My analysis of smash 4, by Gem
Roster:
* it's huge and filled with lots of iconic peeps both first and third party for those into those sorts of things :3
* it's the first entry in the smash series to add a character I genuinely find myself wanting to play (Female Corrin)
* Miis are an interesting idea but much like custom moves they were half-assed in their implementation (due to not being allowed online, not being able to carry costume pieces you bought over, etc)
* Palutena wasn't done very well. Moveset wise they gave her horrible defaults and some of her core moves are laughable, but even outside of that I feel they totally failed to capture her character anyway.
* Separating Zelda and Shiek was a good move, if you're not going to have fluid transitions between states ala Nightmare in Soul Calibur then don't bother at all.
Combat Environment:
* Items are FAR too lethal now. In previous entries you had to keep an eye out for the odd bob-omb or the like but it seems like half the things that drop now are just death incarnate, whether it's the drill arm of 'carried to the blastzone', the tiny beetle that's impossible to spot until it's too late when the camera is zoomed out, the gust jar of lulz, the kid icarus death beam cannon, etc.
* Stage Hazards really, REALLY need to be optional :/
* Walk-offs are not fun, whether you're competitive or not, it just encourages camping and yet there's a ton of them. Why?
Content
* Single player is forgettable. I think melee nailed it with its adventure mode
* Smash Run almost feels good but to be honest I enjoy the dungeon more than the events at the end
* Smash Tour is... meh? The idea is interesting in terms of moving around the board at the same time and whatnot but the actual smash matches in it feel random and unrewarding to me
* I don't care for any of the bonus games at all, they're a far cry from break the targets
* Tournaments were a good idea but terribly implemented
* Does anyone really care about conquest?
Mechanics
* I love the new offstage gameplay brought on by edge-trumping. I find it more interesting to both watch and play compared to how it was handled in the previous entries
* While rolling too much can be punished fairly consistently, I sometimes find myself surprised how small the window to punish predictable rolling is and with online lag it can turn eye-roll inducing at times, especially with certain characters
* The removal of tripping was obviously a good thing :3
* I'm glad it doesn't have L-Cancelling (in my opinion it's a silly mechanic that should be automatic, not an arbitrary button press)
* I'm glad it doesn't have wavedashing (in my opinion they should just fix dashing so it accomplishes what people wavedash to do, rather than relying on a bunch of button presses to bandaid what's wrong)
Misc
* Amiibo implementation leaves me cold. Could've used it to transfer your nametag and settings, maybe even custom characters buuuuuut no... instead it's some pet AI thing that doesn't even really need the amiibo to have worked as an idea.
* Outside of maybe on the Miis, custom moves just don't really work well. Their balance is often questionable, some seem like they were added to just make up the numbers, unlocking them is a pain and ultimately I just feel they could've spent the dev time better elsewhere :/
Summary
* while I have a list of nitpicks a mile long, it's my favourite smash. It's just there's a ton of room for improvement or refinement :3