Various mods and now with Ultimate being VERY competitively viable has proven the old saying VERY true:
Melee fans only really want to play Melee. Not saying this in a way to knock them or anything, but they've gotten VERY good.. at Melee. They've spent a TON of time.. with Melee. They've won all these tournaments.. playing Melee. After an 18 year run, those who are intertwined with Melee aren't coming loose off of it anytime soon. Even a proper official Melee HD isn't guaranteed to pull them away, because if ANY one little thing is changed (and with Nintendo, it would be) there would automatically be a reason to stick to the original. Melee players want to play Melee, and unless Melee is remastered in a literal 1:1 fashion.. that's not changing. It isn't about competitive viability.. at least not anymore. When Brawl or MAYBE Sm4sh was the newest offering,. sure. But with Ultimate being a thing, and with a literal Melee HD mod existing as well as things like Project M.. it's clear that isn't the reason. People who like Melee.. like Melee.
Now I'm sure a big part of the reason so many stuck with Melee is that it WAS the only competitively viable game in the series.. then Sm4sh KIND OF changed that and.. Melee didn't go anywhere. Ultimate DEFINITELY changed that, Melee still isn't going anywhere. Melee will always exist, the only question is the size of its community and how it grows / changes from there.. and I don't see them hopping over to ANY other game even if it was a new 'Melee' because Nintendo isn't known for pulling out 1:1 ports / remasters. Stuff is always changed, plus it's not financially viable. The Melee community, while by no means small... isn't HUGE or anything. It's not some waiting-to-be-tapped goldmine for Nintendo.. the competitive side of Smash (not just Melee, ALL of Smash) is the vocal minority of the overall Smash community.. casual players outnumber us comp players 10 to 1. Casuals do not want another melee, and even comp players like myself don't want another Melee because while I DO want the games to stay competitively viable.. I can't stick with the exact same formula forever and not burn out like some can when the game is as limited as Melee is due to its age.. I just personally couldn't stick with it forever despite still sticking with it for ages.
Ultimate, on the other hand.. is a competitively viable game with a roster that will eventually reach the number of 80.. with over 100 stages that can have their hazards turned off and such. I don't see myself ever burning out on this game, with 80 characters.. the meta will NEVER stale provided we don't get another Bayo or MK situation through the DLC characters. Melee, with a roster that doesn't even hit 30 and a TINY little anorexic shred of legal stages remaining and a meta that consists of 6 at best viable characters? No, I can't stick with that. All the respect to those who can, but I had my time with it and did burn out.. though in fairness it took a LONG time. The love people have for Melee is intense.. and very specific. It's too fine a line that Melee walks (being that the game overall is pretty much an accident as-is) to try and recreate that spark, even if people DO want it.
So I don't want a Melee remaster or a port, or a remake.. no. I don't think many do. People who want to keep playing Melee want to keep playing Melee, not Melee HD where so much as even one change could ruin the game for them completely OR risk splitting the community in half like OSRS and RS3 or something. It's just an all-round risk, financially it's a risk because competitive players aren't the source of big sales numbers for Smash games.. it's also a risk because the target-audience (comp players) is likely to abandon the game if it's even slightly different.. which to be real, it would be. If not that, it splits the community. If not that, it dies in obscurity. There's a TON that could go wrong, you dig? For that reason, plus with Ultimate being an absolute slam-dunk right now.. it's FAR from likely. It's not a good idea, either.
Melee is great as-is and people who love it love it for VERY specific reasons, and remasters, remakes and even ports are notorious even outside of Nintendo for making little (or even BIG) changes here and there to try and modernize it.. often to the detriment of the experience overall. If it doesn't split the community (which if it went anywhere at all, it would, because I promise you 100% of the Melee community isn't coming off of the game.. some of those guys have roots in too deep) it will quickly fall flat. It's a big risk for Nintendo AND for the community. I think Smash is in a good place right now with Melee and Ultimate being the perfect Yin and Yang, it hasn't ever been in this good a place I think. The balance is best not screwed with.
