Basically I've divided characters based off of 8 groups:
Top row: Rushdown type characters. They want to get in, stay in, and never let you have a chance to get away, and they have ways to "force" themselves into close range.
Second row: Deadly combo characters. They may have other tools outside of close range, but it's just to help them get in, and when they get in, it's just a blender of damage for high damage or taking stocks.
Third Row: Hit & Run. Emphasis on chipping away at opponent with absurdly good poking options.
Forth Row: "balanced" Basically characters that have a way to play at all ranges, with seemingly no bias for any range
Fifth Row: Big boys. Characters that have very large attacks, but don't have disjoints and/or frame data to throw out attacks carelessly
Sixth row: Swordies/disjoints. Characters that are meant to be at a specific distance tossing out safe disjoints with very little fear of being punished compared to tossing out moves to poke using other characters.
Seventh Row: Turtles. Characters that change the stage environment by having traps/slow projectiles/etc to limit options the opponent has
Bottom Row: Zoners. Characters that prefer to stay as far away as possible. To whittle away at the opponent from a safe distance.
Characters on the left side are the most likely to main for their category. Characters on the left side but close to the middle line are characters that are either 2nd in line for favorite in that category, or characters that have in theory all the stuff to be a main but I need to either learn them more or get attached to the character by playing their game so I don't ditch them. Characters on the right side I've basically reserved for casual play at this point.
So for the characters in each group:
Rushdown: This is the group that all feel incredibly fun to play. Just a bit harder to get with them because I literally only like them because of smash which is a blow to keeping motivation to play them. Also I have to learn combo routes a bit more, and I haven't spent enough time with them yet to really use them to their full effect.
Fox &
Sheik I basically view as faces of competitive smash.
Pichu is just a fun time and quite hard, and practically influenced my username unintentionally because I love them so much in smash. Squirtle I don't know if he belongs here because I haven't seen enough experienced Squirtle players to really know what the playstyle is like, but I like the idea of swapping between different archetypes of PT so he's been on my mind lately.
Combo characters:
Meta Knight is kind of a weird fighter. His up air combo isn't as consistent as previous games, but it's still a thing. He has frame data of a rushdown character so you can't just suffocate people randomly in some matchups. Though he often does a bait & punish style, so he can feel like hit & run sometimes. All I know is he feels amazing.
Kirby feels like a very fun deadly combo character, but he feels underwhelming compared to other combo characters. All the other combo characters I can get bored with for long periods of time. Except for when my friend plays Falco and I don't expect those combos from him, and Ice Climbers because I don't want to break my hands playing smash. = )
Hit & Run: My first video games were all games that if you get touched, you are dead instantly, so you need to outmaneuver and outplay everyone with your superior speed & abilities so you don't have to restart your whole game because you got hit once in 3 separate lives.
So obvious sonic is here since that's the entire purpose of the character, and he feels amazing to play every time. The main thing going against him is I know how most people can hate fighting/spectating him (but could help overcoming not caring about that since that happens to every character, just less often to others). Also I worry about how much Side b makes his gameplay repetitive later on.
These categories were kind of inspired by Ramses Esports's archetype video, and he put inkling as waller. While yes that bair is insane, maybe I'm just bad so far, but it feels like ya gotta focus on their other options so the bair isn't insanely predictable. Inkling just feels like they get in, do a tiny bit of damage, and then get out most of the tourney footage I've seen and in my experience playing them. They feel so great to play.
Gale tornado/chakram swordfighter definitely would be placed elsewhere. However I've gone to the 2213 Light shuriken, gale stab, stone scabbard, and power thrust Mii Swordfighter and I am absolutely addicted to this character right now. You have constant pressure at all ranges at every moment in the match, and the specials allow for quick hits that move both players around the map while they get in and out. Also I have now played Monster Hunter World, so now I love the Rathalos armor even more, and the 2213 set really does remind me of playing my main weapons Insect Glaive/Lance in Monster Hunter.
Joker has a moveset that in theory I should be absolutely in love with. The bit of persona 5 I have seen I should love as well since it's all about psychology and how people think, with the archetypes of personas being based of Carl Jung's work and stuff. However, despite all that, something just feels off with Joker. Maybe it's just 'cuz he looks like a dorky teenager weeb, or maybe I'm not good enough at playing him. Both these things I can learn to love/get better at so it's not a problem. So, if stuff does suddenly click, I feel like he could instantly become my main, especially since multiple people suggest I main him. Emotions be a fickle thing.
"Balanced" characters:
Lucario's sluggish frame data makes it so he can't really be a rushdown fighter (even if he is fast, though backwards charging aura sphere kinda lets him get in sometimes), but he is kind of like all the other archetypes put into one character depending on how strong aura is at the time. At this current point in time I feel Lucario is probably the best character for me to main since he'll get me into the right mentality of knowing how to focus, but also to know how to relax and have fun. Usually most characters I get one side or the other. Only Sonic, Inkling, Pichu, Ridley (well any of the big boys really), Sephiroth, Toon Link, Snake, and Olimar are the only other characters that can kinda tap into this mindset of focusing while remembering to have fun and experiment, but they generally don't strike as good of a balance as Lucario..... Also I've been playing Rain World lately, soooo that's been heavily biasing me towards Lucario recently.
Mewtwo just feels like it's good absolutely good at any range, he's just extremely glass cannon. Mewtwo schmoves so well, it's really hard to resist playing him.
I may not be as edgy as I used to be but I still love wolf a ton. Also he feels like one of the more fundamental characters, but he just gets rewarded too well for those fundies. I can't see myself playing Mewtwo over Lucario, or wolf over Mewtwo, but I love playing wolf too much to count him out entirely.
Big Boys:
Ridley is the character that made me learn to not get bothered by being in long combos. He knows how to come back from the brink of death the very second the opponent stops respecting your options. Some people put him in waller, but maybe playing my Pikachu main friend has me feeling like he's too sluggish to be put in with the other swordies. Similarly,
Ike is insanely sluggish, and feels like one of the few sword users that can't just throw out sword attacks out all randomly. Nair is good at lower levels of play, but once people start parrying constantly, it's like what do you even do outside of hard reading the opponent as Ike? Anyways, I tried to main
Charizard for a while in Smash 4, and he feels great. I only didn't stick with him because I wanted to try out everyone else because Charizard is very simple, and then I just didn't return to him. Charizard being so fun always keeps reminding me about Squirtle and Ivysaur. Originally they were weighing him down because I don't care about them in our of smash originally, but now that I've having more fun with the variety of playstyles and regularly fighting someone that plays PT every time we play together, they have been warming up to me. Honorable mention to Ganondorf and Incineroar. Ganondorf I used a lot in Smash 4 which caught people off-guard, and he's second only to Ike in making me pay attention to the opponents movements if I'm rusty with smash. Incineroar just feels like the spiritual successor to brawl/smash4 Ganondorf, but he loses some points because he feels like he's one of my friend's characters (and I already got plenty of other character choices that this actually matters)
Sword/disjoints: First main was
Marth in Melee. So he definitely biased me towards how I play in smash. Though my playstyle has definitely been diluted by playing other characters since then. So for a long time I was struggling to pick between a lot of swordies, but when
Sephiroth came out, he basically single handedly obliterated all of the competition. While all swordies feel good, Sephiroth is the only one where I actually love the character itself outside of smash. There's not much love going on for most characters personality/lore wise that I care about, and even in the case of
Link, it's not very strong because there's nothing to work with there outside of BOTW being a very relaxing game.
Marth is being carried entirely by tippers and being my Melee main. His moveset is just okay, but hot dang there's a huge spike in fun anytime I hit a tipper. Sephiroth's sweet spots are very close in how fun it is to his his tippers and stuff, but Marth is the OG tipper user, and he makes it work. Corrin
is a character that no one can seem to love outside of smash, but in smash his gameplay feels so unique and fun. Also being able to combo with a sword character like Corrin is a bit of a shock to the system. Then what really makes him stand out is all the weird micro spacing he can do with all of his moves. Gives me that underdog vibe that makes me want to play him to show how interesting his movement can be. That said, nice to see Corrin being picked up in the meta more lately.
I've always liked Ivysaur, but his sluggish movement, with unimpressive recovery has always been a problem for me. Though overtime everything that bothered me about Ivysaur is bothering me less. Also I'm being silly splitting the belmonts up because before I tried to get them into Elite Smash I only ever saw people spamming projectiles with them in Elite smash, and even in tournaments! Projectile spamming is an absolutely horrid way to play them once I tried to learn them. It's all about the whip. It honestly feels a lot like playing Byleth and Sephiroth, but you sacrifice recovery in order to have the cross & holy water to help you limit your opponent's options so it's easier to hit them with your whip.
Turtles:
Now I know Toon Link could easily be placed elsewhere like hit & run for example. However I just view him as a turtle because his projectiles are so slow and linger for so long, alongside with how incredibly fast he is, he can use projectiles to cover his approach. I love projectile heavy characters because that implies so many more options, and I love fast characters because again, more options. So fast projectile users are all incredibly fun, thus Toon Link is insanely fun. I hear Young Link is better, but I like Toon Link being more trappy, whereas Young Link feels more like "I'm gonna arrow you across the stage, and then keep arrowing to combo as I approach to get my kill confirm" sorta deal so it's harder for me to enjoy playing/watching young link gameplay.
Snake feels like chess in Smash. I grew up kicking people's butt in chess club when I was in school. Years later I still kicked people butts when I decided to pick Chess backup in VR. So having a character that is all about thinking about multiple locations on the map at all times, thinking about how the effects you in the future, adapting to every slight change even if it seemed insignificant at first, and choosing when to commit or not, when to sacrifice.... Yeah I friggin love Snake's gameplay.... and it has explosives! Main thing going against him is I haven't played Metal Gear yet. Though similarly to Joker, his game covers themes that I find interesting. So I gotta play it at some point. Since I don't currently care about Snake, which sucks because his gameplay in theory is perfect, but with so many other characters with "perfect gameplay", ya gotta have a little bit of attachment on top to keep me sticking with you.
Rosalina & Luma is a really fun character, however Luma dies just so incredibly fast that it feels like you can't really play the character, especially against matchups that excel at killing Luma. I'm sure if you get over that hump and make it so Luma lives longer sure, but often times it's like trying to play So-Po all game when fighting anyone decently good and it's really hard to try to improve like that.
Duck Hunt feels like a more chaotic version of Snake. The gameplay for Duck Hunt is so friggin fun. Problem is he can be hard to kill with a lot of the time, and while I used the zapper to play Duck Hunt as a kid, I really don't care about Duck Hunt dog at all. Especially since his whole schtick is to laugh at you. I'm not here to make people mad, I just want to make an obstacle course with projectiles to see how my opponent can impress me with how they deal with it.
Pac-man is a strange case. Initially he felt like he was too basic. Then combo videos made him look complex. Now I learned the items and watched more tourney footage, he feels incredibly basic again and now overhyped for his complexity (still stupidly strong character though)
Zoners:
Someone actually suggested I go Olimar, and complimented on how well I was doing with Olimar, and saying how scary it was massively changed my opinion on this character. Olimar being notoriously annoying to fight is the main reason why I never gave this character a serious chance before. I like Pikmin and all, but it's not like a major game series I play, and Olimar is literally just your average joe-schmoe guy(and isn't leaning into the underdog type like Little Mac does). Though I am loving the character the more I play them. Also holy snap his gameplay is so friggin intense for the entire match. Similarly to Snake, he feels very chess-like in the moment to moment decision making and thinking multiple steps ahead knowing when to sacrifice and all that. Just Olimar has less emphasis on stage control, but is significantly faster gameplay, and the decisions he makes are just so much more multi-layered, and doesn't outright shut down most opponent's gameplay like Snake does because of Snake's frame 1 nades and absurdly long, fast, hard hitting normals. So if often feels like I'm fighting my opponent more, rather than just taking half of their options away. Also Olimar actually has combos unlike snake, but it's dependent on what pikmin he has which makes him even cooler than I initially thought when seeing the character. I feel like literally every game is a completely different game with Olimar, more-so than any other character in the roster due to how much there is to consider. So you gotta just kinda think on the fly more often, rather than do that guaranteed combo all the time.
Now on the flip side, sometimes it's nice to have things be rather simple. Down B bomb drop is addicting to use even in matchups where the others are probably more useful. Up B likely to use arm rocket, but the others are alright for more niche reasons. Neutral B and side B are the main ones I'm interested in. Laser Blaze & Stealth burst is a combo I don't care for because at that point I'd rather be mii swordfighter 2213 or Sephiroth. Doomslayer's Charge Blaze & Missile is a lot like Samus who was a main at one point in Smash 4, but I like Gunner's movement and normals more (as much as I want to have an excuse to play
Dark Samus). I'm addicted to anything that homes in on enemies in games, so hard to resist missiles and pick flame pillar which apparently has some nice combos (and kill confirm with charge blast). May go Ray MK III swap Charge blast for Grenade launch for maximum projectile spammage like I'm playing Custom Robo. Unfortunately, while this moveset is extremely fun against other projectile heavy characters, it is not fun against the majority of the cast (and often times feels like I'm cheesing since grenade launch often is a very cheesy move).
So yeah, it's always hard to pick a character. I love the whole "don't get hit" mentality of many archetypes, they just got about it in different ways. Only balanced and big boy type characters don't have a huge emphasis on not getting hit, I love their emphasis on reading the opponent really hard. Again, I do love every character in the roster. These are just the characters that seem like they might be easier for me to main (but of course, perhaps I'm going about finding a main the wrong way). Like playing Captain Falcon, Terry, King Dedede or Hero will cure depression because they are so goofy, but it'd be impossible for me to play them seriously in any capacity.... Despite being able to do so well with them even if I've never labbed them =p
