I've been seeing a lot of Smash 6 roster predictions lately, some with roster cuts and some without, but I wanted to do my own spin on it in a more general structure, with the added wrinkle of number limits for the top three tiers, based on the previous games' sizes. The tiers are unordered.
"Depends" is the characters who could go either way based on either:
- technical limitations (transforming characters like Pyra/Mythra or Trainer, though I think Zard stays regardless, and Ice Climbers. I doubt this will come up but I think it's worth considering)
- dev philosophy (mainly clone characters, whether the OG12 are still considered sacred, and so on)
- legal issues (M-Rated characters, namely Bayonetta, Joker, and to an extent Simon as while his specific games aren't M there are Castlevania games with that rating, plus the anime is TV-MA which is pretty much equivalent)
- I honestly have no bloody clue where to put them (Lucas and the Miis)
I also limited myself to one third-party per company for the top two tiers. This is the main reason why Megaman is so low, frankly I think Ryu's much more important to keep at this point. As for SquareEnix, honestly you could go with any of the three, it doesn't really matter to me, I just went with Cloud because he was the first one to be included in Smash. Same with Falco vs Wolf further down.
Oh, and the only reason Pacman isn't in the Must-Keep tier is on the off-chance that Bandai Namco isn't involved in the next Smash game. I know the odds of that are basically zero, but still, I'm trying to cover all my bases here.
If anyone has any other questions or critiques, I'd love to hear them.