In the past I've always found the SSB games (particularly Brawl and SSB4) to be overstuffed with systems that weren't all developed enough to be interesting, so I feel quite strongly about how well World of Light finally tidied them up into a coherent package where everything works with everything else, and the player is constantly given the opportunity to make flexible and meaningful choices (and stick with those choices if they find a comfort zone, something that the scattershot Subspace Emissary didn't even come close to enabling). Everything just clicks together. The collection, stat-building, and customization elements are finally worth doing because you can tailor them to highly specific, meticulously designed event matches, and you can do it quickly. You can look at your inventory, come up with an inspired approach, and refine it over multiple attempts at a difficult fight. There is a unity to it all that just wasn't present when trophies, stickers, custom moves, collectible stat buffs, and event matches were all separately doing their own thing.
That isn't even getting into how amazing the theatrical flavour of the game is, with the SSB characters "playing" all the minor parts not on the fighting roster, exactly like playing with a limited set of toys. More than anything else it reminds me of the legendary Warcraft III customs scene, where mapmakers would take a limited set of Warcraft models and make them stand in for all of their favourite characters from every IP imaginable, sometimes in remarkably creative ways. Only this time, we're seeing it in a professional product and within the rock-solid framework of Smash mechanics. Every few fights I come across a Spirits encounter design that makes me laugh out loud at how very much on point it is, how perfectly it represents the character or scenario it does.
