User blog comment:TheFoolisherFoolishFool/What happened to Lucas?/@comment-10733804-20140922013747/@comment-10733804-20140927221741

A "semi-clone" is still a clone. Stop claiming that he has a unique moveset (or the other characters mentioned there) because most of his moves are just Ness's moves with a slight change (ex. PK Thunder can be turned better as Lucas). Plus unlike Captain Falcon and Ganondorf, Ness and Lucas are the same size with the same attributes (they are the same speed and are the same weight).

Lastly Ness and Lucas (in your eyes) being more different than Mario and Luigi makes that okay how? How about if in the next SSB Ness and Lucas appear with just as many similarities as Mega Man and Sonic? Characters should not be clones. Clones are wastes of space in the game. You could argue that having extra characters isn't bad but the resources used to make Luigi, Falco, Dr. Mario, Lucina, Dark Pit and Ganondorf (did I miss anyone?) could have been used for an extra game mode, an extra song in the soundtrack, an extra stage or improvements to the already existing characters.