I preferred Adventure to SSE but felt it was lacking in depth and replay value. Making it character specific would make it last so much longer and minor changes based on what you have unlock couldn't possibly be a bad thing for replay value. A story interwoven throughout the Adventures would give extra meaning to the whole thing while also giving players a reason to play them all, forcing players to get good as every character without making it unfun. I definitely agree with that aswell.
I also agree with the idea of a final Adventure for all the characters after the others are complete. To get it to work would require the character specific Adventure modes to all have their own bosses (some such as Mario's and Luigi's would likely share though) so that the true final boss would be reserved for the final adventure.
To get the feel of all the characters working together I would have this final adventure be more subspace based both in terms of the level design and the fact that you would have 5 characters of your choice to use instead of lives.
Yeah, Adventure mode in Melee was fun... once. After playing it through 25 times I never wanted to see it again. That's part of my reasoning behind individual adventures for each character rather than the same one for every character.
And yes, many characters would probably share a very similar story with some noticeable differences. An example would be Mario's and Luigi's adventures, like yo said. Pretty much the same layout of side-scrolling stages and battle stages, but with a couple different stages between the two, and maybe some different bosses (Petey Piranha for Mario and King Boo for Luigi or something...). Overall though, adventure modes should be pretty unique for each character in order to retain replay value.
With Brawl, ALOT of people knew about its presence, and the main concern was "Who's in the game?! WHO'S IN THE GAME!?!?"
Unfortunately, there is a lot of truth to this. And unfortunately, I don't imagine things being any different when/if SSB4 is announced.
Many people knew who'd be in the game. Sites had a confirmed list of characters and there were many videos, blogs and threads about them. Since many were aware of who got in, it would be kind of frustrating to jump through Melee-level hoops to get them in.... For Smash 4, if the characters are hard to obtain, then maybe the unlockable characters should remain a mystery.
There is probably a lot of truth to this too... and I agree. If Sakurai ends up doing anything similar to Smash Dojo!!, which I kind of hope he doesn't, the only things revealed should be elements of the game that you begin with. No hidden characters, stages or features should be revealed, even if a spoiler warning is provided like it was on the Dojo!!.
...we should only start out with a maximum of three newcomers. I feel, and I think you guys can agree, that newcomers should more or less stay unlockable. On the original site the first characters ever posted were Wario, Zero Suit, Snake, Pit, and Meta Knight. (I think, maybe just Wario, Snake and Pit)
It was all five. But I totally agree with this. Although I think we could put the cap on starting newcomers at 4 instead of five, like Melee (Peach, Bowser, Ice Climbers, Zelda/Shiek).
Look at these stats (not counting transformations):
MELEE:
Starting Veterans: ~ 10
Starting Newcomers: ~ 4
Hidden Veterans: ~ 2
Hidden Newcomers: ~ 9
BRAWL:
Starting Veterans: ~ 12
Starting Newcomers: ~ 9
Hidden Veterans: ~ 8
Hidden Newcomers: ~ 6
Melee got it perfect. It introduced a fraction of the newcomers in the starting roster, just to give the proper, fresh, sequel feel. At the same time, it kept us wondering whether some of the veterans like Jigglypuff and Luigi would return by keeping them hidden. Most importantly, The majority of newcomers remained hidden to allow for a sense of surprise and discovery upon unlocking them, and the majority of veterans were in the starting roster. It's this sense of surprise and discovery that I loved about Melee. Honestly, it's that feeling that kept me playing, wondering what new, undiscovered character I would stumble upon next. The perfect balance between hidden characters, newcomers, starting characters, and veterans was attained in Melee, and I'd love it to return in SSB4.
Now Brawl... Brawl did it all wrong. The sense of surprise and discovery that I experienced in Melee was not present in Brawl nearly as often as it was in Melee, and it all happened to soon. It wasn't enough to keep me playing, not enough to keep me interested (most new features were spoiled for me anyway before I owned the game). But look at the difference... The starting roster consisted of
9 newcomers.
NOT cool in my eyes. I was originally under the impression that Meta Knight, Pit, and Wario would be the only starting newcomers since they were unveiled long before the release of the game, but I was wrong. THAT would have been quite ideal, though. And most of the hidden characters were veterans? There was nothing surprising or fun about unlocking all the returning melee hidden characters again, along with all of the original hidden characters (it REALLY ticked me off that Captain Falcon and Ness were returned to hidden status....). The most annoying thing of all, only 6 newcomers were hidden. And two of them (Snake and Sonic) were spoiled for the world anyway, even if you didn't look at hidden features on the Dojo!!.
I REALLY hope that SSB4 doesn't go down the same path that Brawl did... Melee had it perfect. I'd like to feel that same surprised feeling I felt throughout all my years playing Melee.