Super Smash Bros. Fan

@Lugh: When it comes to existing series, Fire Emblem is definitely the most difficult. We could stay at where we are, get three characters as planned in Brawl or maybe even get four characters. However, I'd argue that predicting new series is much harder to do. Roy if he got in would most likely be a semi-clone just like how Lucas and Wolf are semi-clones, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing since Lucas and Wolf share only a few moves with Ness and Fox respectively and play uniquely otherwise (Wolf focuses more on feral combat). However, there is an off-chance that Roy becomes entirely unique. ChronoBound on Smashboards did mention that Ike was among the Top 10 most wanted characters for SSBB, so I'd imagined a lot of people like him.

All we really know based off of this is that Sakurai wanted a more recent lord for Brawl, didn't know who to pick, went to Intelligent System and they suggested Ike. I doubt IS would pick Ike would be picked based solely off of being the most recent lord. Other factors likely played into it, such as that Ike was still a well received lord overall, his game being the first 3D Fire Emblem game and Ike being able to stand out (with him being the first Lord to not being from noble birth as well as being a slow and heavy sword fighter). Recentness wasn't what got him in as Ike like everyone else had to meet Sakurai's four criteria. Ike was able to do so and as such, got in. What matters more is why Sakurai choose Ike. Recentness may have gotten Ike noticed by Sakurai, but it wasn't what ultimately got Ike in.

Have to admit, I'm curious about what type of discussions will go down here. As for Mewtwo, before the comments about the difficulties of more complex characters on the 3DS like duo characters and transformation characters, I would have said that Mewtwo would be in its original form with its Awakened Form as the Final Smash. However, with those recent comments, I'm now expecting just Mewtwo's Awakened form with its original form as its alternate costume. That being said, if they could get both the original and Awakened form to work as transformations, that'd be brilliant.

No matter how bad things may get at SSB4 character scene, they won't ever get as bad as they do in Miiverse. Anyway, to answer the question, I feel as it depends on if they can provide fresh experiences a second time around. Sonic in particular has a lot of things he could do to make his inclusion worthwhile and maybe Snake as well. Sonic at least should return, but I'd understand if guests are a one-time deal. already got Mega Man anyway, who is instant main for me.

I'm really hoping for Don't Speak Her Name as well.

Pretty much what I think will happen when it comes to what we get. In my mind, I think Ike is very likely to return for this game and I don't see any reason why he'd be dropped (and before anyone said lack of recentness or over-representation, someone needs to provide proof that Ike was added because he was the most recent lord and people way over-value "fair" representation). So what I'm thinking is that the third slot is going to be a toss-up between Chrom and Roy. If I had to guess, I'd say Roy mainly due to being planned to return for Brawl and being one of two of the most wanted characters for SSB4 in Japan (along with Mewtwo, both of them even beat Mega Man by a considerable margin and he was the most wanted newcomer in there, but I could see Sakurai going with Chrom as well. That being said, should we get DLC characters, I really wouldn't be surprised if we get four Fire Emblem characters. I'm almost confident that Marth, Ike and Roy will be planned to return and I also think there's a good chance Sakurai will try to include Chrom as well.

I already got my most wanted character in the form of Mega Man. It was really hard to decide between Mewtwo, King K. Rool and Roy, but I went with Mewtwo. The latter two are certainly close though.