Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Joker

Pure fanservice for a great game you may or may not have played if you don't also own a PS4. [Issue #39 – May/June 2019, p. 32]

The Joker Challenger Pack is a great addition both for Persona fans and those looking to add another unique fighter to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s already diverse roster. With the inclusion of an incredibly flashy stage, new Spirit Battles to challenge, and tons of visual touches that go beyond just adding a new fighter, this content has a lot of heart.

The first Smash Ultimate DLC delivers a great fighter with Persona 5’s Joker. His fighting is balanced well even though he’s pretty bad in the air. Luckily Arcane has his back and that’s just one example of the great fanservice this DLC has to offer.

Between Joker, Mementos, Stage Builder, and Shared Content, the 3.0.0 update is the most excited I’ve been about Super Smash Bros. Ultimate since launch. Tools to create and share user-crafted content are always my favorite features in any video game, and Joker is the perfect realization of both a beloved series and a unique and fun fighter. The Stage Builder alone could add hours of new experiences to Ultimate, and I’m incredibly excited to see what features and characters are still to come before all five new challengers have been released by February of next year.

Originating from Persona 5, here we have Joker as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's second DLC fighter. Aside from Joker being an incredibly fun character to play with unique victory screens, Challenger Pack 1 (which includes Joker) has music from multiple Persona games, and most of them are great choices. The included stage is nice, too. Obviously you'll get more out of it if you have previous experience with Persona, but even if you don't, the sheer joy of playing as Joker makes the pack worth the purchase.

Joker is extremely fun and satisfying to play; he's fast and mostly close-range (save for a few moves). The best part about this character is the amount of effort that went in to make this character unique and represent his game as best as possible. Even his victory screen is interesting and pleasing. His stage, Mementos, looks spectacular and the walls that sometimes appear at one side of the stage is a nice gimmick (The fact that the colour palette of the stage changes with certain music tracks is also a great detail). The music selection is decently-sized and has a range of amazing tracks to choose from which suit the game play very well. Overall, this is a fantastic start to the line of DLC which will be coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and the only downside to this pack, in my opinion, was the classic mode route, otherwise, it was completely worth the cost.

He's fine. Not my thing, but he's fine.