So, we have 20 characters. Let's see what, if any patterns we can find in comparison to Brawl's first 20.
- 10 characters shown at official announcement for Brawl, 12 for SSB4.
- 8 64 characters in Brawl, (all of the starters), 8 64 for 4, (7 starters).
- 12 Melee characters in Brawl, (12 starters), 12 Melee characters in 4 (10 starters).
- Yoshi was, or will be the last of the original 8 announced for each game.
- 8 newcomers in Brawl, 4 for SSB4.
- 5 expected newcomers announced for Brawl, 1(ish) for 4.
- 1 third party for Brawl, 2 for SSB4.
- 13 franchises represented in Brawl, 14 in 4. (9 common franchises).
- 11 common characters in each game's first 20.
Conclusion that I've drawn:
- Brawl's first 20 represented a more well rounded cast, with most of the expected newcomers already present.
- 4's first 20 are not as well rounded a group and can lead us to believe that either the full cast will be a large group in order to retain the well roundedness, or that the cast will be unbalanced and reflect whom Nintendo thinks is important, and not necessarily who Sakurai thinks should fit into this game/phenomenon.
- Any patterns found in Brawl are either being followed closely in terms of franchises revealed, or not at all in terms of fully shown franchises and reveals for previous secret characters.
Conclusions you can draw.
- Not many. All of this information doesn't tell us much. We're still sort of in the dark on how the entire scope of this game will look.
- This was a completely pointless post.
- Zelda looks darn good though.