SMASH BROS: NOTHING!!!

SMASH BROS: NOTHING!!! (or Absolute Zero) is a 2020 Super Smash Bros. game that holds nothing of substance and nothing of value, featuring a(n advertised) unique cast of zero characters, zero stages, zero game modes, and zero extras. Unlike previous games in the series, the gameplay isn't that of a fighting game and instead has similar interactivity to a desktop background. It's interesting to note that it's the first game in the series to be absolutely free. What a steal! It was published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch platform as a physical-only release.
It was released as a satirical response to its whiny and unsatisfied Twitter fanbase, with much of the "game" developed by Masahiro Sakurai himself. It received critical acclaim from critics, who praised the game for its honesty, while it left its fanbase considerably divided.
==Gameplay==
You might be thinking to yourself that SMASH BROS: NOTHING!!! is quite literally nothing, but it is deeper than that. It is a white screen plastered over an endless Final Destination match, where both players are Fox and have infinite stocks and time. There is no way to cancel the match and trying to hack the game reveals that the game was programmed to only have this endless battle. Trying to colorize everything reveals that Fox and his identical clone are just white rectangles holding real guns, the stage is completely purple, and the background is a maroon color. There is no UI, and perhaps most jarringly of all, no sound effects. If the game discovers it's been tampered with, it will brick your system for good and there's no turning back. Basically, you just wasted your money playing a Melee match you can't even see.
This is the only game in the Super Smash Bros. series to only support one player (the CPU cannot be switched to a player character at any time and is always at Level 9) and it's also the only one to not feature any items or gamemodes. It's also the only one that locks you in a singular match with no way of escaping.
==Characters==
SMASH BROS: NOTHING!!! features the most infamous cast of all Super Smash Bros. games! There is a humongous amount of characters in the game, totaling to 0 when all veterans, newcomers, and downloadable content are considered. I mean, I guess there is technically one veteran in Fox McCloud, but when you consider the fact you can't even see anything in the game and that there's no sound effects, does he even count? He's just a bunch of polygons anyway if you somehow enabled colors without bricking your console in the process.
The DLC for this game allows you to change the color of the screen from white to either red, blue, yellow, green, purple, or console-off black. You can also enable different polygons for "Fox"'s model, but not that this has a real purpose. A fighter's pass was announced for NOTHING!!!, where Nintendo announced that they'll add more polygons to Fox's model to show their "dedication" to the project. Considering you can't even see the model to begin with, this didn't sell well.
==Development==
Masahiro Sakurai has gotten absolutely sick of everyone's feverish complaining over on Twitter and across social media in general, deciding to release NOTHING!!! as a middle finger to people who can't bother being patient with him or giving him a break just because he's not giving them what they want. He was pestered over a number of trivial things, including how many Fire Emblem characters there are in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and spawning many complaints with the initial fighter pass of that game. Having enough of this personal trauma, he cancelled the second fighter pass, folded his arms, and told Sora Ltd. to "get to work please on this NOTHING!!!! project or I'm not gonna do anything ever again".
Originally Sakurai just wanted to re-release Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Nintendo Switch with the Twitter post "Are you happy now?", but not wanting to succumb to his hecklers' wishes, he instead released this well-crafted shitpost.
==Reception==
NOTHING!!! has received "universal acclaim" from critics, according to the review aggregator platform Metacritic. IGN gave it a rare 10, claiming "it somehow bested Ultimate not just as a game, but also as a work of art" and went on to praise "how it will change the history of games forever". Destructoid also gave it a 10/10, stating that "There's nothing Ultimate or Mortal Kombat 11 can do to top this, period!". Famitsu gave it a 40/40, with all four reviews claiming "Nintendo can surely do no wrong, sistas!". TimeStrike also gave it an 11/10, saying "gg no re" and leaving it at that.
However, a negative collective review would surface from Twitter, who ironically clamored to have Marth return to the fray alongside Falco and believed it'd only be a "true Smash game" if all three top-tier characters from Super Smash Bros. Melee were included in the game.
==Sales==
In November 2020, Nintendo announced that NOTHING!!! was their most preordered game of all time, and although nobody bothered with the Fighter Pass, it became the best-selling Nintendo game of all time and positively boosted sales of the Nintendo Switch. It inspired clones from Sony, who released PlayStation No-Stars Battle Royale to compete with the genius of NOTHING!!!. It is considered to be one of Nintendo's most influential video games and went on to define the landscape of the ninth video game generation. TimeStrike director Athena Panacea then committed sudoku, saying that "this game was too good for me".
==Trivia==
*You can't add anything to the article, since there is nothing you can appropriately add to it. Thus, it is something you cannot meaningfully contribute to.
*This article is obviously a parody of SMASH BROS: EVERYTHING!!! and should not be taken seriously.
*The image at the top of the article serves as both the game's logo and an official screencap of the "gameplay".
Category:Nintendo Switch Games
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