Maybe there are a lot of people think he will replace Ness.

Wow... I get a big serving of crow for this one. Not only is Lucas in the game, but from his comments it sounds like Ness isn't returning "Is it possible he can surpass even Ness?!" Well crap, that sucks.

Does it?  I hope so, anyway.  Ness was one of favorite characters in the original and in melee.

So how many characters total do you all think we are dealing with here?

A lot of people were sure Lucas would be in Brawl...and that he would replace Ness. Ness is a Smash icon though...and we had said that even if Lucas made it in, Ness would too.

And Sakurai talks about Ness here...he says "Is it possible he can surpass even Ness?!"

He wouldn't mention that if Ness got the boot...the only way to find out who's better is to put them both in the game of course.

Some people think Sakurai is on a tight character budget or something....there's no reason both these guys can't be in the game.

I think it confirms the opposite. Mentioning that he'll surpass Ness makes him seem like his replacement. We'll know for sure when we get his moves. If they are nearly identical to Ness's old moves Ness is gone. If they are completely different then he may be returning. They certainly could be identical though because the characters are almost identical in the games...

I dunno...even if Ness got the boot...I wouldn't care too much...I don't use him much, and Lucas seems to be nearly identical.

We'll have to wait and see.

If the show Lucas moves and there are not the same as Ness I say there is a good chance Ness will be back. But if it is the same Ness is out.

The reason it seems unlikely that he would have both isn't because of any budget issues. They are simply so close to identical that they would be clones. Earthbound is among my favorite games ever, so to see Ness go would be quite a disappointment for me. I don't know if I'll like Mother 3 or not yet. Starmen.net is in the middle of translating the rom for the game, and they are trying to get it done sometime in early November...

I predict the game gets cancelled for good and the Wii goes downhill!

if ness is gone.. what is actually the point of replacing ness with lucas? IMO all its gonna do is annoy the ness fans