Hopefully, I could remember all what I wanted to say. Oh well. here it goes.
Toad, Junior, Mona, Zoroark, Mewtwo, Victini, K. Rool, Dixie, Young Link, Ghirahim, Krystal, Ridley, Samurai Goroh, Roy, Krom, Palutena, Medusa, Shulk, Isaac, Little Mac, Takamaru, Saki, Megaman, SE character. TWENTY FOUR. All with DECENT chances.
Before I get into it, I would argue against some of those. There probably wont be Victini and Zoroark, and all we know about Krom is his name and his hair is blue. Also not sure why people think Bowser Jr. is likely at all, but that is another time. Your also assume third party characters will come back. There is a good chance they wont.
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Here is what I'm seeing and it applies to Spydr as well. As far as characters go, there are the new rules and the old rules. These are thoughts rather than actuality. This is how we think characters are going to be added.
The Old Rules look at popularity and worthyness. You can tell if someone is using this is they say "deserving," or sales is a big part of their discussion.
The New Rules are trying something different. It's using what Sakurai has said as well as looking at characters.
They key difference is your looking beyond the readily known facts. There are very few facts with the new rules. Some things like sales still matter with the new rules, but only to an extend. Like, if a new IP came out and it sold 10 million copies, than it is defiantly getting it. Also, it the character is extremely popular. It would be where the character is so popular it's hard to ignore.
So now, let's go back in time to the days of Melee and 64. When these games were made, they were not only the first. The characters in these games were the cream of the crop for Nintendo. They were Nintendo's most predominate series and most popular. These games also didn't have a lot of development time and resources. 64 was a cheaply made game that was never expected to leave Japan. Melee was made in 13 months. The clones were added as a result of the team feeling the roster was too small. So who got added was limited.
Let's fast forward to Brawl. Brawl was a totally different context from the first two games. Most of the main Nintendo characters were gotten in Melee and 64. The ones who were left were all secondary characters to the 64 characters and Melee had all the big secondary characters (like Bowser, Zelda and Mewtwo). Brawl was different in that it was playing with the scraps so to speak. It also had more characters thanks to more time and resources. A big thing with Brawl is that it had a torrent of characters. Outside of maybe a few characters, most the character were on even footing and there were a lot of them. Popularity didn't work as well as they were about the same save a few. We had more characters than knew what to do with.
So what does this have to do with the silly rules thing? The old rules are a direct result of Melee and 64. Melee and 64 both look at the most important characters, which is where sales, number of games and popularity came in. They were the top contenders. Brawl had a lot of characters who were all pretty good. It wasn't as obvious who was going to get in. So rules that work during Melee don't work during Brawl, and people using them (myself included) were wrong. The problem is that the rest of the Smash games going forward will be like Brawl until we run out of characters. Then it will be different. But for now, Brawl is the rules.
What the new rules try and do is pin characters down not on popularity, sales, or number of games. Most of these facts have gone belly up. The new rules try to predict characters using something else. The problem is it is hard to say what matters, but Sakurai gave us some guidance on his 4 rules. The thing I have been looking for in characters is are they likable and are they important. I use to say to look at "good," characters, and this is what I mean. Basically, are they really an All-Star. The thing is this isn't an exact science and there is very little, if anything, that is quantifiable. This is probably why people like the old rules because you can quantify a lot more. It's easier to argue.
Going to some of the characters Shortie brought up, here is the thing. Bowser Jr. would be an example of a character I'd say is not likable (which is why I never thought he would happen). There is a lot more dislike for him usually by older players. I tend to see young people support him. Krystal is kind of the same as there is a decent about of dislike for her, but it probably isn't a big deal. But these would be characters I wouldn't be sure of because they are less likable and also less important that other characters out there.
So why Palutena and Medusa? Part of it does have to do with the revival of the series, but in a different context. The characters in the series are pretty important. The fact that they are both getting their own OVA is proof that they are important enough. They also seem like characters people can really get behind. A big reason why the revival matters is because they would be ignored otherwise. It's the same reason I wouldn't nominate Zoda from Star Tropics. He is important to that series and could be likable, but no one cares. He is very distant. But Uprising puts the Kid Icarus series into the spot light, as well as it's characters.
So I'll close this with two things. First, when talking about characters, think more with new rules. Try to chose characters on characters themselves and how people would think of them and less on the series they come from. And second, as a disclaimer, remember that everyone will be wrong. No one guess the Brawl roster and I doubt it will change for SSB4. The goal I set is to be close enough. So think what you want to think. Just try to be as close as possible.
