I just have personal reasons for liking Brawl the most. I wouldn’t be as heavy into internet communities without the speculation period of the game (Thus I likely wouldn’t be typing this, or at least I wouldn’t have done all the same things I ended up doing had I not joined internet communities for Brawl’s speculation period). Plus Brawl still has overall the best roster even compared to Smash 4’s currently known full roster. I also just have too many great memories for Brawl then any other of the first 3 games (Example: Sonic being announced for Brawl was one of the happiest days of my life). And I know it’s not a perfect game, no video game really is perfect and even though the Smash Bros. series is my favorite video game franchise. Each one has things you could nitpick about. I am thankful for the criticism for Brawl though, at least because it seems to have made Smash 4 a game that has some of the best of both Melee and Brawl within the game. The gameplay even being a bit of a compromise of being faster then Brawl but not as fast as Melee. I think that will heavily factor in helping Smash 4 gain a lot of general love that while it won’t be perfect, will still help unite the Smash Bros. fans better because they’re more likely going to try to appeal to everybody. They won’t succeed perfectly, but to know they’re trying is great. I always hated the the Smash Bros. fanbase was so heavily split just because of Brawl, Cause for years there’s been elitists on both sides that trash talk another and I’ve seen the Melee fans in particular talk about Brawl as if it was one of the worst games ever made. I may prefer Brawl, but I love all the games in the series a lot. I think all of them are excellent games, just because Brawl wasn’t like Melee shouldn’t mean it’s a terrible game. I think there are enough legitimate reasons people could like Brawl the best out of the first three games.

…And what? I never said anything about Brawl’s intro being disappointing. Where did you get that from? o.O Also I didn’t play much online, so I didn’t really care for the Online part of the game. But I understand that people found it too laggy in comparison to even other Wii games that had decent online like Mario Kart Wii. But because I never really played Online that much. I don’t really find it personally concerning myself. Smash 4 is sure to have a much more improved online. And at least on the 3DS version I’ll probably play it online decently enough (It’s easier for me to get online with the 3DS cause I can take it somewhere with really good and free wi-fi as I’m kinda limited at home. Big reason why I couldn’t do it so often when Brawl’s online was still online. And the Wii itself was just limited in terms of online on it’s own. It couldn’t have voice chat like you seem to have wanted with the taunts (But they weren’t there for communication, they were just extra additions to the taunts often used to probably say naughty things by trolls for sure but still they weren’t for communication. The Wii didn’t have stable capabilities of that).

And while I do get the problems people have with some of the stages and the Subspace Emissary. I was fine with most of them (Granted there were stages even I  didn’t like fighting on. But at least there is the option to turn off the Stages you don’t want to play on) and the Story Mode was enjoyable enough IMO even if it could of been done a lot better. And was a bit of a resource taker (Most of the files on the Brawl disc is taken up by the Subspace on it’s own). And on Tripping… yeah… that was bad. Buuuuut, it’s relatively minor from my experience (Haven’t lost that many matches just because I tripped). And at least it’s not returning in Smash 4.

As for Roy, I do get that he has appeal as the “fire sword” guy. But the main problem I have with his inclusion was his game was not even out yet when Melee released. The whole point of Smash Bros. is Nintendo All-Stars together, Roy had not proven himself to be an All-Star because of this. He was basically in as Promotion and that shouldn’t be what matters most in a Smash Bros. roster. What makes his promotion itself even more useless though was his game wasn’t coming out outside of Japan and still wouldn’t ever be released internationally. Even more ridiculous, is even within the actual Fire Emblem fanbase. Roy turned out unpopular because he wasn’t that good in his own game. The only reason Roy is popular at all was because of his inclusion in Melee. I know Smash Bros. has always been somewhat of a promotional vehicle, but most characters that get in are fairly well-known and well deserve their spot. Some more then others, but a good majority of them really do earn their spot. Roy had not done so at all. If Ike in Brawl counts as Roy’s replacement, he was a far better choice because he was the main protagonist of a very popular game in the franchise that did come out internationally. It wasn’t the first Fire Emblem game that was released outside of Japan, but still a significant part of how the series gained worldwide recognition. Ike being very well the symbol of the newfound success of the series has gained. He’s not as bad as Pichu and Dr. Mario in Melee. Nor Dark Pit in Smash 4, but nonetheless he’s firmly #4 in worst inclusions of the series. While Smash 4 brought back the 2nd worst (Dr. Mario), and one of the newcomers has become the worst of franchise history (Dark Pit). I firmly believe that it was good that neither Pichu or Roy returned after Melee cause the representatives in Brawl for both Fire Emblem or Pokemon were far better decisions.