks REMOVED in favor of having the characters there to start, just that it would be ideal to have both options. Or, as @efesell said, have your single player unlocks, and everything available in your Vs. mode. Literally any combination that supports both sets of players would be better than this.

Well you paid $60 for a package where you can get all the content that's there. Unlocking the characters is part of the game. You're not getting cheated out of anything.

Nintendo also stated beforehand that you will start out with the original 8

@frostyryan: It's only bad when EA does it with Battlefront 2 I guess...

I should preface this by saying I don't own this game yet.

But I would think a nice balance would be keeping the need to unlock the characters, but getting points to decide WHICH characters you want to unlock. Right now the order is totally random, right? I'm gonna be bummed if some of my favorite fighters I can't play until hour 10 because RNG decides to unlock other characters first.

While I personally love unlocking, they should've at least included some cheat for people who don't and especially for tournaments.

Or just do the modern thing of having a $5 unlock everything in the shop, since that seems to be what games do nowadays.

I got weirdly frustrated when there was any doubt that unlocks are good on the bombcast. Why do people actively want nothing but the framework of a game? This is the only smaash game I've truly loved and it's largely due to the fact that there's a progression to it. It doesn't take long and even characters you don't love are fun to play, get outta heeeeere

@sahalarious: Just wondering if you have to be tricked into unlocking characters to enjoy the game, once you have them all unlocked, will you stop playing?

No? Then unlocking is just a waste of time. Let me unlock at LEAST the SSB4 roster with a button press.

@kknialler: why? Do you hate playing the game? As you and your friends play the characters drop often. I stop playing many game after I finish their campaigns,the mp will keep me coming back for awhile though.

@sahalarious: It does not matter how long it takes to unlock whoever. The problem is that it takes any time at all to unlock the vast majority of the roster. I do not particularly like playing the game (especially alone to unlock characters) and I would appreciate being able to play as the character I wanted to play as when I paid $60 for the game.

You know it's not nearly as bad as that

@kknialler: they're not micro transactions, you can't start dark souls at the final boss, even though you paid for it. You're gonna have to admit you took the wrong platform on this battle haha

@sahalarious: getting to play as greninja is equivalent to playing the final boss in smash? hmmm.

I'm not wrong. I'm just not a sheep.

@frostyryan: IT's actually worse because the ratio of available roster when you buy smash is actually LESS than it was for battlefront 2.

Oh come on, this is a ludicrous comparison.

@sethmode: getting mad about having to unlock characters in a videogame is ludicrous

@sahalarious: i'm really not sure why you can't just admit there should be an option to start playing your $60 dollar game with more than 8 characters unlocked, especially considering the previous game gave you 40 characters unlocked to begin with?

@sahalarious: I think getting mad about anything regarding this is ludicrous. But being disappointed or frustrated with the decision is totally justified. Regardless though, buying a fighting/party game largely known for its multiplayer and expecting to have the option to be able to play with at least the same number of characters out of the gate that were available in the previous edition is not in even in the same ballpark as some absurd example of expecting to be able to skip to the final boss of a single player game.

@sethmode: it's a party game, do one round and you'll have more characters. I'm too hungry for this y'all have fun hating smash I have most of the roster

Unlocking is especially infuriating when you lose to a challenger. I’m not good at this game, neither are my friends, that’s why we can have fun playing it together. So to have to be good to unlock these characters and fail just sucks.

@sahalarious: if you wanted to compare life accomplishments why didnt you just say so...

Or just understand that nobodies even really saying to have no progression just an additional option for people who just want to kick around with their friends and not worry about it.

Like this is the incredibly rare scenario wherein with just a little more effort they could have made both sides happy.

8 is incredibly small and pathetic. So, like 1/9th of the full roster? It's just too small of a start.

Man, this post and the comments after have officially made me feel old.

Gamers be like: "Man paid DLC in fighting games suck, let us unlock for free them like before!"

When it happens: "Man theres too many characters to unlock, we should have them all in from the start!"

@micemoney: I think that there is a pretty wide gulf between paid DLC characters and having the option to access the characters that were available in the previous game right away.

@sethmode: Is it though?

Street Fighter 4 for example had plenty of characters unlocked from the beginning that I either had to pay for, or grind ridiculously for in Street Fighter 5. Not to mention the other editions you had to buy if you wanted EVERYONE. No one talks about how bad SFV actually is because it's such an eSports thing now. It sucks because there's a really great street fighter game under all Capcom's sneaky DLC bs. Earn Fight Money and rewards for allowing the game to show as during loading screens/costumes???

Anyway, I can understand being slightly perturbed at having to unlock everything being that the last smash had everything ready to go (I also remember people complaining at the time about not being able to unlock characters like the previous smash's before) but man they make it REALLY easy. There's even a vault you can go to rematch if you happen to lose to whatever character you're trying to earn. They are FREE, and it gives you the chance to play and dissect each character. They could have easily charged if they wanted to. People would have bought it regardless.

Being that this is the "ultimate" smash, starting with the OG 8 is a call back to the first one as is earning characters. Nothing new. With all the other crap going on with games and sneaky dlc shenanigans, this one just seems like a weird complaint. Would the option be nice? Sure I suppose, but what's there isn't so bad.

@micemoney: Fair point. I still just think it could have been an option in Vs. mode for people like me that will likely never put the time in required to get everyone, despite wanting everyone for when friends come over. I really enjoy playing the game, it's just both my wife and I would like to play with whomever we want when we play together. *shrugs*

And I'm not at all surprised to hear that people ALSO complained about not having enough unlocks in the Wii U version. If there is one thing that gamers are not, it's happy. Ever.

@micemoney: It’s not that easy though. It’s time consuming and I suck at the game so actually beating the challengers is a practice in banging my head against the wall. This talk of it “going quick” seems a little ridiculous to me also. I’ve been trying to cheese it by quitting the game after challengers and I’ve only encountered 4 after at least an hours worth of play, and only beat 2. If I want to get the other 64 challengers that will be another 16 hours of playtime even if I beat them all first try.

@micemoney: EIGHT starting characters vs the last game having FORTY starting characters. There is a REASONABLE starting roster size and its a fuck of a lot higher than EIGHT.

The idea that because you paid $60 for a game you're entitled to all the content from the get go is asinine. Comparing having to play to unlock characters to Battlefront 2's microtransactions is a form of mental gymnastics I simply cannot fathom.

Buying a game does not entitle you to have everything without having to actually play it. Does one expect to have all the best endgame loot in Diablo simply because you bought it? There is such a thing as progression, it's a pretty fundamental part of game design.

That's not to say the way Smash handles it character unlocks is immune from criticism, far from it. That criticism, however, should be based in the ideas of game design and player experience. Trying to make this a consumer rights issue by screaming "AHH! My $60!" is absolutely the wrong approach and makes very little sense. Trying to make this a consumer rights issue and comparing it to instances of egregious monetization by other games makes it a very easy complaint to simply dismiss as blind and irrational hatred.

@ll_exile_ll: What's with all these awful comparisons.

Smash is a party game at its core. A game a lot of people are going to buy with the intention of playing only with their friends. To load it up and have a very limited selection to do that with is no good.

It does not work to compare it to games built instead on purely linear progression. Stop it.

I'm not directly comparing the games or the way the progression is implemented. I never even said Smash's progression is well tuned or ideal. I was simply illustrating the point that complaining about the progression on the grounds that "I paid $60 for the game" is senseless. You may as well complain about any other game having progression on the basis that you bought the game, therefore you should have everything. It's a bad argument.

My entire point was that taking this stance is absurd, it was meant to be a hyperbolic comparison to illustrate that. Criticize the way the progression is implemented in Smash all you want, I may even agree, but do it in an intelligent way. The way some people in this thread continue to fall back on the argument that buying the game entitles one to avoid any and all progression or that forcing players to engage with the game to access new content is akin to predatory microtransactions is just an idiotic argument.