New leak!
Yes, I am a new account. Big thing.
I work directly with Sakurai. He discuss with me characters designs, and I help him to clean up the roster. He initially wanted the game to have 60 characters, but I helped him to cut that to 49. Some of the characters we had to cut were Nintendog, that I explained him that would cause problems at the western. Well, let's see... Let's start, may we?
The Mario series is settled. Sakurai already started discussion rooms if we may or may not add other rep to the series, but only in a later game.
The Zelda series will get as a playable character Tingle. It will be revealed in next E3. He will have a moveset based on items used on the Wind Waker games, and on rupees.
The Pokémon series will get Mewtwo as a returning veteran, and will have Pokémon trainer's Squirtle and Ivysaur cut. Charizard will be revealed within a random date, and Mewtwo will be revealed at the end of E3 smash trailer. Lucario is back.
The Starfox series won't change, even though Krystal will appear as an Assist Trophy.
Donkey Kong series will get a new rep, King K. Rool. Diddy Kong will be revealed in February 13th, following the release date pattern. K.Rool will be a secret character.
Ridley will appear as an Stage Hazard. Zero Suit Samus is back as never.
Kid Icarus got Palutena as an starting character and Hades as an secret character. Palutena will be revealed in a direct.
Chrom is now with Fire Emblem as an starting character, and Marth stays a secret one. Ike was cut. Chrom will be announced along at E3.
Talking with 3rd parties, as Nintendo hasn't got many support in 2014, the reps are going to be Sonic, Snake and Mega Man. Snake only stays for already having a moveset ready, that will be basically control C'ed from Brawl. He will be one of the two characters without a cartoonish look.
Meta Knight will be nerfed to stay at middle tier.
All Final Smashes but Samus's and Bowser's were changed.
Instead if Stickers now there are stamps. 200 stamps are within the game, from all represented series.
Lucas and Ness are back. Lucas will be revealed at April 20th, Mother 3's anniversary. Ness will be unlockable.
All retro characters are back too, and Takamaru joined the brawl. He has many shuriken based moves. Ice Climbers will be revealed at a random date, and all others will be secret.
Wii Fit Trainer isn't the oddball character if this game. Sakurai added the Sandbag as an starting character. It is a very unique and interesting character. Sandbag will be the next newcomer, revealed January 31st, Brawls anniversary.
Ganondorf is still a clone. He will be secretl
Sheik is still a Zelda transformation. Sheik will be revealed on an June Nintendo Direct that hypes Zelda Wii U at E3.
Captain Falcon is back too, as Wario. Wario will be revealed March 21st, three days before Mario Kart 8 release. Cpt. Falcon will be secret.
Sakurai discussed with me the addition of a Primid character, but after some discussion, her left the idea.
Paper Mario will be a newcomer. He will represent his own series. He has a unique moveset, and was added because of his unique potential. He will be revealed in August, and will be the last revealed newcomer.
The game will come out in early September.
Little Mac will be a secret character.
Mii will be revealed at May, on a Nintendo Direct.
That makes 46 characters. The other 3 are kept in secret for everyone but Sakurai and his main designer. However the rumors I heard here is that they are Dillon, Isaac and another oddball character.
There will be several new modes and features.
More coming soon, if anything happens in the planning I may warn you.
And later...
Oops, forgot Olimar.
The cuts are: Squirtle, Ivysaur, Ike.
Any questions please PM me. I might not be able to post so much messages...
Some answers:
Tiers are not a secret world between yourselves. Sakurai has a team just to check what words people are using.
Sandbag was added because Sakurai.
He wanted initially Nintencat, than he changed it to Nintendog, then we scrapped him. Character we would use are Shulk and Lip. Sakurai is a very strange man. He insisted on adding Groose, but I decided Tingle would satisfy him and wouldn't put the Fanbase in fire. Seriously, they should hire someone else.
Naturally, anyone who claims to work directly with Sakurai is full of crap, but at least he's trying to seem legit by throwing a few awkward English phrasings in there. He also dated himself with the Sandbag tidbit, so we'll find out soon enough anyhow.