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[Kokonoe]

I updated the comparison list that I did some months ago:

I wrote this for the other thread, I really hope they make a Smash Bros. Melee HD someday cause that game has the most color out of all Smash Bros games.

Not gonna count 64. (Although Kirby is pretty cute in 64.)

Link Melee > Brawl > U
Prefer OoT Link, and the colors are very vivid and nice. Very green. Link in Smash Bros. U has quite a terrible face, the worst Link model I've ever seen from a a Nintendo game with Link. It doesn't even look like Link, he looks like Roseanne Barr fused with the Keebler Elf. His clothes look hoboish and plasticy, and his shield kind of looks like Fisher Price with the indents instead of being a flat surface like usual. I guess the best way to describe his clothes are "cosplay" cause it looks like that isn't Link but someone cosplaying him. The green is also very, very washed-out.

Donkey Kong Melee > Brawl > U
I don't like either of Brawl's or U's models. Their faces are so weird, and although Donkey Kong in Melee has a flat texture for the fur, his face less weird looking. Also the flat fur looks better than poorly done 'realistic' fur.

Pikachu Melee > U > Brawl
Pikachu looks abysmal in both U and Brawl, so this one easily goes to Melee which also has nice color. Pikachu in Brawl is all washed out and very misshapen, and Smash Bros. U the eyes look like stickers as does the emote, lacks proper face animations and the head lacks depth and Pikachu just looks like he has a ball for a head at times. The polygons on his body look weird too. Not as smooth as other characters.

Zelda U > Brawl > Melee
Zelda in Melee looks okay from far away but the face is very off off, the eyes look like stickers and the hair isn't too detailed. Zelda is the only somewhat bad model in Melee. Fine, but the models used in Brawl and U have better detail in the hair and have good enough colors for this one.

Kirby Melee > U > Brawl
At first it'd seem obvious to pick U. Kirby, but no, I have some petpeeves with it. I do like the Kirby design but 1. the edges on his sphere body are too bright and his eyes are far too blurry and less clear compared to Melee. Nice color, but way too blurry. Brawl Kirby is washed out due to Brawl's palete which makes it last.

Luigi Melee > U > Brawl
Melee Luigi has nice colors, very solid which even U Luigi lacks. Luigi in U is much brighter and slightly washed out, and Brawl Luigi is darker but washed out. The models are fine, but I like the colors on Melee more so that wins. I like my greens 'green'. U Luigi is much better overall than the Brawl model.

Mario Melee > U > Brawl
Mario just straight up looks awesome in Melee. His red in Smash Bros. U and Brawl is washed out, way too washed out. I also like the blue coloring used in his overalls in Melee. I think the modeling is much better on U Mario compared to Brawl Mario, but the overall textures are kind of weird, at least a tad.

Samus Melee > U > Brawl
Once again, Melee wins because of the coloring used is fantastic. Melee is bursting with color and I love it for it. Now if Samus in U had deeper colors, I'd prefer that one as the model does look pretty good. Brawl's model is a attempt to go for realism on lower hardware and doesn't really look all that great plus it has some weird shading on the stomach area.

Marth Undecided
I'm usually a pretty decisive person but this one I can't really decide since they all look good. I think I'd prefer Smash Bros. U if it had Marth's hairstyle from Melee.

Bowser Melee > Brawl > U
Love Bowser's model in Melee, the facial features, the eyes, the long hair with the red and orange mix along with the color on the horns and the skin just are great. I actually like Brawl's model too, very serious looking although it could use a bit more color. Smash Bros. U's Bowser has some weird eyes, the hair/eyebrows are kind of souless looking with that tint and there isn't any pizzazz. I find the realistic skin to be kind of odd too, not so much cause it's realistic I just think it looks weird the style they used. Throw in some color it looks really washed out.

Peach Melee > Brawl > U
I don't care for the more frilled and ruffled dress in Brawl and I do appreciate they toned it down in U but it still is what it is. I prefer Peach's dress in Melee because it's simple and isn't all over the place. One thing I don't care for is the breast enhancement in Smash Bros. U, definitely not a fan of that. Melee Peach has a nice shade of Pink on her dress as does U Peach. Brawl Peach's hair is kind of washed out and the dress is in some regards too white in the areas where there is suppose to be color due to Brawl's coloring style.

Fox Melee > U > Brawl
Command Fox sucks and I hate both the designs in Brawl and in U. Melee Fox has a nice color choice, not washed out compared to both Command Fox's, although the one in U has less washed out colors and some nice solids on the pants. I don't care for Command Fox's face as it looks like his snout is ice cream and he kind of looks like a beaver or something. Forehead way too tall and his ears far too small. His outfit has too many pockets and stuff now, I prefer the simplistic attire of Melee Fox. He only has what he needs.

Pit Brawl > U
Pit's eyes in U just kill the face for me, they look kind of bad to be quite honest. Brawl's face is nice and looks alive while the one in U looks like a doll's face.

Olimar U > Brawl
Olimar overall in color and model is just better than Brawl's in U.

Sonic Brawl > U
Sonic's model is pretty bad. For some reason the model in Brawl has more color in the eyes face and fur than in U. It's much more blue and the one in U is has a very very very light shade of purple or something. The eyes in U aren't typical Sonic eyes, not even to Lost World. There's suppose to be a full circle around his eyes and his mouth is extremely thick and looks like play-doh. He seems smaller as well and he looks very babyfaced which is weird to see Sonic as since he's suppose to be 'cool'. Don't like the Sonic model in U at all, although I do like the Brawl model despite the mouth being in the center.

Toon Link Brawl > U
I don't really care for either of these models, Brawl's is very washed out in color and looks like he left his clothes in the washer for too long and his hair is far too dark and realistic looking which doesn't make sense for "Toon" Link. On the other hand, I find U's model to have weird lips and kind of weird emotions at times. It does have much better colors, but the part that kills it for me is the play-doh like hair, it looks very weird.

 

[IntelliHeath]

I wrote this for the other thread, I really hope they make a Smash Bros. Melee HD someday cause that game has the most color out of all Smash Bros games.

I'm not sure if I want that. I'm scared that they might decided to adjust the models just hell out of it.

 

[Hindle]

I've never got the chance to play Smash Bros, but dam I'll be there for this.

 

[Kokonoe]

Oh yeah. The 3DS version looks a lot better than the HD version simply because the aesthetics are much more accurately done. The only thing bad about the 3DS version in terms of aesthetics is Donkey Kong looking like....youknowwhat.

 

[SuperSah]

Oh yeah. The 3DS version looks a lot better than the HD version simply because the aesthetics are much more accurately done. The only thing bad about the 3DS version in terms of aesthetics is Donkey Kong looking like....youknowwhat.

The outlines and colours really make it stand out and leave a good impression.

DK looks like shit on both consoles. Can the team not design a decent DK or just steal Retro's design?

 

[chickdigger802]

those cleavage angle shots...

 

[Kokonoe]

Would love if Mario had colors like this one.

The outlines and colours really make it stand out and leave a good impression.

DK looks like shit on both consoles. Can the team not design a decent DK or just steal Retro's design?

Yep. I agree. Better modeling too. I think Sakurai's team is better at lower resolution graphics.

I'm not sure if I want that. I'm scared that they might decided to adjust the models just hell out of it.

True. I'd like it if they did upgrade a tad and kept the colors intact, but you never know.

 

[Pikawil]

Anyway, I did a comparison picture (like the other one some guy posted earlier), but I added pictures of the 3DS models as well, because ignoring the best version of the new Smash is not fair:

...why is Melee Luigi's pic from SSE (look again, that's the area where Dedede fights Bowser in front of Master Hand's corpse) and not Melee?

 

[Roo]

...why is Melee Luigi's pic from SSE (look again, that's the area where Dedede fights Bowser in front of Master Hand's corpse) and not Melee?

It's from Melee.

 

[Green Mamba]

It's from Melee.

No, that is not Melee Luigi. That's also not Melee Samus. The "Melee Luigi" picture there is a modded Brawl Luigi. Melee Luigi can't even strike that pose. The "Melee Samus" picture is a poor texture mod of her Melee design.

64 Link also has a modded higher res texture.

 

[Pikawil]

It's from Melee.

I suppose I'll put up a comparison to prove that it's from Brawl and not Melee.

Comparatively, here's the actual Melee Luigi:

 

[Roo]

No, that is not Melee Luigi. That's also not Melee Samus. The "Melee Luigi" picture there is a modded Brawl Luigi. Melee Luigi can't even strike that pose. The "Melee Samus" picture is a poor texture mod of her Melee design.

64 Link also has a modded higher res texture.

I suppose I'll put up a comparison to prove that it's from Brawl and not Melee.

Comparatively, here's the actual Melee Luigi:

Yeah, I get it.
It's been a while since the last time I played Melee
I based my comment solely on the art style and I completely forgot about modded models.
Nice catch, btw, Green Mamba.

 

[Fiktion]

So that comparison picture is a lie?

Someone fix it!

 

[Greenzxy]

No, that is not Melee Luigi. That's also not Melee Samus. The "Melee Luigi" picture there is a modded Brawl Luigi. Melee Luigi can't even strike that pose. The "Melee Samus" picture is a poor texture mod of her Melee design.

64 Link also has a modded higher res texture.

Ah, no wonder, I was looking at smash 64 Link and I was like man, I never realized how detailed Links shield looked in that game, now I know it's a fake.

 

[Eusis]

Because Disney hates Nintendo ?

Frankly, once you bring Disney into the equation it'd probably be "screw Sora, why do we even care about Sora. Let's get Mickey Mouse into the brawl!" instead.

 

[megarockexe]

Melee has that early 2000s plastic flat look with the clipped oversaturated colors. A lot of the character designs ar just outdated.
At least with the new game, it's a much closer balance between something unique, and a proper adaptation that is true to the series original style.

The 3DS version is just the Wii U version with comically oversaturated and overcontrasted textures to compensate for the lower screen resolution.

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

The 3DS version looks good but lets be serious. We wont be playing it looking that close up on the 3DS. While the Wii U one will be in much higher resolution. The detail will be much more noticeable there.

 

[Village]

Frankly, once you bring Disney into the equation it'd probably be "screw Sora, why do we even care about Sora. Let's get Mickey Mouse into the brawl!" instead.

Nah,
Disney castle stage.

Would not mind that at all.

 

[EatChildren]

I'm not a fan of Melee's look, and think it's held up far worse over time than Brawl. Too often I find Melee's character models have this weird PS1/N64 era CGI look with weird poly use and odd character art. Link shovel-chin in particular looks really bad. But I partially put this down to Melee falling in a weird position for the series, wherein higher detailed renders of most of the cast didn't exist, and the staple "look" for many characters in high quality 3D didn't come about until later into the GCN cycle then onwards through the Wii and now Wii U.

I really love Brawl's visual identity, because I find it extremely cohesive and consistent from character to character. I can understand why some aren't a fan of the more grounded, "realistic" detailing on textures and such, but I think it looks fantastic and scales up to 1080p+ in Dolphin really well. Compared to Melee the character models are a lot more coherent and detailed, and seem to draw from a more grounded pool of visual identities for the entire multi-franchise cast.

Smash 4 looks great too, though, and I like the change in visual identity. Even though they have clear differences, I actually think Melee and Brawl have a lot more in common than people initially give credit. Melee is a bit more vibrant, but still adopts a similar "hyper detail" approach that Brawl would take an extra few steps further. The denim texturing on Mario and Luigi's overalls is a good example. The stitching is much finer in Brawl, obviously, but it's still there in Melee and clearly trying to replicate a similar look.

Smash 4 has deliberately muted a lot of those details moreso than Melee did, with the advantage of naturally higher texture resolution for finer lines where they matter. Smash 4 seems to be using a more stylised toon-like visual identity, with strong rim shading and illuminated surfaces, in combination with brightly coloured softly detailed textures. Source art for the models seems to be more Brawl than Melee, but they've restyled the look of textures and the way models themselves are rendered by light sources.

That's why when you compare Zelda here to Zelda Brawl they look very similar, but the latter has darker, detailed line work in the textures, but the former puts more focus on highlighting specific colours and details in the textures themselves.

3DS version is the same models from Wii U with concessions/downscaling made to geometry and texture detail, a simpler lighting model countered with increased colour contrast, and an optional outline filter.

 

[Boogybro]

Young Link from Melee still looks better than most other Link's since. They nailed that OoT/MM look.

 

[y2dvd]

I think Brawl's model looks so good still that the Wii U models don't even seem like much of an upgrade to me.

 

[KHlover]

I think Brawl's model looks so good still that the Wii U models don't even seem like much of an upgrade to me.

 

[Astral/H3X]

I think Smash 4 looks bloody fantastic. The only one I can really see people arguing on is Donkey Kong, the rest look like goddamn Nintendo, which IMO is awesome.

Didn't like Brawl's look too much, and Melee looked basically the same, but before lighting effects, so just really flat.

 

[foxuzamaki]

It's crazy, something you never really notice before but thanks to the wiiU hardware sakurai can spare to give everyone facial animations during attacks and such and now that you see it, you notice in the previous versions unless its the obvious like being knocked out or asleep or whatever, they didnt really make many faces like they do now.

 

[foxuzamaki]

I'm not a fan of Melee's look, and think it's held up far worse over time than Brawl. Too often I find Melee's character models have this weird PS1/N64 era CGI look with weird poly use and odd character art. Link shovel-chin in particular looks really bad. But I partially put this down to Melee falling in a weird position for the series, wherein higher detailed renders of most of the cast didn't exist, and the staple "look" for many characters in high quality 3D didn't come about until later into the GCN cycle then onwards through the Wii and now Wii U.

I really love Brawl's visual identity, because I find it extremely cohesive and consistent from character to character. I can understand why some aren't a fan of the more grounded, "realistic" detailing on textures and such, but I think it looks fantastic and scales up to 1080p+ in Dolphin really well. Compared to Melee the character models are a lot more coherent and detailed, and seem to draw from a more grounded pool of visual identities for the entire multi-franchise cast.

Smash 4 looks great too, though, and I like the change in visual identity. Even though they have clear differences, I actually think Melee and Brawl have a lot more in common than people initially give credit. Melee is a bit more vibrant, but still adopts a similar "hyper detail" approach that Brawl would take an extra few steps further. The denim texturing on Mario and Luigi's overalls is a good example. The stitching is much finer in Brawl, obviously, but it's still there in Melee and clearly trying to replicate a similar look.

Smash 4 has deliberately muted a lot of those details moreso than Melee did, with the advantage of naturally higher texture resolution for finer lines where they matter. Smash 4 seems to be using a more stylised toon-like visual identity, with strong rim shading and illuminated surfaces, in combination with brightly coloured softly detailed textures. Source art for the models seems to be more Brawl than Melee, but they've restyled the look of textures and the way models themselves are rendered by light sources.

That's why when you compare Zelda here to Zelda Brawl they look very similar, but the latter has darker, detailed line work in the textures, but the former puts more focus on highlighting specific colours and details in the textures themselves.

3DS version is the same models from Wii U with concessions/downscaling made to geometry and texture detail, a simpler lighting model countered with increased colour contrast, and an optional outline filter.

I agree with everything said here.

 

[Greenzxy]

Man, that's a bullshot for Brawl. Wii u version is beautiful though.

 

[Kouriozan]

I really love Bowser's new model.

 

[KHlover]

Man, that's a bullshot for Brawl. Wii u version is beautiful though.

I know, but it's the best I could find. Take the Dolphin factor out of the Brawl shot and all that stays is a blurry, jaggy mess.