this is far and away an extremely better game than the original, i acknowledge that! in literally every aspect it is an improvement, but man spongebob from nasb1 clicked with me so insanely hard i don't know if it'll ever reach that peak again with me LOL. that's not to say i didn't enjoy my time here, on average i enjoy playing as the rest of the cast a ton more, the new revamped movesets are a ton of fun. there's only really 4ish characters i straight up dislike, and even then they aren't terrible just not my style. the story mode is a highlight, a surprisingly good time! pretty lengthy, tons of replayability, i'd even go as far as to say it's better single player content than most if not all of smash bros. fully voice acted, some fun character interactions, good bosses, all come together to make a solid platform fighter campaign! the online netcode is also greatly improved which is great! the only negative i have here is it seems a lot buggier than the first was so far. i'm sure it'll get fixed up, but the audio in the campaign can be pretty terrible, the game soft locked in friend lobbies multiple times already, i've clipped through the floor a few times, stuff like that. it's not game ruining, if anything it's been kinda funny honestly but still noticeable.

i think it makes sense to be weary of this game, it makes a lot of sense to feel burnt by the first game and feel like they just released the same game but actually finished for another $50, and that's because they did exactly that! if you didn't get the first or are willing to look past it, this is genuinely a phenomenal platform fighter but if you feel very burnt by the original i wouldn't blame you.