I don’t mean to single you out, but I think the general condescension towards “safe” rosters is a combination of revisionist history and goalpost moving.
I wasn't trying to be condescending towards your character picks. If I came off as such, I want to apologize. As I said, I wouldn't be opposed to that roster (aside from Ridley getting shafted again). I just think it lacks... oomph. You know what I mean?
Regarding the revisionist history: Pokémon Trainer and R.O.B. were the only post-E3 2006 Brawl newcomers that nobody (or very few people) speculated. Ike, Diddy, Lucas, Sonic, Dedede, Olimar, Lucario, Toon Link, and Wolf were all heavily discussed from the moment Brawl was revealed. Few people wanted Toon Link or Wolf, but they were still talked about. People thought Young Link would get a Wind Waker redesign and/or be renamed to Cel-Shaded Link, Cat-Eyed Link, or Hero of Winds. There was even a hoax that Sakurai confirmed Toon Link during a radio interview. Wolf seems to be forgotten because Krystal was the more anticipated Star Fox character.
And ROB ended up being my most favorite newcomer of Brawl, G&W was my most favorite newcomer of Melee. I am quite aware that many of the characters on the Brawl roster were talked about or expected, but I still feel that Olimar, Lucario, Zero Suit Samus, etc., at least brought enough new things to the table with their unique mechanics and movesets.
In terms of their movesets, Toon Zelda (safe to assume would be somewhat similar to regular Zelda), Dixie, Takamaru, Wii Fit Trainer and potentially Pac-Man all don't seem to be particularly interesting. I don't think there's many ways for Sakurai to make them have a unique playstyle - Wii Fit Trainer's "saving grace" is that she was completely unexpected, but also just works within the Smash series. In retrospect, to me, Wii Fit Trainer seems like a really obvious choice.
Regarding goalpost moving: for whatever reason, people act like the already revealed newcomers don’t count as surprises when critiquing roster predictions. I wouldn’t call any of the four revealed newcomers “safe.”
I wasn't talking about the characters that were already revealed, though, but about the characters that you had on the roster otherwise.
That also doesn’t mean every future newcomer is going to somehow shock everybody — there’s a finite amount of Nintendo characters, and an even smaller amount of sensible Nintendo newcomers. We already know about most of the unexpected newcomers.
It doesn't have to be a shock character ala ROB/Wii Fit Trainer/etc. to be an interesting reveal, or be a wacky choice.
Personally, I 100% expected Rosalina. I heavily expected her to be playable, and knew she was going to be in Smash the moment they revealed she was going to be in 3D World. Yet Sakurai completely surprised me with her just because she is
so extremely unique in playstyle. You already said it - the tag team with Luma is unexpected, and out of the currently revealed newcomers, Rosalina is the single one I'm looking forward to the most, if only for the wacky playstyle.
The only
unrevealed character on your roster that has the potential to be extremely unique in that regard is Palutena - she uses a staff and has lotsa magic. That already is potential for unique gameplay. She would be the one I would look forward to as well.
Pac-Man has huge potential as well, but it really depends on what Namco and Sakurai would do with him.
But otherwise, I feel like that roster would be somewhat of a letdown, just because most of the unconfirmed characters on your list just lack that wackiness in their gameplay.
I still hope the roster is gonna be much bigger than we are anticipating. 8 newcomers seems so little to me.
