I'd figure getting email notifications would help me out but it turns out only people I follow will those and post, only then will I receive an email so I apologize for not being as active. That said, I'll just make a quick post just to prove I'm alive.
Is Luigi really considered a clone? Maybe in the first Smash but I always felt that his moves were unique enough to set him apart. When I think of a clone I think of Lucina to Marth, Toon Link to Link Dark Pit to Pit (though even Dark Pit has some unique moves IIRC, I haven't played much smash 4 in a while), Dr Mario to Mario.
What people consider a clone will differ between people. What I'm about to say only refers to what I believe makes a clone may not be the same for another person. The casual Smash player generally thinks if characters are clones if they share moves with another character, usually meaning 2-4 moves apparently makes that character clone. They might not be able to realize it, but there are more moves in Smash than just the specials so naturally I look at the entire moveset of a character and compare with another before stating dumb statements. Nonetheless here's my interpretation of what makes a character a clone:
Luigi was considered a clone only for N64 Smash. Once Melee arrived, his moveset varied much more compared to Mario while still having several of the same moves. This is what we call a semi-clone. Dr. Mario on the other hand is a direct clone to Mario when it comes to Melee. The only difference between the two was that Dr. Mario was much stronger, slightly slower, and any move that had a fire effect in Mario's moveset was altered to have an electrical effect. When it comes to Melee, there were a total of six clones plus a semi-clone (Luigi). These
six characters include the following:
- Dr. Mario
- Falco
- Ganondorf
- Pichu
- Roy
- Young Link
In Brawl there were no clones within its roster, however there were still semi-clones and one psuedo-clone (Wolf). The two Melee clones that weren't cut from Brawl had their movesets even more diverse from their "parent" character. To read more about the six semi-clones,
click here.
In Smash 4, the return of true clones come back in the form of Lucina, Dark Pit, and Dr. Mario. The Brawl semi-clones are still semi-clones with the addition of Roy. More information can be found
here.