It might go both ways, but it's clear in which way it leans. And not counting third-parties, so far it leans unanimously in one direction as far as the newcomers go.
Rosalina might be from a seven-year-old game, but her largest impact happened post-Brawl. Not to mention she's only had a handful of titles with a notable appearance compared to other characters in the Mario series, and was less popular.
Little Mac might be an old character, but he probably wouldn't end up playable this time without the Wii title.
Villager still uses a design from a post-Brawl title, even if not the most recent. Same with Marth and Ike.
The Zelda aesthetics you're correct on, but the content still favours the new.
I don't see how one can attribute recency not having played a factor in the roster choices when there are literally no Nintendo characters so far that didn't have an impact since the last Smash, a first for the series.
Villager and Miis did not have this impact everyone else had since Brawl. I'm not counting FE and Pokemon due to the fact that those games change their cast every single installment and it is at the company's (Intelligent and Game Freak) and Sakurai's expense to add new additions from the forver revolving cast. I'm am not counting Palutena either, just because her popularity (like other characters, Little Mac) was argubaly the biggest factor in her inclusion.
I stated that recency plays a factor in this game and including the roster, but not a major one as people claim.
I find it intriguing how people will bring up the recency arguement regarding King K Rool as if he's not one of the most requested newcomers for Smash 4 and just some obscure character because Retro decided to use their original characters in their two takes on DKC(Similar to Gannondorf's absence in recent Zelda titles) and just assume that Tropical Freeze will get representation. Dixe's main reasonig to be included in the roster can't just be for recency, since we haven't had a clue if the recent game she returned in (she's actually not a recent character and did not make a impact, she's still really popular) is even referenced in this game, and some of her suporters are implying that she will get over King K Rool for the sole reason of recency despite the latter having a lot more going for him .It also looks bad on Dixie supporters, since we're stating Dixie has little going for her EXCEPT recency, being her only real pro if she even is included, let along if Sakurai will include both characters.
Does that mean Anthony Higgins will get in over Ridley just because of recency? Will Mathew will get in before his father Issac? Some Xenoblade Chronicles X character before Shulk?
Now I'm not saying that recency has no influence in the roster, becasue it does, but they're many more contrubuting facotrs as well. Including popularity among fans worldwide. Assuming that there will be only DK newcomer which I also doubt, the only adavntage Dixie Kong has
over King K Rool is recency. (Being female doesn't really count as a factor in my opinion, since the female newcomers had much more going for them.)But that's it, every other contributing factor either KKR excels in or is tied with Dixie. We can't act as though Tropical Freeze is already in the game and that automatically confirms Dixie Kong, since she has more going for her than just recency and if it is not in this game, it would look like her chances will tremendously drop when in reality they won't. We may see a new Donkey Kong stage this week considering how much info we have gotten so far.
We can just agree to disagree, I don't want this to go on forever.
