You know what? I just realized a heck of an anomaly when it comes to Ultimate that definitely stands out.
We have a lot of SMRPG references in the game via Piranha Plant (yes, two is a lot — it's a lot more than usual, haha). We have Geno and Mallow as spirits. You would think that, if there was negotiation and allowance of stuff when it comes to SMRPG along with Yoko Shimomura on the team, we'd likely have music for SMRPG in the game. I'm starting to think that there was some kind of umbrella agreement with its assets, and I don't see how they couldn't have added the music into the mix with Yoko on the team. No one would have had to go out their way at all. If they can get orchestrated music for DQXI, then by Jovah (heh), they can get SMRPG's music, even at its base MIDI form, in Smash Ultimate.
... but it isn't.
That just seems like that much more of a strange exclusion now that we've seen Megasmilax and Chewies namedropped, Geno and Mallow's spirits in the game, and Nintendo giving Geno quite a bit of limelight with Switch updates featuring his spirit + his spirit in the main menus + his profile picture. If they're giving SMRPG all of this love and affection, all of this attention, and trying their best to appease fans without being able to make Geno playable... why is one of their easiest assets to obtain, the music, not in the game?
That is beyond weird to me, and with that epiphany, that makes me raise an eyebrow. I still believe we're getting Erdrick, as the evidence is so stacked for him, but we really don't know all of the negotiations that went behind Geno and Mallow between Nintendo and Square. For all we know, Geno has a very easy entry point into the game as misc. DLC, and he can so easily be planned to come with music tracks from SMRPG in tow.
Very... very intredasting.