So just got around to viewing the Alpha footage and reading up on how they tried this before and just couldn’t make it work; How essentially Genji was “The most fun thing ever” for people playing him, and the worst for people going against him (which let’s be honest, is still kinda true today anyway). I think it’s also fair to say that over the course of the live game, we have seen some pretty ridiculous stuff in-game.
So my sense is the team gave up on the idea too easily. Now, I can understand why, because they had a deadline to meet and at some point if something’s not working then you have to adjust. So I don’t entirely begrude the devs for giving us Genji in his current form.
But it just makes so much more sense on so many levels for him to be a melee oriented hero. For starters, his abilities all make a tonne more sense in this context; the cyber agility to flank and evade, his deflection and dash etc. it all makes a great deal more sense were he a melee hero. The shuriken feel like a last-minute copout to me, they always have.
For “historical” context (because we don’t really know the full truth behind actual ninjas) the Shuriken was never actually used as a weapon, or at least very rarely. It looks deadlier than it really is. It’s primary use was as a diversionary tactic, to distract a target and put them off balance - even scare the crap out of them as they suddenly see this freaky, jagged looking thing just whiz by them. The katana (or more accurately, usually a wakizashi) would genrally be the go-to weapon due to its size and ease of use.
And Genji does carry both a Katana and wakizashi (which is used for his melee strike) but it’d make a lot more sense if his shuriken was bound to his alt-fire rather than primary as a low-damge ranged option to distract people or poke soft targets like symmetra’s turrets. Also as a quick side note, it’s always kinda bothered me how he actually throws the shuriken; the dude’s a freaking cyborg, and the shuriken are seemingly created and loaded from his cybernetic body so why doesn’t he just have a wrist-mounted firing mechanism lol? Or would that have been going over budget 
His Ult would stay largely the same, effectively just giving him a temporary damage boost and making his sword look sick AF like it does now. I really don’t think much needs to change here, other than to account for the other following changes as needed;
And that is Blizz might have to rebalance his HP. I’d be totally fine with him being brought down to a 150 HP squishy like tracer if it meant he got the up-close melee lethality he should’ve always had. His playstyle wouldn’t even change all that much in the tactical sense - you still want to flank to get up close and strike the backline. Just now you are putting yourself in direct danger by getting into melee range but are rewarded for being a sneaky ninja by slicing people up. But unlike tracer, you can’t just magically teleport back to where you came or repeatedly zip away at light speed.
And I’m fine with that. It brings a whole new level of skill and decision making to him, and reminds me a bit of Kallari from Paragon if anyone ever played it before it shut down; She was a stealth hero who had a cloaking ability with a backstab effect to it, but the major thing was this ability was used as both her primary engagement AND escape tool. In terms of Genji, this would mean that reckless use of his Dash would now essentially be the difference between life or death as if you use it to go in but fail to secure a kill, you no longer have an “easy” escape tool.
Obviously this is all just conjecture and what I’d personally like to see, but I’d like to know what everyone else thinks - do you think Genji should just stay how he is, or should Blizzard try one more time to make him into a melee hero? (which again, I firmly believe fits him far better from a thematic and a gameplay/mechanical standpoint).
