You're Sakurai. Melee had 26 characters. You're set to produce Brawl. You have much more time, a much larger staff, and all of Nintendo's resources at your disposal. What would your minimum goal for characters be? Probably 35 AT LOWEST. Sakurai himself said he's surprised how much he managed to get in the game. Do you think he skimped on characters, what makes the game Smash?
Ok, there's the 23 characters on the dojo.
Add in the shoe-in veterans:
Ganondorf
Jigglypuff
Luigi
Ness
Game and Watch
Young Link (You may not agree, I don't care.)
Marth
Falco (Makes sense whether you believe prophets or not.
Captain Falcon
That's 32.
35 means there's only 3 new characters we shouldn't know about (though we do know about Lucario.)
Do you really think there would only be 3 completely new hidden characters? We know E-LE-VEN already. The whole 35 character thing is ridiculous.
Considering we already know Lucario, 35 characters means we're only getting TWO of the following:
Bowser Jr./Geno
5th Zelda character
Mewtwo (Not even a new character!)
Ridley
Black Shadow
Wolf/Krystal
Micaiah
The Masked Man
3rd party
K. Rool
Ray
Isaac
AC character
Wars character
Retro/Obscure character
Mario only having 4 characters, being at best tied with Zelda and Pokemon? Not likely. Down to only one more character already!
Now, here's the real question: Do you believe that there will only be one more character from a list that contains: A 5th character for Nintendo's 2nd and 3rd best selling franchise, the most requested character worldwide who is a flying villain from a series with only one true character, a character from another series with only one character, a 3rd character from Starfox who had 2 very highly requested characters worldwide, a 3rd character from a series that grew and expanded well due to Melee, a 3rd MOTHER character who was at LEAST requested as much as Lucas and is also a villain, another 3rd party character, a 3rd character who is very popular villain from Nintendo's fourth best selling series, a character from one of at least 4 unrepresented Nintendo series, and another retro/obscure/WTF character?
No, and if you do, even if it is true, it is still poor judgement to believe it until it is proven.
Ok, there's the 23 characters on the dojo.
Add in the shoe-in veterans:
Ganondorf
Jigglypuff
Luigi
Ness
Game and Watch
Young Link (You may not agree, I don't care.)
Marth
Falco (Makes sense whether you believe prophets or not.
Captain Falcon
That's 32.
35 means there's only 3 new characters we shouldn't know about (though we do know about Lucario.)
Do you really think there would only be 3 completely new hidden characters? We know E-LE-VEN already. The whole 35 character thing is ridiculous.
Considering we already know Lucario, 35 characters means we're only getting TWO of the following:
Bowser Jr./Geno
5th Zelda character
Mewtwo (Not even a new character!)
Ridley
Black Shadow
Wolf/Krystal
Micaiah
The Masked Man
3rd party
K. Rool
Ray
Isaac
AC character
Wars character
Retro/Obscure character
Mario only having 4 characters, being at best tied with Zelda and Pokemon? Not likely. Down to only one more character already!
Now, here's the real question: Do you believe that there will only be one more character from a list that contains: A 5th character for Nintendo's 2nd and 3rd best selling franchise, the most requested character worldwide who is a flying villain from a series with only one true character, a character from another series with only one character, a 3rd character from Starfox who had 2 very highly requested characters worldwide, a 3rd character from a series that grew and expanded well due to Melee, a 3rd MOTHER character who was at LEAST requested as much as Lucas and is also a villain, another 3rd party character, a 3rd character who is very popular villain from Nintendo's fourth best selling series, a character from one of at least 4 unrepresented Nintendo series, and another retro/obscure/WTF character?
No, and if you do, even if it is true, it is still poor judgement to believe it until it is proven.