NOTE: I too started my Smash history with Melee. I never bothered with 64. I've played from Melee up until 4 today, and I even dabbled a slight bit in Project M.
Quote: The Bone ChompyUm hi. This is my first post here, and I'm pretty new to Smash. Seeing all the other posts, there seem to be debates in the community about Melee and Smash 4?
The reason why people still talk about Melee as much as they do is because Melee still has a thriving (and growing) competitive scene even over a decade after release. Casual fans who loved the game during the GC's heyday have largely moved on to other games (including newer Smash games), so a lot of talk about Melee nowadays and the reason for its relevance is from professional players. There tends to be a lot of debate about which of the two games is better (usually in a competitive context). And there's also debate about if Smash 4 could ever replicate the level of success that Melee has managed so far.
The key differences are in how the games play. Melee is a very fast paced and offense-based game. It doesn't reward campy or defensive tactics and are about rushing down your opponent and hitting hard and fast. There are also a bunch of advanced techniques that take advantage of the physics (like L-canceling and wave-dashing) to make the game even faster.
Smash Bros Brawl, on the other hand, was a lot slower, more floaty, and more defense oriented. Techniques like wave-dashing were removed, and the game was made with a more casual, "everybody's a winner" mindset. It was of course critically acclaimed and lots of people loved it, but the more serious and competitive Smash scene despised it and still do, even going as far as to mod the entire game and make it play more like Melee (Project M; another story for another time). It too had a competitive scene, but it was never as big as Melee, had a slow death over the years, and practically grinded to a halt when Smash 4 came out.
Smash 4 strikes a balance between the two. It's not as slow and campy as Brawl, but also not as fast and aggressive as Melee. It's more in the middle as both getting aggressive (with fast guys like Fox and Captain Falcon) and being more defensive and spaced apart (Rosalina and Mega Man) can be rewarding in different ways. And best is that you also don't
have to play certain characters a certain way to succeed (people often consider Rosalina more defensive, but Sonicbrawler plays her aggressively and does very well for it).
Having gone back to it a few times, I do still think that Melee holds up extremely well and is among the Gamecube's best titles. But it's also a lot more challenging to play on an advanced level, and it shows in competitive play (some characters require so much effort that competitive players often injure their hands, or have to retire early because they can't keep up).
I do personally prefer Smash 4 for striking the balance between Melee and Brawl so well. And I think most of us here agree (I mean the title alone implies we all like 4). But there does tend to be a lot of debating and arguing in the community about which game is better, even if some people have agreed that they can co-exist. And people wonder if Smash 4 can maintain a strong, dedicated professional scene like Melee has, or if it will slowly wither away like Brawl's did while Melee keeps trucking onward.
If you have any more questions feel free to ask me. Or ask Sonicbrawler, since he tends to know more about this than I do.
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