I'd argue that first party characters are exempt from this, though. If we look at Ultimate's DLC:
- Joker: He's in more for being an Atlus character than being iconic, fair enough
- Hero: Character from the most popular JRPG franchise in Japan
- Banjo: One of the most beloved gaming icons out there
- Terry: Not very popular nowadays, but still incredibly iconic
Tracer is popular now, definitely, but I wouldn't call her iconic in the slightest. Her game came out just 3 years ago.
arguing what is/isn't iconic is so damn subjective and opinionated that you and I could argue about it for hours without coming to an agreement. Let's just agree to disagree on this when tackling it from an "iconic or not" perspective.
I do think that reserving third party character inclusions to only come from series that have been around for 15+ years is silly, though. With gaming finally coming into the mainstream in the past five years or so, why not add characters from games that are that old?
Ideally, I'd like to see more characters that aren't necessarily iconic... but hail from games that caused impact, or maybe were just really popular for a one/two year period and then died out. First party smash inclusions already do this going all the way back to Melee with Marth and Roy.
idk. I've lost track of the point of my argument. I wrote this for too long lmao. I guess all I'm trying to say is I'd like to see more of the unexpected in smash. And at this point, I'm expecting nothing but representatives of decades-long third party series to get into smash. I'd like some more wildcards.
Final thought: I'd choose Deckard Cain to be in smash over Tracer ANY DAY OF THE WEEK.