I think one of the big problems is that the roster, it seems, is getting more and more advertisement driven.
Compare the newcomers of Brawl compared to For.
- "Eternal" characters, they had existed before Melee and had made many continuous appearances after their debt , and thus make an extreme amount of sense that need little to no justification.
- "Retro" characters that existed even before Smash started. They were remembered nostalgically, kept the feeling that the game was a big crossover by adding folks people had nearly forgotten about, and in general can be seen as picks based on the qualities of the characters above all.
Note that if you discount the third parties, (and counting Trainer as a whole instead of each Pokemon individually), we're already over half way past the number of newcomers, talking 9/14ths. In fact, we're already over 2/3rds over!
Of the remaining characters, (
), the characters (
) didn't appear until 2 years before Brawl's 2008 in 2006, and that was last generation of consoles, with
close in 2005.
was 2002, and
was 2001.
Most of the characters were fairly old by video game standards, so the roster felt more "timeless." The three newest characters were from pre-established franchises already, the rest being over half a decade old.
was the definitive closing act and was already planed in Melee before being delayed.
already had his second game, something only previously done with the other FE lord,
, so there was a clear and important theme going on. This leaves
something of the odd man out, though given he was easily the most popular 'mon of the most recent gen AND being the only one not to be from gen I, he served as a decent reminder that there are still new likable 'mon being made.
Compare the numbers using the same restrictions to For's roster, and there are clearly much more emphasis on more recent appearances, despite their being a still-large collection of characters left. Only 5 characters (
) were pre-Wii era, of which two (
) were recently revived. It's a lot easier to see the advertiser's hands in this game, especially because we have word that when development started, one character (
) was chosen based on concept art alone, as the game they debted in wasn't even released yet! Counting the different Mii classes as one and again leaving third parties out, only 5/13 are really old, or about 38% of newcomers, or discounting the ones coming in from revivals, only 3/13, or less than quarter! Or, heck, look at the Pokeball selection. Allot of older Pokemon were replaced by the newer folks, many of which act identical to the old ones.
While smash always had a bit of a promotional edge to it, For took it to new heights. Admittedly, it wouldn't surprise me at all if people are starting to feel as if it's less than a celebration, and more of a glorified advertisement. Many fans are starting to feel the cooperation's grip, and it's chocking out the older characters for franchises yet to be introduced and fans of the older ones who may be getting the shaft just because they aren't "advertisable" enough. That's why fans are starting to get more worried and defensive about spots, as now it's really starting to feel like there is a timer, "now or never," mentality.