Palutena was popular and demanded. The "Sakurai bias" argument is really getting out of hand.
The version to have tons of KIU content is the 3DS version due to easily ported assets from KIU (guess what, a 3DS game), whereas the Wii U version curiously has as much KIU stuff as other minor series. If there was actual bias, the Wii U version would also have a crapload of content from KIU.
Also, I agree with @
Scoliosis Jones
. The reps nonsense really needs to end. Yes, franchise balance is important, but if a franchise has more characters that stand out from others, it will obviously benefit from that.
Animal Crossing is a huge franchise, but what prominent characters besides the Villager does it have that can be unique and stand out?
That's why we have 3 Fire Emblem characters despite the series being relatively smaller. The series as an immense cast of characters to choose from. Each FE character in Smash is unique on their own, with Marth as an agile swordsman, Ike as a heavyweight sword fighter and Robin as a magic knight.
And don't bring these guys (
) into this, because their inclusion is result of entirely different circumstances that I'm not going to elaborate here since I've done that to death already. Those are just bonus characters easily made from already existing alts (= they would have been playable characters anyway, just not have their own slots on the roster and slight gameplay differences that were made at the last second).
Also, in Melee, we had 2 Star Fox characters and back then, Star Fox had 2 games with one of them being a recent release met with success. No one cared about that. Now, a series with 3 games with one of them having a recent successful release having 3 characters is somehow bad. Nice logic there.
(Sakurai bias, more like fanbase bias. Tsk tsk.)
Closing words: haters gonna hate. No character is a waste as long as they have a fanbase that cares about them. If you don't like a character, you got a good choice, which is to deal with it, respect said character's fans and simply don't play as them. Simple, I know.