I guarantee Final Fantasy will be getting a bit more this time around. Street Fighter has 30 new songs confirmed after only having two songs with their original renditions last game, it'd be silly to bring back Final Fantasy without any new things. I'm sure part of the reason they only put so much in was due to the nature of DLC and only having enough time for a few things from each series here and there. Not sure how Bayonetta managed to get so much music, maybe it was easier to acquire than some of the Street Fighter and Final Fantasy music they might've wanted, but I'm sure they'll get more this time around. And I'm not even that big a fan of the series, but it does deserve more than two songs at least. I don't know about another playable character from FF, but even some collectible trophies or an assist trophy like Cactaur would be really cool.
Less about it being a second FF rep, the only reason I'm suspecting Seph is because no one else really is, despite his popularity. The dude is one of the most iconic villains in gaming, and is legendary among RPG antagonists. There's a reason they keep making FF7 content; people love the game and it's characters. And Sakurai loves his dark horse fighters. Everyone is sleeping on Seph because of Geno, third party series not getting multiple unique fighters, and people focusing on the Nintendo Final Fantasy fighters like Terra or Black Mage.
But hey, if heroes vs villains is really a theme this time, and Sakurai wants to both shock and please people, Seph is a good, if controversial, pick. The Geno fans would likely explode though.
On the topic of Banjo....has anyone ever noticed that the last two unique fighters added to Smash 4 were BJ and Duck Hunt? Think on this...
- Sakurai likes to end on big reveals when he can. Sonic was a late addition to Brawl, but was the most memorable even if he wasn't the last one revealed. Sakurai may have wanted to save a huge third party character for last in Smash 4 to emulate the success of Sonic.
-However, maybe he couldn't get the terms for the character pieced together in time for the end of the product plan. The characters' home company asked that they be shelved for the next game when they have more time to work out the business arrangement.
- Having some designs for moves and ideas pieced together already, Sakurai didn't want his teams' ideas being thrown out and costing precious development time and money. He took traces of this groundbreaking fighter and decided to apply their traits to two other popularly requested characters so that they could make the roster.
-He gave one character a standard projectile, a Cannonball, that resembled the third party character's original projectile concept. He also gave that character, Bowser Jr, a Down Special consisting of a wind-up bomb, a move utilized in the third party character's sequel game, despite BJ never having used one before outside of a small section of Mario Sunshine where it's used by a different enemy. The side special, using the running shoes, became BJ's new side special, albeit using the Klown Car instead.
-He then brought in the Duck Hunt Duo, using the original third party idea as a moveset basis. Although they never teamed in their home game at all and were, in fact, enemies, he strapped the bird to the dog's back and had them perform attacks together. The bird would fly the dog around, as what would've happened with the original character.
-He then held his word and shelved the character for Ultimate. With a bit more time and a ballot to back him up, he went back and revisited the idea...he decided to leave the Duck Hunt Duo alone of course, but worked with the company to bring the idea back to life.
-Sakurai helped convince the company to support the idea and work out the particulars by showing him the results of the Smash ballot, ensuring that the character's inclusion could be mutually beneficial for both companies, and for a stagnant IP.
-The arrangement was made. Greg Mayles was instructed to be quiet and await an official reveal. Phil Spencer kept his comments at a minimum as well. Both companies worked to make subtle references to the character's anniversary, but went no further, as agreed upon. Greg even got his brother on board since he could tease a bit more without violating any NDAs. And even Arby's got in on the fun due to some publicity they somehow hoped to gain...even though simply saying "here's a character from 20 years ago in a game series that hasn't had a notable game in years, buy our onion rings", doesn't really seem to make sense. Of course, there IS a new Smash game on the way...
Really makes you wonder...