I would really like to see the character total toned down to 15 maybe 20. Too many characters, while awesome to pit against, really end up taking the time needed to make a flawless fighting game. Mortal Kombat found this out the hard way.
Remind me how many characters Melee had. I believe that number is great. Plus, it's okay to have a lot of characters as long as the balance is good. The more you have, the harder it is to balance everything which I guess is the problem with Brawl. Here's hoping that working with the Tekken people, Sakurai can figure that out this time.
Oh here we go again
The Smash Bros series is a party fighting game where people get to play as Nintendo characters when they're with their friends. Nobody give a **** how balanced the games are for tournament level play, on Final Destination with the items off. This is why Brawl is considered by far the best Smash Bros to most people because it has the most characters, end of story.
If I had a choice between a roster of 50 characters that is somewhat unbalanced or a roster of 20 that is balanced, I'd easily take the 50 character roster because it means more Nintendo characters to choose from and more new movesets to use. This is what 99% of the people who play Smash Bros feel as well because they want more of their favorite characters to choose from. Removing characters just to please the tournament fanbase who makes up less then 1% of the overall fanbase would basically kill the series and be very stupid to do.
Of course for basic level play which 99% of all people play Smash Bros, Brawl was pretty well balanced which shows roster size doesn't mean much. I still have yet to meet one of these God tier Meta Knight players because I don't go to tournaments. Out of my group of friends, I'm one of the best players and I'm a Luigi player, and last time I checked Luigi is considered only Mid tier in Brawl, which shows the tier list means **** for basic play because I beat Meta Knight and Snake players in my group all the time. Hell, I still kick a lot of ass with Captain Falcon in Brawl as well and he's considered of the worst characters in Brawl, which once again shows the tier list means **** for non-tournament play.
If Sakurai could balance out a 39 characters roster, I don't see him having a problem with a 50 character roster either, especially when he has Tekken people helping out as well.