Honestly, if Lanky was in, I'd be really happy. After K. Rool, of course.
DK64 was my first
(and only, don't kill me) DK game. When I first played it, I didn't think much of Lanky; he was the weird clownish character so I preferred to use Tiny or Diddy. But since I've been in this community, I recently picked up DK64 again, and I forgot how much fun it was. Especially the sound Lanky makes when he does the high jump.
Also, I loathe Tiny's new design.
Now, for my two cents into the clone argument rehash - if you don't care, skip the rest of the post:
I do not like the clones. Usually, I only accept a clone if I like the clone more than the parent character, so Ganondorf was it, and even now he's getting irritating since Hyrule Warriors showed us what could have been. I'd have preferred they be cut. Smash is a game of quality over quantity, and I don't think inflating the roster by three makes it better.
I accept that those three didn't prevent Ridley or K.Rool. The thing I don't accept is the argument that they took only 5 seconds of dev time and we got a free gift. Case in point: What I'd rather have had them do with the dev time that was Dark Pit
- Instead of giving Dark Pit a unique crowd chant, I'd have given one to Toon Link. TL (and by extention, Link himself) are now the only characters in Smash history to share a crowd chant
- Instead of giving Dark Pit three unique victory poses, I'd have rechecked animations to fix problems like Link's item-raising anim. When Link raises a special flag, he clips his entire face through his arm, which is really sloppy. This from one of the only characters who's parent game involves him holding up items habitually.
- Instead of giving Dark Pit a unique victory theme, I'd have given one to Ganondorf. Meta Knight, and now Bowser each have rock remixes of their home themes to show their dark sides. Ganondorf stands out since he doesn't.
- Instead of giving Dark Pit unique recolors, I'd have made sure to make a shiny recolor for Lucario and Charizard. There is really no excuse for not including that.
In each case, the replacement is pretty much taking the same dev time. I'm not saying that I want Ridley, K.Rool, and Wolf instead of the clone brigade (I do, but that's not the argument), but I recognize that they take time to do. After all, Robin's Palutena codec is pretty insulting to Chrom fans considering the addition of Dark Pit in the first place.