Which had the better pre-release era: Brawl or Sm4sh?

[TerminalMontage]

I enjoyed the PreBrawl and PreSmash4 eras about the same. Although, I was much more involved in the PreBrawl era. I've been keeping a close eye on Smash4, but only a few days ago became active in discussing it with people, on this forum. These next 2 months are going to be so long.

 

[GeNo-BreaKer]

Brawl. Everyone was hyped. No denying it. It was expected to be the best game of the franchise. Everyone had high expectations. Too bad they were too high. Now people are more cautious, considering their disappointment with Brawl.

 

[ShredPix]

You know, I think going around different forums and boards on the internet killed Smash 4's hype for me. Not that I'm not anxiously counting the days until I get both versions, it's just that people are just so negative about a series they apparently LIKE!

 

[Delzethin]

This one is.

Sure, Brawl had a ton of hype, but as the game came close to release, it all started falling apart as the leaked roster and other information took the wind out of everyone's sails. Not to mention I only knew my way around the internet so well, and spent most of the last couple weeks before the Japanese release lurking...GameFAQs. >_<

Smash 4's hype train has been stop and go, like many have said, but overall it feels like the fans are more informed while still (genwunners aside) being hopeful. I've been a lot more active in speculation, especially within the last month and a half, so I've felt like a part of the whole experience this time instead of just an observer. Being in my 20s now instead of a teenager means I'm also more informed myself and mature (...sort of) and better able to understand new features, design choices and characters.

(Robin getting in also helped. >_>)

Combine that with the laurel branch Nintendo's extended to the competitive community, Sakurai's desire to incorporate the best aspects of Melee and Brawl both (yes, Brawl did have high points), and the fact that the games' biggest hype killer just got debunked, and we have a hell of a couple months left.

 

[Acadian Flycatcher]

For me personally, I'd say Brawl.
It was just how the whole Dojo was handled.
Meaningful updates every weekday, very little filler.
With Smash 4 and the Pic of the Day, I wake up in the morning, check Miiverse on my phone, and either say "eh" or "that's cool" or the odd time I flip ****.
With Brawl I remember waking up early every morning and sprinting downstairs to my computer to check the website. And I was hyped for everything I saw. I still remember how the gooey bomb update blew my mind, and Diddy Kong's reveal got my more hyped than anything else.

There was more care put into the Brawl updates than Smash 4, which I think is a good thing this time around.
Brawl gave us everything before hand, so we got spoiled, and then we had that self entitled mindset where we deserve great updates every single day for a game that was still almost a year away.
With Smash 4 there is a lot more left to the imagination. There is a picture and an ambiguous comment by Sakurai, and I check SmashBoards and Reddit to witness all the great speculation and heart break.

I think that being older now has effected my hype levels a little bit. I have a lot more **** on the go now to worry about that Smash hype has become my morning ritual. Whereas with Brawl I was in high school, no job, no real responsibilities and just thinking of Smash all day.

But I am still beyond excited for this game, probably as much as I was with Brawl, just my hype levels this far away from release have been toned down.

I will still buy 3DS on release day, and definitely take a weekend to enjoy the Wii U version with my friends.

 

[Ryuutakeshi]

Brawl's prerelease was absolutely crazy and I loved it. I was on Brawl Central then but I stayed up every night for the Dojo. And we had a lot of community stuff then that I kinda wish we still had. Smash Dash was the best.

 

[GeNo-BreaKer]

it's just that people are just so negative about a series they apparently LIKE!

So if you like something you're oblivious to it's flaws?

 

[StarLight42]

Sorry, but i'm going to have to say Brawl's for a few reasons:

1. Smash 4's unveil to me was absolutely terrible, when they showed the 3DS version first I literally thought it was the Wii U version and was stunned by how bad the graphics were. Although they did eventually unveil the Wii U version, at the time it just looked like an HD port of Brawl, with some meh newcomers and Mega-Man. The transition from 64 to Melee/Melee to Brawl seemed much larger. That being said, I think the game got a lot better as time went on and they revealed more about how it was different, however, the damage was done to the prerelease era.

2. We go into Smash 4 knowing that Brawl was bad in terms of the competitive scene; while going into Brawl we pretty much had no idea they would screw it up. However, now that Brawl made a bad impact on the scene, more people are criticizing the new game for it's similarities to Brawl.

3. The name, i'm sorry, but Super Smash Bros. for Wii U isn't exactly as epic as Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I know they probably made the name generic because of the cross platform release. However, they should have still named it something epic, like Super Smash Bros. Clash or Super Smash Bros. Rumble. This might sound like a nitpick, but it goes a long way.

4. Third party characters and Sonic; we had no idea until the first trailer that Brawl was going to have third party characters, Snake was pretty cool. However, nothing can beat the unveil of Sonic, I know he's not very special anymore in this game and nobody's really excited about him anymore, but back then, having a true Mario vs. Sonic was the most epic thing in history. Mega Man is cool yeah, but he's not as rivaled with Mario as Sonic was, neither is Pac-Man. In terms of third party unveils, Sonic outdid Mega-Man and Pac-Man by the MILE.

---

That being said, one thing I like more about Smash 4 is the directs with the character unveils and such, it gives us much more information about the game than the Brawl site did.

 

[mygamecube]

Honestly it feels about the same for me.

 

[mtmaster]

So if you like something you're oblivious to it's flaws?

Nothing wrong with pointing out a game's flaw's, every game has them, but people shouldn't be so quick to judge a game before it even comes out is kinda what a lot of people are saying. When it comes out people can judge it all they want, but you a book can't be judged by its cover.

 

[Flaxr XIII]

Brawl since it didn't have the "This isn't Melee 2.0, this is Brawl 2.0 therefore it sucks" mentality that is plaguing the Smash 4 hype.
And it didn't have the Gematsu leak to dilute character reveals. At least not that I remember of anyways. There probably was one but I didn't pay any mind to it.
I was at another forum at the time. I don't remember if it was called Smash Central or Brawl Central. They would have this weekly Dojo recap series that I found hilarious but I can't for the life of me remember the name of it. Haha I just remember when a character's back was turned they would say something like "Dedede's got back". It was funny to my 13 year old self.
And Sonic's reveal was a dream come true for me.

Now, it's hard to get excited for Smash 4, especially with the community divided in so many ways. 3DS vs. Wii U. Melee 2.0 vs. Brawl 2.0. Gematsu lovers vs. haters.
And yeah they hype has been pretty "stop and go" at times. Aside from the Newcomer trailers, the announcements, or at least the way they announce things, aren't as exciting as they were back then.

 

[Ussi]

I'm more excited for smash4 solely cause nintendo cares about the competitive scene now.

Brawl i was super hyped for just cause I was finally old enough to drive to tournies.

Tbh being younger its easier to be hyped. But i'm excited for the competitive scene for smash4 to see how far we can go.

 

[LordShade67]

Probably Brawl, but only because it was over hyped to the point where when the game finally was released, it was a disappointment for the competitive players. Probably didn't help the roster was released weeks before it even came out here.

That said, Smash 4's first trailers were more hype, IMO, than Brawl's. When Snake was first revealed, there was literally NO gameplay footage of him. Buuuuut that's just me.

 

[staindgrey]

It feels as though expectations, within this community at least, have been lowered for Smash 4. Following seven years of Melee, the buildup to Brawl was probably the biggest hype train I've ever experienced. Friends and I would text each other the moment something was announced on the Dojo. We were getting online play. And there was a freaking story mode that looked ridiculously pretty. Everything was changing. Everything looked different. Nothing could go wrong.

Smash 4, post-Brawl, has had a more cautious optimism to it. People are looking at videos and thinking, "Too much like Brawl." Rather than simply be excited about news, we analyze news. And it doesn't help that Brawl more or less got every major character into its roster, and Smash 4, in some cases, is reaching for newcomers that wouldn't normally be expected. I'm not saying any characters don't deserve to be in, but rather than a, "OH MY GOD, HE/SHE IS IN!" many reveals have gotten, "Oh, right, he/she is in. Cool."

It makes me wonder about the potential for another game in the series, because I can't fully comprehend how a roster could get much bigger. I feel like it'll need a bigger change than simply "add 10 more characters", because they're running low on properties to which they have the rights. Yeah, we could still throw in Midna, K. Rool, Ridley, Isaac, Daisy, Krystal... etc., and their fans will be excited, but none of those characters would excite the community the ways others have. Except maybe Ridley, but I've seen so much back and forth with him that I'm not sure it's such a unanimous issue.

 

[Ryuutakeshi]

Brawl since it didn't have the "This isn't Melee 2.0, this is Brawl 2.0 therefore it sucks" mentality that is plaguing the Smash 4 hype.
And it didn't have the Gematsu leak to dilute character reveals. At least not that I remember of anyways. There probably was one but I didn't pay any mind to it.
I was at another forum at the time. I don't remember if it was called Smash Central or Brawl Central. They would have this weekly Dojo recap series that I found hilarious but I can't for the life of me remember the name of it. Haha I just remember when a character's back was turned they would say something like "Dedede's got back". It was funny to my 13 year old self.
And Sonic's reveal was a dream come true for me.

Now, it's hard to get excited for Smash 4, especially with the community divided in so many ways. 3DS vs. Wii U. Melee 2.0 vs. Brawl 2.0. Gematsu lovers vs. haters.
And yeah they hype has been pretty "stop and go" at times. Aside from the Newcomer trailers, the announcements, or at least the way they announce things, aren't as exciting as they were back then.

Yeah, Smash Dash. They worked with Brawl Centeal and a few other sites. It was amazing.

 

[DakotaBonez]

My reaction to Brawl's newcomers 8 years ago

Pit? Who is this I don't even
Ike? Another vague JRPG character?
Wario! Hell yeah he's got the Warioware suit and bike! (I actually prefer the warioware games over the wario land series because I love multiplayer games)
Zero Suit Samus? Hawt, but why not Ridley?
Snake? Why's he in this game? That's not a nintendo character but holy sh$# he's badass and the crowd hype is real!

I have had similar mixed reactions to SSB4s newcomers, characters that I knew like Megaman, characters I wanted like Lil Mac, characters I never heard of like Robin.

Sakurai does a pretty good job of covering retro, new, inbetween, hardcore, casual and even 3rd party fanbases.

I mean, there was a time when Captain Falcon and Ness were WTF characters to all of us.

 

[Shiliski]

Which era was better? Well...

For any game in any series other than the original, you can't really measure that game's success by the game's opening week sales or pre-release hype. Rather, the first sales and the first hype are reflections on how well the previous game did. In short, Brawl didn't sell well because of Brawl's qualities. Brawl sold well because of Melee. If Smash 4 doesn't sell as well at first, then it's not because of Smash 4, but because of Brawl. Speaking personally, when I bought Starcraft 2 on opening night, it wasn't because I had some psychic knowledge beforehand that I would enjoy the game. I simply bought it because I enjoyed Starcraft 1. Same can be said for... pretty much any series, really.

Brawl was hyped, but it was hyped mostly because of Melee. Even without the Dojo constantly keeping the hype alive, Brawl would've still been hyped just because Melee would be so good. Even saying so, I did check the dojo regularly and enjoyed what I saw. I looked forward to SSE, and I looked forward to playing Meta Knight (and Sonic to a lesser extent). There wasn't a single thought in my mind that Brawl would ever be anything less than an updated Melee. Then it came out.

I don't want to turn this into a Brawl bashing post, nor do I want a Melee vs. Brawl debate, so let's just leave it at that.

With Smash 4, I'm not nearly as hype, but it's through no fault of Smash 4 that I don't feel as excited. I like the character intro videos, and I'm a fan of the PotDs, but I just don't get as excited over them as I did over dojo updates. I find myself looking forward more to other things, like Hyrule Warriors or Sailor Moon Crystal. Also, with Bawl, I was honestly looking forward to new characters and new gameplay possibilities, whereas with Smash 4 I'm just hoping that my favorite vets make a return. I'm more concerned with what I might lose than what I might gain. It's a completely different mindset, and not entirely rational (the old games will still exist, after all), but it's more excitement-mixed-with-fear instead of pure excitement.

I guess Brawl's pre-release era was better. That said, I think Nintendo is handling Smash 4's era better, it's just that they have less to work with.

 

[CoolEric258]

Brawl easily. 2 reasons specifically: It had more content. Yeah the Miiverse pics are nice, but the Dojo gave better details overall. Every day it revealed an item, a character, a stage, an assist trophy, a game mode, a control scheme, etc. Each and every time, I was getting hyped up to seeing something incredible every day to what was going to be an incredible game. The day I saw Sonic was going to be playable, I was having the biggest party going on, dancing and cheering by myself. The Smash 4 site has characters, basic stuff on how to play, and of course there's Directs, invitationals, and whatnot, but it just didn't feel the same for whatever reason. Mainly because of my second reason.

It was a huge breakthrough for me in gaming and the Internet. By the time I was following the Dojo, It was the summer of '07 I wanna say. By that time, I was just about to start the 4th or 5th grade. Also in that time, I began learning more and more about the Internet. At that time I discovered Internet videos like ScrewAttack and AVGN, and before then I was on Nintendo.com from time to time, even though I was a Playstation kid. I didn't get why I was fascinated with the company, but regardless, that's not the point. The point was that I started following Brawl because I earned a Wii in that summer of '07, and it being my first Nintendo home console, I was excited for the Wii's motion controls, and from experience from friends who had Gamecubes and N64s. Either way, despite only knowing the Pokemon and Mario characters, I was still excited to play the awesome game from a series I always wanted to own, since I had the Playstation. In that, the Dojo was the first time I got into pre-release hype. I started doing more and more research on the different characters and franchises, I got into Zelda and Kirby, I watched all the spoiled cutscenes for Subspace Emissary as well as all the unlockable characters that were leaked, and I was such a dork for this game, it became my very first preorder, and the only game I can think of that I've given a preorder to. And I still remember getting the game Day 1. I had all my homework done on Saturday, I was at the Gamestop, Brawl was being on display. I explained to people playing the store demo all about what I knew in controls and characters, I unlocked Ness, Marth, and Luigi, I complained about how my brother sucked, I begged to play more just to play as Luigi three times to get the Luigi's Mansion stage, and when I started out playing Subspace Emissary, when I told my brother there were no motion controls, he was actually mad at the game for not having it. Overall, it was one of the best days of my life.

And later on I started discovering Screwattack, AVGN, Knightwing01, and I was even a fan of Irate Gamer unfortunately. This all happened since I was getting more and more attentive to the world of gaming. With that, learning more about what the heck this E3 thing everyone kept talking about was, I started watching Nintendo's conferences in 2008, and later moved on to the other companies around 2010 or 2011, I watched Game Grumps, Jontron, Egoraptor, PBG, Angry Joe, Brentalfloss, and more throughout these years, and that's excluding movie reviewers like Nostalgia Critic, ranters like Black Nerd, and getting on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and discovering forums with people that have stuff I liked. The Brawl Dojo was the stepping stone to me becoming closer to the world of the Internet, and I couldn't be happier about it.

 

[Radical Bones]

I prefer the SSB4 prerelease. Although, I do wish the website was a bit more organised. Now that there's 30+ characters, it's a real mess.

Also, Brawl was good because the newcomers came at random times, not at Directs.

Still... this is better.

 

[ShredPix]

So if you like something you're oblivious to it's flaws?

I more meant in terms of speculation, which ended up with forums filled with salt (like here before the 14th).

 

[SpaceJell0]

Brawl definitely was, no question. Smash 4's site is just underwhelming with the little info and constant uninteresting POTDs. Brawl's was HYPE ALL THE WAY!! (I actually thought Brawl lived up to the hype ) I still love SSB4 but the site could be way better.

 

[Dinoman96]

Brawl me thinks. There was just so much more optimism and excitement compared to this game.

 

[Garteam]

Probably Brawl, The Brawl Dojo was more organised and also had more detailed info (actual words) along with documenting more than characters, but I generally enjoy the look of the SSB4 dojo more. Although the thing that makes Brawl superior in my eyes is the more optimistic air, anything was possible and characters were generally harder to predict (not to say we haven't had our group of surprises, just we lacked patterns to go off of), compared to now where E3 was less about what we saw and more about how what we saw was different from Melee and just the general speculation killer and community divider that was the Gematsu leak.

 

[HugoBoss]

Probably Brawl.

 

[Canuckduck]

I remember pre-release era Brawl, when people were getting so hyped for it and the competitive Melee players were preparing to completely switch to Brawl.

Then the game came out and they were like "whaaa-"?

 

[DraginHikari]

I guess I recall the Brawl Dojo have quite a bit of filler that got the same type reaction we get now with filler PoTD stuff. Then again I will admit most of the pre-release and release of Brawl was incredible taint from the level of scorn I had developed for this place around the time of Brawls release. It's the first time I can recall where a community behavior towards a game killed a level of enjoyment I had for the game. Admittedly, I was at a very different stage of life at the time of Brawl's release in 2008 so I didn't handle that level of frustration well at the time and probably wouldn't of happened in the same way if Brawl had been released today. How things change.

I still hope not to have a repeat of that performance.

 

[TeaTwoTime]

I didn't follow the Brawl pre-release as much as I could've and for whatever reason that I honestly can't justify, I only started following the Smash 4 hype around the start of this year. Because of this, I'll go with Smash 4. More than anything, though, the Fire Emblem reveal trailer was without doubt the most hype moment of gaming for me in recent memory.

 

[Canuckduck]

I didn't follow the Brawl pre-release as much as I could've and for whatever reason that I honestly can't justify, I only started following the Smash 4 hype around the start of this year. Because of this, I'll go with Smash 4. More than anything, though, the Fire Emblem reveal trailer was without doubt the most hype moment of gaming for me in recent memory.

I woke up every weekday morning and the FIRST thing I did was boot up my internet and go straight to the Smash Dojo to see the next update Sakurai posted. I was REALLY excited for Brawl.

 

[Fumpster]

Brawl's pre-release was, without a doubt, more exciting. There were still a ton of heavy hitter characters that were missing (Dedede and Wario come to mind), daily updates on the Dojo that provided more info than your typical Smash 4 Post of the Day, and with the introduction of third-party characters, the possibilities seemed endless. It's difficult to describe if you weren't there, but it truly felt like the internet gaming community at large was waiting for Brawl, whereas with Smash 4 it feels like only Smash/Nintendo fans keep up with the updates. While I'm more excited for Smash 4's slew of very unique looking newcomers than I was for Brawl's, there was a certain air around the time of Brawl that is simply difficult to capture again. I remember waking up to check the Dojo every morning during elementary school, with Nintendo doing everything they could do to get me out of bed for school at the time. The day they announced Sonic, waking up to random newcomers, and the fact that we barely even got footage of that game before release made the wait excruciating. I was so excited for Brawl. Everyone was so excited for Brawl, regardless of the final product we got (which I still love but definitely understand the criticism).

With that said, Smash 4 has had a much slower, but certainly not boring, hype train as well. It almost feels like a different kind of hype though. It feels like I'm less excited for the possibilities (new characters, stages, music, etc) and more excited that we're getting a new Smash Bros, if that makes any sense at all. I'm not as excited about the potential for new characters because the roster is incredible as it is already, so I'm just excited that people are going to be playing a new game with what I can only hope will be a good netcode. If the Smash 4 roster turns out the way I want it to, then I would not complain if the next iteration only added a few new characters but kept all the old ones and revamped them and made them new again. Bowserfy the roster, if you will.

 

[Canuckduck]

Brawl's pre-release was, without a doubt, more exciting. There were still a ton of heavy hitter characters that were missing (Dedede and Wario come to mind), daily updates on the Dojo that provided more info than your typical Smash 4 Post of the Day, and with the introduction of third-party characters, the possibilities seemed endless. It's difficult to describe if you weren't there, but it truly felt like the internet gaming community at large was waiting for Brawl, whereas with Smash 4 it feels like only Smash/Nintendo fans keep up with the updates. While I'm more excited for Smash 4's slew of very unique looking newcomers than I was for Brawl's, there was a certain air around the time of Brawl that is simply difficult to capture again. I remember waking up to check the Dojo every morning during elementary school, with Nintendo doing everything they could do to get me out of bed for school at the time. The day they announced Sonic, waking up to random newcomers, and the fact that we barely even got footage of that game before release made the wait excruciating. I was so excited for Brawl. Everyone was so excited for Brawl, regardless of the final product we got (which I still love but definitely understand the criticism).

With that said, Smash 4 has had a much slower, but certainly not boring, hype train as well. It almost feels like a different kind of hype though. It feels like I'm less excited for the possibilities (new characters, stages, music, etc) and more excited that we're getting a new Smash Bros, if that makes any sense at all. I'm not as excited about the potential for new characters because the roster is incredible as it is already, so I'm just excited that people are going to be playing a new game with what I can only hope will be a good netcode. If the Smash 4 roster turns out the way I want it to, then I would not complain if the next iteration only added a few new characters but kept all the old ones and revamped them and made them new again. Bowserfy the roster, if you will.

Don't forget the HUGE explosion of hype after BOTH Snake and Sonic were confirmed.

 

[Nat Perry]

Brawl pre-release for sure. Back then I didn't know a lot about Nintendo despite playing their games. I loved checking the Dojo updates every weekday and I saved every photo on the website onto my computer. Every update, whether it was a character, item, stage, song, or game mechanic, completely hyped me up. I couldn't contain it. Whether I was at a friend's place, at school, or on vacation, I'd be checking and obsessing over all the details Sakurai spilled. It was wonderful. Not to mention I was part of the NSider Forums and speculated with people there. It was a very positive experience that unfortunately came to an end in I believe September with the Snake and Golden Hammer update. The NSider Forums closed, and I had nobody to speculate with, online, at least. My friends didn't really care for Smash pre-release as much as I did. I took everything in like a sponge. Great, great memories. I'll always remember that experience. Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.

Now, it kinda sucks, to be honest. I'm glad we're not getting as much daily info as we did in the Brawl days, but like many have said the hype comes and goes then comes again. Like, it's not consistent at all, but each major reveal is exciting. E3 wasn't as hype-inducing as usual, but the Direct sure as hell was. The Direct was probably the highlight of pre-release SSB4 for me. That was sooooo awesome. I watched it with my friend and we were ecstatic. I loved it, it was amazing, it was awesome, too bad nothing else has reached that level of hype.

It's also kind of a shame how negative people on the Internet are about this one. All the heels hate, all the bitterness about Brawl, all the people saying it's Brawl 2.0, all the people mad about which characters Sakurai didn't include, it's just very negative. It sucks. I've been kinda negative too at times. But I feel as if the fanbase is pretty divided, but fighting over the pettiest things. It's nonsense and I hate it. It's irrirtating. See, I'm kinda complaining right now.

But yeah, Brawl pre-release was it for me. Sooooo good. It was even better when I got the game and played it every weekend. Oh my god, it was great.

 

[Saikyoshi]

Brawl, hands-down.

A lot of people complain about spoilers, but I say spoil me up. I want information, I want a mental picture of what I can look forward to.

And most importantly, I don't want repeats of stuff we already know.

 

[Raider 88]

I'm very hyped for Smash 4, but I still think I was more hyped pre-brawl. The character trailers for Smash 4 have been incredible so far, but still doesn't compare to the nerdgasms I had when Snake's codec appeared at the end of the E3 trailer, or when Sonic (!!!!!!!!!!) was announced in the Dojo trailer.

 

[Malcolm Belmont]

I still stand by the idea that the Brawl-Era dojo was far more overrated and to be honest I prefer the more simple and striaght forward PoTD and honestly I think the newcomer videos help the excitement involved with them. To be frank the newcomer reveals were exciting during Brawl in their own way... but I can't help but feel other then the 3rd party characters. They were just kind of shown one day with really nothing else to make it exciting.

I do think the Newcomers are more hyped up in 4 than Brawl

 

[Khao]

Overall, I can't say for sure, I got way too much bias towards Brawl in that I was younger and more easily exited, and I was in school hyping up the game with my friends, and we were all really excited every day to know what was the newest Dojo update. Now, excluding forums and stuff, I'm pretty much alone in my hype.

One thing I can say for sure is that character announcements are being handled far better for Smash 4 than they were for Brawl.

Full-on trailers for every newcomer?

Nyeh, we had some random site updates, title, character picture, couple of screenshots, the end.

Now we have some incredibly cool CGI movies, followed by actual gameplay footage, and we get to see the newcomers in action, that's simply better in every way possible.

Also, stuff like the smash direct? We wouldn't have even dreamed of it on Brawl times, when did we ever get 40 minutes of Sakurai talking about the game, and personally introducing and showing off new features and characters and ****? Never!

 

[Clavaat]

I'm seeing a pattern in this thread that I can relate to: Age. I was still in high school when Brawl was being released, and it became part of the routine to wake up in the morning, go to school, read dojo updates and talk about it during the day with friends. Luckily, I work in an environment where a lot of people play video games and can discuss it, so I still get some of that.

That being said, I almost think a better question would be:

What does the new generation of players think of Smash 4?

I'm very curious to know what the 10-16 year old crowd thinks of this game and the buildup surrounding it. That was the age range I got into Melee and a little later, Brawl. 64 even younger (like, 8)! But this generation probably barely knows what Melee is, and may have started with Brawl. Let's face it, we're grizzled veterans now, we've done this song and dance. We know what we want to see, and look for in videos/reveals. Looking at it from a fresh perspective, what would you think?

 

[Little_GotenSRK]

Brawl had more hype, but Smash 4 leaves more to the imagination. Smash 4, easily.

Brawl lived up to the hype if you ask me. I was promised a game where I could pick Yoshi and throw eggs at Sonic while lasers and bombs rained down on my own custom-made stage, with Snake setting C4s in the corner. That's exactly what I got.

 

[Terotrous]

I'm seeing a pattern in this thread that I can relate to: Age. I was still in high school when Brawl was being released, and it became part of the routine to wake up in the morning, go to school, read dojo updates and talk about it during the day with friends. Luckily, I work in an environment where a lot of people play video games and can discuss it, so I still get some of that.

Honestly I don't think age was a factor. Brawl simply had more and more substantial reveals, and with less warning. Every day, you could be getting a totally new character, and it could be someone big.

I was already into my 20s and the Brawl Dojo was still mad hype just because it was so unpredictable.

 

[κomıc]

Brawl had a lot of expected newcomers.

Smash 4 has a lot of unexpected (including Mega man) and objectively unpopular characters.

In terms of content, Pre-Brawl wins. But I'm enjoying how Pre-Sm4sh is going. We hardly know much about the game and the newcomer videos are fantastic.

 

[Fishbowl]

I feel like it all has been said in this thread. So, I'd like to just join you guys in reminiscing about the Dojo days...
Brawl was a very weird game, in that the hype from the pre-release days was a much better experience than playing the game itself. Not to say Brawl was a tragic, heartbreaking gameplay experience, I just had a ton of fun during the speculation days. The excitement of staying up all night, refreshing the Dojo, and then scrolling down to see the red character bar, and then scrolling down a little bit further to see the top part of a new character! It was so magical... the mental picture of this game that I was slowly putting together of the course of however months the dojo was up. I was honestly a little bit sad when they posted that farewell note..

Remember the magic of seeing this for the first time?

I remember thinking that Melee looked so good already, and that it would be hard to improve the graphics any further. And then the beginning of this trailer just blew my mind! The Final Smash, Meta Knight and Pit fighting eachother while flying, the crispness of the sound effects...
And then Snake, ontop of that (SHOOOOWTIME.)

Smash 4 has been wonderful in a different way. Never going to forget the Invitational, or the live character reveal that crushed Gematsu and opened up a figurative river of dreams.
Brawl taught me a few very important lessons about buying games. I feel like this time around, I know what I'm getting myself into, and I'm not going to ruin the experience by overhyping it. Nonetheless, from what I've seen this one's a keeper. I promised myself I wouldn't buy a Wii U until I saw whether they were going to continue dumbing down Smash (through gameplay at E3) and I was not disappointed