Smash concentrates on him being an MMA fighter rather than a sorcerer, as in something he never did (besides punching ground one I guess, which SHOULD have been its own move). If he was a sorcerer, he would have had a big projectile play, and be closer to Zelda in moveset. Making him a Falcon clone just because of body properties was the dumbest idea, I rather have never had him at all and then got a proper one in Brawl.
And again, 22 unique characters sounds fine compared to 20 characters plus clones. Quality vs Quantity.
Mewtwo was one of the lowest quality characters, so... not really. Seriously, everybody else is actually able to do a lot more notable stuff. He just was awful. He's fun, but not good at all. Roy is pretty low quality too. Pichu surprisingly is not. He has a huge difference from his clone due to their metagame choices. Young Link and Ganondorf are the only high quality characters. Dr. Mario, Roy, and Falco were the most similar to the others. And only one was severely worse. The others were almost in the same spot in the tier list as their parent, which means any quality done to the parent was pretty well done to the clone. Quality is all about effort into making them able to do things. Pichu seems low quality, but then we realize he has his strengths. He actually requires more skill to work with, and completely decimates the best boss in the game, Giga Bowser. Jigglypuff would, but she can't defend well against him and is only good against his nerfed variant in Event 51. Pichu cannot be hit by Giga Bowser outside of his Bowser Bomb and a few downwards attacks. He gets under most attacks and cannot be grabbed. When a character can eat another for breakfast, I'd say they have quite a bit of quality to them. Even it it's not severely high. Melee was badly tested, but it's a high quality game regardless. Brawl had far worse testing and more broken gameplay anyway. Clones are not low quality things at all. In fact, Brawl's immense content gave them little time to polish the game, so it's where the quality was overrun by the quantity. Melee had better quality, which makes yoru complaint kind of ironic.
And incorrect; That is not what magic is at all(just one small aspect). Magic has tons of variation. Magical Armor, Magic being used to amplify your attacks/weapons. He is using magic in a way only a person with the Triforce of
Power can, by using power moves. He was not going to be in Melee as some unique guy. And may not have been lucky enough to get in Brawl as a very unique character. In fact, it probably would've been Toon Ganondorf just because it'd make him unique enough to be a choice. But a single sword Ganondorf was beyond unlikely(never mind he can barely bring much to the table unless he was a carbon copy of Soul Calibur!Nightmare, who has a very unique sword moveset, one that's similar to how Ganondorf could act. Extreme power and range. And pretty different from Ike too. Nightmare's style concentrated more on whipping the opponent around the screen, even so far as throwing them into the 3D plane, and even using his sword as a throw). Ganondorf fits in very well right now into the series. Let's not forget his first attack with his Sage's Sword(the only one he used in canon other than his Katanas in his Ganondorf persona) was a powerful thrust, which he has now. He's properly using it, and the way he uses it in TP isn't exactly very unique compared to other sword users, so adding that would bring nothing worthwhile to the table. Ganondorf still oozes magic and power. Just like his original self, till, well, WW. Even in the cartoons/comics/mangas. I don't see see in any way how he isn't treated rather well, especially for a clone. In Brawl, sure, because he was terribly implemented due to his crappy weight, range, and speed. Which is fixed in 4. He's very good in Melee and 4, so I don't see how it's a problem. He uses his sword now. One attack for an underused weapon in most of the series seems pretty good to me. He's using it about as often as he really did at this point.
Let me tell you a little story about a game centered solely around Magic that I play. The character has projectiles, area attacks, huge pillars of fire/water, the ability to heal, absorb damage to gain back MP, increase his defense, increase his staff's damage, use his staff to drain enemies to heal, a OHKO spell, something to remove all status effects, rocks being thrown, and so on. That's Quest 64, probably one of the greatest examples of just how varied Magic really is. Maybe not enough, but it's pretty damn good at showcasing variety.
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