People ought a look for more legit reasons for possible cuts instead of relying on crappy arguments like "I don't like this character, therefore I think it will/should be gone".
This, thank you so much. Literally, a majority of this thread involves half-assed reasons for cutting characters. Cuts aren't deliberately planned from the start--all of Mewtwo, Roy, and Dr. Mario were planned to be in Brawl as well. Pichu was going to get a successor in the form of Plusle/Minun and Young Link was replaced by Toon Link outright. Nobody is planned to be cut. The only cuts that occur are ones that were placed as low priority and ones that contractually
could not be achieved.
Snake, from the sound of things, is likely to be cut based on Kojima's statement that nobody has approached him for Snake yet. Being a 3rd-party, there's more for him to have to go through before joining the cast. He'd be cut because it
isn't possible to get him in on time. This is a real-world technicality and a legitimate reason to think Snake won't be in SSB4.
Squirtle and Ivysaur, likewise, were part of a mechanic that was entirely theirs alongside Charizard. Yet here we are, having had announced that there will be no changing form characters. With Charizard confirmed alone, the best fate left for Squirtle and Ivysaur is for them to be very, very low priority veterans. Why are they low priority? They were a mere part of a character that seems to be functional without them. If given enough time, they might return, but they'd otherwise be cut on terms of being lowest priority. This is a time-based technicality and an actual reason to think they won't return in SSB4.
Now what has everyone else here been saying? Falco's cut because he's sort of a clone? Ganondorf because he was a bad character? Lucas because "he shares the same specials as Ness and I don't like him"? How the hell are these reasons? Petty things to say like those are disgusting when you consider that it's an incarnate of the "I don't like it so nobody else can" mindset. If your only reason to see a character be cut is based on that, you probably shouldn't speak about it in the first place.
We used to have things like Toon Link, Ike, and Lucario that had good arguments as well, but the fact that they are all confirmed makes any point of those moot. The only other half-decent arguments I've heard for other possible cut characters are Wolf and R.O.B.
Wolf, on part of having been very low priority in Brawl--literally the last added character. Some people have said it'd be because he's a clone of Fox... The same people have not pressed the A button while using Wolf, apparently. If he gets cut, it'd be on part of the same reasoning as Roy, Dr. Mario, Ivysaur, and Squirtle--for time-based reasons and having low priority to boot, not shallow reasons that stop at player-level surface. The same could potentially be said for Jigglypuff, the difference being that Jigglypuff has seniority and is easy to program.
R.O.B., under the same principle that an unpopular character will make for low priority. While this is exaggerated immensely with characters like Lucas and Jigglypuff, R.O.B. meets the near-same criteria as Mewtwo: an unpopular newcomer that is well-hidden until late in the game. R.O.B. will definitely be planned to return once again--it's merely a matter of whether or not R.O.B. will be regular or low priority. The people that argue he'll be low-priority rather than outright cut, good for you, you actually make sense.
Cuts are made from a developmental standpoint, folks. If you really want to say someone will be cut, for god's sake, make it a cognitive argument rather than just the usual "I don't like him" points I've been constantly seeing. It's wasting thread space otherwise.
I expect ROB to be cut from the roster. I thought he was a waste of a character space, as he had really no reason to be there. He was a flop of an accessory in real life.
