As a 1v1 fighting game with a comparable roster of character genres, Street Fighter seems like a better analogue to Smash Brothers than League of Legends is. And like you said, Street Fighter II remains unpatched... versus the regular patching of the Street Fighter IV series. The comparison seems perfect.

Street Fighter IV started the series with a ridiculously overpowered Sagat, who was then arguably overnerfed in Super Street Fighter IV. New characters introduced in Super Street Fighter IV AE, Yun and Yang, were overpowered to the point of breaking the game.

I'm pretty glad that Capcom has, however reluctantly and at whatever expense, continued to balance the characters with each release. The series would have been pretty damn bland if anyone could win by spamming Sagat's fireballs since 2008. It's given me the opportunity to experiment with relatively underpowered characters, which is WAY more fun -- and since they're not (completely) helpless against more powerful characters, I've been able to come up with game-winning tactics that baffle friends who rely on the usual shotos like Ryu/Ken/etc/etc.

I've never gotten into Smash Brothers, but I'd love to hear about the Ice Climbers. I've tried playing them at parties and got absolutely destroyed. Why are they such a powerful character?

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Edit - To answer my own question about the Ice Climbers:

"The Ice Climbers aren't very good at using their standard arsenal of attacks for continuous hits, normally speaking. With weak throws, small hammers, and slow movement in general (slow falling, air, and dash speed), the Ice Climbers can usually only manage one or two good hits in close before they need to resort to Ice Shots or Blizzard again. With both Climbers present, KOing generally isn't too much of a problem, although their Smashes are generally better at racking up the damage than at KOing. With all this in mind, they wouldn't seem like the best character choice, if it weren't for the following...

Chaingrabbing and Desynching

Many would consider the Ice Climbers to be "the King and Queen of all Chain Grabs" due to the fact that their two-in-one property allows a variety of chain-grab options. For example, the lead Ice Climber can grab onto one opponent and use the forward throw. In the middle of the throw animation, the player can gain control of the CPU Climber, commanding him/her into performing a forward-air spike, or grabbing again with the CPU Climber while once again bringing the original, player-controlled Climber in for a new grab. Such strings create long and extremely damaging chain grabs capable of being performed at nearly any percent, on nearly any stage. A down side is that the ice climbers don't have a very good grab range and because of how much they slide it's almost impossible to grab an opponent when they hit your shield unless you powershield his or her attack.

For further two-in-one hi jinks, it is even possible to "desync" the CPU partner by confusing it with erratic movement (such as dash-dancing), putting the player in control of both Climbers for as long as they are capable of maintaining it. Once the partner is desynced, the player can have it perform any move while the main Climber is in the middle of one, providing for all sorts of possible attack strategies that can be exceedingly difficult for opponents to escape from (alternating Blizzard, alternating Ice Shot). While desynced, the partner Climber has restrained movement within an invisible box around the main Climber; should he/she be separated or removed from this box, the CPU will take over again. This invisible box makes it so that if you desync yourself from the AI so that it charges a smash attack and you start walking or running away, the AI will slide in your direction while charging the smash. A unique thing that you can do when desynced is that if you desync the AI to charge a smash attack, your belay will cancel the AI's charging sequence and teleport it into the belaying sequence.

It should be obvious that such techniques are almost impossible to perform in combat, regardless of the player's skill, due to the constant string of precise commands required for the Climbers to move/attack as intended. This level of obscene difficulty is what has prevented any seemingly-unfair IC techniques (outside of wobbling in Melee) from seeing competitive bans, especially given that very few professional players maintain or even use them at tournaments. This lack of appearance has made their tier ranking, and whether or not it should be higher, questionable for the time being. Nevertheless, these techniques are the backbone of playing a good pair of Ice Climber; without them, they aren't particularly great, so it's essential for players who plan on using the Ice Climbers to master them as they are not worthy of their tier placement without these."

http://supersmashbros.wikia.com/wiki/Ice_Climbers_(SSBB)