Smash Brothers: What am I getting myself into?

[Grey Acumen]

yeah, really, the reason why I love this game is that you develop actual fighting styles when you fight in this thing. You never know when you're going to win or lose for certain, because it's possible to get a good opportunity and KO someone at only 30%, but then turn around and have them last to 250% on their next life becasue they're being tenacious.

there's also the fact that different boards give different advantages too. it's not just flat left right boards, but you have entire arenas that you'll have to navigate, allowing you to jump away from attacks and pick multiple paths through which to try to engage your opponent.

There are certain characters who have really good abilities. My personal favorite is Marth. He doesn't have any long range attacks, but his melee attacks have a long reach. On top of that, his attacks are the most powerful at the very outer edge of his reach, which ensure that you can basically dart in and out of combat, placing blows that don't give your opponent a chance to hit you back properly.
He also has good recovery time after being hit, and after executing a move, and he also has a counter attack, that you can activate it to automatically block your opponent's attack and then launch an immediate attack back at them, which is incredibly useful for breaking out of and reversing someone who is pummeling you at a constant rate.
However it's also a matter of personal style, as some people prefer kirby for his flight, Link for his wide variety of skills, or Ganondorf for his insane power.

What you also have to understand is that many characters had their moves altered or nerfed when they went from the N64 version to Melee (Kirby got slowed down a HUGE amount) and I expect much the same to happen in the transition to Brawl.

there's a great deal of strategy to this game, and a lot of it isn't something you can pick up consciously. I know i have a very distinct strategy when I play the game, but I honestly can't put words to it due to the sheer subtlety that the game has.