Okay, two weeks ago I got to play some Brawl hands-on, since I have a friend that imported a Wii and Brawl. So let me give you some basic info on the final version of the game:
- Okay for starters, if you want to feel what Brawl is like bust out a copy of Melee and set the speed for 50 percent. The speed has changed that much since Melee, it is a halfway point between Melee and 64.
- Characters float like they did in 64, and gravity is pretty wildly different than it was in Melee. You can't KO at low percentages any more, so you have to get your foes to 150%-200% before you can for sure expect someone to get KOed.
- Heavy characters are now the best in Smash to be honest. The reason for this is because it's much harder for everyone to die, and they are some of the few characters that have a chance to KO at low numbers. They also have pretty strong recovery since most have some ^ move that can get them back on the stage rapidly.
- When you actually start playing, you forget that clones or Luigified characters exist. You have to approach every character differently, and they all play differently enough. You can't use the same mind games or have the same expectations.
- Despite the heavy characters being much better, you don't have to worry about balance. Every character in the game is evenly balanced, and all characters are broken in such a way that everyone is balanced. I don't think there is a single bad or unplayable character.
- Marth's final smash isn't as good as you might want to believe. If there is a break in the platform, it'll cancel out his Final Smash when he hits the ledge/end of that section. Also, more times than not, Marth's final smash will miss causing him to fly to his own death. He can initiate the Final Smash in the air, but that only makes it even more certain that he is going to die.
If you go into Brawl expecting it to be Melee 2.0, then you'll be pretty darn disappointed. Also you learn to adapt very rapidly to the different speed, gravity, and the likes. It's a great game, and once you start playing it you'll never go back to Melee.