Well, I wasn't surprised by any of them, but I was surprised we were getting 3 types of Miis, Palutena having a custom moveset, and classic Pac-Man face. More importantly, no veterans except a vague tease of Game & Watch.
I didn't really get to see enough of them to accurately have any feels about them, but I think they all have really cool looking movesets. I haven't been let down by a single newcomer yet. They all look great. I'm pumped.
As for Amiibo, I love the figures, and I am glad they aren't glorified DLC, but I do not fully see the need for them or what they bring to the table in SSB. It seems like the sole purpose is to have better AI to fight against and to fight against custom movesets. Otherwise, it seems kind of pointless. I was hoping more for being able to just load my set-up/moveset to a friend's Wii U, maybe in addition to this stuff, but I don't see a need in having a "fancy AI partner/opponent that costs money". I'm only excited about them because I like collecting things, so I just want to have cool figures of Nintendo characters. I also don't know that we can actually use SSB figures for other games, as it wasn't made clear. I don't understand how they'll even play into Yoshi, Toad or MK8. That's a very "wait and see" kind of thing. I'll still be getting a bunch, to display and use for novelty, but yeah.
I guess the addition of Mii's was inevitable, but overall the Smash Bros. reveals just confirmed my fears. I would be neutral to Pac Man, but I really don't like Palutena and am very disappointed to see such an unnecessary addition.
*sigh* It really is Brawl all over again.
To be perfectly honest, no addition is necessary at this point. Sakurai could have easily just went with Brawl's roster, rebalanced it, changed the moves and called it a day. Maybe added back in those cut from Melee.
There are no "necessary" characters missing. Ridley & K.Rool? They're just as important or unimportant as Palutena. Whether you like it or not, she is a relevant character to Kid Icarus, and it's a 3 game series and was fan requested for a return forever. Isaac or Matthew? Unnecessary, despite how great they would be.
Necessity is a case by case thing. That's great that you don't think Kid Icarus deserves 2 characters, but that doesn't make characters unnecessary just because of your preferences in some imaginary hierarchy of which franchises are more or less deserving.
I just don't think that the good of the roster anywhere near outweighs the characters I don't care for, and to be honest, characters have always made this series for me.
I'm not sure what kind of roster you are looking for. An all-star cast of your personally favorite characters with minimal characters you don't like? If we're to assume the Gematsu leak is now real, and we have a roster of ~47 characters, you really can't find enough characters to be excited about?
Pacman was honestly a disappointment, I feel he has a weird offsetting move-set. I played original Pacman game (who hasn't?) and I remember a little bit of Pacman on the Gamecube which had really good fun multiplayer. But I feel there were better choices for that precious character slot. If they had to be from Namco I would have prefered Lloyd or Klonoa, but there were a lot of people who wanted Pacman so for them I'm glad.
Unfortunately for you, Lloyd and Klonoa are completely irrelevant and not iconic. Regardless of how anyone feels (it is fine/makes sense people are kinda disappointed) it was only ever going to be Pac-Man and anyone thinking otherwise was kidding themselves.
Pac-Man IS Namco. Namco IS Pac-Man. He's their most well-known character, people who barely play games know him. He's a literal gaming legend and all-star. He makes perfect sense with Mario, Sonic & Mega Man (and has even interacted with both Mario & Mega Man in the past). Klonoa fits the world of SSB, but he's an obscure character they don't use often anymore and not many people know him. Now, Nintendo can get away with using forgotten characters, but 3rd parties want to use their well-known brands.
Similarly, Lloyd is a character who is only relevant to 2 Tales games in an enormous series, appears in a few cameo roles and would be practically promoting the PS3 remake of his games (like Snake promoting MGS4). He's simply not important enough to Namco to use.
Pac-Man represents Namco, as a whole. His moveset using other arcade games even drives that point. Every other character they could've used would've done nothing but represent a game that happened to be from Namco, but not represent Namco themselves, nor be as historic of an event as Pac-Man fighting against Mario, Sonic & Mega Man.
There are plenty of characters who probably would've worked better as fighters or been more 'normal', but it was never going to be them, for every reason.
