The unintentional depth this game created resulted in one of the most interesting gaming communities to ever exist and turned this franchise from a “party game” to a full blown fighting game. There is plenty to do in this game from a solo player aspect, but you can only really experience the greatness of this game with friends. My only complaint is a nitpicky one that can only be validated by present day standards, but this game has a rather small roster of characters and no way to turn off stage hazards. At the time of release this didn’t matter much, but compared to Smash Ultimate your choices for viable characters and balanced stages is scarce.

The year is 20XX. Everyone plays Fox at TAS levels of perfection. Because of this, the winner of a match depends solely on port priority. The Rock Paper Scissors metagame has evolved to ridiculous levels due to it being the only remaining factor to decide matches. Humanity has reached its pinnacle. The low tier peasants are living in poverty. It seems nothing can stop the great leader of 20XX, Aziz “Hax” Al-Yami, and his army, the Fox monks who live in great monasteries where they levitate while TASing Fox with one hand, and winning tournaments with the other. The tournament metagame has gotten to this point where everything is played out to theoretical perfection, so tournament goers play Rock Paper Scissors for port priority, and that’s the game.

When I was younger, I never got why so many people stuck with this game when Brawl and eventually Smash 4 & Ultimate would come to have so many more characters and much more content. But one day I started playing the game with a more serious effort, and it clicked. No Smash game has ever gotten even half as fun as this one in terms of movement, feel, and general competition. Melee is so unbelievably fun on a competitive and even casual level. I don't have much else to say, as every praise this game could receive has already been sung to the high heavens at this point.