My immediate thought when I saw his confirmation:ernesth100 said:diddy's back http://www.smashbros.com/us/characters/diddy_kong.html
(Dave Wise is a freaking genius!)
On the one hand, this wasn't much of a surprise, Diddy Kong was a popular character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and is confirmation coincides with the North American and European release of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. On the other hand, there was still a lot of things to question about if he would have been confirmed today, since character confirmations and such only happen on the Japanese release dates... Not to mention, for me anyway, I was wondering if Dixie Kong would be confirmed as well, as in part of a pair. There was a rumor a while back, one that accurately predicted Ashley as an Assist Trophy, Palutena being in the game, and Little Mac being playable and based on his appearance in Punch-Out!! for the Wii. It also said that Diddy and Dixie Kong would be confirmed on the release date of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and that you'd be able to switch between them via the down special movie, a la Zelda and Shiek. Since only Diddy Kong is confirmed, and his regular Down Special, the Banana Peel Toss, seems to be confirmed, I guess that rumor is now bunk. Oh well...
As for Diddy Kong himself, I used him fairly frequently. He WAS one of my most-wanted characters for Brawl, along with King Dedede and Wario, though I didn't use him AS much as the other two. It's good to see him back, and that Sakurai has tweeked his moveset a bit... He seems very stretchy... I like what people are saying about Lanky Kong, maybe Diddy Kong trained with him after Brawl! XP
Diddy Kong, much like everyone else, also looks very expressive. There's more shock in his face when his Peanut Popgun blows up, or when he blasts off on his jetpack. I also have to say, much like everyone else, he looks more colorful this time around. His red shirt and hat, as well as his brown hair pop out more, I love it! Although I will say his hair does look a bit more textured, unlike Donkey Kong's hair... I also never really realized how human-like his hands are... it's kind of weird... for me, anyway. :P
As for future character announcements, much like Diddy Kong being confirmed, I think it's assured that Yoshi's profile will go up on the release day of Yoshi's New Island (I can't wait for that, honestly, since it'll be great to have the original 8 finally confirmed). As for future announcements... I hope Wario gets confirmed, since next month is the anniversary for both Wario Land (in North America) and WarioWare (in Japan). Judging by their trend of usually counting Japanese release dates and anniversaries, and the way they space out the character confirmations, I'd say they'll go with Yoshi's confirmation on March 14 (the release date of Yoshi's New Island) and Wario's confirmation on March 21.
As for newcomers, I've also noticed a pattern; they only confirm newcomers during an event in which they can show off a new character trailer, i.e. Nintendo Direct. I don't know when or how often Nintendo does their Nintendo Directs, but seeing as we just had one last week, I'm assuming the next one will be pretty far off. Not sure what kind of newcomer they'll have, though... It's hard to tell with these things, even though they make sense in retrospect. No one expected Little Mac despite February being the 30th anniversary of the Punch-Out!! arcade game. I look forward to whatever, though!