That's what you assume. It's much more plausible that Mewtwo wasn't going to be added if there wasn't time for Dr. Mario according to Sakurai always keeping the select screen balanced.
Because it isn't common knowledge that Mewtwo and several other characters were scrapped in favor of Sonic, right?
Please tell me that was a joke. You can't honestly believe that Red Pikmin, Yellow Pikmin, Blue Pikmin, White Pikmin, Purple Pikmin, Nana, Luma, and Red are all counted as playable characters Because Sakurai says they are not. Not that he has to for one to easily understand that fact.
I'm sorry, did I say that Red, Nana, and the Pikmin are separate fighters?
I said the Pikmin are glorified items, didn't I? Nana is essentially Popo with no changes other than appearance. Red stands in the background and controls the Pokémon, but he doesn't do anything.
Luma actually has a a unique moveset and is under the control of the player. It would go under the same development process as any other playable fighter would go through. Sure it lacks unique specials and grabs, but otherwise it is an essentially complete character.
This is the poorest of poor arguments. If you actually believe Luma counts as a playable character, then you have proven that you are blatantly using ridiculous excuses to prove your side by whatever lengths you see necessary. Regardless of whether it makes sense or matches up with how the man himself sees it. In which case I respectfully do not want to continue this debate with you ever again.
So basically it doesn't matter if Sakurai, the Director of the Smash Brothers franchise who makes all decisions regarding the game, sees characters separately. They aren't separate because they share a character selection icon???
His argument was never even constructed because Luma does NOT have a full move set. It has a couple attacks initiated by Rosalina and when separated simply becomes a CPU (which is NOT a PLAYABLE character) who consists of only a couple attacks.
And yet it still is a unique fighter under the player's control.
But, the problem I'm having is you're looking at the opposite perspective of Sakurai. Of course Nana is a playable character in every way of the term. But, if Sakurai says she's not than she doesn't count as one, which means there is ONE Ice Climber character.
The perspective Sakurai has been is that if a character takes development time and is a unique playable fighter in someway, they've been seen as a separate character.
This applies to Luma much more than it does to Nana, since Nana is basically a remodeled Popo. Luma is far more different to Rosalina. Of course, we'll have to see the game files to see if his really considered separate or not; but if each transformation character had separate folders for stored files, I imagine Luma would have one too. Thus making it a separate unique fighter.
The argument that Luma is a playable character is one of the worst I've heard in my time.
Sureeee.
"Baby Yoshi can be playable because it's cute".
Right, Luma's couple of attacks are REALLY unique. I ain't nevah seen a character punch and spin before. Just because a COMPUTER does some attacks when it's idle, doesn't make it a playable character. And the moves he performs when not idle are commanded by Rosalina who is the actual character you are controlling, NOT Luma.
You control Luma through Rosalina, just as you controlled the Pokémon through the Pokémon Trainer. The difference being that both are actually being physically controlled by the player.
Please try to be a little reasonable.
You're the one calling this "the worst idea I've heard in my time", the one who should be more reasonable is
you.
People on Miiverse wouldn't even believe this.
Because most of the people on Miiverse probably wouldn't understand how game development works. You seem to be in a similar predicament if you're denying that Luma isn't comparable to other existing characters at a development standpoint.