I played it for a few hundred hours before dropping off. The single player content can last you a good while, but it does start feeling a bit repetitive.

The online multiplayer is pretty good, but the net code is not great so it can often feel laggy. This was what I spent most of my time on though.

Ultimate is a top tier game, but I do see your concern with only being able to play handheld. I can personally play it handheld for a while and not feel too bad (by that I mean hand cramps), but it certainly does feel 100x better on a TV.

What I might ask is if you are planning on getting a Switch 2 next year. If so, we can reasonably assume the form factor will be about the same and you’ll get the TV access. Everything we’ve heard so far says Switch games will work with the Switch 2. So in the short term you may not be able to play with friends locally on the same screen, within the year we’ll have a new system and in the meantime get some good experience with the game with what you have now.

I do still play online, and there’s still a community there, so at least you’ll be able to play with other people that way.

I have played around 100 hours of Smash Ultimate and I’d say at least 85% of that time has been single player and online multiplayer. It’s really fun to play with other people multiplayer, but realistically I don’t do that as often as I’d like. And when I do, we rarely end up playing Smash :(

The campaign isn’t as in-depth or story-based as Brawl’s, but it’s a much better game overall. Probably the second best single player experience in the franchise imo