Oof, I can see that maybe my points were not taken quite as well as I would have liked, but I have been out here fighting for anything I can cling onto for Geno chances for months now so I understand how you feel. However, my points are are still rather valid in that these things I listed are solid reasons for Geno to be deconfirmed on the existence of his Spirit.
1. Geno is a Base Legendary. That alone is a sign of love to the Smash community and a possible sign of 'this is the best we could do, guys.'
2. I just found a video that shows off all the Spirits, starting with Main Spirits. Geno shows up at 3:27 but he doesn't move onto the Support Spirits until 14:32. Keep in mind this video has no talking and he scans through them very quickly. So yeah, sure there are a bunch of Spirits stronger than Geno, but the list of Spirits weaker than him is much longer than the list of those stronger, which is another point towards my argument.
3. He actually has a Spirit Battle in Adventure Mode, and it's not a forced option. In fact, it requires you to explore and have a Spirit that can travel through the Space section of WoL to even reach him. This can easily be proof towards my argument as this places him as an important and cool find in the Adventure Mode, much like a secret of sorts that you can't just reach by speed-running.
4. Not all Spirit Battles are equal, and I feel like Geno's is up there in terms of the amount of references stuffed into it. I don't feel like listing them all here and I bet I wouldn't even know all of them as I never got all the secrets in SMRPG, but my god there are a truckload. Once again, more proof towards my point.
5. MOST of the Spirits in Ultimate are there because they COULD NEVER be playable fighters, and thus Sakurai wanted us to have something towards that, even if it was something small. While this doesn't deconfirm EVERY character that shows up as a Spirit but not playable, it very much deconfirms most of them, and it's entirely possible that Geno is one of them when you add in my other points.
Now maybe his Spirit Battle isn't all that hard, but when you have to kill at least two characters to even get to the main one to kill while also still having two more to deal with? I imagine it's not the easiest, especially on harder difficulties.
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Now with my points hopefully made a bit clearer, I will address what you guys have brought up.
Different group working on Spirits =/= Character not deconfirmed by their existence as Spirits. This is a moot point. It's not like Sakurai would suddenly burst in and say 'Hey, don't make this one a Spirit because they are gonna be DLC' because it honestly wouldn't really matter all that much, especially if Spirits truly don't deconfirm and it's not like he had no idea about what they were doing. Thus, this point could work both for or against Geno and any other character that fans want playable but are in the game as a Spirit (like Rayman or Shantae). Also other interviews have proven that he did have involvement in some choices when it came to Spirits.
There is no SMRPG music in Smash and never has been. We got Beware the Forest's Mushrooms during the Geno Mii Costume trailer, and that was it, so it really means nothing at all. Also the 'Fight Against Koopa' bit isn't truly SMRPG music as it is a remix of the original Bowser theme from SMB3, just like it is a remix in SMRPG. To clarify, the remix in Smash is a remix of SMB3 and the theme in SMRPG is Yoko's take on the theme from SMB3 as well.
All the Spirits mentioned thus far are different incarnations of a playable character, but Geno isn't a different incarnation of the one we know. Honestly, how well would it go over if we got Geno but he possessed a Gundam or a GI Joe doll or something of that nature and played nothing like SMRPG? It would defeat the purpose entirely, so having different variations of a playable character means nothing if you are trying to spin it in Geno's favor.
Now I wish to all heck I could find this article link but I've already spent too much Christmas Eve morning time on this, but I swear I saw/heard it from a
Billybae10K
vid. There was an article in which Sakurai stated that Spirits were created so that it felt like you were fighting against/with your favorite characters. Now of course this doesn't really confirm anything, as 'with' could easily mean alongside, but this feels damning to me personally because why would you need to feel like you were fighting against or alongside your favorite characters to make it feel as real as possible if they would just be playable via DLC down the line? This also echoes the Nov 1st Direct in which he mentioned that this could be someone's 'dream team', which is more points towards the 'Spirits deconfirm characters' argument.
So, got a question for you all: has anyone found anything Persona in base Smash Ultimate? I feel like we would have heard about it by now, right? Pretty sure Tsubasa Oribe doesn't count as Persona as well...so, there isn't a Piranha Plant Spirit and no Persona Spirits, and they are both DLC characters...hmm...perhaps more points towards 'Spirits deconfirm' arguments? Also, I understand we will get Fighter Spirits of them most likely when they drop, but not having any characters of them as Spirits at all in base seems to point at something.
Lastly...guys, we've been here before. We've been down this road twice now over so many years. In Brawl, Sakurai tried to get Geno in, and it didn't happen. In Smash 4, Sakurai tried to work both Geno and Cloud, but he couldn't so we got Geno as a Mii Costume just so we could get something. History tends to repeat itself more often than not, and combined with NoJ being a major factor in character choices as well as Square being like they are when it comes to their IPs and characters and it's likely we won't even get another Square rep for DLC at all.
Remember guys, NO ONE KNOWS THE DLC LINE-UP AT ALL! Not PolarPanda, not LeakyPanda, not Vergeben, not Hitagi, not Xenother, not me, not you. It will remain under lock and key likely until their reveals drop, and all this hearsay about Square characters kinda proves the point that no one has any idea.