One of my best friends and I went to Cedar Point last fall for Halloweekends. I forget the name of the ride but there's one rollercoaster where after many, many corkscrews, the ride enters a dark tunnel and slows nearly to a stop. You think it's over, and you expect to coast back to the start, but then the ride fucking blasts full-speed ahead at the speed of light, and there's an entire second half to the ride.
I wonder if we're in the tunnel right now, on Sakurai's Hype Train Rollercoaster. Lulled into a false sense of security -- "Oh, an AT de-confirms a characters, how interesting" -- only for it to ramp up with a bombastic onslaught of veterans, newcomers, stages, modes, etc.
Here's hoping!