Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, aka Smash 4, aka Sm4sh, aka Brawl Part 2, aka Ultimate's Beta, aka the game with Smashrun, aka Bayonetta, aka we left you when it released on the Wii U, aka nobody wants to come back to this game.

I gotta say something, I love the Smash series; as a Nintendo fella, I just adore when I got this game and I barely recognized anyone on that roster. Like yeah sure, Mario is in it, Link is in it, Ness is in it...
Who the hell is Ness?
I was just very young and due to me knowing basically 0 games besides Mario, Zelda, Pokémon and others I didn't really know how to feel about it, it was like entering a new dimension. But luckily, this game introduced me to fighting games, precisely "platform fighters", which nowadays is a genre that I deeply love for it's expressions in movement, combos, techniques and it's roster and stages.
Platform fighters just really allow characters to feel more expressive than ever before! And I love that...!
So why is this game so lame?

Yeah, I have no remorse on saying it but this game is so insanely lame and has absolutely nothing that stands out, specially with how the other Smash titles compare.
Now the series' history is... interesting to say the least. It is very infamous for doing a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong, specially if we look at games like Melee or Brawl, however, the more I play Smash 3DS/WiiU the more I realise this game has close to no identity.
With Melee and Brawl, there were things you could say they were "objectively bad" but Smash 3DS/WiiU doesn't really feel this way.
So why do I and surprisingly a lot of fans prefer these 2 games before Smash 3DS/WiiU?

Smash 3DS was the first Smash game to be in a Nintendo handheld, and honestly, it is impressive seeing such game on a device you can put on your pocket, it really put the Nintendo 3DS to the test! Aaaand we run into our first problems already; when you have a game this large on a 3DS you sometimes have to sacrifice stuff in return, because obviously they are going to make this game big, it's Smash after all, but there are a few things that piss me off.
For starters, this game takes so much time to load, just the game loading itself from the 3DS menu to the main Smash menu is around 30 seconds. Loading any match? Another 10-15 seconds. Loading your replays? For me it takes 5 minutes. Fun.
The game just constantly loads stuff if you really do anything, it really makes the pacing super awkward and it's very irritating just having to wait so long for stuff to load.
The game also kinda deletes your storage space on your 3DS with the updates it has, and honestly, just the game on it's own just takes so much out of your 3DS space if you have a very small SD card. By the way, do not get Smash 3DS as a digital copy because that will take a lot of blocks from your 3DS.

Not really the best first look at a game, truly. Thankfully it makes up with all the content it has! Like StreetSmash! Sureeee...
Some of the game modes are ok, and you pretty much have the older game modes from other previous titles available, I mean, the game does have a lot of content but it unfortunately isn't very good.
Smash Run is ok but there is no customization, online and is random what match you get at the end.
StreetSmash is very bad being a minigame where you bump into renders of other characters to win, it has nothing to do with Smash and it's just white noise.
Custom moves were a thing, and they sound cool, but their execution was truly awful being so insanely tough to obtain and most of them being copies of the default move but with tweeked attributes.
Mii Fighters were introduced in this game and they are alright, they can be fun to customize and fight with them, if we do talk from a balancing stand point, now that's a different story.
Amiibo training also was introduced in this game and it isn't very fun either; you would think the amiibo you train learns from you but no it doesn't and if it does is so little difference and the process for training them isn't that good.
There is a lot of content but nothing really stands out or makes worth it to try out, they are mostly 1 and done games modes that don't tend to cross your mind again and I think that sucks for a new game. Overall there are more misses than hits, and to be fair, this isn't the only game where stuff like this happens, a lot of Smash titles do suffer from content that feels cool but you try it out and they are kinda whatever. Wish the series did something a bit more interesting with other new game modes. It's not that I do not appreciate this new content but a lot of it is just not fun or good.

It's fair to say I don't really like Smash 3DS, but sometimes gameplay can be what keeps a game from being good, and while I don't think this impacts my overall score of the game, it does impact my overall experience with the game.
Playing Smash with a 3DS kinda stinks.
Maybe this is just me, but there is no other game where my hands get tiring or hurt than this game; Smash isn't a game I would play for hours simply because of it's on a 3DS. And let's be real, the 3DS really isn't the best controller for a Smash game.
What I said about freedom in movement and combos is a bit weird on the 3DS because it makes everything more stiff and not very fun to do. The hardware isn't designed for these kind of quick inputs, which are very important for making every player feel comfortable with the controls of the game.
But is the game fun? Yeah, kind of. It is Smash, updated with a lot of new things and mechanics for the better experience, it is a shame that the main platform it's on doesn't make it so you enjoy it to the fullest.
You can have fun with this game, totally, I played 384 hours, of course I had some fun out of this game, it isn't as bad as I am making it out to be, and to be honest, it is a very decent way to play Smash.

Is there anything good about this game?
Well, the roster kicks ass!
This was the first game to have DLC and I understand some of them were very unbalanced but this is the game that really started to feel like "everyone is here", including 3rd party characters such as Cloud from Final Fantasy VII, Bayonetta from the Bayonetta 1 and 2, Ryu from Street Fighter... And even the non-DLC fighters are pretty good and unique such as Pac-Man and MegaMan. They could be better gameplay-wise but they are really well crafted. And same can be said about the stages.
The music is also really good, maybe not as good as Smash Brawl but it feels good to hear a lot of versions and remixes of tracks from Nintendo franchises, and at a very good quality, even for 3DS standards!
The game also looks pretty decent; again surprised this game can run on the 3DS, and while isn't the best looking game, it does look good enough to take photos and enjoy replays of your matches.

The best thing? The game is on the 3DS!
I know I just mentioned how it being on the 3DS can be a bit of a pain however... It's Smash on the go.
There really aren't a lot of times you can say that you are playing Smash on a handheld(besides when Ultimate came out), and honestly even with all this content, even if it isn't that good, it is enough to make you remember those types you played Smash 3DS. So while it being on the 3DS can very well be it's biggest flaw, it kind of is it's biggest strenght.
Making memories with a title that is this crowded is very cool and makes memorable experiences possible, and an experience separates games from one another more than one could possibly think.

Smash 3DS is a game that I both love and hate, and while I don't think is a good game and is immensively flawed in a lot of areas, I can't deny having Smash in your pocket is pretty damn good. While I do have more things to say about this game that I don't find that great like QOL things or it's style being a lot worse than other entries, I think I said enough of what I wanted to say that was important for the one reading the review.
There is fun indeed but the series has had quite the story with all these titles, this one maybe not being as broken as other games but the soul of it just isn't there and it being on the 3DS is a massive double-edged sword. I can say I appreciate the attempt of making Smash on the go...

Review is over! And thank god I did not complain about Bayonetta and Cloud ruining this game!!! That was close phew.