I think the Piranha Plant could go as well.

Honestly did anyone really ask for Piranha Plant? I'd sooner ask for Waluigi.

Joker can leave. When I heard a new Sega character was coming to Smash I was hoping at least Dr. Robotnik. He'd at least have more interesting options for a Final Smash, like the Death Egg Robot dropping down on opponents, having them stampeded by classic Badniks, or firing the Eclipse Cannon at them.

Regarding Smash Bros.
The only fighters who should be considered untouchable and staying in future Smash Bros games are the OG 12 fighters from Smash 64.

As for departures, my reasoning is largely because I view them clones, joke characters, characters/franchises Nintendo has no immediate plans for, licensing issues with 3rd parties, or they’ll get cut to make room for new characters from their respective series, or aeries that are popular/more relevant in the current landscape of gaming.

Mario:
- Dr. Mario
- Piranha Plant

Zelda:
- Young Link
- Toon Link

Star Fox:
- Falco
- Wolf

Pokemon:
- Pichu
- Lucario
- Greninja
- Incineroar

Earthbound:
- Lucas

Ice Climbers:
- …Ice Climbers

Fire Emblem:
- Roy/Chrom
- Ike
- Robin
- Corrin
- Byleth

Kid Icarus:
- Pit/Dark Pit
- Palutena (So yeah… Bye-bye Kid Icarus.)

R.O.B.
- …R.O.B.

Wii Fir:
- …Wii Fit Trainer

Duck Hunt:
- …Duck Hunt Dog

Punchout:
- Little Mac

Persona:
- Joker (This will make me sad.)

Banjo-Kazooie:
- Banjo and Kazooie

Arms:
- Min-min

Fatal Fury:
- Terry

Tekken:
- Kazuya

Kingdom Hearts:
- Sora

Honestly, I don’t think we’ll see a roster size as big as Smash Ultimate’s ever again, nor should we.

You can feasibly cut Ultimate’s roster size down to around 50-55, including the leftover DLC characters, and that stills gives you a big, great roster of characters, plus about 10-15 newcomers for the new game, including new DLC fighters.

And you can use the Switch 2’s stronger hardware and capabilities to mess around with other stuff, like more stages, more music tracks, 90-120fps, MUCH better single player content (An Actual Story Mode!), character interactions (Imagine Mario and Sonic having a conversation mid-battle with some meta references to the SNES/Genesis console wars, or Ganondorf and Sephiroth arguing about who’s more evil before making a deal to terrorize the world together, and in another battle Zelda (on behalf of Link) and Cloud agreeing to team up to stop them!)

I agree with all cuts except Banjo-Kazooie, R.O.B., Lucario, Greninja and Imcineroar.

I would like them to keep Little Mac and Pit.

Actually yeah, me too.