One of the most common complaints levied at Super Smash Bros. is its selection of fighters
from the Fire Emblem series.
The issue is generally simplified to "too many anime sword boys", but I think it's more
specifically that half the FE reps here are built from a single moveset: Marth.
Roy was a clone of Marth in Melee.
He's been reworked to be more distinct since, but if you know how to play Marth, you know
basically how Roy works.
And Lucina and Chrom are echo fighters for those two.
So half of the FE roster is built on the same core moveset, which no other franchise in
the series does to this extent, save for Zelda with its 50% Link setup.
So, how can we reduce the stigma, and why did it end up this way?
Let's begin with that second question.
Fire Emblem is a series where, by and large, each new game is a new story with a new cast.
It's not like Mario, where you have a mostly static cast, nor Pokemon where we get a ton
of new characters each time while the old ones mostly stick around.
Fire Emblem is a series of standalone narratives with few recurring characters, and a particular
set of tropes.
To whit: The Lord archetype.
The protagonists of most FE games fall into this archetype, which is basically a sword-wielding
royal who commands the heroic army.
And when you're trying to add a rep from each game to represent as much of the franchise
as possible, the protagonist is the most obvious choice.
Look at Dissidia Final Fantasy.
The initial roster is a hero and villain from each main game, mostly the main hero and villain.
Imagine how weird it would be if instead of Terra, Cloud and Squall, we had Locke, Tifa
and Rinoa.
Popular though they may be, they are not the faces of those games.
Likewise, when adding a rep for Fire Emblem, you're going to focus on the lead character
first, then the major characters aside from them, then popular characters, then the rest.
It's why Fire Emblem spin-offs, barring the very simplistic Heroes, are the way they are.
Warriors has a healthy selection of characters from the games represented, but they only
represent three games, plus Celica and Lyndis.
And the reason that roster leans so heavily into Fates is because, with two heroic factions,
you need to represent them equally, and if Fates only had as many reps as Awakening,
we'd get Corrin, the main siblings and that's already nine characters, so the selection
would be limited and boring.
And Three Houses has it worse.
Three Hopes was originally going to be Warriors 2, with some Three Houses reps in there.
If you think you'd get more than Byleth, Rhea, the three house heads, their respective second-in-command
and maybe one popular character each as well, you're insane.
And this is why it's so difficult to have a healthy selection of characters.
The broader the theme, the less room each title gets and the less inspired the choices
are.
Three Hopes can have basically all of the Three Houses cast because it's focused specifically
on that game.
Warriors has to limit its focus to three games to have anyone but the obvious picks, so characters
like Petra or Ignatz have no chance.
Smash isn't a Fire Emblem crossover, so it needs room for other franchises moreso than
FE.
So, you're only going to get one rep per game, barring an exception like Awakening, which
arguable has three lead protagonists, and is one of the most important entries due to
its impact on the franchise's popularity and longevity.
This is why, whatever you think of Corrin and Byleth, they were the only realistic picks
to represent their games.
The alternatives would be Ryoma or Xander for Fates, and Edelgard, Dimitri or Claude
for Three Houses.
If you pick one, that's prioritising one route over the others, and it feels lopsided.
It would be like adding a World of Warcraft rep from the Alliance with no Horde counterpart.
And you can't have multiple now even if that game is mega-popular, because the Awakening
reps were added when we only had two other FE characters on the roster.
You'd never get away with adding the three house heads when the series already has seven
reps, which is more than friggin' Zelda.
You get one rep per game at best, so you have to focus on who best represents that game,
and that's usually the protagonist.
But with said protagonists largely being the basic Lord archetype prior to Awakening (which
still had two Lords in its central trinity), the selection is going to be very samey from
a gameplay standpoint.
The only exception would probably be The Blazing Blade, because Eliwood is too similar to his
son Roy, and Lyndis is from this game and if her number of alts in Heroes is any indication,
she is one of the most popular characters in the franchise and would likely be used
instead.
I mean, she's already in Smash, being an assist trophy in the last three games.
So, how do we represent as much of the franchise as possible without resorting to weird picks
or flooding the roster with "more anime sword boys"?
Well, my solution isn't even a new idea.
It already exists in Smash and its names are Bowser Jr. and Hero.
Bowser Jr. has no alternate costumes, instead featuring the classic seven Koopalings as
his alternates, complete with unique voices and announcer calls.
The same goes for Hero, who is four heroes from Dragon Quest in one.
One could argue the same applies to the alternate genders of Wii Fit Trainer and the Fire Emblem
avatars - unique voice and design, but unchanged gameplay.
This is different from Echo Fighters like Lucina or Daisy, because they don't play any
differently.
This means there's less of a balance issue.
That means less dev time spent on that, and removes the age-old issue of "this character
does everything this one does but better" that might keep you from playing, say, Marth
because Lucina has the same moves but with tweaks that make her higher tier.
If Lucina was just a costume for Marth, you could essentially have either of them with
that same higher tier version of the moveset.
So, there's my solution: archetypes.
Merge fighters that are very similar into the same slot to serve as alternate costumes,
freeing up roster space and dev time for more distinct characters.
Let's imagine a hypothetical take.
Lord is now an archetype.
It's the best version of Marth's moveset and features Marth, Lucina and Roy as costumes.
We need one more to reach four characters with two costumes apiece, so let's add Leif
from Thracia 776, since he was going to be Marth's Melee clone before Roy was chosen.
Next, we have Heavy Lord, consisting of Ike, Buff Ike and Chrom.
We can then add one more, and I think Alm from Echoes would be a good fit here based
on his armour choice.
So now, our FE roster looks like this: Lord, Heavy Lord, Robin, Corrin, Byleth.
We can now, theoretically, insert three more reps or archetypes.
One option is to add a Light Lord, a faster, more fencer-type archetype to encompass characters
like Celica and Eirika.
Or, we could complete the weapon triangle with lance, axe and maybe bow, or add mounted
units, manaketes, a duo unit, or even a Pokemon Trainer-esque summoner based on Heroes, utilising
three popular characters like Lyndis.
This approach opens up so many possibilities.
We could also add more characters to the non-archetypes, like Morgan and Kana for Robin and Corrin.
In all likelihood, though, we'd get two because we ARE getting Alear from Engage next time,
with either Marth or an unrepresented character like Sigurd for male, and Celica for female.
That much is obvious.
This way, we have reps for Shadow Dragon and Mystery of the Emblem through Lord Marth;
Echoes through Heavy Lord Alm; Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776 through Lord
Leif; The Binding Blade through Lord Roy; Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn through
Heavy Lord Ike; Awakening through Robin, Lord Lucina, and Heavy Lord Chrom; Fates through
Corrin; Three Houses through Byleth; and Engage through Alear.
This leaves The Blazing Blade and The Sacred Stones, which are easy enough to do with archetypes,
like Light Lord Lyndis and Eirika.
Now, any new additions can focus on adding lances, axes, bows, etc. which are pretty
rare for Smash, removing the stigma of nonstop anime sword boys, who will simply be added
to the existing archetypes in future, unless they have something unique to offer, like
Corrin's manakete abilities, Alear's Emblem Ring, or a duo unit like Celica and Alm.
And this idea can be taken for condensing the roster at large down to free up space,
since I'm doubtful Smash 6 will have anywhere near this size roster.
Imagine Mario, Luigi and Dr. Mario being merged into the Plumber archetype to make way for
Magikoopa and Waluigi.
Or Pichu being part of the Pikachu archetype with Raichu and Detective Pikachu to allow
for Team Rocket or a Gen 3 rep, finally.
Imagine less Links to fit Midna, Impa or Urbosa.
And this would also allow for third parties to be expanded without consuming the roster,
like other Mega Mans, Shadow and Metal Sonic, or Akuma and Sakura joining the shoto archetype.
With a change like this, the roster would become more manageable, with more room for
more varied characters.
Do I think something like this will be implemented?
No.
I think Smash 6 will likely be a reboot, Ultimate serving as the last big hurrah for the original
incarnations of these characters, before starting fresh with a much smaller roster but with
classic characters' movesets overhauled to both better represent them as they are now
in their home series, and to add more complexity to them along the lines of the gimmicks many
of the modern newcomers have.
As part of this, I foresee most of the FE reps going.
Marth will stay and Ike probably as well, along with Robin, Byleth and newcomer Alear
- focusing on what's popular, the most iconic and what stands out within Smash already.
Of course, the ideal would be that archetypes would be implemented to allow for a larger
selection of characters without having to worry about balancing a larger roster, and
allowing for smaller, more frequent DLC offerings, since they could just make a new model and
record some new lines to add in every month.
This month we're getting Hilda for the FE Axe archetype; next month is Sean for the
Shoto archetype; and after that is Jin for the Mishima archetype.
Naturally, this approach would annoy a lot of players who main the characters that are
being combined, but they're going to be let down anyway when the roster inevitably starts
to cut extraneous characters to make room for more contemporary fighters, so having
their main stick around as a costume for someone else is better than them being gone entirely,
right?
It's unavoidable, so we might as well make the best of it.
But what do you guys think?
Is this approach something worth pursuing?
Would it fix the issues with the roster?
Let me know in the comments below.
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Today's recommended video is What's the Difference between Marth and Roy?
(SSBU) by Alex.EXE, because I think it does a decent job of showcasing why such a change
is necessary going forward.