I can think of a few differences between male and female wii fit trainer (boobs, pecs) and yet they are alts.
I can't wait until people try to find a difference in water ranger on the fludd that Mario uses vs the one that Mario-in-coat uses.
Duck Hunt Dog is it's own character instead of being an assist trophy. "But he has a unique play style!" Sorry, but something about NOT EVEN HAVING HIS OWN NAME says to me that there would have been far, far, far, far, far, far, FAR better choices to include in an ALL STAR GAME.
There was less than zero excuse not to include all of the hype 3, let alone NONE OF THEM.
I'm sorry, but, it's like you don't even know what you're saying.
- Visual differences is not what Sakurai was talking about, and you know it. He was talking about if they wanted to change the moveset, or felt that the character could be slightly different aside from looking/sounding different.
- Why are you assuming Dr. Mario will have FLUDD? The difference making him a character is that he'd most likely NOT have Fludd, and have a different Down+B, and keep the visual changes of Fireballs to Pills.
- You're suggesting that DUCK HUNT, as in, one of the games that older fans know just as much as Mario (since a lot of people owned the dual-cartridge) and was bundled in with NES at one point, is not an All-Star thing. Whether you like it or not, Duck Hunt is just as important and "all-star" as Mr. Game & Watch and R.O.B. He's the very definition of a Nintendo All-Star in a game that is celebrating its rich history. And as someone who is absolutely pissed at the removal of Ice Climbers, he makes a HECK OF A LOT MORE SENSE than they did to represent NES as a whole since nobody even knew what the hell they were. Same with Lucas. You want to complain about non-All-Stars getting in, IC & Lucas (two of my faves in Brawl) are not well known at all.
- You gotta let the "hype 3" thing go. They had just as much of a chance as any Assist Trophy getting promoted or Takamaru. There was no reason to expect them.
You seem to forget that the character inclusion is not just based on "WHO DO PEOPLE WANT/WHO IS GOOD?"
It's based on the ability to actually make them.
Did it ever occur to you that all 3 of them were, at some point planned, but then something got in the way? Either problems with their movesets, problems with getting them to work the way they wanted, problems making them FUN or interesting, or simply running out of time?
Clones are added AFTER the fact. So none of them even factor into this. The cuts? Probably also due to time constraints.
Brawl cut Mewtwo & Roy at the last second, and had Toon Zelda, Dixie & maybe Plusle+Minun planned but scrapped early in development, and Villager and Mii were planned at one point.
Melee was going to have different NES characters, Lucas, Wolf and I think more Kirby characters.
And we already know that Chrom was considered originally for SSB4.
So obviously, a lot of characters go through a process and get considered and even worked on, but ultimately don't make it.
So you can ***** all you want, but there's a possibility all of the characters you're mad about WERE planned/worked on/considered, but ultimately were unable to be done. **** sucks. Get over it.