Oh man, I gotta disagree there.
Some logos are more important, and WAY more famous than others, and I think they deserve more representation. Mario, Pokemon and Zelda absolutely earned their high number of characters in the Smash Bros. series, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
People consider MvC2 lousy? I'm not being a smart-ass, I'm really asking. I'm not on the tournament fighter scene at all, but I was under the impression MvC2 was a classic and a huge mainstay in the world of tourney fighters. Personally I think big rosters are great, they give a fighter a lot of replay value and depth. Granted there is a point where it would start to get ridiculous, but if you factor in the characters that wouldn't "need" to return (clones) and the ones that probably won't return (Snake and Sonic), I don't think we're at that ridiculous point yet.
I love Smash Bros. because it has famous faces like LInk and Pikachu battling alongside old school, obscure weirdos like the Ice Climbers and Game and Watch. I'd be VERY sad if Smash 4 changed that. I could see Lucas, Ike, Lucario, Wolf and Toon Link getting the ax, but like the jump from Melee to Brawl, most of them would probably get replaced by a new, similar character. Which is a-ok with me. Sakurai can just confirm Zoroark taking over Lucario's spot if you ask me. Other than that, I'd like to see the following added:
First party characters:
-Ridley
-LIttle Mac. Just like Pit debuted as a trophy before being playable, I think Little Mac deserves the same. Punch-Out Wii is an underrated gem.
-Samurai Goroh. Like Metroid, the F-Zero series needs some love, stat!
-Zoroark to take over Lucario's spot, as mentioned above.
-Someone from Advance Wars. I'm not familiar with the series, but it has a great visual style and has been pretty successful for a few years now. It's earned it's place, and it's flagship character could be a good fill-in for Snake, if he's not coming back. Actually, just going by visuals alone, I'd probably pick Sami. She's cool and looks bad-ass. It's always nice to add a girl to the roster, and she's pretty different from the ladies we currently have.
-Crazy, out of left-field surprise character (ala Ice Climbers, Game and Watch, Pit): Mach Rider. The gritty grizzled road war from a post-apocalyptic future would DEFINITELY add some flavor to the line-up, and maybe, like Sami, do a good job at filling in the void Snake may be leaving. Also he could race motorcycles with Wario. ;)
Wow, I thought there were more first party characters that I wanted in the game, but I guess not? I think this is a pretty reasonable/plausible list of additions. Really, it's all about Ridley for me. Metroid is my favorite series, and Ridley is essentially Metroid's Bowser or Ganondorf. His moveset writes itself. Yeah he's huge, but so is Bowser. The difference is that Ridley is near-skeletal, he's super lanky. I feel like having him being (relatively) low-weight would go a long way to balancing him, even making him a tough character to master (huge and low-weight? In Smash Bros? Yikes!).
I think alternate costumes would go a long way to adding (albeit artificial) roster depth. We've only started to see this in Smash Bros, with Wario's costume change, and some color swaps that are based on other characters: Peach has had a color swap for Daisy, Mario and Luigi have had color swaps for different power-ups and Wario/Waluigi, Samus has had color swaps based on her other suits, etc. But why stop with one character and some meaningful color swaps? Let's get a full-blown Daisy or Rosalina in there! Raccoon Mario! Bee Luigi! Oni-Link! Dark Suit Samus! Dry Bowser! Looie (for Olimar)! Different generations of Pokemon trainers! Just like with Wario's two costumes, the character stays the same, but visually they're a little different. I'd love to see this. Hell, they could be unlockable even! Honestly, at this point, I think I'd prefer this over trophies. I mean, what's left to make trophies of? The trophy galleries are wonderful, but I feel like they must be a pretty big chunk of development time too. With alternate costumes, we still get that taste of Nintendo history, but in the form of something we can enjoy while playing the game.
If third party characters come back I'd like to see:
-Classic Mega Man. The fact that he wasn't in Brawl blows my mind. But maybe we can fix that in Smash 4. :)
-Simon Belmont. Maybe not as much of a "duh" pick as Mega Man, but not far off. Simon (and importantly, his level) would rule.
-Pac-Man. Can't hardly get more classic than good ol' Pac-Man. His level would be awesome too.
I can take or leave Sonic and Snake. They were both great, and did an awesome job of mixing things up, but I won't be crying if they sit out Smash 4 either. It WAS pretty rad to finally see Mario and Sonic beat each other's faces in, even if it was about 15 years late.:)
I could also take or leave Final Smashes. I really enjoyed them in Brawl, but I won't be too worked up if they don't come back either.
Please, for the love of God, change Mario's down+B to an actual attack again. I don't even care what it is, as long as it's better than a non-damaging FLUDD blast. Luigi needs to have an attack or 2 based on the Poltergust. Maybe his final smash? I'd like that.