First, some stats analysis of the current state of the RTC game:
Little Mac Satisfaction: 60%
Breakdown:
Little Mac getting into the game: 50% (indifference)
Little Mac execution (how well they made him): 75% (pretty good job)
First of all, a little damper put on it because I'd have rather seen a DK newcomer today. Secondly, he wasn't in my most wanted, and I wasn't one who thought he was one of the most deserving out there. He deserves his spot, but leaving him out would not be like, say, Diddy being left out of Melee. So while it's cool to see a newcomer, he's nowhere near the satisfaction I got from seeing Mega Man.
But as far as how Little Mac works... I thought he'd be kinda boring. No more so than Marth, mind you, who IMO has the most boring move set in Brawl. He seems about what I expected on that front. Hell, the counter makes the similarity to Marth even stronger. It's a bunch of punches... and a power meter. Which is interesting. I can at least say I was right to dismiss the idea of him having a "stance change" as part of his move set. The power meter isn't exactly the star punch, but it's a similar idea.
But it's not just about how it looks. "Punches" are just animations... mechanics are kinda independent of whether it's a punch or a kick or a tail swipe, etc. Mechanically, he has a strong ground game, counter move, quick moves, strong moves with armor, poor aerials and recovery, and the power meter causing tactics. This does make him different from what we've seen before. I can't really tell if I will enjoy playing as him, but it's possible. I do like fast characters.
The trailer was well done. I think Mega Man's was the most epic, had the best music, and gave the most info. If I were ranking the reveal vids (and only counting the parts where we see Villager), I'd rank them Mega Man > Little Mac > Rosalina > Wii Fit Trainer > Villager. WFT had the most humorous reveal though.
What does it mean?
Well, Little Mac has some properties...
1. He was already highly expected before we evaluated the other characters, with the Boxing Ring being quickly found to have Punch-Out!! design elements. This means we shouldn't adjust
too much.
2. He's from a new series. Well, so were Villager, WFT and Mega Man, so it's not news that we're seeing a lot of new series.
3. He's much more popular in the West than in Japan. This I think positively affects Ridley, since he's the most prominent character who is very wanted in the US but not so much in Japan.
4. He does take a slot. Since we don't know exactly how many slots there are and he was already widely expected, this doesn't really factor in much.
Of course, as I mentioned before, the timing of his reveal relative to DKCTF is also relevant...
Having had a few hours to think about it, I'm not sure Little Mac being revealed today actually hurts the chances of any DK characters. Seems to me they wanted a newcomer to reveal for the Direct, and with Diddy not yet revealed, the stage wasn't set yet for a DK newcomer. Little Mac was ready to go and has his 30th anniversary this month, so it proved to be a fine choice for this Direct. I imagine Diddy will arrive via a daily picture relatively soon (could be as early as next Friday) and any DK newcomer will follow in the coming months.
The thing is, it's not like this was just sprung on him and he was like "Fine, show Little Mac instead of Dixie." If Sakurai wanted to reveal a DK newcomer, and he wanted to set the stage for a DK newcomer, he could've revealed Diddy at any time. He could've shown him between Luigi and Peach, or Sonic and Marth, or whenever.
Unless they're not as far along as I think, and Diddy actually just wasn't complete enough to show earlier. But I doubt that's the case.
Now, K. Rool being completely absent from Tropical Freeze? Yeah, that's a bit more worrying.
But now that I think about it, I don't totally know what to make of it.
Because revealing K Rool at this point, with him not being in Tropical Freeze, well... it wouldn't be ideal. It would only make his absence from Tropical Freeze stick out. Meanwhile, if
Dixie were in, there would be a lot more motivation to set it up so that she could be revealed today. So if Sakurai wanted K Rool despite him not being in Tropical Freeze, this would actually be a more sensible way to do things...
(Or, you know, what Groose said, now that I read further.)