Super Smash Bros. Ultimate New Spirits Mode Detailed

During its Nintendo Direct for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the company had a wide variety of news to share concerning characters, DLC, and more. Significantly, it also outlined the last remaining mode: Spirits. The mode presents special challenges that will give you equippable "Spirits" to enhance your own characters.

Each fighter can equip one Primary Spirit, which enhances stats. Some Primary Spirits will also have slots to equip Support Spirits with additional skills. Sometimes to pass a Spirit challenge you'll need to equip a Spirit with a special ability that is suited for the stage hazards or enemy types. You can also combine cores to summon new Spirits, train them in the Gym, or send them off on quests to find treasure.

Spirits will come in four rarity levels: Novice, Advanced, Aces, and Legend. They also have three different types of abilities in a rock-paper-scissors pattern. Attack is strong against Grab, Grab is strong against Shield, and Shield is strong against Attack.

Nintendo showed off several examples of Spirit battles, like a Guts Man challenge with a large opponent, or the Able Sisters that come equipped with a drill. But, you'll get lower rewards for unbalanced fights, so try to keep your power level similar to your opponent.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate promises the biggest roster of the series so far, featuring every character that has ever appeared playable in a Smash game along with a few new additions. Today was the final Smash Bros. Nintendo Direct, so we've now seen the full lineup of characters--that is, until Nintendo begins revealed the Smash Ultimate DLC. You can see everything else announced during the Direct in our news round-up.

Smash Bros. Ultimate launches on December 7, but a bundle is launching a month early with a code that will activate upon the release date. It's getting Gamecube-style controllers and some stores have Amiibo exclusivity. Check out our pre-order guide for more details.