The closer we get to E3, the more I'm inclined to believe that we will get a double reveal, not so much because the event demands it, but more because I get the sense that one of the remaining two fighters will be a bit low key hype wise, and that there's a logic in pairing it with a likely popular one to lessen potential backlash. A lot of Western antipathy towards Hero was greatly lessened by the inclusion of Banjo-Kazooie and I could entirely see a similar thing happen this year. Get a really fun and well known third party figure in Smash and even a Gen 8 Pokémon becomes a bit of an easier pill to swallow for the hardcore crowd, even if there will be some lingering bitterness given that this is the last of the DLC.
A lot of said antipathy came in after release; but that was due to people finding out about the RNG stuff - including the insta-kill spells being RNG - in a scene that has historically been RNG-averse (outside of cases where it brings hype, like MGW's 9 or Peach pulling Bombs). I know this isn't exactly what you're meaning, but it's worth noting since other characters that have been aimed a bit more towards the Japanese audience - like Terry - did not face nearly as much antipathy.
Tfw you have a lot of ideas you want to share on how you'd overhaul some veterans' movesets, but there's not a forum dedicated to the post-Ultimate era yet thus it'll be seen as off-topic.
We do lean into this topic from time to time (I have talked quite a bit about
,
and
in particular), so I don't think that's too off-topic really.
Who do you think should have been added in Smash for a while (meaning even before Ultimate or Smash 4), even if you're not a big fan of the characters?
Me personally?
Krystal's up there, although her chances got hurt hard by the post-Command reboot and the unwillingness to re-introduce her. Which is a major shame, she was talked about a lot during the Brawl days when Assault and Command were still relatively fresh.
Ganon also counts, although he's in some strange middle ground where Ganon is being equated to Ganondorf by Nintendo more often than not...
...However, Ganondorf's current moveset has had divisive reception. It's particularily disliked by a significant segment of the fanbase because of its historical status as a clone and very little being borrowed from the canon Zelda appearances, but he's also
decently*
popular to play** (and not just the people who primarily think of Ganondorf as "haha funy disrespec guy go DORIYAH!"). So when it comes to Ganon, honestly I'm not sure what to think when he'll get more significant changes or a more faithful incarnation. Sakurai and co. seemed content with changing the Smash attacks for Ultimate, and that alone gave him a lot of notoriety. Had he been introduced in Brawl Ganondorf would've had a much different moveset.
I also want to mention Isaac, since he seems like the kind of character that Sakurai would consider at least some of the time. There's a decent chance that he would've been included in Brawl if Sakurai had come up with a moveset and the timing would've been better... but here we are.
*(Ultimategamedata has since I posted that
updated its data to include the period after released. While Ganondorf's now been overtaken by
and
in terms of low- and mid-level usage, he still remains decently popular to play, with a Ganondorf being picked in 10K games over a 600K games sample between then - January 2021 - and latest update - March / April. More than quite a few characters have been picked in that 600K sample.)
** (The third link - the OrionStats chart - is a year old, but even then
saw more usage than half the cast within the competitive scene.)
