Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Wins Famitsu Game Of The Year Award

Truly, Kirb deserved such an award.

Granted for Dragon Quest Builders 2 for being nominated in award.
My impression for Dragon Quest Builders 2 is already 95 from 100, exceeding my expectation from The Sims 4 with All Expansion packs (93 from 100).

The Ark: Survival Evolved Switch port WAS ROBBED!!!

Thank you Daddy Sakurai.

Well deserved, certainly one of my favorite games last year.

Kirby saved the Multiverse. Of course he deserves such an award, and many more.

Never heard of this game. Is it better than Clayfighter 63 1/3 and can I buy it for my SEGA Saturn?

@Flangela I have the Atari Jaguar port. Good game.

@jtmnm You should try it on the virtual boy, it's like a different game entirely.

@jtmnm I’m on my way to Woolworths to buy it immediately.

Is this award only given to Japanese games? Great that SSBU got GotY, well deserved.

That's good to know! Hopefully this motivates the Smash team to give us more content updates just like the Hisashi Nogami team do in Splatoon 2.

9 year old: Smash Bros? Never heard of it. Is it like Fortnite? Anyway, I'm going off to play some GTA 5. Kirby? Is he that guy with the sword? If so, he needs guns.

This Website: Burn Fortnite, Smash deserves top place.

Also this website: Smash is too overhyped

Kirby got character of the year? WHY? There have been some great Kirby games in the past but in 2018 he hardly did anything to deserve it.

Great game. Deserved.

@Heavyarms55 Smash Brothers. It borrows a lot from a game called Kirby Super Star. Also Smash Ultimate he seems to be an starting hero for the new adventure mode. Although I believe the award is also for Star Allies. A game that had various updates through out the year of 2018. Kirby is super popular in Japan.

Also come on. It's Kirby. He's been around for 25 year anniversary. Star allies was a celebratory release around the anniversary mostly aimed at long time fans. Which reminds me I need to update this icon... it's from his 20th x_x

Well deserved. Hollow Knight was my game of the year for 2018, but as I'm nearing the 400 hour mark, Smash is my de facto 2019 GOTY.

@Kirby_Girl I don't remotely agree that Kirby's long time franchise nor presence in Smash warrant being named character of the year. Kirby Star Allies was fun but totally forgettable, and Kirby is but one character among many in Smash. Character of the year should be a character who had a major role in a major game from that year. Kirby did not have that in 2018. KSA wasn't a failure but was largely underwhelming and forgettable, and to treat Kirby as the star of SSB Ultimate is insulting to SSB Ultimate's incredible roster of super stars, most of whom are easily on par with or more popular than Kirby.

Definitely not my game of the year, but on the Nintendo end it was really the only choice.

GoW and RDR2 are better. Smash doesn't even come close.

@Heavyarms55 Well I disagree. Kirby franchise itself is a huge influence on Smash Brothers design and I think that in itself merits him more central to the franchise. It does not insult any other characters in anyway. All other characters have the upmost care and consideration to their design in the game, to their movesets, to their visual representation, and their robust trailers.

KSA was forgettable to you but not to many and definitely not to those in Japan where the games always sell well and the mascot is incredibly popular. Him winning there is more than warranted.

Regardless what you think he's the winner and it's an award show that takes place elsewhere. The impact of games are different there. MH winning might also not compare to the west's obsession to games like Spiderman, God of War, or Red Dead Redemption but MH is WAY bigger there. So impact is different. Metroid and Punch Out are big impactful series here but no where near as impactful in Japan.

so you may have to just adjust to the differences.

@Heavyarms55 Who would you award the character prize to?

I can't help but think this isn't deserved... I love Smash and appreciate all the effort put into it, but... this? for a multiplayer game with almost no plot? from a subjective standpoint I'd agree, but from an objective standpoint... RDR2 and God of War both deserve the prize more. was it Japanese games only or something? in that case I'd understand.

Not a fighting game fan... But always hear great things about Smash

Monster hunter World is just amazing. And Capcom keeps adding stuff. They been on fire lately.

Well deserved all around.

@JHDK Okay... c’mon now 🤭

@LUIGITORNADO RDR2 sucks

@Kirby_Girl I live in Japan, I teach in elementary school and Jr. High school. I chat with the kids about games quite often. KSA was popular for about a week. SSB is overwhelmingly more popular and remains so to this day. Clearly judging by your choice of username, you are a die hard fan, and that is fine because the Kirby series is a very influential series overall. But KSA hardly ranks in the best games of that series. His influence and popularity stem from earlier titles. And when we are talking about games released in 2018, Kirby isn't the most influential character at all. Not by a long shot. And even though the creator of SSB also created Kirby, to treat Kirby as THE star of SSB is laughable. Kirby is just one of the major characters in the game and asking him to compete with Mario, Pikachu and Link... he is just not in their weight class in terms of influence or fame. Not even ranking with Snake, DK or Ryu.

@Lionyone I would choose Spiderman from his PS4 outing, or someone from Octopath Traveller or Monster Hunter World. An argument could be made for a character from RDR2 too. God of War is another strong contender.

I am not bashing on Kirby or KSA. Kirby is a very popular character with good reason, popularity stemming from years past and will likely have great games in the future. And KSA is a fine platformer, but very short and does little to stand out aside from being Kirby's first outing on the Switch.

It's just that Kirby really doesn't deserve credit as the star of SSB nor as the character of the year for 2018. That's all.

@Heavyarms55 My arguement isn't that he's MORE influential than the whole Smash Roster but that he's very influential to SMASH BROTHERS itself. As it borrows a lot of design elements from Kirby games.

Kirby often wins Japanese polls for favorite character so I assumed he was quite popular there as it's usually Japanese polls where he ranks high. https://nintendosoup.com/kirby-once-again-wins-nintendo-dreams-top-20-video-game-characters-poll/ (This just one poll but he has won multiple times)

Regardless I think him being the winner is fine. I wouldn't get worked up over this win. Kirby a long standing franchise and KSS is an incredible SNES title. It not too long had a whole orchestra celebration there. It could have gone to WAY more undeserving characters so having strong feelings about it being Kirby is real WHATEVER.

I think he deserves the credit and I'm glad he won. I'm a fan so there's that bias of course but for a LONG time I've always tried to tell people about the great influence KSS has had to Smash Bros design as not everyone has played the SNES title. I don't think Smash as we know it would play as we know it without that influence.

Wow, it seems like Japan is really going nuts over SSBU at the moment.

For me Spiderman, God of War and now having played Shadow of The Tomb Raider I'd say are all better then Smash Bros. Smash is still a very good game but from a predominantly single player perspective it's not the best in the series with both Brawl and Melee being much better in that regard.

Fantastic game, though I wish there were fewer cretins online.

Edit: Kirby a better character than Arthur Morgan in 2018? That’s madness, surely.

@Heavyarms55 Good choices for the Heavyams Character of the Year Award! And I appreciate how calm and reasoned the rest of your answer was.

The Kirby award was surprising. Maybe ~thinking positive~ it hints at a fantastic new Kirby game coming.

@Lionyone If that were the case - a new Kirby game - then Kirby would make sense for character of the year 2019 or 2020, whatever year that game came out...

@Heavyarms55 That is true. But Japan and commercial considerations don't always follow what we expect. I could see a Kirby game being marketed off the back of this game. Backwards I know, but what can you do!

As well it should.

Both Smash and Kirby rewards were really well deserved.

@Lionyone Oh the marketing would be perfectly fine. In fact I think they would be crazy not to capitalize on that connection! But a game or character from a different year shouldn't be given an award when their fame did not come from that year. It would be like naming Michael Jordan basketball player MVP of 2018. Like, no, he is/was an awesome player, but his fame is from previous years and he shouldn't displace players who did well in 2018.