Preach my man. I really wish people would stop it with the reboot nonsense.
Why is it nonsense?
Honestly.
I think we're more likely to stay at our roster size with cycling characters than a reboot that cuts most of the roster.
That said, I fail to see why a reboot is needed. It only seems to cater to a small part of an already small competitive crowd while not giving much to the casual majority (lets be real, a lot of the competitive community would be begging for old favorites too).
Too many downsides and not enough upsides.
Are there?
Would a series reboot only appeal to competitive gamers?
My argument was that opening the brand to even more 3rd party characters would draw in people who aren't Nintendo faithful. Ergo, the same people who were very excited when Cloud was revealed for Smash 4, or when Snake or Sonic first appeared in Brawl. My argument is that your average gamer doesn't care about the remaining obscure Nintendo characters, and really only care about the most iconic ones: Mario, Link, Fox, Pikachu, etc...
Rebooting the franchise not only allows for things to be revitalized, but also allows for a newer and more expansive approach to the roster, as well as a new take on veterans.
This isn't about casuals vs. noncasuals or competitive gamers. I'm not factoring either into any of this. Really, I'm saying appeal to your average gamer vs. the demands of the core fanbase. Both I'd say are people who like videogames quite a lot. Only one needs to be convinced to buy the FIFTH entry in the series. Plenty can be done to appease the negativity from the core fanbase, since only a subsection are so heavily invested on the roster, and negativity and vitriol will always come from this people no matter how small the cut, or if their most wanted character gets turned into a stage hazzard.
Think about it this way:
A roster of this size is more of a limiting factor for the series, should you ever wanna add new ideas that radically change the game.
Any sort of universal mechanics like an integrated cancel, or well-made super moves, or expanded normals, etc... whatever, all of this is exponentially more difficult to do when your roster is over 50 characters large, AND you're expected to add even MORE characters to keep people happy. The result winds up being poorly balanced half-assed attempts that everyone ignores. And the deal is, this HAS happened already, with custom specials. They're basically an afterthought in Smash 4, and it's a pity, cause if properly balanced and integrated, they could have been a total game changer, allowing players to have various customized builds for their favorite characters that were actually valid to use and meant something. Instead, custom moves became more of a gimmick and a hassle at that, akin to items and final smashes.
Quality over Quantity I always say, and everyone seems to stay focused on MORE AND MORE stuff, as if the roster is the only thing that matters, and ignoring how a roster of this size begins to negatively affect the development of the game. And it even goes beyond mechanics or new ideas, but also single player content as well. Look at how polished a lot of the 1P stuff in Melee was, from an adventure mode that properly reflected the various franchises (the Metroid one had you escape from the area, the Zelda one had you explore a dungeon, the F-Zero one had you race to the finish, etc...), to Target tests that were unique to each character, to event matches that were well designed and fun to play, all these small touches added a lot more personality and charm to the game, not present in the following two entries because a chunk of the development was focused elsewhere, and the roster bloat made it unmanageable.
At the end of the day, the previous games still exist, and they all have character mods. I'd much rather see the series head in new directions and try bold new ideas that freshen up the gameplay like: properly implemented custom specials, or well balanced super moves, or expanded normal movepools, than to get essentially the SAME game we've played since Melee, but this time even more prettier and with even MORE content. As far as the general public goes, the general consensus seems to be that content-wise, 4 is difficult to surpass. There's a slow building apathy about Smash among most people, and unlike past games, where even as early as release people had dozens for ideas for what other characters they'd like to see, this time around, you hear a lot of very samey and expected predictions, and some people just no longer care. We've seen Sonic, Megaman, Ryu, and Cloud all show up in Smash... where else do you go from here?
Going back to scratch and creating a new take on the game with all sorts of interesting new mechanics would excited people a lot more than adding in even more characters to the roster, even if it is by cutting or cycling other characters. The very idea of allowing properly balanced custom builds is something that would resonate a lot more strongly with people, than adding in any new face.
