Makes sense especially with the Super Mario Galaxy 2 stage. Nintendo has been pushing Rosalina more since her debut.

I did not see this coming. Villager, WFT, and now her and Luma. These guys did not fit into my speculation chart at all. I love that she has a unique double character play style that is something like Ice Climbers mixed in with Olimar. I already know my DK and Bowser are going to have a heck of a time trying to be a her.

Have the Ice Climbers been announced yet?

If not, I hope she replaces them.  I'd be very pleased if they mix up the roster quite a bit.

Nah, I don't want them axing characters with unique movesets. I don't mind if the clone characters are dropped or made character skins, but keep all the rest.

She looks interesting.

That trailer was very confusing. I went from "new Kirby Wii U game?" to "new Mario Kart trailer?" to "oh,wait it's a Smash Bros trailer" in the span of a minute.

That was the best part of the trailer for me. I was perplexed at a new Wii U Kirby game so close to the 3DS game, but there was a brief second in before thinking "Oh, MK8" where I thought Nintendo was making a sequel to Kirby's Air Ride.

Made the actual reveal pretty surprising.

Lame trailer, but good character announcement. Rosalina has never really appealed to me, as I found her incredibly boring and lacking in any personality in the Mario Galaxy games, but it's good to have a new character in Smash and another female character at that.

That trailer was SO mean.

I actually did see the AC Villager coming, and though I exactly didn't see the Wii Fit Trainer coming per se, I wasn't really shocked when she was revealed. Rosalina on the other hand, does seem to have come out of left field and doesn't seem like a very logical character choice. Either they had a great idea for a new fighter moveset design and were just desperate to find a character to fit it (like the Ice Climbers), or they're just getting desperate for female characters to fit into the roster.

If not for Sakurai constantly saying that an Animal Crossing character wouldn't fit in the smash setting during Brawl's development, I would have expected the Villager right away.

I've never had strong feelings either way toward Rosalina because of her design. It's just so boring and too Peachy for me. But seeing how Sakurai has included Galaxy's second player Luma, the star bits, gravity, spinning star, and the wii mote aesthetic… The design behind her gameplay mechanics is just astounding to say the least! She truly deserves in.

Often times I see move sets posted for characters and more often than not they are just fairly generic moves inspired by that characters games. This however, just like the Villager is on an entirely different level of creativity.

I wonder if Sakurai has any social or sanitary issues. He's gotta be deficient some where to be such a creative genius.

Where's the trailer? I don't see no trailer.

I think it's on the Nintendo Direct replay.

I'm glad she is iin with a unique moveset. When I read the title I was afraid she would be a clone of Peach with Luna replacing Toad. Speaking of which, Toad needs his time to shine. He's had a lot of good roles in games llately so there is a lot they could do with him as a separate character.

Or just to fuck with everyone, they introduce two Toads, one blue and one gold, that are just different skins for Mario. No change in speed or strength, just exact copies of Mario.

Anyway, I finally saw the trailer. Maybe Rainbow Road is the new Mario Kart stage. Rosalina is looking like a fun character to play as.

It was really interesting to see this news.  I'm kind of excited, both by Rosalina and the music in the trailer, plus the Galaxy stage itself looks beautiful!  She might not be a regular for me, as she seems too Peach-y and I never played as Peach much, but her moveset and playstyle is unique so who knows.  She's a welcome addition to the roster as far as I'm concerned, and realistic.  Yeah, there are other IPs that are underrepresented, but Mario is Nintendo's biggest franchise and SMG was an amazing game so it makes sense to represent it. 

The trailer was cute.  I love the Kirby and Luma interaction.  <3 I never played Kirby Air Ride but if it's a teaser, it wouldn't hurt to bring back a game the fans want. 

People dig that Rosalina emo hairstyle.

Did you even look for the trailer?

Also, how adorable are these two?

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m74/nickmitch889/KirbyampLuma_zps364db4d6.jpg

YES!

hahaha I knew Stevey would be up on this

More like Year of Rosalina.

This was a very strange trailer, it made no sense to me. I'm not exactly happy about this inclusion, either, I think characters like Toad are far more deserving. I actually have a huge list of Mario characters I'd like to see, and she wasn't on it.

Oh well, at least they did their best to make her unique.

Rosalina wouldn't have been my first, second, or even third choice, but Nintendo has been making her more and more important since her debut. I think they have to be careful about which Mario characters to add because they've included all of the obvious ones. In fact, Sakurai and co. haven't added one since Brawl, unless we count Wario and even then, they made it a point to base him off the WarioWare series, similar to how Donkey Kong and Yoshi are but aren't Mario characters. None of the Mario characters I would have chosen over Rosalina have as big a role in the series as her so I think her inclusion is fair. A case can be made for Toad except every time he's playable, he's mimicking Mario. They wouldn't even give Luigi his vacuum so unfortunately, if Toad is essentially either Mario or faster-Mario, I feel like the chances of ever devoting an entire character slot to Toad is pretty slim. There's always Captain Toad, but he can't even jump. In terms of relevance, the only other Mario character I can think of with a reasonable chance is Bowser Jr. and honestly, I'd rather have Rosalina.

I meant, Melee.

Yeah Bowser Jr was the Mario character I thought had the best chance because Sakurai usually uses character importance to their series when deciding who gets in.  Since Bowser Jr was the second most important villain behind only Bowser in all the NSMB games and even Galaxy 1/2 he looked the most likely.

I imagine what killed his chances was the lack of popularity.  Most of the time, the other characters that are most important to their series are also some of the most popular as well.  Kirby fans wanted Meta Knight and King Dedede, Donkey Kong fans wanted Diddy, and even for someone like Wolf that many complained about when he was revealed was still quite popular and heavily requested among the actual Star Fox fanbase.  Bowser Jr on the other hand has never been that loved by Mario fans and so I can see why Sakurai decided to skip him in favor of a character that isn't as important, but way more loved.

At least Sakurai is not including Lubba...so far. :)

I'd peg Bowser Jr. as real obvious clone bait. Imagine a usable version of Bowser!

In the E3 Developer Nintendo Direct, Sakurai explained that Bowser's speed and attacks have been adjusted so hopefully regular Bowser is just the usable version of Bowser.

And I know Sakurai likes Giga Bowser (probably because he created it), but I really hope he changes Bowser's Final Smash to the Koopa Clown Car.

Still waiting for Ray.