Ah, I see where we differ on this one. I intepreted Sakurai's statements in his project plan to mean that he chose Rosalina specifically because he thought the puppet character idea could be applied with her when it wouldn't for anyone else. As far as I can tell, her recent appearances were not the primary reason she made it in according to what Sakurai has said.
If that's true, then it's best to compare the Champions only if their moveset would be interesting enough to catch Sakurai's eye.
We actually agree on this. If people were rooting for Impa based on a one-off appearance in OoT or SS alone, then she wouldn't be a good choice.
However, she appears in small roles frequently throughout the Zelda series since its inception. Any of her roles alone amount to nothing of particular note, but together they make up a legacy that most characters in Zelda don't have. That's the reason why she stands a chance - not because of any single appearance.
How? I'm not intending to sound sarcastic when I ask that. What moveset potential do they have that would attract Sakurai's attention like Rosalina did?
Mipha has a spear (which is interesting but not exclusive to her, especially when one considers that Impa uses a naginata in Hyrule Warriors) and a healing power that doesn't really make much sense to focus a character's moveset on in a fighting game.
Daruk has a club that's functionally similar to Ike's broadsword, and he's a heavyweight. Sounds basically like Dedede? I don't see what's interesting about that.
Revali is an archer and a bird, which is new...but also a quality shared by Decidueye, who ultimately makes more sense to include if we assume Sakurai found the idea interesting.
Urbosa uses a sword amd shield similarly to Link, but with lightning.
What on earth am I missing? You seem to think these characters have something which speaks to their uniqueness as a fighter in Smash, but I'm not sure what you're seeing.
Relevency is a necessary but not sufficient reason to include a character.
Yes, a character needs to be in the public's eye when they're chosen. We've been told as much. That said, no, that's enough for a character to make it in.
And if you fail to see that Impa has more in her resume than just Hyrule Warriors, then I don't know what to tell you. She's in TLoZ, Zelda 2, OoT, the Oracle games, SS, ALBW, and BotW, and is depicted in WW. She also was a central character in HW and has appeared in numerous spinoffs and noncanonical materials.
Point blank, more people know her.
BotW is about a year old at this point. Anyone who has a Switch already has BotW, and those people are already likely to buy Smash, given that Nintendo markets it well.
The point of promotion is to sell a product, but you're not going to attract new people to BotW by including a Champion in Smash.
You're more likely to get the attention of new customers by including a character they're already familiar with who they want to play as. Impa fits that criteria, and rhe Champions don't.
Yeah, you can point out the positives of any character. That doesnt mean that all the positives are equally valid reasons to include the each character. That's false equivalence.
This is an appeal to ignorance.
While it is true that we cannot definitively say what is or is not going to happen in the future, it it not true that we cannot discuss the probabilities of these events.
Yes, it is fallacious to state that the Champions cannot happen, because I can't prove that.
However, it is not fallacious to use evidence to try to determine which character is more likely to happen.
You're correct. At the time, we did not recognize evidence that a character could be included primarily for promotional purposes.
That said, there are notably few instances of this happening. In fact, no character has been on the project plan primarily for that reason - Roy happened as a last-minute clone, and Corrin was chosen during the DLC period.
I'm not trying to claim that it is impossible for a Champion to make it in, but I am trying to claim that there is not precedence leading me to expect it.
I personally would not, just as I do not consider Villager, Wii Fit Trainer, Rosalina, Duck Hunt, or Corrin to have been easy to predict.
I have already explained that Impa is one of the few recognizable characters left for Nintendo to choose from and that Smash 4 had higher priority characters to include. That is why I expect Impa now when I did not in Smash 4.
Again, you're not considering that Impa had more prioritized characters competing with her in Smash 4 than are competing with her now.
I'm not even saying that she has an extremely good shot - all I'm saying is that, if there is a LoZ character, she will be it. Whether there will be or not is a separate matter entirely, and it depends on how many characters Sakurai ends up adding.
You are free to look at other choices. I'm not stopping you. But I can tell you from experience that expecting a character because they're an atypical choice isn't wise either.
That's fair if you're looking at it from that perspective, but it's not the same way I interpret the possibility of the Zelda newcomers.
Impa being in Hyrule Warriors is, as you mention, not enough on its own. But the fact that she appears in that game gives her the recent game release she needs to be considered as a candidate given that she also has a number of notable roles throughout the Zelda franchise.
Again, I apologize for being testy last night. (I was in need of food and was dealing with the grief of losing some family friends in a car accident. I was unreasonable harsh because of thay, and it wasn't fair to you.)
I do enjoy having this debate, and I hope there are no hard feelings between us.
