Let me get this straight... you people want to REMOVE CHARACTERS from the game because they are "clones".  Then you want the clones to be alternate costumes...even when they aren't costumes at all but different characters.  So you would take out an awesome character like Falco.  Change his stats so that he now plays EXACTLY like Fox.  And now Falco isn't even a character, but a "costume" of Fox.  So now when you select the Falco costume for the Fox character, the announcer yells "Fox!" even though it is clearly Falco.  Nice work, that's so much better now.

Talk about overreacting.

You clearly don't even understand the point of getting rid of clones and adding in costumes. Falco being awesome is also a matter of opinion. I personally hate the bastard, but I know a lot of people love him since he can just SHL towards you and then spike your ass.

I did think about the whole naming thing and one of the reasons I dislike costumes is the fact that the character's name would remain the same, unless they decided to change that as well, but then that would make it seem as if the costume is a character of his own. Personally, I'd just like it if they gave the clones new moves instead of getting rid of them altogether. Sure there are some that should go, but Ganondorf should stay (TP) and I'd like it if Dr. Mario did as well. Falco should get a new moveset or maybe get replaced by another SF character. I don't think character costumes will work. If two players wanted to play as the same character, one would have to pick an alternative costume, even though they might not want to.

The whole point of getting rid of clones though is to make room for new character with different moves. I'd personally like to see some of the clones back with new moves and instead of doing costumes, I'd like it if they used the original color system. We won't know what they plan on doing for sure until they show a screenshot with two of the same character in one match.

Altering the clones' movesets would definetly be the best option. More diversity!

By the way, anyone want to guess who the next new Nintendo character's going to be? King Dedede? Captain Olimar? A Punch-Out!! character? Or maybe even a Custom Robo character? Guess!

Despain

Nintendo is not dead set on removing the clones (find me a primary source that confirms otherwise).  But the fans seem to be.  They keep insisting "they suck, take them out, get rid of them" - and this completely baffles and angers me.  Why remove any character - clone or not?  Apparently, we're in agreement on this, so you're not the guy I should be arguing with.

Sarhan

If it's true that for every clone that is removed we get a completely new and unique character, then I'm all for firing every one of them.  But where the hell did people come up with this rule?  Why do you feel that there isn't "room" for more characters and so the clones are taking up this "room".  Are you talking about memory space or room on the display or what?

Ohlichris

Of course, giving the characters considered to be clones entirely new and uniques moves would be the ideal.  But if that can't be done, then leave them as they are. 

If it's true that for every clone that is removed we get a completely new and unique character, then I'm all for firing every one of them. But where the hell did people come up with this rule? Why do you feel that there isn't "room" for more characters and so the clones are taking up this "room". Are you talking about memory space or room on the display or what?

It makes sense if you think about it. If they don't have a clone to deal with, then that means they'd bring in a brand new character. If a clone isn't coming back, then a new character will. And yes, I am talking about room on the display/memory space/time, with time being the biggest factor.

Altering the clones' movesets would definetly be the best option. More diversity!

By the way, anyone want to guess who the next new Nintendo character's going to be? King Dedede? Captain Olimar? A Punch-Out!! character? Or maybe even a Custom Robo character? Guess!

Hmm...my first guess would be sonic one of the veterans. I'm guessing either Ness, Captain Falcon, or Ganondorf. It's pretty exciting at this point because they've already covered all of the characters we knew were going to be in for sure. Anyone else from now on is a surprise and I can't wait until they show the next character update.

It makes sense if you think about it. If they don't have a clone to deal with, then that means they'd bring in a brand new character. If a clone isn't coming back, then a new character will. And yes, I am talking about room on the display/memore space/time, with time being the biggest factor.

Nope, it's not making sense.  You'll have to have more details here.

So far you've listed display, memory, time.

Display?  Is that a serious concern?  There isn't physical room to show all the characters on the screen?  Has science not advanced to the point where mankind can figure out a way to fit more than 25 character profiles on a single display? 

Memory?  That's dubious.  It's just a few character models, all the animations are just reused from the character they are cloned from.

Time?  So you just copy Pichu from Melee and you import that fucker into Brawl.  Then just slap a higher resolution texture on him and you're done.  The handful of people who want him around are happy, myself included.  How long does that take?

So I'm not convinced yet that the existence of clones is somehow burdening resources to the point that the possibility of all new characters is being hindered.  New characters are tough to add, but clones are easy - that's why clones existed in the first place. 

We'll just be talking circles on this issue until we know exactly what we can get as a tradeoff by eliminating clones.  I think people are vastly overestimating what we can get in exchange (and some people just want them gone without anything else added, and those people anger and baffle me).

Hypothetically, I would be interested in sacrificing 4 or 5 cloned characters for 1 all new and unique character.

Chill out.  You said "IF Nintendo is set on removing them" and I said "Nintendo is not".  So what?  The conjunction "if" does not alone reveal to me if you believe this is Nintendo's stance or if you are just being purely hypothetical.  The point is, I'm not arguing with you specifically but againt a particular opinion.  And if you don't have that opinion, then you're off the hook - it's not all about you. 

Um... Wow!

We don't all want Brawl to become Budokai. 100 characters... Man.

Yeah, so this is the particular opinion that baffles me.  Why not 100 characters?  Sounds awesome to me.  Unless the addition of so many characters makes them all crappy because none are refined.  But if additions don't take away anything, then bring them on.

To reiterate.

Adding something without losing something is good.

Removing something without gaining something is bad.

Are there really people who would disagree with those statements?

Also; Diddy Kong's looks okay. Personally these Final Smashes are starting to look like the SPECIAL POWER MOVES from the newest Mario Tennis - pretty overpowered.

I think you're only allowed to do them once per match, so it all balances out.
 

Nope, it's not making sense.  You'll have to have more details here.

So far you've listed display, memory, time.

Display?  Is that a serious concern?  There isn't physical room to show all the characters on the screen?  Has science not advanced to the point where mankind can figure out a way to fit more than 25 character profiles on a single display? 

Memory?  That's dubious.  It's just a few character models, all the animations are just reused from the character they are cloned from.

Time?  So you just copy Pichu from Melee and you import that fucker into Brawl.  Then just slap a higher resolution texture on him and you're done.  The handful of people who want him around are happy, myself included.  How long does that take?

So I'm not convinced yet that the existence of clones is somehow burdening resources to the point that the possibility of all new characters is being hindered.  New characters are tough to add, but clones are easy - that's why clones existed in the first place. 

We'll just be talking circles on this issue until we know exactly what we can get as a tradeoff by eliminating clones.  I think people are vastly overestimating what we can get in exchange (and some people just want them gone without anything else added, and those people anger and baffle me).

Hypothetically, I would be interested in sacrificing 4 or 5 cloned characters for 1 all new and unique character.

Okay, first of all, the game is supposed to have around 40 characters from all the rumors that are flying around. Now, with that said, I want new characters. Not clones. Taking out clones means new characters take their place. Is that simple enough?

Second, you don't just copy and paste a character from Melee into Brawl. That's not how it works. This isn't RPG Maker. It's using a different console with a different physics engine and who knows what else. Copying and pasting does not work. Creating a character takes time. Have you ever tried to create a character in something as simple as MUGEN? That takes a ton of time and it's much more simple than the shit real developers have to deal with.

Adding a character, clone or not, is not a simple process. If it was, we would already be playing Brawl.

Yeah, so this is the particular opinion that baffles me. Why not 100 characters? Sounds awesome to me. Unless the addition of so many characters makes them all crappy because none are refined. But if additions don't take away anything, then bring them on.

To reiterate.

Adding something without losing something is good.

Removing something without gaining something is bad.

Are there really people who would disagree with those statements?

I disagree. There are only so many characters you can add before they all start becoming copies of each other, having similar moves with a few minor differences. After a certain point, it becomes excessive.

You also have to look at this from a business perspective from Nintendo. In business, there's something called the law of diminishing marginal returns. What this basically means is that beyond a certain point, adding more units of input (characters) will give you less and less output (players in this case). So while adding an extra character to a roster of 20 might give Nintendo 100,000 additional players, adding an extra character to a roster of 30 would yield only 60,000 additional players, and adding another one at 30 characters would only produce 35,000 more.

So basically, beyond a certain point, adding more characters serves Nintendo no benefit at all and may even actually cost them money, if the addition of that new character would cost more than the potential revenue earned from the amount of additional players gained from the addition of that character. Which means if a clone is taken out, Nintendo has more resources available for creating a new character, which means happy fun time for everyone.

Now do you understand why clones are a hindrance to the addition of new characters?

Who is arthur?

Arthur would be fun to see. I'll be glad if they don't overload the game with sword users though.