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The Over Representation of Fire Emblem in Smash Bros

Rutger

Rutger

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,321
NeonZ said:
It helps him in Japan, but doesn't help him outside of it, since he wasn't "first" outside of Japan. It's likely why in the Choose your Legends votes he gets a core voting block, but then when the previous winners are ruled out other characters then go and jump ahead of Marth. These aren't suddenly people's favorites, it's just when being unable to vote for their actual number 1, they still put them ahead of Marth.

It doesn't help that although he got a localized game it was one where they decided to stay pretty close to NES level storytelling (there were some additions, but it was still a very minimalist story, unlike the full revamp that Gaiden/Echoes got) and had really bad overall aesthetics.
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I understand what you are trying to say. Yeah, Marth is far from disliked overall.
But let's be real, they only brought up Lyn being first for western audiences to deflect from her sharing one of the most common arguments for Roy not "deserving" his popularity.

It is interesting though that both Roy and Marth were first for western audiences through Smash, and Roy is noticeably more popular.
 

rayngiraffe

Member
Dec 11, 2018
1,456
RROCKMAN said:
Because you still have FOUR versions of a particular fighting style. Let Marth and Roy be the Ryu and Ken of that style and then go from there.

You'd also be able to simulate the one of the franchises founding feature, the weapon triangle. If you let an axe user or lancer have the two other slots.

But it doesn't seem like you actually want a serious discussion about this, catch me again when you lose your goofy "mickey mouse voice".
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No, the reason why i'm goofing around is because echoes =/= shotos, your ken/akuma/ryu has differing animations and hitboxes and that makes it so much harder to design and balance. Echoes are literally just copy-paste over existing animations so they're not the goddam same thing.

Also i don't really care about complaints representation in some arbritary weapon triangle cause there's not much variation compared to sword users. Why waste your resources on developing a brand new fighter who uses a axe/lance when you can develop a mage with different magic + dragon lord? They bring so much more to the table and i think people keep forgetting about that.

leder said:
Yes, this is the main sticking point for me. If you're going to put in such a ridiculous amount of characters from one series, at least make them represent the entire series. As much as I hate Pokemon's over-representation, at least this aspect is handled better.


And cake is great, but I don't want to eat it for every meal for the rest of my life. Variety is good.


Are you seriously saying that complaining about clones started with Fire Emblem characters? lmao. Was Smash 4 your intro to the fandom?
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See my above point where we literally got 2 of the most unique chars we could possibly get from FE as a series but people keep laser focusing on 4 echoes that are variations of the same first character for some reason.

batfax said:
No? How did you draw that conclusion? The "echoes" label, applied in Ultimate, not 4, gave tons of characters a pass and yet Fire Emblem doesn't get that same consideration. I'm fully aware complaints about clones have existed for ages, but the new label helped a lot of people settle down about them. Even Dark Pit doesn't have poison spat at him so much anymore, even if people aren't fans.
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To be fair i think you're talking to the group of people who can't help but meme wailuigi all the time. It's just some weird bias that they decided to focus on the fe representation.
 
NeonZ

NeonZ

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 28, 2017
9,378
Rutger said:
It is interesting though that both Roy and Marth were first for western audiences through Smash, and Roy is noticeably more popular.
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Roy was often seen as the cooler one in Smash due to the fire sword. Smash also gave him a more hotblooded personality, which likely is what sticks with most people even in Japan, since Melee came out before FE6.

Regarding Lyn though, there's also how FE7's normal mode is easier than FE6's normal mode, so although she's kind of useless against the final boss most players still see her as useful during most of the game. It's only when going into harder difficulties or for rankings that her weaknesses become obvious (and most players don't replay long games in the first place).
 
DR2K

DR2K

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
1,946
It's also the franchise that has benefited from it the most. With half being echo swaps.
 
MistaTwo

MistaTwo

SNK Gaming Division Studio 1
Verified
Oct 24, 2017
2,456
There are too many sword users is the only issue.

I think this comes from a Western perspective where a lot of the games never came over. Fire Emblem has always been prolific and an important Nintendo series.

I just wish they went for more variety.
An axe user, a heavy general unit with an axe, a pure sorcerer, dragon/pegasus unit, assassin, hell even a dancer could work in a less traditional fighter like Smash.
 
Rutger

Rutger

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,321
MistaTwo said:
I just wish they went for more variety.
An axe user, a heavy general unit with an axe, a pure sorcerer, dragon/pegasus unit, assassin, hell even a dancer could work in a less traditional fighter like Smash.
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Fire Emblem could use it's own fighting game really.

It's hard to argue against Smash only having major characters, which limits the type of weapons they can work with.

At the very least though, Smash does a great job of varying up the playstyle of them all other than the two echoes.
 

Altered

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,682
I like how Sakurai gave the option to merge echoes and people still have a problem with their presence.
 
hibikase

hibikase

User requested ban
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
6,820
They really should have assigned more of them as echo fighters, at least.
 
Toxi

Toxi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
17,550
Honestly, I think the current number is fine now that we're not waiting for characters like Ridley, Inkling, Isabelle, etc.

Just please stop with the "obligatory new lord per game" shit.
 
KillstealWolf

KillstealWolf

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
16,099
Main issue is most of them are all sword users. Can we get like a Lance user, an Axe user or something? Robin is primarily a mage and yet Robin still has to use a Sword as well. We already get enough Sword users from other franchises as well.
 
GreenMamba

GreenMamba

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,318
They just kinda kept adding characters. Roy was filler but whatever, it was one character back in Melee, Ike in Brawl was good, Robin was nice, Lucina was a 'whatever, cool,' but then they just... kept going.

Fire Emblem has seven characters and only three stages in Ultimate (which has every FE stage in the series present), and it only really missed the opportunity to add a new stage in Melee (Ultimate's new stage selection is a special case). Other than R.O.B., who still doesn't have a stage to call his own, this is the only series with character/stage ratio skewed that far towards characters and it's not even close. Whether or not this is a bad thing is up to personal preference but I think it's pretty clear that there is a bias there.

(meanwhile Donkey Kong had to wait nearly twenty years to get two more characters and is still missing one of its central protagonists)
 
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Mekanos

Mekanos

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 17, 2018
44,184
My stance is basically:

Marth, Ike, and Robin should all be there, all representing different and important eras of Fire Emblem.

Roy is only there because of grandfather clause. The majority of his fandom is because of Smash, he's basically an original character in that context.

Lucina and Chrom are harmless echoes and popular characters. Sure, I'd rather see different echoes, but I have little investment in what echoes get in.

Corrin was put in as an advertisement for a game and the only first party newcomer in Smash 4 DLC, and then his game came out and it wasn't exactly a beloved favorite. Personally I think the dragon shifting mechanic could be a lot more interesting than it is, but it's whatever.

If it were up to me and I was told "you cannot keep every character in the next game," I'd keep Marth, Ike, and Robin, cut Corrin, and at least one of Roy/Lucina/Chrom.

Toxi said:
Honestly, I think the current number is fine now that we're not waiting for characters like Ridley, Inkling, Isabelle, etc.

Just please stop with the "obligatory new lord per game" shit.
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Yeah, now that we've finally gotten some essential first party characters, I'm a little more lenient. While I think there are some core characters still missing, namely Dixie Kong, I'd overall consider Ultimate's roster about a 90-95% success, which is pretty astounding all things considered.
 
Toxi

Toxi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
17,550
GreenMamba said:
Fire Emblem has seven characters and only three stages in Ultimate (which has every FE stage in the series present), and it only really missed the opportunity to add a new stage in Melee (Ultimate's new stage selection is a special case). Other than R.O.B., who still doesn't have a stage to call his own, this is the only series with character/stage ratio skewed that far towards characters and it's not even close.
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Rob's stage is clearly Port Town Aerodrive. :P
 
Narroo

Narroo

Banned
Feb 27, 2018
1,819
Really, what happened was just clones:

Melee cloned nearly half the cast in order to fill out the roster. Marth was cheaply cloned into Roy, presumably because Marth was fairly unique, but kinda hard to play as. (2 Characters)

Brawl tried to de-clone-ify as characters as much as possible. Roy got replaced by Ike, who represented a more extreme version of Roy's play-style. Ike has the down-B counter, a non-holdable charging Neutral-B, and a jumping swipe with his sword for an Up-B. He's basically Roy re-imagined as non-clone. (3 Characters)

Nintendo then realized that cutting characters or majorily changing their play-styles was potentially a bad idea; some players preferred Roy over Marth and were clamoring for him to return. Thus Roy became DLC. At the same time, the revival of Fire Emblem through Awakening required a nod- espcailly since the 'youngest' Nintendo character in Brawl was otherwise Olimar: Nintendo hasn't really had much success with new series or characters. So, Robin came in. (5 Characters.)

DLC characters, of course, happened, and it was largely done by popularity. (See Bayonetta.) Thus, we got Corrin. (6 Characters.) Also, Lucina: Also: Lucina being nearly identical to Marth was a plot point in Awakening and she was highly requested. Apparently, Nintendo got over their Brawl era clone-phobia and squeezed her in. (7 Characters.)

Finally, Chrom. Chrom was highly requested. I'm sure we all remember the topics. So, they cloned Roy and threw in a bit of Roy's better half, Ike. This makes Chrom the only character to be a clone of clone and a clone of two different characters! (8 Characters!)

So, that's how it happened. It started with Nintendo flip-flopping on clones from, and then got mixed in with popularity requests.
 
Mekanos

Mekanos

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Oct 17, 2018
44,184
Narroo said:
Brawl tried to de-clone-ify as characters as much as possible. Roy got replaced by Ike, who represented a more extreme version of Roy's play-style. Ike has the down-B counter, a non-holdable charging Neutral-B, and a jumping swipe with his sword for an Up-B. He's basically Roy re-imagined as non-clone. (3 Characters)
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Ike was not a replacement for Roy, the characters play entirely differently. Roy was planned for Brawl and cut.

Narroo said:
espcailly since the 'youngest' Nintendo character in Brawl was otherwise Olimar
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You're forgetting Toon Link, Zero Suit Samus, Lucario, and Lucas.

Narroo said:
DLC characters, of course, happened, and it was largely done by popularity. (See Bayonetta.) Thus, we got Corrin. (6 Characters.) Also, Lucina: Also: Lucina being nearly identical to Marth was a plot point in Awakening and she was highly requested. Apparently, Nintendo got over their Brawl era clone-phobia and squeezed her in. (7 Characters.)
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How could Corrin be based in popularity when their game wasn't even released outside of Japan when they were added to Smash?

Also, you keep saying "Nintendo," even though it's Sakurai and his various teams under HAL/SORA/Bandai-Namco that have made these games.

Also also, your math is wrong, you counted Lucina twice. We have 7 characters total. Just sayin'.
 
StrangeRoboMemory

StrangeRoboMemory

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,767
Toronto, ON
Chrom is the most pointless inclusion, but I'm not mad about it. There are definitely more interesting FE characters that they could have included, Tharja would have been particularly dope.
 

jrDev

Banned
Mar 2, 2018
1,528
What? Robin and Corrin have unique move sets; they are far from bland. Those 2 deserve therir spots. I agree about the Echoes though...
 
Screen Looker

Screen Looker

Member
Nov 17, 2018
1,963
Raster said:
So Smash Bros for Wii U and 3DS introduced a bunch of FIre Emblem characters in addition to Marth, Roy and Ike, namely Lucina, Corrin and Robin. It doubled the count of FE characters in Smash Bros.

Then Ultimate got Chrom.

Currently, we have a total of 7 Fire Emblem characters. Comparatively, Mario has 9, Zelda has 6, Pokemon has 8.

Fire Emblem has more characters in Smash Bros than any other series except Mario and Pokemon, the first of which is the best-selling video game series of all time and the other is the highest-grossing media franchise ever. Compared to some of the other series like Zelda and Animal Crossing, which have less representation in Smash Bros, Fire Emblem has more of a niche audience and hasn't really cracked the mainstream like some of Nintendo's other series have. Sure, it's a big name today, but still pretty niche all things considered.

But let's say the sales numbers/ubiquity of the series is irrelevant when it comes to adding characters to Smash. How are these characters different enough to warrant their existence in Smash?

Aesthetically, they're not that different at all and can be easily confused for one another. Robin and Corrin in particular are incredibly bland. Lucina and Chrom are echo fighters of Marth and Roy, respectively. Hell, you can straight up remove Lucina and Chrom from the roster and nothing of value would be lost, and this over representation problem would largely be fixed.

This isn't a FE hate thread or anything, I'm just puzzled as to why Nintendo decided to give this series 7 slots on the roster when some of those resources would have been better spent adding other, more interesting characters.
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I mean who else from Zelda, Metroid, or Donkey Kong do you want?
 
TheCthultist

TheCthultist

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,450
New York
Dark Knight said:
I think everyone feels this way.
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Well ya thought wrong, clearly...
There's what, 7 of them? Mario's got at least 10 if you count Daisy. Pokemon has 9. Makes sense that a big series like Fire Emblem would get a bunch of characters. My gripe with it is that, with the exception of Robin and Corrin, they're all strictly sword users. There's a ton of great non-sword characters they could have went with instead...
 
JershJopstin

JershJopstin

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,332
Kenai said:
Lucina is one of the most popular characters in the series as well as having a starring role in the game that saved the FE franchise from oblivion, so yea that would have been pretty weird. Erika is also a blue haired sword wielder so I don't see her inclusion solving too many complaints at all (yes she uses a rapier instead of Falchion, but I doubt protesters are going to care much about that nuance).
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Eirika over Lucina was entirely for game diversity. No game would have 2 reps that way, and every set of games but Jugdral would have a rep.

Only long-time FE fans would like that more, though. Modern FE fans (the bigger group) are probably happier the way it is.
 
Mekanos

Mekanos

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Oct 17, 2018
44,184
TheCthultist said:
Well ya thought wrong, clearly...
There's what, 7 of them? Mario's got at least 10 if you count Daisy. Pokemon has 9. Makes sense that a big series like Fire Emblem would get a bunch of characters. My gripe with it is that, with the exception of Robin and Corrin, they're all strictly sword users. There's a ton of great non-sword characters they could have went with instead...
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Fire Emblem is a minor series compared to Mario and Pokemon. But considering two of the characters are echoes and one is a semi-clone, it isn't like it's an equal comparison anyway.
 
Toxi

Toxi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
17,550
ned_ballad said:
Sylux, GF Marine
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No love for Mother Brain? I feel she could work pretty well with some creativity.

smash__mother_brain_by_professorfandango_d8qfom1-fullview.jpg
 
Quantum Nottle

Quantum Nottle

Member
Nov 4, 2017
430
Honestly I have no problem with the large amount of FE characters, it's that they are so similar that irks me.

In Melee you had Marth and Roy, it was the first time they were in the series and Clones were ok in Melee.

In Brawl you had Marth and Ike. I feel like the differences there were enough to warrant there being two blue haired lords.

In 4 you had Robin which was nice and unique, but we really didn't need Lucina and Roy, they are too similar to Marth.
Ultimate giving us Chrom is just silly.

Preferably I would like to see some Fire Emblem characters from classes that aren't the sword wielding lord with a counter down b. I want a guy on a Pegasus as a fighter.
 
MondoMega

MondoMega

One Winged Slayer
Member
Jan 10, 2018
47,477
The only Fire Emblem character that really bothers me by their existence is Chrom. I was fine with him at first, but that was because I was expecting a few more echo fighters than we ended up getting. There are A LOT of first-party Echo Fighters I would have preferred to see over him.

Besides him, i'm fine with the existence of the Fire Emblem roster as it is now. A bit more variety in classes would be appreciated if they add more though.
 

TwinBahamut

Member
Jun 8, 2018
1,360
Fire Emblem is odd in that it has a large amount of representation, but generally poor representation. It has a large number of characters, but more than half are minor variations of the same moveset. It has a few stages, but they are really generic and do little to highlight any interesting qualities from the original games. There isn't even a stage that lets recognizable characters be seen in the background.

The Smash games need fewer characters like Roy or Chrom, and more Light Mages, Manaketes, and Pegasus Knights. It needs less generic stages and more exciting and memorable ones.

But I don't think the quantity of characters is inherently bad. There are a LOT of characters in the FE games, and a wide variety of recurring character types. The last FEH popularity poll from last week featured more than 700 characters, almost all of which are either playable or notable story characters. There is a lot of potential for fun and likable Smash fighters in that list, and there is nothing wrong with Nintendo tapping into that potential.
 
DrArchon

DrArchon

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Oct 25, 2017
15,485
TwinBahamut said:
It has a few stages, but they are really generic and do little to highlight any interesting qualities from the original games.
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More people should focus on this.

I know "more FE content" would annoy a lot of people, but FE's stage situation is appalling. 2 of the 3 stages are just generic stages with no ties to any particular game, and 2 of the 3 are coliseums.
 
Mekanos

Mekanos

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Oct 17, 2018
44,184
If you want a vision of Fire Emblem representation in future Smash games, imagine a lord with a sword using down B as a counter - forever.
 
Toxi

Toxi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
17,550
DrArchon said:
More people should focus on this.

I know "more FE content" would annoy a lot of people, but FE's stage situation is appalling. 2 of the 3 stages are just generic stages with no ties to any particular game, and 2 of the 3 are coliseums.
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Using the "Fire Emblem should get a lot of characters because the series has a a lot of memorable characters" argument, we should first see Metroid and Donkey Kong get new stages.

But nah, lava caverns and jungles forever./nottotallysalty
 
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RebelDeux

RebelDeux

Member
Nov 20, 2017
180
Robin is cool because he's like a Harry Potter character, Corrin is weird and different, I'm not a fan of FE but I do enjoy them and because of them I might try a FE game later.
 
Mekanos

Mekanos

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Member
Oct 17, 2018
44,184
Toxi said:
Using the "Fire Emblem should get a lot of characters because the series has a a lot of memorable characters" argument, we should first see Metroid and Donkey Kong get new stages.

But nah, lava caverns and jungles forever./nottotallysalty
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What if we got a lava cavern for a DK stage and a jungle for a Metroid stage?
 
NoName999

NoName999

One Winged Slayer
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
5,906
It is irritating that FE is the only franchise with lackluster sales that is constantly propped up in Smash. I wished Golden Sun, Custom Robo , Starfy, Panel de Pon could be propped up more. It's nauseous that Sakurai seems to have this obligation to add a new Fire Emblem (and Pokemon to lesser degree) character when there's a new game out. I wished, "new game/new character" was the excuse granted for characters like Elma.

I mean the fact that Metroid and DK just now got three characters after 5 Smash games, while FE sits at 7 is laughable. Those 2 franchises are pretty much pop culture icons. The same can't be said for Fire Emblem. Smash is overinflating FE's importance to Nintendo.
 
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