Only remains of Reggae's code was ever in the official builds. Reggae himself has never appeared functional in a final MM8BDM build but the idea behind it was he would appear and a random effect would occur.
Ah, I see. Well, it's nice that he's being brought back.
One of them was a ring of atomic fires. I took it out because I didn't want the game to end up just being an RNG fest like smash bros brawl. Reggae's role in the game has been completely changed. 
Well, at least in SSB, you could go the "NO ITEMS, FOX ONLY, FINAL DESTINATION." route. Here, that couldn't have happened, so it's a good thing to eliminate a bit of uncontrollable randomness.