I wish that people would stop using words like "linearity." What does that even mean?
Someone define it concretely for me, because I guarantee you that everyone using the word has a different sense of what it means from everyone else, and I further guarantee you that whatever meaning it actually is intended to convey on average doesn't have anything to do with the semantic concept of linearity at all.
I think when people are talking linearity they're of two minds.
The first is linearity as "simplicity" in that "linear" characters can operate with a relatively procedural flowchart to win games. This would be how you get the Lucina "just throw out aerials" and Palutena "lol nair". I think this understanding of linearity can be flimsy though-most characters in the game can be operated with a simple flowchart, the characters themselves are not complicated enough to make it not the case. You can totally play
fishing for utilt/grab until you kill with a smash read/utilt bair, pre-3.0 you could totally play
with pellets/metal blade into jump-leaf shield ad infinitum and it would work. It seems more a way to disparage top tiers than anything else.
The second I think is closer to the idea of linearity, in that is a lack of multifaceted-ness. In this case, the character has only a few options in any given scenario and has to make do with those options. Palutena and Lucina are incredibly multifaceted in terms of playing Smash-multiple ways to hit shield, multiple ways to force kills, etc. If there was a character who I believe actually fit more into a linear mold, it would be
/
, who pretty heavily relies on nair to do most of his work. That being said, you can tackle linearity in a lot of different ways (I haven't seen .san's Ike in Ultimate, but I'm sure it'd be schmoovin).
I think people get the two confused because 1. the popular idea that top tiers are dumb easy and 2. Smash lends itself to characters that can just
do stuff and get away with it. Palutena can attack at so many various angles (making her very multifaceted) but people see it as simple because she gets away with things it feels like she shouldn't. Same goes for Lucina, same goes for Wolf.