The 16-bit era was my bread and butter, but I don't think that has anything to do with my distaste for DK64, or collect-a-thons in general. I LOVE Banjo-Kazooie and its sequel, they're two of my favorite games of all time. DK64 just doesn't do anything for me.
And if you haven't played the original DKC trilogy, may I ask... what on earth are you waiting for?
I enjoyed the BK series (particularly Banjo-Tooie) more so than DK64, so I hear you there.
As for DKC, I guess I could eventually get myself a SNES emulator or something. You can be sure that whenever such a day comes, I'll relay my impressions here.
Isn't it possible that Dixie has been planned, but hasn't been completed yet? She may be a low priority, last-minute clone choice that will be finished after the higher priority cast is completed. We've still got up to 10 months before the game is released, and Sonic shows that the Smash team can pump out a character pretty quickly at the last minute.
Given how much trouble Sonic's last-minute inclusion caused in Brawl, I'd like to think that Sora would learn from their mistakes, and ensure that they lock in the roster much earlier on in development. At the very least, we see that both Sonic and Mega Man have been secured early, given their high profile Third-Party status.
And it was Sonic's Third-Party status to begin with that was the trouble, because Nintendo has to go through licensing and so forth. Dixie would not have such an obstacle in her way.
As the SSE campaign shows, Jigglypuff, Wolf, and Toon Link were lower priority, since they didn't have the time to include them in the SSE proper (and Roy and Mewtwo, and the Forbidden Seven, were also low priority if their absence is of any indication). But there is no SSE this time, which frees up a lot of development space (apparently, the SSE took 3/5 of overall resources).
With all this in mind, I would think that if Dixie was found worthy of inclusion, work would have begun earlier in the development process. Even if she is lower priority (which I would doubt, given that she is a Newcomer for a central Nintendo franchise), the lack of SSE and a larger team (thanks to the Namco-Bandai partnership) would increase her chances of completion in time for release.
SSB4 is now almost two years in development. I would think that at this point, they would have something to show for Dixie - and with the TF tie-in with the Direct, they could even have worked harder to prepare material worth showing, if she was still rough around the developmental edges.
With all this in mind, this "low priority, still working on her" train of thought doesn't seem to be very robust as an explanation for her absence in this month's Direct.
I don't get why people think Dixie not being revealed along with TF hurts her chances. Why would they reveal Dixie before having the person she's most connected to on the roster? I really can't imagine a Dixie trailer with no Diddy Kong (A). And no, they wouldn't have revealed them both at the same time. There's nothing that leads us to believe that they would do that for any characters (B). Now, an argument may be made for Diddy not being revealed sooner but that doesn't eliminate the possibility of her being revealed at E3 or even being a secret character (C).
A) I also suspected that Dixie would not be revealed before Diddy. Which is why I, along with many others, suspected that Diddy would be revealed in the Miiverse update on the night prior to the day of February's Direct.
We instead got the Home Run Bat redesign update. And then the Direct passed, with neither Diddy and Dixie in sight. Then Friday, we got Diddy for the American release of TF, but no sign of Dixie.
Diddy is now out in the open - and in conjunction with TF - so now the wait for Dixie begins.
B) They would have if they were a tag-team, but we now know this is clearly not the case. Even so, for the purpose of tying in TF to Smash, they could have shown off Diddy and Dixie. But as you rightly note, Directs are reserved for Newcomers, as the ongoing trend illustrates.
Which again leads us to the puzzling missed opportunity of not having confirmed Diddy Kong in a Miiverse update
prior to the Direct. If Dixie is a solo fighter, then confirming Diddy the day before, then showing off Dixie in the Direct on the occasion for TF's release, is the most appropriate occasion to do so from every angle - marketing, advertising, relevance, and hype generation.
Having two Newcomers per Direct is unprecedented, but there's no reason they couldn't have shown off both Mac and Dixie, since they both had every reason to be shown off in this month's Direct.
If Dixie is indeed shown off later, then I will evermore scratch my head as to why she was not shown in February's Direct.
C) E3 is a venue meant to generate anticipation and interest for upcoming games. As such, E3 is best suited for heavy-hitting Newcomers - highly popular/requested characters, unexpected or surprising choices, long-overdue contenders, etc.
Is Dixie as a character and as a Smash contender a suitable fit for E3? Would she generate the hype that E3 as a whole is meant to generate? In this respect, K Rool is much more a worthy contender for an E3 showcase than Dixie.
After all, Dixie has finally returned to the main DK platformer series this year, whereas K Rool continues to toil away in the relative obscurity of DK spin-offs. To have him make his bombastic return in a high-profile crossover game such as Smash - and being a highly requested character and the seminal DK villain - would be a very hype-worthy moment, especially at E3. What better way to generate buzz for Smash than showing off such a heavy-hitting Newcomer candidate.
They could show off Dixie in conjunction with K Rool at E3 2014, but there's no way that K Rool wouldn't overshadow her.
The next Direct will be in April. Will she be shown off there? Why so, if February was the most opportune moment for revelation? Same goes for all future Directs, unless a DK property that is relevant to Dixie is announced later this year.
As for secret characters - which I take to mean, characters not revealed until after release - then I suppose she could be. Though it's hard to say how they'll approach secret characters this time around. Luigi, Marth, Lucario, Toon Link; they've already revealed characters that have been unlockable in the past. Will they be on the starting roster this time?
If we exclude Sonic and Mega Man (who will most certainly be unlockable), then we now have 22 characters. In December, January, and now February, we've gotten two new characters per month. Will this trend continue, with two per month until release (+E3 batch)? If the game is indeed released this year, then we could get up to 20 more character reveals at the most.
A question is raised by all this. If Dixie is a secret character, not meant to be revealed until after release, then why was this decision made? Why was she relegated to post-release reveal status, instead of the February Direct? Was she deemed not exciting enough to warrant Direct spotlight (as opposed to Little Mac, who clearly generated a lot of excitement)?
In the end, the outlook remains the same. Dixie could be revealed at E3; she could be revealed in a future Direct; she could be revealed only after the game is released. But there is no denying that the best possible window for her reveal has now come and gone.
