Everyone is always comparing Melee and Brawl, and I think it is unfair that Smash 64 doesn't get a say. Everyone with a brain knows Smash 64 is better than Brawl as a competitive fighting game. None of this air dodging junk. Sure there were less characters, but there were also less junky characters, and none of this 3rd party crap. I mean come on, does Snake really belong in Brawl? He belongs in Brawl just as much as he belongs in a wedding dress. . . well, maybe I should have used a better example since Snake in a wedding dress sounds about right. Dumb Sega characters with cheesy one-liners don't deserve a spot on any fighting roster. In Smash 64 Captain Falcon was a real Captain, not Craptin Falcon like in Brawl. They didn't have stupid characters like Ice Climbers(I mean did Sakurai really think two characters in one was going to work?). Seriously, how lame is alternating chaingrabs. Characters in Smash 64 are much more balanced.
The DI is ridiculously stupid in Brawl. Players can move left and right several times while in the air. Doing full forward hops and completely cancelling the momentum and going backwards just with DI is stupid. Sakurai may as well let the characters fly with the control stick like Sonic's final smash when in the air. Speaking of which, there is a dumb concept. Final Smashes activated by praying that your attacks break the smashball and if you are randomly the lucky winner and get rewarded with a free kill. Really, random factors like that and tripping is another reason Smash 64 is better.
Smash 64 didn't promote all this campy crap like Brawl does. Shields dropping instantly making amazing shield grabs, ridiculously fast projectiles(Falco's laser is many times the fastest Smash 64 projectiles), and doing attacks out of the shield make the game way too defensive. Even things like the down b counters are stupid. "Let me strike a pose, then you can attack me, then I can not get hurt and own you." Really, why would anyone want to create moves that scare people into attacking less? That makes even more camping with projectiles, and if they don't have projectiles you have a couple lame players hopping about using silly DI so they can't hit each other.
Brawl is built to make those who are losing feel better. Pity smashes, Lucario, the lack of big gaps in skill leading to big gaps in victory, easy characters for noobs like Ike, Pit, Kirby, and Metaknight, it is these things that make it so no one "loses" badly as that is how brawl is designed. Smash 64 was made so if your 3 times better than them, then you only lose one out of every 3 stocks you take. Also advanced techniques like the l-cancel, or z-cancel in Smash 64 were removed from Brawl to make the game even easier.
Now the meat of every fighting game. We all know it. It is called the "combo." Now how does Brawl dare be considered a fighting game when it has a serious lack of these. Sure there are a few, but nothing compared to most games. Smash 64 has plenty of mega combos into kills, the way fighting games are supposed to work. Brawl is like rock-paper-scissors. Shield beats atttack, attack beats grab, and grab beats shield. Only problem is that it is a broken rock paper scissors game, cuz shield and grab always win! Grabs own too much, and shields let you attack or grab without getting damaged.
Sure Smash 64 is a bit polygonal, and has bowling alley sound effects, but it didn't have dumb characters, stupid infinites, ridiculous DI, lack of one player owning another, random effects, and boring defensive combat. Clearly Smash 64 is the better game, and that is why I still have Smash 64 hooked to my TV as my go-to choice for any Smash gaming.