Alright then. And if Joker doesn't use knives or his gun, then your point is up the creek without a paddle. And that's assuming that Smash doesn't make that exception anyway.
Joker only fights with 3 things.
- Knife
- Gun
- Personas
They can omit the Gun, but if they omit the knife and the gun, then Joker is left with only Personas, meaning he'd be only summoning Personas which would mean its not really Joker but any protagonist for the Persona series and thus he'd lose a lot of his character in the process and that they might as well have gone with Yu Narukami instead since then they could at least have a sword wielder. I mean, even Persona 4 Arena didn't have every attack summon a Persona, the characters used their weapons or punches & kicks as well to display their individual character and skill..and Joker not having stylish attacks would feel very disappointing.
I don't know a ton about Persona, but I mean, doesn't the P3 Protag also summon Personas by shooting himself in the head?
With Joker he rips off his mask which is really easy to tone down (just remove the gore). But to have a character who literally shoots themselves in the head seems a bit much.
Technically, no. The characters of Persona 3 use a device known as an Evoker to summon Personas which is gun shaped (except for Koromaru's since he's a dog, its built into his collar instead) that is shaped as such due to needing a traumatic event in order to summon Personas in the real world (which, though all Persona summoning, for the most part, takes place during the Dark Hour, a mysterious 25th hour that occurs at Midnight where all but Persona users turn into Coffins..the Persona series is weird..is still in the real world).
In Persona 4 Arena, the P3 characters didn't need their Evokers due to taking place in the Midnight Channel from P4, which is in a metaphysical realm..and it was just handwaved for the Dark Hour redux in Ultimax to not disrupt Gameplay. They can avoid having P3 Protag using the evoker if they desire.
This is more of an Inceneroar than a Chrom or Chorus Kids. There's a lot of evidence that leads to Erdrick, plus leakers, plus an in game code that directly references the Japanese name of the Hero Class in Dragon Quest, Yuusha the name of the Hero Class in DQ literally translates to brave, and then there's that random Insta post with "The Brave's Shield". Chrom and Chorus Kids had Sal. That was really it.
Edit: I see where you're coming from though.
Yeah, I know, all of that is why I do believe Erdrick is in, and I'm glad you're seeing where I'm coming from..I just always take issue with people taking leaks, rumors, or even educated speculation as 100% fact and use it to disregard any other leaks or speculation.