#SmashBrosUltimate - Smash Bros for Switch.

[Kriven]

Along those lines, when I was a young'n (we're looking at... 1999 or 2000, about) my friend would tell me about these wild and crazy video games that "they" were making. He always managed to catch commercials for these elusive games (and shows) watching late-night "grown-up television" that my parents didn't let me watch. One of them was "The Ultimate Showdown," a massive crossover sequel to Super Smash Bros. which included any character that had ever appeared in a video game. Mario? Check. Sonic? Check. Tony Hawk? You bet your ass! Every character was there, and all you had to do to unlock them was enter their name in the "cheats" menu. Just spell it out correctly: R-A-T-T-A-T-A and voila, Rattata is now duking it out with the best of the best.

Unlike traditional Nintendo games, Ultimate Showdown was taking a "mature and adult" approach to these characters (which is why the commercials only played on adult channels and I couldn't see them on Nickelodeon). To cement this fact, one scene my friend liked to talk about in particular was a moment in a wrestling ring where Waluigi slams Kangaskhan onto the mat then stomps right on the mother's throat with his big stinkin' orange shoes, grinding and making Kangaskhan cough up some blood. Oh, right: the game wasn't a platform fighter in the sense that Smash Bros. is... the kind of gameplay my friend came up with back in the day actually reminds me a lot of Marvel Nemesis, now that I think about it. Multi-directional movement in varied arena-type environments.

He always swore it was "Coming out soon" but the game never materialized. Poor little me, spent the better part of three or four years eagerly awaiting the day that Ultimate Showdown would grace my Nintendo 64.