Ranking Every Smash Ultimate Character on how Good of a Valentine’s Date They’d Be

One of the greatest features of Super Smash Bros Ultimate (SSBU) is the wide variety characters across so many unique gaming franchises. One only needs to look at the character selection screen to feel satisfied or overwhelmed with the amount of options they have to play this incredibly fun yet maddeningly frustrating (more-so this to be honest) game with. There’s no other game like it…except one: The “game” of dating.

Bear with me and keep an open mind here. Swiping through countless people on your phone is often as overwhelming as trying to pick which of these 80+ characters you want to try the game with. Dating is also a very irritating experience most of the time for a lot of us, but I think we can all agree that when its good, its very good.

So in honor of Valentine’s Day 2021, and the countless great dates that would’ve been happening on this special V-Day weekend with a Monday off…if the pandemic-relief response was better and everything didn’t kind of suck…today I will be looking at the roster and figuring out which SSBU character would make the best Valentine’s date. Let’s-a-go!

Before we even begin to think about the characters, however, there’s one burning question we need to answer: What makes a great Valentine’s date?

I conducted some research on social media and in multiple group-chats, doing my best to reach out to multiple ethnicities, genders, and sexual orientations. I may be a nerd, but I’d like to think I’m an inclusive nerd. After going through all the good responses I received, laughing at the funny ones, and rolling my eyes at a few that made me cringe, I narrowed it down to five imporant & most often mentioned points.

1. Being Mindful and Thoughtful: Being “nice” is a good thing, but it’s too vague. Plus, for whoever reading this, basic human decency is something that should probably be something expected rather than praised. Giant romantic gestures aren’t always necessary on dates, but going even a little into that “extra mile” can turn an okay date into a great one. Good listening skills, showing legitimate interest in what someone chooses to share, and planning something for the date that the other person would really appreciate all falls into this point.
   
2. Good Communication Skills: This is another one that seems obvious, but doesn’t always happen. Dates, especially Valentine’s dates, often can make someone feel pressured on what to do especially if they don’t know what the other person expects. It’s very important to have a conversation about what you both want out of the date and out of each other as a Valentine. One conversation beforehand can save you from a ton of potential dating disasters.
   
3. A Sense of Adventure: Don’t be fooled, even people who’s dating profiles make them sound like couch potatoes want to be taken somewhere nice and do something fun every now and then. The cool thing about the Holiday is that it’s about you, your Valentine, and what you both like to do. It’s encouraged to share a place or activity you love, and a good Valentine will like your enthusiasm and will want to share those experiences with you!
   
4. Goes Beyond the Holiday: Look, Valentine’s Day definitely requires someone to bring their A-game…but if that’s the ONLY time you do so, that’s a problem. Someone who follows up great qualities and great days with even more of those things is the kind of person you want as a Valentine, as opposed to someone who only puts in the effort on one day out of the year. We over here at Soggz-Blogs think you deserve better.
   
5. Smashing: Duh.

Now that we broke that down, we can start looking at the roster. Unfortunately, I must present to you one more hurdle…weeding out the characters that you definitely should not be on a date with for various reasons. I’m just going to list them out, and you can consider these the “F-Tier”. I don’t want to take away from their unique personalities but dating any of these characters seems like it would be definitely count as some sort of felony. They’re all either clearly a child, not even remotely humanoid, or just make you think “how the fuck would this even work?”. Here they are:

• Banjo & Kazooie
• Bowser
• Bowser Jr.
• Dark Pit
• Diddy Kong
• Donkey Kong (you can date him only if you’ve rejected humanity and returned to monke)
• Duck Hunt
• Falco
• Fox
• Greninja
• Ice Climbers
• Incineroar
• Inkling
• Isabelle
• Jigglypuff
• King Dedede
• King K Rool
• Kirby (Don’t you dare make the obvious joke about swallowing)
• Lucario
• Lucas
• Mega-Man
• Meta Knight
• Mewtwo
• Mr. Game & Watch
• Ness (if you’re a Ness main that’s complaining about him being here, its okay, you’re a glue-eating dork that no one wants to date anyway. PK-Go-Fuck-Yourself and your little turd of a main.)
• Olimar
• Pac-Man
• Pichu
• Pikachu
• Piranha Plant
• Pit
• Pokemon Trainer
• Ridley
• ROB
• Sonic (HEDGEHOGS SHOULD NOT KISS HUMANS EVER, HOW IS THIS A THING I HAVE TO SPECIFY?)
• Toon Link
• Villager
• Wolf
• Yoshi (Too much tongue anyway)
• Young Link

It might seem like we’ve chased away a lot of characters, which is valid, but this still leaves me with 40 characters to dissect which is still a good amount. That being said, let’s start going into the tiers.

D-TIER

• Captain Falcon – You ever meet those dudes who, when asked, can talk about all the unique features about their car…but when asked to describe a person they usually give 1-3 word answers? Also it was still super early into the date and he hits you with “Show me your boobs”? No thanks.
  
• Shulk – I couldn’t really find anything interesting about Shulk in research so I was going to put him in the C-Tier for just being “meh”…but then I remembered he has a character-skin where he’s wearing little-to-no clothing and that he constantly screams “BACKSLASH!”. Yeah that’s gonna bump him down to the D-Tier.
  
• Dark Samus – Okay so Dark Samus is known to absorb the powers of the people she defeats in battle and has an insatiable craving for a highly radioactive substance with mutagenic properties. This just means she will never be satisfied with anything you do.
  
• Bayonetta – She’s way too suggestive right from the get-go to the point where I constantly ask myself “how is she from a NINTENDO game?”. Her very character design seems like its something right out of r/MenWritingWomen. Even if we ignore all of that and chalk this up to only making ME personally uncomfortable, there’s another con…way. too. much. hair.
  
• Min Min – I don’t know who the fuck this is and why she’s even in this game.
  
• Ganondorf – Ganon is the ONLY male amongst his tribe and males are only born once every hundred years, always destined to be the clan ruler. This kind of makes him an entitled asshole by default, I mean if you’re the ONLY guy in a tribe of all women and you’re automatically their King…that seems like a “messiah complex” just waiting to happen. Also he tries to smash way too early into the date, if you know you know (Doriyah!).
  
• Hero – I feel like if there are multiple interchangeable versions of you, you probably don’t have very much of an interesting personality to begin with. The time Hero spends deciding what he wants to do is also time you can spend finding a better Valentine.
  
• Sephiroth – One of those dudes that is super into “mind games”, he’s 100% going to gaslight you the entire date and it’ll take you months of therapy to get over it.
  
• Mii Fighter(s) – Would you really want to date someone that looks exactly like you? Especially a version of you with a yee yee ass haircut? Seriously, Nintendo, whats up with the extremely limited and shitty hair options on the Miis?
  
• Wario – Easily the worst of the bunch. He farts very loudly, smells like garlic & motorcycle oil, and he is definitely not apologizing for any of it.
  
  C-TIER

• Dr. Mario – This dude is handing out pills WAY too easily. One can clearly deduce that he’s obviously taking money from Big Pharma, and is likely to think a few sniffles warrants a prescription drug. Stay away from this maniac born out of a corrupt healthcare system.
  
• Peach – Things seem to be going great when you guys match and when you’re texting. The date gets scheduled and you’re waiting for her when she hits you with a text that she can’t make it because she….got kidnapped…by a giant turtle with horns? Ridiculous, if you’re going to ghost me at least just tell me you’re not up to it instead of making a wild excuse!
  
• Snake – Snake’s whole thing is being a master of stealth and infiltration. Odds are if he’s going to such lengths to not be seen, he’s not going to see you for who you are either. The fact that he ages super rapidly AND has lost all that ass from his last appearance in Smash doesn’t help either.
  
• The Belmonts (Simon & Richter) – The Belmont boys are both pretty good looking and they have really cool jobs. In SSBU, however, they’re all about maintaining and managing a good distance to get things done. Being kept at a distance isn’t something you want out of a Valentine, it just doesn’t sound fun or fulfilling.
  
• Cloud – Its pretty cool that he’s down to take out a giant unethical tech corporation, but in reality Cloud is snarky as hell and that can get pretty annoying. Plus, that sword definitely gives off the impression that he may be compensating.
  
• Little Mac – In my research I literally came across something that said “there is not much to Little Mac’s personality”…That’s it, that’s the analysis…I guess.
  
• Roy – Apparently a big cornerstone of Roy’s personality is that he’s particularly dense when it comes to talking to anyone who’s interested in him, and girls in general? Big yikes, gotta work on that one chief.
  
• Samus – She’s super cool but…did she really wear a full suit of armor to a date? Wow…emotionally closed off much?
  
• Sheik – Sheik shows up periodically to teach you how to play a song that will teleport you to a location you’ve already been to. No one wants a Valentine who’s aloof and only takes you to places you’ve experienced before.
  
• Luigi – Look…he’s a really sweet guy, but he’s so scared of anything that slightly moves that he’s probably not going to go anywhere or do anything out of the ordinary. There’s also a good chance you’ll end up trapped in a haunted mansion at some point during your date, its happened to him three times already.
  
• Steve – He’s too much of a square.
  
• Rosalina & Luma – Wow I’m really excited about this date and…oh…look. She brought a friend. That’s not weird or inconvenient at all.
  
• Ike – Ike is a basic little fuck that epitomizes the C-tier. Look at what we have here, a strong and silent anime character who loves food and solves all his problems with violence..WHOA I’VE NEVER SEEN ONE OF THOSE BEFORE. Even in SSBU, he’s got like 1-2 moves that can easily be spammed and are super easy to learn. Ike fills me with the same feeling I got during dating when I would scroll over to someone who’s bio said “looking for the Jim to my Pam!”: an unbridled sense of “meh”.

B-TIER

• Ryu – It’d be really cool to hear about his life as a traveling martial artist, he probably has some great stories and you know he’s dedicated to his craft. The parts about how he’s prone to random surges of murderous intent where he channels the energy of a raging demon are…less than ideal. To his credit, he’ll be honest about that and is still a heroic dude, so he gets to be in the B-tier.
  
• Chrom – He’s a strong guy and a charismatic leader, but when it comes to strategy and negotiation he often relies on others for counsel. It might eventually get a little annoying if he’s in a group chat with his friends providing a play-by-play of your date and relying on them for what to do next. You want to date him, not his advisors.
  
• Daisy – She’s an energetic and enthusiastic person, a very ideal date if you want to do something less traditional and more fun. However, canon says she has a tendency to talk down to people. Not a dealbreaker, but can definitely be a problem on a date if she happens to snap at a service worker…they deserve a lot better.
  
• Robin – Robin is a master tactician and strategist. A very kind person and you can bet that your Valentine’s weekend will be meticulously planned out to the last detail…but he/she doesn’t get to be in the A-Tier because honestly, some spontaneity is always welcome when it comes to V-Day and dating in general.
  
• Link – Great guy, great hero who will take you all over this magical land and on a ton of adventures. It’s just a little sad that he can only communicate via yelling.
  
• Byleth – I don’t know much about Byleth, but I know Smash fans are needlessly tough on the character. Seems fun enough to play against, so why B-Tier? Look, any Asian-American millennial can tell you that various types of pressure from their family often comes into their dating life. Byleth has to answer to THREE. HOUSES….THREE HOUSES?? This is going to be a rough time.
  
• Mario – This guy is great at everything: Plumbing, Tennis, Go-Karting, Olympic Sports, Partying, etc. Unfortunately he’s almost always on shrooms.
  
• Wii Fit Trainer – I like to think of the B-Tier as “great to date with a slight flaw that might get in the way”, and Wii Fit Trainer defines this more than any other character. They’ll take you on fun and active dates, they work on their body constantly, they’re motivating and encouraging. HOWEVER…they talk about fitness just a little too much to the point where they sound like an instagram influencer in real life. Sorry Trainer, sometimes I just want to make baked mac & cheese and watch youtube videos.

A-TIER

• Zero Suit Samus – Its everything good about Samus, plus she’s starting to come out of her shell and trust you more! That sets a better foundation to move forward with dating her. That being said, its way easier said than done to do that though so props!
  
• Marth – Not much else to unpack other than the fact that he’s seemingly just an overall great and compassionate guy. Rare for someone with a royal background, so your “happily ever after” fantasies can actually come true with him.
  
• Palutena – She’s a literal Goddess of Light, known for being exceptionally wise and kind…AND she can communicate telepathically. Too much conversation can be a problem sometimes especially if it feels forced, with Palutena everything that needs to be acknowledged is already known.
  
• Joker – This dude is all about rescuing you from a life of oppression, finding freedom in a troubled world, and he’s totally okay with you being vulnerable around him…what a stud, right? (I should probably really play Persona 5 already).
  
• Lucina – Lucina’s character arc involves her trying to alter a “darkest timeline” that she came from. She’s definitely seen some rough things, and she decided to do everything she can so that others don’t see those same things, and I think that’s really admirable. She has a tendency to be a little paranoid, but I think it comes from an innocent place so we’ll keep her in the A-Tier.
  
• Ken – He’s the rich son of a Hotel tycoon BUT, in a rare display of good parenting in a nerdy franchise, his Dad wanted him to learn discipline and not be a spoiled brat. So he left Ken with his best friend who happened to be a martial arts master, and Ken turned into someone with a really pure heart (despite the occasional moment of braggadocio). He’s fun, humble, tough, and you probably get to go to a super fancy restaurant.
  
• Corrin – Aside from being a very caring person, Corrin is also said to have a way with animals and can befriend them easily. Wow, someone who’s awesome AND who you could totally adopt multiple cats and dogs with? Isn’t that the long term goal anyway?…since the idea of having children has been fading more and more from our generation anyway due to the lack of response to a disastrous economy and a rapidly decaying environment?
  
• Zelda – She holds the Triforce of Wisdom and she’s very compassionate. She’s a princess that doesn’t just sit around ordering people around, and she clearly communicates what she needs.
  
• Terry – Dude takes the initiative to ask about you. If he senses that you’re having a bad day, he’ll always ask you…”Are you okay?”. How thoughtful!

That, ladies and gentlemen, is all of the Smash Characters. Even though we’ve gone through all of them and the different personalities now, it still might feel like you don’t know who would make the best Valentine. Well fear not, there’s one more option, and they’re the only one in the S-Tier…but who might that be?

You. You would make the best Valentine, and you deserve to celebrate this day with the best. There is no one universally perfect person to date, but there is someone out there who’s damn near perfect for YOU, and you are similarly that perfection for someone else. Even if you might not quite be with that person, a celebration of love shouldn’t be confined to “romance”, as love (in all of its forms) is something every human has for multiple people, places, and things in their lifetime. So on this quarantined Valentine’s day, you owe it to yourself to do something you love with someone you love. Most importantly, you also deserve to love yourself because life is too precious not to.

Have a happy Valentine’s day from Soggz-Blogs, hope you stay safe out there.

3 stock, best of 5, no items, hazards off, right now!