I proudly admit being with the series ever since 64, unlike a lot of people I know who have started with Melee, Brawl or 4. I saw a copy of the game in the local Choices (small-scale video store essentially), and thinking of it as another Mario game to own, I pressed the parents to buy it only to find to my amazement that Pikachu, the guy from Ocarina of Time, Fox McCloud and a bunch of other characters I hadn't yet heard of were in the game too! Suffice to say, I fell in love with the series insanely quickly!
Ever since Brawl came out, I've picked Random as my main since there are so many characters to play as that frankly I feel it'd be a huge disservice to limit myself to only playing a small portion! Even then, I do still pick my favourites, and people may remember back from my more embarrassing days here at SmashBoards that R.O.B. was my self-appointed main once upon a time. Generally speaking, I enjoy playing as most characters in the series, but Mario, DK, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Jigglypuff, Wario, King Dedede, R.O.B., Duck Hunt Duo & Pac-Man stand out in particular!
Yoshi was the first character I ever played as in a Smash Bros. game, and it was due to a total accident too! I was gazing at Mario's animation on the character select screen and tried to pick him, but I smacked the control stick slightly down and selected Yoshi instead, who I then proceeded to play through the 1P game with, actually beating Master Hand on my first go as a kid! Since then, Yoshi's always been a character I love using, and I can proudly admit playing Yoshi before it was cool in Smash 4! *shotdead*
I got introduced to Metroid, Kirby, F-Zero, Earthbound, Fire Emblem & Xenoblade through Smash Bros. Out of these series, Kirby is the only one I actively play, though I intend to play Xenoblade once I can find a copy.
Playing Smash 64 was also how I found out that the hero of the Legend of Zelda series is not in fact named Zelda.
is one of the characters I enjoy playing as the most, but the only Metroid games I've played are the original & Super Metroid via the Virtual Console. I rented a copy of Metroid Prime once when I was 7, but died very early on (at the Parasite Queen fight if I recall) and recalled it immediately.
I correctly predicted Meta Knight, Pit, King Dedede, Wario, Diddy Kong & Captain Olimar would make it into Brawl before it was officially revealed. The former 3 I guessed because of trophies (and in Dedede's case because I played Kirby 64!), the rest were ones I really wanted to see and was surprised not to see in Melee.