This article was also posted simultaneously on the Fire Emblem Subreddit here.
I originally wrote this to just pose the question, but then I got thinking about what my best answer would be, started thinking about exactly how we got the Smash characters we got up until now, and… accidentally wrote a whole analysis of every Fire Emblem character inclusion of Smash Bros to date. If you want to skip all of that and just post your own answer, skim down to the “What if We Could Do it All Over?” section for the specific question I’m asking. My personal picks are under that, if you want to provide your two cents on those as well.
Why is Fire Emblem in Smash so Weird?
Fire Emblem is in a pretty unique situation in its representation in Smash Bros for quite a few reasons. For one, as an anthology series with 16 main entries (as of the end of Ultimate’s DLC run) in which most characters only appear in a few of the main games, it’s hard to pick which characters are the most Emblematic of the series overall.
And even if you were able to narrow down which characters are the MOST important to the series as a whole, despite the games featuring a wide array of characters that fight with lances, bows, axes, knives, multiple different kinds of magic, by riding horses, pegasi, wyverns, by donning heavy armor or operating ballistae, or even by turning into various beasts or dragons, every singular main character of every game starts out as an armorless footsoldier that specializes in swords (Yes, for the knowers out there; there are examples of games whose main characters can wield other weapons, and there’s a certain lance-wielding dual protagonist, but you get the idea, right?)
As it is right now, Fire Emblem has managed to snag 8 spots in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s roster, with two of those spots belonging to Echo Fighters (For those who aren’t knowers, an Echo Fighter is a character with a very similar moveset to another character, and is generally also similar to them thematically in some way or another). Is that a lot?
Yes.
To put things into context, the official website displays only Super Mario as having more reps with 9, and the massively popular Pokemon series ties it with 8. Granted, Pokemon’s character that can switch between three different fighters is only counted once while Fire Emblem’s Echo Fighters are counted individually, but even so–while in my humble opinion Fire Emblem is a better game series than Pokemon, it’s certainly not a more influential one or even one that has a more diverse cast of iconic characters to choose from. But! The important question here is… were these 8 Fire Emblem character slots used to give fair representation to the expansive history the Fire Emblem Series has?
Nope! They were just kind of thrown in willy-nilly to make one big, jumbled mess.
.
Here’s the entire, convoluted story:
While the original Smash Bros. didn’t have any Fire Emblem reps, its sequel, Melee, did.
Marth was the first character included–a solid pick given that of the 5 Fire Emblem games released at the time, he was the main protagonist of the first and third ones. But with a famously short development cycle, Melee the development team wasn’t able to fully flesh out all its fighters, so Roy, the protagonist of the 6th game, was also released as an unofficial Echo Fighter. This is my first gripe. Instead of being given his own unique moveset, they essentially copied and pasted a Roy model over the Marth frame data, tweaked some of the numbers and hitboxes here and there, gave him a couple unique moves, and called it good–the same treatment that 6 of the 26 fighters in the game got.
But not giving him a unique moveset based on his own game was kind of understandable, due to the biggest complaint I have about him. I didn’t mistype when I said there were only 5 Fire Emblem games out at the time; Roy debuted in Melee over 4 months before he starred in his own game.
Personally, I view the Super Smash Bros. series as a Nintendo-focused “Hall of Fame” for gaming. As a celebration of gaming, each character should ideally be a representation of a game or franchise that has had a significant impact on the gaming landscape, not as an advertisement for an upcoming–or even recently released–game. Accordingly, each new Fire Emblem character should somehow represent some significant part of the Fire Emblem series, whether by coming from a game or games that don’t have representation yet, or by bringing in mechanics of the series that are underrepresented. Ideally both. People that know nothing about a series should be able to get a good idea of what it is about by looking at its Smash Bros. reps and how they play.
Roy, as a carbon-copy of Marth hailing from a game that didn’t even exist yet, was a terrible choice for Smash by my standards, at least at the time.
With that as a backdrop, let’s dive into Brawl, which I think actually has the best picks of any Smash game to date. Cuts were made from Melee, and in light of the now ten games in the series, Roy was dropped in favor of Ike.
Roy’s only additional appearance outside his own Binding Blade was a cameo as a child in the epilogue of the next game, Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade. Ike, on the other hand, was the only character to star in multiple games in the series (Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn), other than posterboy Marth himself. He also featured an entirely different fighting style, and felt a lot more faithful to his original games. Overall, you had the main classic Fire Emblem guy, and the main modern Fire Emblem guy. That was all you needed.
Then Smash for 3DS and Wii U came around and everything started to get… weird.
On release, Roy stayed out and Marth and Ike stayed in. The newest addition, however, was Robin. Robin was the secondary protagonist of the most recent (and both critically and commercially successful) game, Fire Emblem: Awakening. Chrom was the much clearer primary protagonist of the game, but unlike Chrom, Robin could use both swords and magic, and on top of that, his weapons broke after a few uses–a staple game mechanic of the Fire Emblem series, but not yet represented in Smash.
For this reason, I understand why they didn’t choose Chrom; having a descendant of Marth who story-wise wields the same sword that he did is a bit too much of a redo. Plus, he shows up in Robin’s Final Smash and in some of his victory poses, so it’s a cool nod to him there as well. But while they may have dodged the bullet by not including the main man of the game, they walked in front of the firing squad with the inclusion of his daughter from the future, Lucina.
Lucina was not only a secondary character from the exact same game as Robin, her adaptation in Smash Bros quite literally was an exact copy of Marth. The one exception? While Marth’s attacks were all stronger if striking with the tip of the blade and weaker if striking with the base, Lucina’s attacks were equal strength no matter where on the blade you struck. That was it. So all the other Fire Emblem games without representation were passed over in favor of someone who not only was immediately overshadowed by a more plot-significant character from their own game, but also didn’t bring anything unique else from the series itself. Essentially, she was introduced not as an important character to the series, but as an easy-to-program extra character that was enjoying recent popularity.
But wait, there’s more! This iteration of Smash Bros. introduced the idea of DLC fighters. First up was Roy, back from his 1-game hiatus. Which, I mean, fine; he didn’t gain much of any series significance in the meantime, but he was popular as a Smash character, so it’s not surprising he’s back.
But then we have Corrin. Corrin is another Roy situation–released before their own game, Fates, came out in the West, except at least this time it had already been released in Japan by the time they hit the eshop in Smash. While Corrin admittedly does represent more facets of Fire Emblem gameplay by fighting with a sword and the ability to transform partially or fully into a dragon, their release just feels like an attempt to advertise the recently released/upcoming Fire Emblem game, especially when you consider all the other DLC characters were either returning from past Smash games after being cut (Mewtwo, Roy, Lucas), or additions from completely new, 3rd party series (Ryu, Cloud, Bayonetta).
Next up, we have our latest entry in the series, Ultimate! Now, the whole gimmick was “Everyone Is Here,” so none of the fat was cut from the current roster, with the small exception of the introduction of Echo Fighters meaning that Lucina got rightfully tucked away as just an alternate Marth. There was one fighter who enjoyed his debut here, and it was… Chrom. Guess they felt bad about not giving the main man himself an inclusion. And just due to how the circumstances shook out, he was tacked onto Roy as an Echo Fighter for gameplay reasons, despite how he has zero overlap with him story-wise. Kinda cool how they incorporated the fact that he could learn the Aether skill in Awakening into his up special, but kinda weird how they swapped out Roy’s fiery hitboxes with what kinda looks like wind magic.
So of the 7 characters covered at this point, 4 of them are Marth, Marth’s clone, Marth’s second clone, and Marth’s clone’s clone, 1 of them is from the newest game in the series, three of them are from the one before that, and a three of them were released as advertisements for their recent/upcoming games.
See why I called it a mess?
But! After all that, we have one more character to cover: Byleth.
Byleth came out as the final representative of the first Fighters Pass DLC for Ultimate, and their situation was very similar to Corrin’s. After 4 consecutive fighters were brought in to introduce brand-new, 3rd party franchises into the game (Persona with Joker, Dragon Quest with its Hero, the eponymous Banjo & Kazooie, and Fatal Fury’s Terry), Byleth went against the grain by introducing a character from a franchise with plenty of representation already, being the main character of the recently released Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
And again, while it’s frustrating that Byleth was essentially an advertisement for the latest Fire Emblem game, they were adapted rather well, and to date are the only Fire Emblem representatives in Smash to use axes, lances and bows, in addition to swords.
In a nutshell, the issue I have is that one of my favorite video game series' representation in one of my other favorite game series is so lopsided, haphazard, and overall feels like it was motivated by a desire to push more game sales over an actual appreciation for the source material. I mean, if Ultimate’s motto of keeping every character carries on to the next game, we’re kind of stuck with this mess, and the only way to “fix” it is to add so many Fire Emblem characters (and, naturally, characters from other series as well) to Smash that we just kind of water down the cast until the current inclusions don’t seem as crazy. Or, I guess, the currently included characters could receive a more influential role in future Fire Emblem game to give them more retroactive justification for their placements, but given the aforementioned anthology status of the series, this is not likely.
But that leaves me wondering: what if it didn’t have to be this way?
What if we could change the past?
What if We Could Do it All Over?
So here’s my thought experiment:
Suppose you gain access to a time machine, and have been appointed as the official Smash Bros Fire Emblem consultant. You’re in charge of picking the best characters to represent the entire franchise, as well as giving general notes on what characteristics you want to be included with them, like what weapons they bring or what Fire Emblem game mechanics are reflected in their moveset. You can’t pick how many spots you get, but anyone you choose to be included will be.
Obviously, in a realistic scenario the higher ups at Nintendo and others would also have input/veto power, but again. A thought experiment.
Who would you pick to represent the series overall, and why? To reiterate, this wouldn’t be about picking your personal favorite characters, but rather who you would pick and how you would include them in order to give a complete newbie to Fire Emblem the best idea of what the series is all about.
Specifically, you have 8 slots, two of which have to be Echo Fighters of other characters.
Here’s the current Smash Ultimate roster:
Marth, the protagonist of FE1, Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light; and FE3, Mystery of the Emblem; as well as their remakes FE11, Shadow Dragon, and FE12; New Mystery of the Emblem
Lucina as his Echo Fighter, a secondary character from FE13, Awakening
Roy, the protagonist of FE6, Binding Blade; as well as having a cameo in FE7, Blazing Blade
Chrom as his Echo Fighter, the protagonist of FE13; Awakening
Ike, the protagonist of both FE9, Path of Radiance; and FE10; Radiant Dawn
Robin, the deuteragonist of FE13, Awakening
Corrin, the protagonist of FE14, Fates, and
Byleth, the protagonist of FE16, Three Houses.
Note that I’m only including characters that were released at the time of the end of Smash Ultimate’s DLC run; no Engage characters included and no Engage influence considered.
Here are My Best Picks:
Marth.
This is the no-brainer absolute top choice. Not only is he the main character of the first ever Fire Emblem, he’s also the star of two of the three remakes the series has released. He has a big influence over the cast of Awakening as well, and even in spinoffs like Warriors he’s the guy that shows up to save the day and help you out.
If I had to pick just one guy to represent Fire Emblem in Smash, it’d be him. He is a bit plain vanilla without a lot of inspiration to take from his games in terms of his moveset, so I’d say his current iteration in Smash is fine.
Chrom, as his Echo Fighter. As the main character of FE13, Awakening and Marth’s direct descendant, he thematically fits well as an Echo Fighter here. Keep most of his moveset; there are a decent amount of differences here between the two to justify his existence, but maybe rework the weird wind magic that’s left over from Roy’s Binding Blade.
Leif.
An important secondary character in FE4, Genealogy of the Holy War; and the main character of FE5, Thracia 776. He’s probably the most significant character overall across the two games set on the Jugdral continent, but what I’m most interested in is his promoted class in FE4: the Master Knight.
It’s a mounted class that has access to Swords, Lances, Axes, Bows, Fire Magic, Thunder Magic, Wind Magic, Light Magic, and Staves. Lief is also unique in that he is the only main protagonist of a Fire Emblem game to not have some form of Legendary Weapon exclusive to himself, which opens him up to use basically any weapon from those games. Heck, you could even have him use other general weapons from later games to keep his moveset fresh.
And since most of these weapons break, he could have a durability system similar to Robin’s, where his specials are magic and run out after being used a certain number of times, and all his other attacks are physical weapons that downgrade after being used too much.
Also, he has a horse.
I personally think they could make it work, but if they really didn’t want to size-scale a mounted unit with regular people, they could have him ride in on a horse, and dismount as the countdown ends. Dismounting is a mechanic in multiple Fire Emblem games, and is present in both of Leif’s–even if he happens to not get access to it in either.
Overall, Leif is my excuse to represent a whole bunch of different weapons and mechanics from the series, as I feel he has the best opportunity to do so.
Roy. With all of the first five games having some representation (sorry, Alm), I next want to move over to Elibe, with the clear choice here being Roy. As the star of the first GBA romp and wielder of its titular Binding Blade, which is lore-wise stronger than even the Eight Legendary Weapons of those titles, he’s the next obvious choice. Unfortunately, he is an exclusive user of swords, but the Binding Blade is a rare example of a ranged sword, which gives him the potential to stand out among the other characters by incorporating more ranged attacks into his kit. I really don’t want him to play like Marth at all, and I’d let the balance team figure out how exactly to accomplish that.
But my biggest reason for picking him, if I’m going to be honest, is that he has a prime candidate for an Echo Fighter in
Eliwood. Roy’s father, the main Lord character of the three featured in FE7, The Blazing Blade, and a relatively minor character in the previous game, The Binding Blade. Essentially, his entire relevance to the plot is that he put Roy in charge of his army because he’s sick and can’t do it; he’s never actually playable (while he is technically playable in the post-game trial maps, a bunch of the other trial-maps-only characters die within the course of the game, so the “canonicity” of this appearance is dubious). However, in his own game, he wields the Durandal, which is one of the Eight Legendary Weapons of Elibe.
Granted, the other two Lords in his game are arguably more interesting picks; Lyn (a woman!) is the main character of the introductory scenario of the game and Hector is the axe-wielding focus of what is generally seen as a more “complete” storyline of the events of the game.
However, I think being the undisputed main protagonist of the first Fire Emblem game ever released in the West counts for something, and the other two simply wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) work as an Echo Fighter for Roy, so Eliwood has my pick.
As for how he plays, despite wielding a sword that’s called the Blazing Blade, it’s never shown actually doing anything fiery at all in game. However, it is shown to do so in certain out-of-game art, so I don’t think it’d be crazy to have it do some flaming in Smash. It’s not, however, long-range, but it is depicted as a greatsword. I imagine he would work similarly to Roy, but in order to make up for the fact that he has no projectiles, his sword would have a noticeably longer range.
Since he gains access to lances (and a horse!) upon promotion, I wouldn’t object to having him throw a javelin instead of launching a fireball here and there.
The horse would probably have to stay out his moveset to reflect Roy, though.
Eirika/Ephraim. Ok, I’m bending my own rules here by picking two, but I’d like to put Eirika and Ephraim together as one unit. Not as two characters to switch between, but a kind of Banjo & Kazooie-esque fighter where both are on the battlefield at once, and moves incorporate one or both of them seamlessly.
Unlike literally every other Fire Emblem game out there, FE8, The Sacred Stones has no clear singular main character. (Ugh, well, I guess Genealogy has two, but that’s different! Each one has their own completely separate tale.) Other games may have multiple protagonists, but you can always point to one and say clearly, “they’re the MAIN character.” In Sacred Stones, you play 5 chapters with Eirika at the helm, 1 as Ephraim, 2 as Eirika, one as both, and then the game splits up the twins for the next 6 chapters–who you choose determines who you’ll accompany and therefore what maps you’ll play, and then when the two reunite again whichever one you chose stays as the “main” protagonist through the remaining 7 chapters; being required for deployment and taking a more active role in the story going forward. Gun-to-your-head if you had to pick one, it’d be Eirika, but it’s hard to argue that they aren’t dual protagonists, as they both have equal stake in the story.
Sacred Stones is in a bit of a weird place in the timeline. Aside from the most recent games (who potentially could receive one in the near future), it’s the only one that is completely separate lore-wise from all other entries in the series, and depending on who you choose, it’s the only one with a solely female protagonist, or the only one with a protagonist that can’t use swords at all.
Granted, I’ve had to choose my words carefully in order to make these two seem a bit more special than they are, and you could just as easily argue that Alm and Celica would be a better dual-character, or that Byleth, as a user of 4 (or potentially even more) different weapon types would just be a better fit for this spot over all. Personally, I’d probably just cut the spot entirely if I were genuinely in charge.
Ike. As the only other Fire Emblem character to be the main character of two separate games (remakes not included), Ike would be my number 2 pick. He’s the main character of FE9, Path of Radiance; and while he doesn’t appear for the first part of FE10, Radiant Dawn, he quickly takes the spotlight when he does–you can’t even beat the game unless he himself lands the final blow on the final boss.
As for his move set, it’s currently in a pretty good place. He plays much differently than Marth, and feels more like the imposing swordsman he is in his respective games. I especially like how the Aether skill’s animation carries over to the game for his up special.
However, if I had to make some tweaks, I’d give him a move or two that incorporates the fact that his signature weapon, Ragnell, can fight at range by firing shockwaves, and the fact that he can also wield axes could stand to have some representation by incorporating a move using his father’s axe, Urvan, the strongest one in the game. To be fair, there’s very little reason in his game for Ike to ever not use the legendary, unbreakable, two-range sword that he has access to at that point in order to train his axe level up enough to wield it, but he technically can, so it might be a cool nod.
Corrin. Ok, I know I ragged on Corrin’s inclusion initially, but of all the main characters across all the games, they’re the only one that can turn into a dragon, which the vast majority of games include as playable units. Now, you can technically argue that Corrin stars in three games–Fire Emblems Fates: Conquest, Fates: Birthright, and Fates: Revelation, but since I bought them all on one game card day 1 and everyone collectively refers to them as just FE14, I very much will not.
Again, this is just kind of a “because I gotta pick someone” decision. Corrin is lower on the list, and just because they have the dragon thing going on, it’s a nice addition. Their moveset is pretty good as is in current Smash Bros, and incorporates both the chainsaw-like Omega Yato and the dragon fighting well. However, Corrin does get access to tomes or staves in Fates depending on what promotion they get, so that might be a cool addition to Smash.
That’s the long and short of it! While I wasn’t thinking about which character would appear in what game in place of which existing Smash character, for extra credit, let’s say Marth and Leif appear in Melee, Leif is replaced with Ike in Brawl, but returns as Smash 4 DLC. Newcomers in that game are Chrom and my version of Roy. Given that Fates had yet to be released in some parts of the world, newly introduced via DLC would be Eirika/Ephraim, although that still feels like it would be a really weird choice, and I’d rather they just make a deal with another 3rd-party IP and include that instead. That leaves Eliwood to be introduced as an Echo Fighter in Ultimate, Chrom to get placed under Marth, and then… god, I guess Corrin is the last fighter of fighter’s pass 1? Again, it’d be much better to get a different franchise to be introduced in this spot, but… if the bosses wanted a pick, that’s who they’d get.
A Bit on My Thought Process
Of course, my selection process isn’t perfect. For one, my picks are biased towards main characters; you could obviously pick secondary characters if you felt they were more representative of the series as a whole. To give a current example, I think Robin’s adaptation of a wider array of classic Fire Emblem mechanics justified his inclusion over Chrom, the clear main character. After all, much as I’ve tried to keep them as diversified as possible in their movesets, they’re still by and large a bunch of swordies.
I’ve also skewed more towards earlier titles, as I feel they have more impact on the overall state of gaming as a whole. Games take time to settle down, be reflected upon, and be judged in context with the games that came out around and after it, so I’m always hesitant to give a spot to a new game–especially when it’s so new the character just feels like a glorified commercial.
Also, I don’t tend to put too much weight on character popularity. That tends to ebb and flow, and is often wildly different depending on what region you’re in. And of course, if a popular character is put in but then their popularity wanes for whatever reason, you’re left wondering why they were put in in the first place. But if someone is a representative of the series as a whole or the main character of a game, it’s much easier to point to them and say “yeah, that’s why they were included,” even if they’re not featured in more Fire Emblem games going forward.
Conclusion
That’s all I got! Thanks for reading all the way through, and I hope you let me know what you think! Not only are there many good arguments for why I should have picked different characters based on my own guidelines, there are also many other justifiable guidelines to use in order to pick characters.
I’m excited to hear what everyone else thinks!