To be fair, a few other things were taken down before showing up in Smash, but I did think it didn’t mean much since it was probably just their dumb bots or something. I was being genuine with my post when I said it was funny, I was hoping if Geno got in he would actually come with more than two songs since Square started to not seem as stingy as people said.
Sure, but for the first point, tons of things get taken down by companies. A music channel just had its entire Ocarina of Time playlist taken down, iirc. It's just that only the ones people think are relevant to Smash get reported, so it makes them seem more special than they are.
And I think we all hope that characters come with as much content as possible, Geno included were he actually a character. That said, the "Square's not stingy" kinda stuff is in the same vein as the "irrelevancy doesn't matter" kind of thing, where Square is obviously willing to play ball but still undoubtably not the easiest to work with, and lack of "relevancy" is still a factor, it's just that these are not insurmountable obstacles. In part because Smash's budget is exorbitant. They still pumping millions of dollars into individual CG trailers two and three years after the game has released - that aren't even in the actual product.
But yeah, Square is not some unmovable, obstinate wall. Though just getting Cloud back in the first place kinda proved that, if not Hero later.
Wars is my favorite Nintendo series and despite being a first-party series older than Fire Emblem with 12 games to its name it doesn’t get so much as a measly music track in Ultimate. I would kill for even something like the Mii costume Geno got in 4, and again, Wars characters are first-party! But it just ain’t gonna happen and I‘ve long since accepted that. It’s much better for your mental health to accept that long-shot characters probably aren’t gonna make it.
Yeah, Wars really gets the short end of the stick. The AT didn't even return. And I 100% agree to err on the side of keeping expectations low, even for characters that aren't considered long-shots. People blame Nintendo and Sakurai and all but they do it to themselves more than anyone else does.