The same model while playing doesn't look any different from the one shown in the previous picture.

Actually not only did you lose this one, you are now digging a nice deep hole, and I'm enjoying this. The picture he posted is from this specific page, which has nothing from the E3 trailer http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/link.html

Only very small parts of that E3 trailer were CGI (specifically when characters were introduced). Everytime you saw combat was in game. In fact, nothing on that website (where we got all our screenshots) are from that E3 trailer. This is easy to prove. First of all, as the one claiming falsehood of the video, I request that you find that image in it. The funny thing is, not only is there not a closeup of Link's landing animation in the video, that level isn't in the video at all. Not a single screenshot on the website has been taken out of the video, and even if this had been, it's not one of the character introduction scenes (the only pre-rendered ones).

Oh and thankfully we have someone on this website very capable of verifying if that rendering of Link is CGI or not. Twesterm in fact works in the game industry.

you guys mean this trailer?

http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/info/info01.html

Ok, I'll also have to add my voice to the ones that don't believe the pictures people are throwing around here for Super Smash Brothers Brawl are representative of the final product. They're all taken from the E3 2006 CGI trailer and it's very dubious to think that the final game will look anywhere near that. It's the same as those who took the pictures from the original CGI trailers of Killzone 2 and Motorstorm and held them as examples of games that were vastly superior graphics wise to anything on the 360.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl E3 2006 Trailer: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/10606.html

ps. The lack of aliasing on Link (except his forward foot) and the amount of detail is a dead giveaway in my opinion in that pic. And the other picture of Link used in the GC vs. Wii Link comparison is also a CGI Link.

Legend, there are multiple scenes in that trailer of actual gameplay, where you can see the entire stage as it would be seen in the game, and characters using their actual in-game moves. If they wanted to CG-it-up, they could have used effects much more impressive than what you see in the trailer. I have little reason to believe that those segments are not representative of the final game.

From a purely technical standpoint, these graphics aren't really incredibly impressive. But they look very beautiful because of the attention paid to detail in the art, and the fluidity of the animations. They also look like a reasonable (not huge) step up from the Gamecube and on-par with what we should expect on the Wii when developers choose to make use of its potential.