At the moment, we don't know what the limits are, but we do know that a single DLC character will have taken at least six months to fully complete, if not more. That includes the processes of deciding on the character, designing a complete move set and play style, the actual creation of the character, the balancing and debugging, and working the character into the game (in other words, making trophies for them, fitting them into All-Star mode, etc.). Additional characters are only going to take more time due to the increasing size of the roster and the continuous need to balance everything out. With all that considered, one has to wonder if they're really capable of producing enough DLC characters to create a pack that could allow for the grouping of a best-selling character with a more risky one.
That said, we don't know for sure that Mewtwo is
the only thing being worked on. Time will tell, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had something up their sleeves.
Just to clarify. Japan actually loves FE6 and Roy quite a bit.
It's just us Westerners that don't like him.
I didn't know that, actually. Thanks for the info; I thought the fanbase everywhere was pretty meh on him.
That brings me to a different question, though, and something else a lot of others are taking as fact: Why would missing veterans get preferential treatment?
It seems like many are acting like Lucas, Wolf, and the Ice Climbers are all but shoo-ins. Others are saying Snake has the inside track, or Roy, or even the likes of Young Link and Pichu. And
a lot of people seem to think veteran characters would be more likely to return as DLC than the chance of any newcomers being made. I'm not so sure.
Wolf, I'll give you. Star Fox's representation was most likely trimmed down because the series hadn't been relevant for
years up through when the initial roster was decided...but now there's a new game on the horizon. Wolf isn't a
bad pick by any means, since he plays differently than Fox or Falco and adds a villain to the roster...but would he be worth it almost a year from now when the new game signals his likely return to relevance and the shock of him missing the roster has long since faded away? As much nostalgia as he's bringing up among the fanbase, he
is a semi-clone...and of a character that has one already. Since what facts we know of (his Lylat Cruise codec model is based strictly on Assault and not his Brawl model) leans toward Wolf not ever having been worked on for Smash 4, he'd have to be made from scratch...and would a half-clone be as interesting and as worth a purchase to the consumers as a fully unique newcomer? These are things the developers have to consider.
Meanwhile, the other members of the "Absent Three" seem in much worse position. Where one of Fox's custom specials is based on one of Wolf's, Lucas has been outright
scrapped for parts, with Ness getting all four of his specials as customs. Combine that with his series having officially ended, his game still never having left Japan, and with being a semi-clone in Brawl of the more well known Ness...it honestly seems more likely he'd pop up as an alternate costume pack for the boy from Onett. Meanwhile, the Ice Climbers have the advantage of having been planned to be in Smash 4...but couldn't be properly implemented in the 3DS version, as Nana's complicated AI caused the 3DS to overreach its limits and lag like crazy whenever multiple ICs were in battle. If that issue could be resolved, they could end up making it as DLC...but it's a
very big "if". It'd involve the dev team taking significant risk in trying to fix a problem they
were not able to during the main game's development, and if they still couldn't get them to work, they'd have nothing to show for it. And if Sakurai didn't want to size down Ridley because he thought it wouldn't be true to the character, how likely would he be to greenlight a
single Ice Climber and go against the characterization they'd built over the previous two games?
Then there're the two of Red's Pokemon that were left by the wayside when transformations got the axe. Ivysaur may have a decent shot due to there still being no characters with plant-based powers...but there's something else to consider. Once Mewtwo arrives, we'll have 6 Pokemon characters...and four of them will be from just the
first of its six generations. Would Sakurai want to make that 5 of 7, and pass up so many viable mons from other gens, for nostalgia's sake? And would he want to do the same for Squirtle when Greninja already took his niche of a water user, and did it in arguably a more inspired and interesting way? Would the fans be more interested in one from a different gen and that is also still relevant nowadays? Would there be something to gain from pulling from Gen 3, now that ORAS has made that generation relevant again?
If anyone was wondering why I placed Lucas, Ivysaur, and Squirtle so low on my chart...this is why. Roy I feel has next to no shot, when he offers so little that Marth and Lucina don't cover already and when Fire Emblem is already so heavily represented. As for Snake...I'll explain later.
It frustrates me to see people treat the situation as simpler than it actually is, assuming veterans would get top priority solely on veteran status. But with so many questions to consider, and with them having to be made from the ground up just like any newcomers...it's clearly more complicated than that.
