7. Sakurai has also gone on the record with (this is right after what he stated regarding your point): However, even though Lucina shares her physical stats and techniques with Marth, the characteristics of their attacks differ. When two such similar characters function in an even slightly different manner, I give them a separate spot on the roster since that will affect battle records and whatnot. In that sense, you could say she was very lucky to join the fray!
I am aware that you
responded to my points, but I cannot help but feel that you did not actually
address a good majority of them, particularly on the last one.
I read Sakurai's quotation in full, thank you very much for going to the effort of putting the rest of it on the board. The two do not contradict each other. One merely coming chronologically after the other does not mean that it supercedes the notion of that stated prior, and unlike your extravagantly highlighted 'HOWEVER,' I will not go to the efforts of coming up with a basic grammatical sentence to demonstrate your err because I am aware that it would appear as unnecessarily condescending at it would in fact be.
My statement was showcasing Sakurai's outright assertion that a character
can in fact have a different name and still be an alternate costume, which indicates quite heavily that he has in fact already utilized this technique in the game (I would imagine for the same two characters you state had move alterations, Dr Mario and Dark Pit), and that, for this example, once he then decided to make Lucina's moves have different properties, he gave her a different slot (or potentially, gave her a different slot and then gave her altered move set properties to justify her separate slot, whereas other alternate costumes with the name changes he states he is fine with, do not have alternate slots).
Without getting too heavily into Dr Mario or Dark Pit, I would claim that you arrived at your justification for their inclusion as separate characters backward. Instead the quotation proves that they are in fact alternate costumes, which Sakurai has stated he is doing in THIS game, where previous precedents do not all apply (villager being the prime example, though let me count thy ways elsewhere). In Melee he added Dr Mario for his music, and as a suggested joke and filler character to only later be cut. It is only by your personal bias that you assume Dr Mario could only return as a full out clone rather than as an alternate character
costume when Sakurai has stated clearly his lessened interest in clones and his willingness to include characters with different names as alternate character skins without them 'taking up slots.'
1 (2). Kid Icarus was featured as a front-runner series in Smash 4 whilst Pit was one of the first revealed characters for Super Smash Brothers Brawl, he was always featured prominently within Smash, so I do not find it odd that the series might receive an additional character, least of all a clone. 28 seconds into the video is where I am alluding to, it is treated as one of the main series for the most part.
This seems incredibly circumstantial, particularly from the same person who (if I am remembering correctly) finds another DK representative to be unlikely, despite a plethora of evidence, as well as the support of which you bring up here, but with actual justification to the argument that DK does not just appear to be a frontrunner of the series, and is not just marketed as it for this game, he has actually been in it since the beginning.
You say you do not find it strange Kid Icarus would receive an additional character, and I concede. Clap your hands together and welcome Goddess Palutena. It is
TWO representatives that I would find strange to add. He may add Pit to some more of the promo shots, that is dandy, but I'm not sure where this equates to it being on the exact level of the actual series which have been in it since the beginning, or more importantly, the ones who have an exceedingly large number of games, decades of history, and an extraordinary cast of vibrant characters who are plausible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUyoUfy5hGs
3. So if Dark Pit was a female, he would be considered more likely? Dixie Kong confirmed. They have also attempted to add more anime swordsmen... so the point is moot.
We have always gotten a bunch of anime swordsmen, well, since melee. The difference here is that we have actually gotten a public
outcry for female representation. Sure, we get a public outcry for many things, but this is something that Sakurai has actually given quite notice to. It could be argued it is just by coincidence that so many females are in the game this go around, but I prefer to look at the facts. In the past, the select screen showcased how many females? Peach, Zelda, and Samus.
Now, who are playable options as females? Peach, Zelda, Sheik, Samus, Zero Suit Samus, Villager, Wii Fit Trainer, Rosalina, Robin, Lucina, and all Mii Fighters. I might have even missed one.
Obviously, the only moot point here is that being a human female has been proven to be of somewhat importance this game; perhaps it did not allow any character a free pass into the game, and it should not have, but our female representation is at an actual slice of pie in the circle. This makes it appeal to more consumers, which is stated, of course, to be what Sakurai wants.
4. Lucina does not have Roy's move-set, which is actually Marth's move-set in the first place. People were clamoring for Roy or "teh phyre," not his play-style, which we already had via Marth and Lucina does not offer what Roy offered by extension either. Their similarities appear to end at the notion that they are both clones of Marth with different sword mechanics.
I am not a fan of Roy, so I will not say I can fully speak on this point. That said, Lucina is the full blade as power, versus Marth's tip, which is what I had believed Roy was to Marth as the primary different. The fire, like his hair, is a visual difference, of course- but given this game being thirteen years the successor to Melee, I'm sure the fanboys of 2001 have grown up enough to get over a visual cue of fire, if that is really all they wanted.
5. If one of them was a clone, perhaps, in the same vein as Awakening... another successful 3DS title (one game) that warranted "two characters in one outing." I am going to need a source on the assertion in parenthesis. Regardless, I doubt that an additional "bonus" character (as people refer to Lucina) is enough to attenuate his credibility by way of showing his bias. It is his game, Sakurai bias is already prevalent and Kid Icarus is not his own series akin to Kirby, he merely revived it and he has already given it preferential treatment through items, stages, status, and whatnot.
Awakening may have been successful, absolutely, but Fire Emblem as a whole is what warranted the additional characters. It is not a single game, it is an entire franchise with over a dozen games to its name. Many other games were quite successful as well, too many to count in fact.
As you stated, he has given Kid Icarus a few more items, stages, and whatnot than other franchises- this could just as easily be read as the entirety of the preferential treatment he would give it.
Or if not, why stop there, why not make the assertion that Kid Icarus will join the ranks of other series and have four or five characters representing the series? It sounds all the more absurd because it draws on the exact same points I have stated in this response to you. Do you think Kid Icarus would get four or five representatives? If so, why, and if not, why not?