I was always under the impression that Duck hunt was the weird/surprise character of Smash 4. First, becasue those characters are always announced last (Game & watch will be the last character you unlock in Melee, ROB was the last announced fighter of Brawl and PP was the final announced fighters of Ultimate before DLC). While Wii fit was weird and not predicted, she made a lot of sense in retrospective: she already had 2 games and the third one for the wii u was already announced. Duck hunt was also very rarely predicted, and most of the time he was discussed it wasn't very seriously. I guess you could consider in a way both Wii fit and Duck hunt weird/surprise character, but I think in retrospective Duck hunt is weirder.
Apparently, you seem to be correct, since Sakurai compares Piranha Plant to these characters.
We talk with the co-creator and director of the Super Smash Bros. series about the process of creating the ambitious crossover franchise.
www.gameinformer.com
" Rather, I believe it’s important to have a good balance as a game. In the past titles in the series, Mr. Game & Watch, R.O.B. and Duck Hunt Dog were some of the examples we offered outside of people’s typical expectations. However, if we don’t have these types of fighters, and we only had typical “hero/heroine” type fighters in the lineup, there’s not much difference. It’s probably not very interesting. Correct? "
So it's not that these characters are "retro", but it's because they are not often associated as heroes of their own franchises that made them stand out for Sakurai. Which could fit Wii Fit Trainer, though I'm certain remembering Sakurai choosing her for Wii Fit's success but I didn't find the source so I might be wrong on that.
However that doesn't necessarily mean that we are getting a weird character to finish Ultimate's DLC. Smash for Wiiu/3DS ended with Bayonetta. OK, sure, to an extent you could consider it weird that a character with guns, sexy and from a mature franchise was chosen to end the roster, or even argue that she wasn't even released that they already started planning for Ultimate.
Yeah, I'd imagine the last megaton reveal of the cycle would be CP10. CP11 would be comparatively low-key, maybe mid-tier at best. In this scenario, it would be best to reveal them together at E3, to help cushion some of the end-of-DLC spite that CP11 would be getting.
Actually, they should probably just do that regardless. CP11 is gonna get slaughtered regardless.
I agree. I believe that CP10 would be a third-party character -yeah, I know, patterns, but it's speculation-, popular both to Europe, the USA and Japan.
CP11 I'm betting on being a Nintendo character, and no matter who it is, people will complain that it's a waste of a slot. If it's a Mario, Pokemon or Fire Emblem character, that's too much. If it's from Wario, Yoshi, F Zero, Earthbound or Kid Icarus, outcry that they didn't need more representation. Arms, Xenoblade or Splatoon, that these series didn't need two newcomers in one game.