Why?

For a long period, I kept myself away from gaming. College, work, the usual stuff. It was a choice that changed everything, considering I often got to play 10+ hours straight prior to that. Wasn't easy, but you get used to it.

Not that I started to abominate games or anything like that, I still thought about it every single day. Missing the games I've played, wondering about how it felt to play the new games that released every now and then. But once you get used to avoid playing, the new ones kind of lose their shine. You don't feel eager to play since you only have old fond memories of the days you could use some hours in front of the screen. And I particularly prefer not to engage into it if I haven't got much time to really dive into it.

However, it all changed on November 2th, 2018. Casually browsing through Youtube, I got to know there would be a new Super Smash Bros releasing soon. That felt curious, back in the early 2000s I was addicted to Melee, used to anxiously wait every new post at the blog that announced what would come into Brawl, but I stopped playing when the Wii era came by. It wouldn't hurt to watch some of the videos of that new Smash, though.

And so I was hooked.

The World of Light reveal, the cinematic showing all of them, the song. It had been years since I last felt the urge to play something. And the whole "Everyone is here" thing just felt so fitting. The gathering of all these characters we've grown up with. The possibilities of who else could join the fray. I eagerly awaited December 7th; needless to say I barely slept the day before. I would rewatch every video released so far, getting shivers with everyone fighting Galeem to death, or just admiring how beautiful the burning symbol was upon being found by Inkling.

And on the 7th I got to play it. It was all there, and then more. The stages, the animations, all the attention to details, the spirits paying homage to hundreds of other characters... And the songs. The first days I'd finish the gameplay browsing through the humongous music list. I had to show it to everyone I had the opportunity, as words failed me in an attempt to describe the feeling of coming back to such an outstanding reunion. And then, one friend introduced me into the competitive scene in my city. Got to meet lots of new people who enjoyed playing the game. Our scene may be small and still struggling to get some momentum, but we already managed to host a few tournaments and events to gather people together. The game also gave me more motivation to improve as a programmer, from having developed a ladder system to keep track of players' improvements and strengthen ourselves to studying ways to automate fight data analysis. It's been fun.

Thousands of others may share a story similar to mine, and an even bigger fondness of this game, but I felt this recognition was necessary. If this website ever gets to one of the people involved in the making of Ultimate, it will be worth it. As of now, it's been a year since I came back into videogames (as of the time of writing), and all I can say is thank you so much. To each and every one involved.