And Incineroar proponents cling desperately to that one line, because it's basically the only thing he has going for him. He's a wrestler. Sakurai picked him for no apparent reason other than he filled a cookie-cutter archetype that Sakurai wanted. Which is within his rights to do because he's the director, and that's fine, I just disagree with that as being the best way to go about it, and even if I had no qualms about that methodology for choosing, I still think the other gen 7 choices would have been both more interesting archetypes to fill and better received, esp. long-term. So on all counts, I disagree with the choice, both using the information Sakurai had available when making the choice and using the information we have now.
Hardly anybody was asking for Incineroar, relative to the amount of asks for the other gen 7 mons, and hardly anybody would be asking for him now if he weren't in. But apparently, since he got in, we're all just supposed to pretend that he was the best choice all along even though pretty much nobody thought that before his addition. And again, anytime you criticize the choice you just get slapped with the same old "he's a wrestler" one-liner as if that outweighs all the other factors, including (but not limited to) popularity, marketability, and, yes, the unique qualities of the other options. Apparently, we're all supposed to just give in and agree that it was a good choice. It says something that no one can say anything to support Incineroar beyond "he's a wrestler," and variants thereof.
The comparison with Robin comes because we had a lesser-speculated choice from the same game get chosen over the more-expected choice, both with Robin and with Incineroar. When Robin was added, it was indeed a pretty controversial move at that time, and there was a lot of outcry for giving "justice" to Chrom, which surely contributed to his Ballot performance and eventual addition as an Echo.
Of course the line between objective and subjective will always be blurry. And for some, it won't matter; as long as the result maintains the usual level of quality that Smash holds itself to, and/or is a character they like or care about, they'll be fine with whoever. And that's totally fine for whoever's boat it floats. But if we're going to go anywhere beyond just "ok Sakurai just pick whoever you want that you think will be fun" (or "ok Sakurai just pick whoever I personally want") then the other factors like sales, popularity, cultural impact, marketing and promotion, role or plot importance, and etc. all come into the equation. And there just don't seem to be compelling arguments along any of those lines in favor of Incineroar beyond that simple "he's fun and I like him" angle, which again is fine for those who are content with it, but personally I don't think there's any good reason to include Incineroar over any number of other Pokemon options who I think would be better. And again, nobody can claim to be perfectly objective about it, but even trying to distance myself as much as possible from my personal feelings towards the character, in this case I fail to see significant merit.
