You know, guys, I'm usually an optimist. I want to believe and hope for the best outcome. Ever since Smash 4 was announced, tripping was deconfirmed and Sakurai said that it would be between Melee and Brawl, I had faith that this game was going to be a great one. It would unite the fandom, end the Melee vs Brawl debates once and for all, and usher in a new golden age of Smash prosperity.
I wanted to believe so hard, but given the events of the last few days, I say with a heavy heart that I can't believe any more. It isn't even necessarily just the game itself; it's Sakurai's mentality. It hasn't changed at all. He still thinks Melee was too hard (despite it being obvious bullshit and approximately 0% of the community thinking that). As long as he still has that mentality, we may never get a truly great Smash game again, at least not under his direction. There will always be that lack of understanding that leads to bizarre mechanics and nonsensical restrictions.
Melee was pretty damn-near perfect. I hope people don't have an issue with me saying that; it's one of my favourite games of all time, and their's nothing unusual about people considering their favourite games perfect. Movement in Melee was just a joy. It was intuitive, precise, and it just just felt so right. Especially characters like Captain Falcon. One you get comfortable with how he works, you can start doing things like timing your jumps and Falcon punching people in midair. When that happens, EVERYBODY gets hyped, including the guy who just lost. In what other games can you do that? In 64 you can, but definitely not Brawl and (presumably also Smash 4) due to the restricted and stiff movement. An opportunity for a hype moment becomes impossible because of the restrictions. What's Sakurai thinking?. "Most people can't sacred combo, so now no-one can"? Who the fuck does that benefit?
In Melee, the offence/defense balance spot-on. When you knock someone offstage, the recovering player has a recovery move to help them back, but there are certain limitations to it. The speed and range of directions are fixed, you can't grab the ledge until you've reached the peak of your recovery (and that's the only time you can grab the ledge backwards), you can't grab the ledge if someone else is on it, and if you land back on the stage you have a significant amount of lag. The defending player has the advantage overall, but the recovering player can still get back on if they play it smart. Where do you want to go? Straight for the edge, onto the stage, or high into the sky so that you fall to the edge? Even when you're recovering, both players are still playing the game, and it's fun. In Brawl, this was all thrown out the window. Recovering was too hard, and now the recovering player has so great of an advantage that they can basically just get back to the stage for free. The whole idea of the edge game, something wholely unique to the Smash series, disappears.
But you know what the best thing of all about Melee is? It's insanely easy to pick up. The controls are so intuitive and natural that you can start smashing people straight away, but once you've played the game for a while, you start to think about your other options. You start to incorporate blocking, dodging and grabbing into your game. You notice that after hitting with a move, you can hit with another move and maybe even another move. You start experimenting with ways to stop people from recovering, and learn to pull off the ever-so-satisfying meteor smashes. And you know what? It's fun. It's fucking fun. And that's all I wanted from Smash 4: a game that was fun not just because of the fanservice or the randomness, but a game that's fun because of the game itself.
And that's where it fails. Now, obviously the game isn't out yet so we can't judge conclusively but if Sakurai's design philosophy is still the same as Brawl, I can't have too much hope. He still wants to restrict options. He still thinks Smash is a party game. He still doesn't understand that the Grand Finals were boring not because of any fault of the players, but because the design of the game encourages camping, which is something that he has the power to fix. But he just doesn't care. He was onto something really good with Melee, a game that everyone could enjoy, but he's throwing his grand opportunity away. He just doesn't care, and that brings a great sadness to my heart. All I can hope for now is that someone else takes over this series and designs the gameplay properly (while still keeping all the Smash zany awesomeness intact, of course), or that some other company makes an actual proper Smash clone with good gameplay and not a half-assed cash-in.
tl;dr: Melee was a good game because, even taking away stuff like wavedashing, the game itself it was actually smartly designed. In Brawl, Sakurai clearly just didn't care. We don't know about Smash 4 yet but given that Sakurai's view of Melee and overall mentality, there's a good chance it will just be a repeat of Brawl. Sorry for long ass post.