Wow; so ecstatic!!
I knew that Little Mac had a chance to become part of the SSB4 roster (and he's been on my wishlist), but I didn't think he would make it in as playable! I would've been fine with him as an Assist Trophy, but his role as a playable fighter is even better! I anticipated that the
Punch-Out!! series would at least get a stage in SSB4 due to the 'boxing ring'-themed stage, though..
I initially saw the news on Bulbapedia (via the Twitter applet displaying BulbanewsNOW's tweets), and I was like "OMG!!"; I actually
gasped! XD Out of all my reactions for SSB4 characters so far, this one was second-highest in the amount of "excitement" I displayed (highest amount of excitement was displayed during Megaman's June 2013 reveal, of course). Immediately after seeing the tweet, I rushed to SmashWiki and subsequently saw the same news of Little Mac being featured.
Then I went to Little Mac's nascent article and watched his "reveal trailer", which exceeded my expectations. I just loved the art style that the trailer used in conjunction with Doc Louis's voiceover! Also, I haven't played
Punch-Out!!, so the main experience I have with Little Mac is via
Super Smash Bros. Brawl and any online references I happen to come across. At first, I thought the trailer was remixing the SSB4 Main Theme, and then I was like "No, wait! This sounds like something else!". Then a lightbulb clicked as I remembered one of the samples used in
Brawl's
"Famicom Medley" track (0:28 - 0:44 in this video; for some reason, it made me think of the idea of '
Power Rangers in a fighting videogame' when I first heard it play in
Brawl), which indeed samples the "Training" cutscene theme from
Punch-Out!!, as I've read.
The Power Meter definitely startled me... I was instantly reminded about a discussion about
Super Smash Flash 2, where someone (I think the developer or someone else on McLeodGaming Forums), in which someone said that 'power meters' weren't really true to the spirit of
Super Smash Bros. (as in, none of the typical charging attacks, like Samus's Charge Shot or Lucario's Aura Sphere, feature "meters" to let you know how much you've charged the attack so far, instead relying on visual indicators like 'sphere size'); I think the 'charge meters' for a lot of Special Attacks were removed later on in SSF2... But anyway; it's interesting to finally see a Charge Meter atop of the damage percentage indicator, and it could pave the way for other characters/attacks to use similar meters (although I think it definitely fits Little Mac).
I was a bit turned off by the Final Smash being named "Giga Mac"... I mean, we already have
Giga Bowser; there are other prefixes, you know... >_> Couldn't "Mighty Mac" or "Mega Mac" have worked..? (I would've
loved the punny usage of
Big Mac - being opposite of Little Mac's standard name and probably contrasting the kind of diet Little Mac has, while still fitting the 'size change' concept - although methinks that McDonalds might've taken issue with that and sued...or something.
)
ROFL at Sandbag being used as a punching bag, as well as Samus cameoing for a few minutes... The trailer reminded me of
Street Fighter 4 so much (mainly due to the art style). I loved the moment where Little Mac used a series of blinding rapid-fire skyward punches on Link (
LOL..skyward punches trump skyward swords... poor Link >.<); it made me more eager to try out Little Mac's moveset... You would think that a character who is essentially "all punches" would be boring to play as, but that trailer did a fantastic job at showcasing Little Mac.. Also, I've always envisioned a 'boxing ring' stage for King Dedede (I've read that he has a 'boxing ring' on Mt. Dedede as a boss character; it gave me some ideas on a stage that I could build that utilizes "King Dedede's Theme" in
Brawl), but I guess a
Punch-Out!! boxing ring makes more sense than a
Kirby one (maybe the stage will still have some sort of reference to Mt. Dedede?); still, I liked how King Dedede was the first foe that Little Mac faced in the ring as a newly-induced Smash Brother. XD
And I'm also laughing about how Little Mac's reveal was a nice "twist" (maybe some people would say that Sakurai was 'trolling' yet again, but I think Little Mac's trailer was awesome enough for Diddy Kong fans to forget about it), given that most people apparently were expecting Diddy Kong and/or Dixie Kong to be revealed soon (due to this Nintendo Direct being temporally near in proximity to the release of
Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze).
And here people were thinking Little Mac was disconfirmed due to Villager sporting 'boxing gloves'.
Hey, things are probably looking up for Balloon Fighter, too!
But yeah, so stoked that Little Mac made it in; I'm even itching to play
Wii Sports' Boxing mode right now! Ugh, this was probably the one Nintendo Direct I could've watched live (although I was just made aware of it on February 12th, 2014..), and I missed it.
Maybe next time..
Despite not being a Little Mac fan, I'm really glad he finally made it, plus his gameplay looks AWESOME. I really hope Doc Louis will show up though ._. He just HAVE to be in the background like the Pokémon Trainer.
I hope Doc Louis shows up in some capacity during gameplay... Maybe on the boxing ring stage when Little Mac is fighting on it?
I started shaking when I heard Doc's voice, when I saw "Little Mac Punches In" I screamed "YES!"
I tried to hold my excitement but I kept shaking and shaking and shaking. I laughed at Samus and Mac, and at the end of the trailer with the chocolate. Mac looks incredible, and I'm happy that Mac Baby has finally made it into Smash.
He so rightfully deserves it.
This; with a long-standing fighting series and a great concept in general, Little Mac is just so rightfully fitting as a playable combatant in
Smash. Finally, a non-
Smash Nintendo fighting game series's (as in, real-time fighting, not turn-based) character makes it into the fighting series of
Super Smash Bros.! 
