Yeah I know is pretty safe, but actually thinking about the characters added and what they represent it seems they would certainly get a lot of chances, specially because of the high popularity they have and potential moveset.
The thing with 3rd party characters is I don´t think they should be considered a one time only and here is my focus. It seems that every time Sakurai is thinking in adding a 3rd rep from any series he first works really hard in the moveset, after that he starts woking with his team and for the look of it is so much work behind each rep that it seems ludicrous for a normal game developer or game designer would invest so much on it, especially because is not even a main character from Nintendo.
Lets take a look at Sonic his kit resembles a lot of what you can expect about the character it seem that it has a lot of thought behind it, maybe needs a little more work in tweaking his movset but a part from that, Sakurai and his team work it out pretty well even with the time constrain that it have as a last minute inclusion in Brawl.
Now lets take a look to Snake and here is where things get complicated, a lot of people think that Snake is a one time character and I feel this surprising. Why you ask, seriously I think is one of the hardest characters to be implemented in Smash because of the many reasons like Sakurai going against to put real guns in Smash. So Sakurai need to get behind that implementation and think in a completely and unique moveset for Snake that it didn´t feel out of place for the character but being as close as to what you can expect of a soldier in the future with hight tech weapons and stealth attacks, so the fans of Metal Gear and fans of Smash Bros could enjoy playing this character with a lot of arsenal and still work fine without guns, for me and this is my personal thought the amount of time Sakurai put on Snake, work, money, resources, man power and the material gathered for each of his specials is insane and then tweak every single move to perfection so it can be useful in a way, probably did take more times that I can count for each special and work it out so the kit would look awesome, interesting and most important fluent with the character and after all these balance the character with the whole roster. So if I need to say Snake is in the top 5 more complicated characters in Smash and works really well. Finally lets not forget that Snake is among the most used characters and one of the favorites for many people because of his kit and what it represents. So thinking in a way, would you not consider to bring back a character like this after all the work, sweat, blood, tears and fanbase for the next installment of the series? I think Sakurai works really hard for each character he add especially if is thrid party so in the future if the company that is owner of that character would be gladly to lend again his character for future installments in the series.
About Mega Man and this is what make me think that every character and especially if is third party would came back, if I remind correctly the amount work and thought that Sakurai put behind this character is crazy, he said in a interview that it took the same amount of work the implementation of Mega Man in Smash as making again the whole game, when I read that, I was like "I dont even think Sakurai is planning on Mega Man to leave the Smash Series in a long time" would you consider to leave behind a character that has so much work behind so it only be a one time character? I think not and once the game is released probably this character will have a fanbase and be a main character for a lot of people.
So to complete my thought process behind these 3rd party characters is that they have unique kits, take a lot of development, are main stars now in Smash, have a lot of following behind them, are close to Nintendo in some way or form and for being so few I would not think of them as a bother, for example Sonic and Snake only took 5.7% of the roster size compared to the whole cast of Nintendo characters (only counting character slots), now if we make again the math with four 3rd party characters for the new smash it would be 8.90% that take place counting there are 45 characters slot, is not a lot if you think about it, is not even 10% (I´m counting Pac Man, Mega Man, Sonic and Snake).
Shulk is a personal preference is him or Starfy (sorry but I prefer Shulk) and Lucario again I need to make cuts to fit the roster.
.n_n.
