Lara Croft, Final Fantasy characters, Solid Snake (yes I know he’s in Smash Bros), Rayman, Sora, etc.

And Jigglypuff and Mewtwo are not known like Pikachu.

And you’re insane to use the multiple pokemon as negatives; who the hell doesn’t know pokemon besides parents/non-gamers/people who didn’t grow up with a television? Jigglypuff was a main character, and Mewtwo was a main character. Game and Watch and Ice Climbers were later additions in SSBM, and they targeted a clearly older audience. Go back to the original SSB though, and you’ll see that it’s an incredibly thoughtful compilation of characters, and that for that reason it clear why one, SSB, is a consistent and resounding success, and why the other, PSAll-Stars, is not. PS-All Stars is a fine game, but it just missed the most key point of its foundation. You can argue with me, fine, but I’m sorry, man; there is just no way in hell that 2/3 of the All-Star cast is anything but forgettable, tasteless, uninteresting, and far-from heartfelt fluff.

Who’s this “Sly Cooper”, “Jak & Daxter” and “Ratchet and Clank” nonsense?

Parappa the Rapper, I’m pretty sure anyone who ever had a demo disc for PSone has at least played a demo of it. And that game, will stick in your memory for all time regardless of how much you played it.

They might not have the random old lady on the street knowing their stuff like they do”Pikachu”, “Zelda (when they mean Link)” or “Mario”, but plenty of SSB characters aren’t known by those people either. Ness? Nope. Ice Climbers? Nope. Game & Watch? Nope. Pit? Nope. Jigglypuff? Nope. Mewtwo? Nope.

If you have no history with playstation, of course they wouldn’t be very nostalgic, but some of the characters were great choices. And any glaring omissions were 3rd party, so out of Sony’s hands. Sans the lack of ANY JRPG (or regular RPG) rep. Sony owns a couple RPG IPs they could have included.