History YMMV / ProjectM

** Lucario, whose signature Aura mechanic was removed due to allegedly "rewarding bad play". People who were drawn to Lucario by the mechanic in the official ''Super Smash Bros.'' games consider PM!Lucario to be a direct insult.

** More recently, as Nintendo finally became more involved with the competitive ''Smash'' community, ''Project M'' has been excluded from several big ''Smash'' community events for being a GameMod (a concept which, unlike some American PC game companies, Nintendo is likely uncomfortable with) as a legal precaution. Instead, the big promotion goes to the official ''Wii U / 3DS'', which is still a good game, but fans view it does away with much of the [[EmergentGameplay "depth"]] that makes ''Project M'' (and ''Melee'') so popular. This has left some people questioning whether having Nintendo's sponsorship (i. e. control) is worth the cost, and some people claiming ''Project M'' doesn't deserve to shine because it's an unofficial mod (rather than because of how well it plays as a competitive game).
** ''Ultimate'' really threw a wrench in ''Project M'''s popularity. Several fans are still adamant that ''Project M'' is the definitive Smash experiences even now; but just as many fans now find ''Project M'' to be an [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny old hat]] or even outright obsolete now that ''Ultimate'' has done what it did on an official product and on a larger scale, with the only thing ''Project M'' truly does better being its online play netcode.

* HypeBacklash: With how much praise the mod has gotten over the years, it isn’t uncommon for fans to be unimpressed when they finally play ''Project M'' and then go back to the official Smash games.

** It's also consequence of how the team approached making more characters viable. Some ''Melee'' players dislike that the overall design of the game is, compared to ''Melee'', much more contrived (specifically in buffing many characters in non-standard ways to compete with Melee's high tier characters), which ''arguably'' made the game less about precise spacing and more about so-called moveset "gimmicks"[[note]]such as the abundance of effective projectiles[[/note]] and "auto-combos"[[note]]loosely defined as combos that are reliable within generous criteria, a concept not typically emphasized in ''Smash Bros.''[[/note]]. On the other side, one could make the case that it's unfair to hate the newly-viable characters for basically just being different from the few high tier ''Melee'' characters[[note]]as opposed to the entire ''Melee'' and ''Brawl'' rosters[[/note]], that [[{{Hypocrite}} some of the ''Melee''-viable characters also have non-universal mechanics and guaranteed combos]], and that the 3.5 update of ''Project M'' actually toned down the over-the-top aspects of many of the characters. It's highly subjective.

* WinBackTheCrowd: To the astonishment of everyone that didn't read the developers' past brief statements that something of the sort was a long-term goal, 3.6 seems to be trying to win back casual players via the Alternate Stage Loader engine, which allows one to choose the ''Brawl'' versions of the tournament-altered stages if they wish, or players who feel that TheyChangedItNowItSucks about the remastered N64 stages to choose the original 64-bit versions. Given that ''PM'' as a whole is almost always accused of being a FanHater's project, this seems to be a bid to tell common players that they mean no ill will towards ''Brawl'' and its fanbase.

*** This game turns Jungle Japes into [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Skyloft]], where players brawl on a floating stage that tours around Skyloft. Cue the reveal trailer for ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros for UsefulNotes/WiiU[=/=]3DS'', and Skyloft is one of the stages to be revealed in the new game, with the exact same concept of a floating stage that also tours around Skyloft.
*** All of the stages in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros for UsefulNotes/WiiU[=/=]3DS'' have a "Final Destination Mode", which turns them into something similar to the tournament-friendly versions of Brawl's stages featured here. ''Ultimate'' allows players to turn off hazards, making them resemble certain ''Project M'' versions of stages even further.
*** This game splits the Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Trainer's trio of Squirte/Ivysaur/Charizard into three separate fighters. ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros for UsefulNotes/WiiU[=/=]3DS'' also splits Charizard off into a single fighter.
*** Speaking of Charizard, the Charizard in ''Wii U and 3DS'' has a claw attack for a forward aerial and its signature [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} Seismic Toss]] as its up throw, just like the one in this game. The latter has been suspected of being a deliberate ShoutOut.

*** Donkey Kong's dash attack in this mod is the RollingAttack from ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry''. [=SSB4=] makes this exact same change. Similarly, Sonic in ''Project M'' has the Insta-Shield as a neutral aerial, a change which [=SSB4=] similarly makes.

* RetroactiveRecognition: The final announcer for the game, Kane Jungbluth-Murry, would go on to voice Sports Maxx in the dub of ''Anime/JoJosBizarreAdventureStoneOcean''.

** Meta Knight has a red-and-orange costume inspired by a piece of concept art from the ''Kirby's Dream Collection'' art booklet released in 2012. This design is now much better known to fans as Morpho Knight, but due to the character debuting in 2018's ''VideoGame/KirbyStarAllies'', it's more commonly referred to as "Beta Knight" here.

* BetterThanCanon:
** Some dedicated tournament players consider it better than any of the ''Smash'' games officially released by Nintendo due to its higher level of balance towards high-level play (when it's usually balanced at low-to-mid-level play), greater mechanical depth and greater speed and precision required to play.
** As the game grew more complete, it began to be more universally accepted as its own installment in canon rather than just a modification of ''Brawl''.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: 3.6 adds in an alternate stage option, with the alternate stages being the original versions of the redesigned stages. This seems to be aimed to alleviate the complaints toward the Project M team's tendency to greatly alter or simplify numerous stages, which makes the stages feel derivative and boring.

** When it was announced on Smashboards' news that ''VideoGame/SuperSmashFlash2'' would have a booth set up at APEX soon after, a large portion of ''PM''[='=]s fanbase [[MisBlamed accused it]] of "replacing" ''PM'', along with accusing Nintendo of having a DoubleStandard as ''[=SSF2=]'' has a notable number of third-party characters. This was, of course, a ridiculous accusation, as a booth meant to showcase is nowhere near the levels of both risk and notoriety brought by a formal tournament bracket. [[CriticalResearchFailure They also failed to notice that they had a booth for the past two years.]]