I feel like this is the time to explain my history with Geno and SMRPG, but mine isn't nearly as interesting as some of you guys who learned about him through Smash groups and hubub online. I simply played the game not long after it released...I think.
My childhood memory is very spotty and I'm bad with time and dates, but I remember playing SMRPG twice in my life before being an avid fan: The first time was when I was younger before I had gotten my own N64 because every kid gotta get them Mario games. I vaguely remember forcing my way through fights by trial and error, thinking Geno was super cool and wanting to hug Mallow when he cried, and something about a set of trivia questions I couldn't answer and thus couldn't progress (because I didn't know the answer and neither did mom so you know, that means nobody knows when you are young. Also, I've been a rather honest lad and never thought about trying each answer until I got them right. Hell, this whole trivia thing might be in my head. EDIT: Wait, was that the Quizmaster? AM I NOT CRAZY AFTER ALL?!) Eventually I got an N64 and Super Mario 64 claimed my life, as it did for many others. This may have been the time I made that tape (details later on) but I'm not sure.
The second time was sometime in the summer of 2004, 2005, or 2006. However I remember Pokemon Fire Red was still the craze and the Nintendo DS was still relatively new with not much on it yet, plus YouTube wasn't a world-wide phenomenon yet, so it had to be 2005. (I like how my best way of telling the date is by video game and pop culture landmarks. Also, kids, this was a time when us pre-teens and teens were getting our emo and edge on with MySpace before FaceBook even become public and when we used Limewire to give our computers AIDS just to listen to the likes of Kanye West, Black Eyed Peas, 50 Cent, PussyCat Dolls and etc. on our MP3 players which would soon be Ipod Nanos. Yeah, I know, it was like the Wild West back then, XD.)
Anyway, I was with my mother for the summer in North Carolina and I didn't have any other systems to play, so I was playing Super Nintendo in my bedroom when I got bored of Super Mario World and Looney Tunes B-Ball, so I was looking through my collection of SNES titles that my mom always kept and I found this game that struck a chord with me, but I couldn't remember why: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. So I popped it in, and I saw I had a previous save file, but I started a new one and OH BOY did I stay up late that night. I was fortunate it was summer, as I spent a now-unhealthy amount of time trying to get through this game as fast as possible, because my brain was like 'Isn't there this cool dude in a forest or something' and 'Wait, can't you play with Bowser and Peach on your team in this game?' and 'Wait, isn't there a bad guy who is a fat crow, and one who throws bombs, and a guy who makes clones of you' so I had to get farther and remember this game. It was such an amazing experience playing the game again that it was hard to do anything else, despite my mom's best efforts.
Anywho, it was either one of those times that I used a VHS to capture footage of my SNES (not sure how I could have gotten the footage on a DVD at the time, but if it was possible I didn't have the equipment for it) and did what would have been amazing back in the day if I could have gotten it online: I essentially made a tape showing off all the cool stuff about the game. I recorded the entire intro to the game first, and then recorded myself running around different map areas, talking to different people, showing how the battle system worked (showing off timed hits vs non-timed, showing off all the spells, showing the scarecrow and mushroom debuffs among others)...heck, I even put in some boss battles and funny interactions, and you better believe I had the waterfall, river run, and minecart minigames. It was essentially an advertisement of the game, and my whole idea behind it was 'Dude, I bet no one even knows about this game and that sucks, I have to show people how awesome this game is!' I lost the tape over the years, but my love for the game never died.
Insert I think May of 2007, and the Brawl website started dropping updates every week. We already knew about Snake, and the rumor mill had begun: Sonic, Megaman, Ridley, K.Rool, and yep even our boy Geno. Fake leaks, fake images, you name it: what we have now for Ultimate started back in 2007, and everyone was just as excited then as they are now. I remember the internet exploding when Sonic was announced and how fake images of Geno were everywhere on the web and I remember thinking "Wait...OTHER PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT GENO?! Omg, if we tell the people making Brawl how much we want him, they will totally put him in!" I never used the Brawl site very much, but I talked about it on other forums a bit, though it never happened. It didn't both me much though, as I was in a weird state: my religious parents (dad and step-mom) decided vidjya games were bad for me so I could only play at home for an hour, most of my pals played Melee instead, and I honestly was both behind the times since my parents didn't support my hobby with new systems (meaning I was stuck with a GBA, DS Lite that would become a DSI XL later on, and a PS2) and I had moved on to play PC games like Combat Arms and MMORPGS while playing my PS2 occasionally. I still played SMRPG on emulators, watched speedruns/playthroughs via YT vids and later Twitch, tried to talk to friends about it (but it turns out I was right, no one knew him). Heck, I think I even sent Square an email at some point, telling them to make good with Nintendo and either make SMRPG 2 or at least do something with the world they made and the characters we love. I really loved that game, but with most things it got a bit lost in the shuffle of life...but I never truly forgot about Geno, though I did forget his name.
Then Smash for WiiU dropped and I had to have it, with people only playing at my house since we hit that age where everyone has their elitism in regards to the best Smash game. I had a lot of fun with it, but I never once had anything about the announcements of the game (which I stuck by their website much closer this time around) strike me in a way that felt like a character I loved but long forgot could make it...then April 2015 happened, and the Smash Ballot dropped. I remember losing my mind at the fact that we got to VOTE FOR THE NEXT CHARACTER! So of course, I went in to vote myself. "I'm totally voting for Waluigi: I've loved him since Mario Tennis but Nintendo hasn't, so he needs to be playable in Smash. He could still have his stomp and racket, but also some dance moves and maybe moves referencing Mario Golf, Mario Strikers, Sports Mix and 3 on 3 Hoops...wait a second, I'm missing something here. I feel like there is someone I want more than Waluigi, but I can't remember his name. He was blue, and he's really old... {insert flashback of everything I've listed above thus far} OH MY F***ING GOD, GENO! WE COULD FINALLY GET HIM IN SMASH!" I remember writing for a good solid 45 minutes in the section about why he should be in, making sure not to miss any good reason and checking my spelling and punctuation over and over. When Cloud was announced, it didn't mean much to me because I was a Nintendo boy up until PS2 so I never (and still really haven't) played FFVII, but one thing clicked: Cloud was the biggest and best choice they could have picked to rep Square Enix, and if Square Enix was okay with all this content happening plus some Final Fantasy games coming to 3DS, then Nintendo and Square were starting to patch things up...and I was elated. I didn't think we could still get Geno in Smash 4, but I knew that this would bode well for the future of these two companies that were once so incredible and worked together so well.
Then, it happened: The Final Smash 4 announcement that brought Corrin and Bayonetta also brought Geno...as a Mii Fighter costume. As Maximillian_Dood and many others expressed, there was disappointment to be had, but my tinge of disappointment was overcome with genuine shock and happiness. "Wait...WHAT?! THEY REMEMBER HIM! THEY ACKNOWLEDGED HIM!" I was so surprised at the fact that he was shown in any form that I was happy for just a costume. I've never moved so fast to throw my money at a costume in my life (the last time I threw my money at Nintendo like that, it was after watching ten minutes of Alpha Sapphire gameplay on Twitch, in which I immediately broke the speed limit to GameStop and bought a brand new 3DS along with Alpha Sapphire and Smash 3DS), the idea that the more Geno costumes are bought the more Sakurai would know not only how grateful fans were for even acknowledging us at all, but also maybe improving his chances for the next time around.
The rest is present history: Ridley and Daisy proved that Sakurai was listening to fans and using the Smash Ballot as a reference, and the August Smash Direct locked it down pat.