TheMightyThor, you hit it on the head, I'm sort of old-school (hence the username) and definitely don't play as much as I used to (that's what happens when a little thing called work gets in the way...to those of you still in school with time to kill, make the most of every minute, whether it's games or something else).
Back in the day I'd play a few hours of games almost every day, but nowadays it's mostly if I have a free weekend and none of my pals have plans--or if I've had a really tough day and need to blow off steam--there is nothing better than a video game to do that!!
As much as I like the SSB series, I will retain my opinion that there's still a ton of characters. I have played my share of fighting games and, plainly put, like to keep things simple. This is something I feel the original SSB did a very good job with, even if it was a limitation of the system and/or game pak capacity.
Here's my two cents on this, and you can take this or leave it, comment or rip it apart, etc: All SSB games to this point have been 4 player games. Let's say you go with a theoretical 16 character roster without redundancies (i.e. no Mario and Dr. Mario). You only have, at most, a quarter of the roster on the screen at the same time. Character rotation is still very much possible. Additionally, you can master a character's moves a little easier if you only focus on one or two, plus you can get to know what the others do a bit better, even if you seldom play as them.
This may sound like it's going to make the game too easy for a more serious gamer, but I've played SSB with guys more serious than me and it's been pretty intense--even if we have been playing the game since 1999. Knowing the enemy and having the enemy know you makes for better strategy. How will you outfox Fox he knows what you can do as Mario? When I play Brawl, it's the opposite--I barely know any of the characters, and they barely know what you can do. I played Brawl a few months ago with someone who had no idea Peach could put people to sleep, and he got really confused by it. In a way, there's some good to that, but it's harder to come up with specific strategies to target individual characters.
I feel it's all a matter of preference, and I'd love to see a new SSB with a toggle switch on the character screen much like for items. This way "house rules" could apply--i.e. you can only select from a few characters. If you've been to casinos where they have seemingly random house rules, you know exactly what I'm talking about here.
Finally, and perhaps this proves that I'm not as serious as some of y'all, I like to actually know who the characters are. With the original SSB, I wasn't sure of Ness at first since I didn't have Earthbound (although I have played it since SSB came out) and didn't know Jiggly Puff (mostly because I never got into Pokemon; I did know Pikachu since he was everywhere in 1999...take one trip down an aisle at Target and he's on half the products). That's 2 out of 12. Not bad. In Brawl, I think I knew about half the characters. However, this is also sort of a great marketing device from Nintendo--going back to the Marth and Roy example, people knew who they were because of an already popular game, so perhaps they would be more willing to try out their games. Likewise, if someone hasn't played Earthbound, perhaps they will get it on the Virtual Console (I think it's out on Wii U) to see who this Ness guy is.
Just a few thoughts from a guy who's not getting any younger or getting any more free time...and who started out with an Atari 2600 where character selection was pretty much not a thing!!
