Melee
I first played this as the first of my Smash Bros. Journey in August 2006. I managed to unlock my first hidden character, Marth, and soon after unlocked Roy after beating Classic mode with Marth (spoiler). My favorite character seemed to be Luigi and stage Poke Floats. I never managed to unlock Final Destination, however.
After several years or a few months, I started playing the game again. A few characters shocked me in the difference between Melee and Brawl I didn't notice before. First, Mario is much better in this game. I believe it is, like Luigi, the change in physics in Brawl that hindered him. Another thing to note is his down aerial and Mario Tornado. Tornado is pretty decent in this game, but at least it beat Brawl's "remake" of the move. I tend to use Mario more frequently. Another thing that bothered me was Transform. Who the hell designed the move in Brawl?! Melee's was around .6 seconds but Brawl's was close to two and a half. Recently I found out that the Brawl disc has to LOAD in order to initiate Transform.
When looking at the game again, I also notice new things that I overlooked before. Roy is a great example. As most people I believed that Roy was a clone and had validity in being removed. Just because the moves have similar hitboxes, doesn't mean they are the same. I guess the fire element is the only thing that makes Roy unique but that could've been changed in Brawl. On a related note, I also noticed the audio for his taunt is identical to the audio for Flare Blade (uncharged) and his uh...tumbling cry has the same audio for the fully charged version of Fire Blade.
I found the Memory Card for Melee and am currently trying to unlock Mewtwo by playing a bunch of useless Vs. Matches. I still think I am incompetent at Melee (I used the Master Hand glitch to beat 15 minute Melee and spammed Hand Slap to clear 100-man Melee. Even Luigi couldn't stop the clutches of the jabs. That's another problem, Melee wont let me escape jabs easily. Just take the even "Time for a Checkup". I barely won (I think Dr. Mario SD'd and I managed to defeat Peach). But I like the target tests especially Jigglypuff and Young Link's.
Brawl
I got Brawl in early November of 2008 along with my Wii. I generally preferred this game after playing it since Melee's physics were too difficult for me to handle (I cannot beat Hard in Adventure Mode to this day). I unlocked a lot of characters from the Suspace Emissary (I think I remember unlocking Ganon). Most of the time I used the Smash Bros. DOJO!!! to unlock characters like Captain Falcon. In all honesty I think the Dojo was the reason I wanted to get Brawl in the first place. I also remember seeing Fox and Samus' Final Smashes in a mini-trailer at a store. It was a step from seeing pictures of them. Man the Final Smashes were much more interesting then.
For the next three to four years I primarily wasted my time with snapshots, playing the game occasionally but focusing more on Mario Strikers Charged and Mario Kart Wii. Until I played a Kirby player from my school. Damn she three stocked me in most matches. I was amazed in general. Also a Toon Link, Pikachu and Kirby noob had friendly matches in which he Kirbycided me. It enraged me so I started taking Brawl seriously. On this wiki around that time I challenged Dots, Bandit, and YoshiEggs to brawls (not knowing there was an IRC on the wiki) getting a little better each day. Then I brawled OT. He told me about Luigi's Cyclone recovery and then I started to improve more. In around January or February I decided to use Peach after learning how to float and seeing how easy it was for me to use her.
I could say I've been taking Brawl seriously since I started maining Peach or around the time I joined AllisBrawl (late March). I turned the tables on the Toon Link spammer: two stocking him in most of our matches. The Kirby main stopped playing Brawl seriously and refused to go to tournaments since she plays Brawl for "fun" so I don't know how I would do against her now.
I think Wavedashing is overrated since it is a glitch in the system and not meant to be used in Brawl. I don't see why you have to have a Smash Bros. game to have it as I can barely use it at all. I think of it more as a burden than an aid. This is one reason I prefer this game to Melee and also struggle when playing Project M. If my computer can freakin download the entire file, I can try Brawl- and get a competency chart for that.
| 
Brawl: Above Average
.png)
