The concept of all these characters crossing over was uncommon at the time of release, people did never expect Pikachu to fight Donkey Kong or Luigi going toe to toe with Zelda. And in recent years the roster and cross overs just became more and more exciting even to the point where a smash brother’s character reveal was almost like an event online. The best examples of this are for the third game Super Smash Brothers: Brawl introduced Solid Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog which allowed for any character to be pitched for Smash as these two were the first non-Nintendo characters in the series.
Nintendo have had decades to get the flow of the game to near perfection
The reason why other platformers such as Brawlhalla or Multiverses cannot come close to Smash Bros’ active players or popularity comes down to a few reasons. Reason one is gameplay; Nintendo have had decades to get the flow of the game to near perfection whilst also building a huge roster of characters overtime allowing for very diverse and fun gameplay.
Reason two is competitions; Smash Bros has a huge competitive gaming scene with different tournaments for each instalment in the series which other platform fighters just simply do not have.
And reason three is recognisability; Smash Bros is a known game and has gaming characters that every person recognises, games like Brawlhalla and PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale fell short on this as their characters were either made for their games or not as recognisable enough to carry a game.
In summary, due to Smash Brothers coining this genre of platform fighters, a devoted fan base (both in the competitive scene and for casual gamers), and the ability to bring so many gaming icons together has placed the game series on the top of the pyramid when it comes to platform fighters.
