Perhaps, but that hardly matters when the game itself will only be relevant for a short time as is.
Every character has their fans and cuts tend to need to happen, so removing a portion of no longer relevant characters is the better than not including new characters.
Like Corrin has fans but I feel like her removal for a newer character isn't the worst, just like when we lost Roy and he was essentially replaced by Ike, a newer, more relevant character..or in Mario Kart when Donkey Kong Jr and Koopa were replaced by the more relevant Donkey Kong (DKC) and Wario.
Well obviously every character has their fans, but that's not really what I'm getting at here
What I'm saying is that "relevancy" should
not be a be-all end-all for which characters stay or not. Funny you bring up Corrin because they perfectly exemplify what I mentioned about how easy it is for roster choices to feel dated when you're only looking at what's new
This whole deal about cutting the old for the new came about when you mentioned that Ike would be a reasonable cut for something newer, which I disagree with, because
some characters are important regardless of generation.
People ****ing
love Ike. And he's one of the very few lords with more than one non-remake game to himself. I think what people are misinterpreting me on is that I'm not saying we should keep every older character because everyone has their fans or whatever. What I'm saying is that if you have this super popular character standing right here,
and they're a main character,
and they have a unique playstyle and relative seniority, then yeah, I think cutting them because there's this other character from a new game that
has to be represented just because it's new - even if that character isn't half as beloved as the older character -
would be dumb.
If the new character is legitimately better than the older one - for example, imagine Byleth replacing Corrin - then by all means, but yeeting such a beloved character just because this other one is newer - and therefore, apparently more important - is, in my humble opinion, what our greatest philosophers would call "peepee poopoo fart".
Honestly, like in general, I just feel like the "ok but is this in a new game or not" mindset would make Smash no fun. That ain't how you get the likes of Pit or K. Rool. IMO, crossover fighting games are at their best when you have the older or more obscure characters in there as well - the niche picks, the weirdos, the ensemble darkhorses, the revivals, that's the **** I live for, and if the crux of the roster was "new game or no new game?", then things would be, in my opinion,
dreadfully boring.