Features:
1) Make Stamina a selectable setting online. That's such a different gameplay style that it would need its own set of tiers since having no knockback isn't an issue.
2) Save my match settings. I don't understand why this series continues to save my item and stage settings from one day to the next, but I have to manually set the amount of stock every time.
3)
Real alternate outfits, and lots of them.
4) Patches and other DLC potential.
5) Character creator if they can figure out how to make one work. If need be, make it like Soul Calibur III where there are some premade movesets and players just select between them while choosing their look.
6) Make the stage builder easier to use. Having to scroll to the bottom of the window just to change the size of a block is annoying, and there's no way to easily make a set of moving platforms that keep in sync with each other.
7) 256-person friend roster, at minimum.
Gameplay:
Keep the Brawl engine, then make these changes:
No tripping.
Automatic L-canceling on every aerial.
Melee's level of hitstun.
Balance:
Bring in respected players to playtest the game while it's in development so that tweaks can be applied. Another possible way to balance the game would be to make some Subspace Emissary spinoffs between now and the next true Smash Bros. and let players try out new, relatively untested characters that way. Balance doesn't matter that much in single-player/co-op games, so the worst thing that could happen wouldn't be that bad--I doubt many people would care about a character sucking in a non-competitive game. And the
best thing that could happen is that players would be able to provide valuable feedback and say "Hey, Mona's attacks aren't strong enough compared to Mario, Luigi, Wario, and Peach. When it's time for the next real Smash Bros., she needs to be buffed."
Also, disjointed hitboxes look silly and don't make sense on any character not using a weapon. Make them stop.
Characters:
On a personal level, there are only three things I want:
1)
Colette from Tales of Symphonia. We need more girls, more ranged fighters, more weapons that aren't swords or hammers*, and more flying characters, and she'd fit all four. I also think she's got pretty much a perfect personality to fit in with the Nintendo universe, and she's been in three games that were on a Nintendo system. (Symphonia on GC, Symphonia: DotNW on Wii, and Narikiri Dungeon 3 on GBA, although that last one was never translated...)
*I know she would have Pow Hammer, but that's not the same as Ice Climbers and King Dedede where practically every attack involves a hammer in some way.
2) More girls in general. Lip or Mona would be excellent additions. Daisy would have great potential if they gave her a full sports-based moveset or let her spawn soccer balls in the same way that Diddy spawns bananas. Lyn would be great too, but by the time SSB4 is out, she might have been a bit forgotten.
3) Don't remove any characters who are in--and especially do not remove the original twelve. If others are removed, I would complain anyway, but no matter what the circumstances, do not
touch those original twelve. They should be considered, like, sacred ground for Smash. Even horribly nerfed versions of Jigglypuff, Captain Falcon, and Ness would be better than not having them in at all.
Anyway, that's what I think on a personal level.
But with a broader view and thinking about what would appeal to a wider range of gamers, I guess I would say that SSB4 should be the third-party blowout game--especially since they already said they were running out of big Nintendo faces to add. Obviously a few major Nintendo characters still remain, like Dixie Kong, Waluigi, and at least one character out of Black Shadow/Deathborn/Samurai Goroh, but overall I think they should aim to have about 8-12 third-party characters. These would be my preferences:
Personal character wishlist filled with pipe dreams who'll never happen:
Capcom: Mega Man*, Sakura* (Street Fighter)
Hudson: Bomberman
Konami: Maria Renard (Castlevania), Richter Belmont (Castlevania)
Namco: Cassandra** (Soul Calibur), Colette Brunel (Tales)
Sega: Tails
Square-Enix: Celes Chere*** (Final Fantasy), Hero (Dragon Quest, preferably DQIII)
*Mega Man + Roll would also be awesome, or Ryu + Chun-Li, or Ryu + Sakura, but I was trying to get two different series involved.
**I would very happily accept Lloyd, who I kind of hate, over Cassandra if having him in was the only way to get Colette.
***Terra Branford would also be great.
Character wishlist from a perspective of who's more likely since they would make more people happy:
Capcom: Mega Man, Ryu (Street Fighter)
Hudson: Bomberman
Konami: Simon Belmont (Castlevania), Snake (Metal Gear)
Namco: Lloyd Irving (Tales), Siegfried (Soul Calibur)
Sega: Sonic, Tails
Square-Enix: Crono (Chrono Trigger), Mog (Final Fantasy)
Hudson's the weak link in terms of recognizable characters, so just having Bomberman would be enough for them. Namco is also questionable since Soul Calibur isn't that well associated with Nintendo and I doubt they'd put in more than one character from the same series, but I wanted to list two possible characters for each third-party other than Hudson. (Need backups in case anything goes wrong with negotiations, e.g. Square-Enix being jerks enough to demand ridiculous amounts of money before their characters could be put in, or Capcom not wanting Ryu because he'd play too similarly to Mario, or whatever.)
That said, two Tales characters would be awesome for the purposes of Smash, since movesets between the two series are fairly similar and only a few attacks like grabs would need to be added to set a Tales character up with a full Smash repertoire.
Tales of ____
Lloyd Irving - With the way the tales series works, he'd be awesome.
Colette - Blah blah blah more females and she doesn't use a sword. Happy?
"Happy"? I'd be so ecstatic that I just might never play another character again, for all the reasons I outlined above. ^_^
j/k)
