Every fighter returning for Smash 5 is not worth the hype it is receiving

Context for those who don't know. The upcoming Super Smash Brothers game was recently revealed at E3, and a main point of interest is that it will feature "every fighter ever". There have been four Smash games so far, and some of them have not featured characters present in previous Smash titles. So the idea is that this one will bring back all of the characters who have been dropped over the years, combining all of the rosters into one. This is coming at the cost of the usual increase in new characters.

So, my first thought was mild disappointment. Not the end of the world. But I would much rather get a healthy amount of brand new characters in the new game, rather than bringing back old characters who had been dropped. Again, this was not a huge deal to me, but it was more of a downside than an upside. New characters are exciting. It's fun to find out which characters from various popular game series will be in the next Smash. So having almost no new characters is more of a cost than returning old characters is a benefit.

But the hype has been insane. Comment threads about the new game have been almost solely focused on how the new game is going to feature "every fighter ever", and how the new game is going to be an even bigger crossover than Infinity War, etc. Here's the wrinkle: There are only 6 characters which were in Smash before, yet not in the most recent Smash game. 6 out of roughly 60. That is...insubstantial in my opinion. And to make matters worse, 3 of those 6 are "clones", which means they share a kit with another character, who was not dropped. So even if they have different weights, sweet spots, speeds, etc, they still have the same moves.

For comparison, Smash 4 took the existing roster from Brawl, dropped a couple of characters, but then introduced 14 new characters. Meanwhile, Smash 5 is looking to bring back those 6 mentioned above (reiterating that 3 of those are clones), and there are 2 announced new characters. Granted, they might introduce more new characters before launch, but the director has already stated that he hopes we are okay without many new characters, because we are getting old characters back instead. And plenty of people have commented saying that they are perfectly okay with no new characters if it means having "every fighter ever" in one game. But I still just can't help but feel that those comments are under the impression that there are far more returning characters than there are.

Imagine the following scenario. There are 4 Smash games, each of which has 10 distinct characters, no overlapping. Then Smash 5 is announced and instead of showing off the 10 new characters, they reveal that it will combine all 40 characters into one game. That would be huge, and that would be worthy of calling an epic crossover like Infinity War. But that's not the case. The actual situation is that we practically had every fighter ever in Smash 4 already, and Smash 5 is just taking the small handful that had been dropped, and putting them back in. Doesn't seem like nearly the big deal that everyone is treating it like.

I just don't get it. It's a "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills" situation. To me, it's more or less like taking the roster of Smash 4, and releasing a DLC pack that has Snake and Ice Climbers. Sure, Snake mains from Brawl might rejoice that the newest game has their character now. But that's all it would be: a DLC pack with a couple of returning characters. But when talking about sacrificing 10+ new characters for the sake of bringing back ~10% of the overall roster that had been dropped previously? I don't see how that's worth it. And when ~60 characters is seen as normal, I don't see how ~65 is seen as a huge crossover event. It's a marginal increase in characters.

In essence, I was mildly disappointed by the news that we would not be getting many new characters, because we would be getting old ones back. And I was shocked to see how common of an opinion it is that the returning characters are a huge deal. So when I looked up the numbers, it just reinforced how I already felt. We are barely getting back any old characters, and even if you weigh a returning character as highly as a new one, there are still far fewer "new" characters revealed than Smash 4 added. So overall, it seems unworthy of hype. But people are treating it like a humongous thing. I don't get it.