The final character of Smash Ultimate's first wave of DLC is finally here! Their choice this time around is.... polarizing, to say the least, but in any case, I'm here today to discuss this new character and all the other stuff that came with this patch. BACKGROUND:
Like virtually every Nintendo fan outside of Japan, my first introduction to Fire Emblem came from Smash. I took one look at Marth and said "who the fuck is this guy?", and soon enough, I went down a Google search rabbit hole. While I haven't played a lot of the games in the series, I've since explored a few titles over the years, enough to comfortably say that I'm a fan of the franchise. I'm sure many people out there have had a similar experience. Ironically, Smash is responsible for turning plenty of people away from Fire Emblem. During the Smash 4 days, they added more Fire Emblem characters than what people expected, which was a direct response to the series gaining new life thanks to the success of the 3DS game FE: Awakening. Smash players started to notice that there were more Fire Emblem representatives compared to, say, Zelda reps, and this observation caused a bit of a stir among Smash fans. The disdain only escalated when Corrin (the avatar character of FE: Fates, a game that hadn't been localized outside of Japan yet during the DLC announcement) was added as a DLC fighter, leading to the whole "meme" about how there were "too many anime swordsmen in Smash." It only got worse in Ultimate, which brought everyone back, including all those Fire Emblem characters people are starting to get sick of. With all this in mind, it was no surprise to see the floodgates burst due to the rush of vitriol over Byleth's announcement. Completely baseless statements arguing how they were a "waste of a character slot" they were started flying about, there was hate directed at Fire Emblem fans who were happy about the inclusion, and worst of all, the Fire Emblem series itself unfairly became the target of many mean-spirited comments. As a fan of the franchise, and as someone who's seen people project their mostly unrelated grievances onto otherwise good things (see: Iron Fist, the Inhumans, basically anything with a shitty fanbase), it was disheartening to see history repeat itself. Here's the thing: I don't disagree with some of the more reasonable criticisms leveled at the disparity of FE reps in Smash by any stretch. Would I have preferred other Nintendo franchises represented? Sure. Should they have done something more than just put in a dude with a sword? Of course, FE characters have diverse fighting styles. Did Nintendo shoot themselves in the foot by setting an "all third party characters" Fighters Pass precedent? A little bit. Would I have rather gotten someone else over Byleth? Honestly, yes. There's a lot Nintendo could have done better with regards to this whole thing that could have been a good compromise between "we want more Fire Emblem" and "we should tone it down for the fans". But at the end of the day.... it's just a video game. No one's lives are harmed because Nintendo decided another Fire Emblem character in Smash would be neat. It's OK to be disappointed, or to dislike the choice, but I wouldn't lose sleep over it, let alone go ballistic on Twitter with my displeasure; it seems like a waste of time and energy to fixate on this one little thing that ultimately means nothing in the grand scheme. Also... it's DLC. You know, optional content that no one made you buy (unless you pre-purchased the Fighters Pass, in which case, it's kind of irrational to get mad at Nintendo because you voluntarily bought something before you knew anything about what exactly it would contain). Plus, there's like six more DLC characters. Nintendo's got six more chances to blow our minds. Don't stress out about it, you know? I apologize for the ramblings, but this is such a prevalent topic of discourse online, and I felt compelled to say something about it. Enough of that; let's get back on topic.... I'm actually in the process of playing through Three Houses at the moment, so I am plenty familiar with Byleth. Out of all the Fire Emblem characters that have been added up to this point, Byleth's easily the one I have the strongest connection to, so I was more than OK with their inclusion. That said, they're the typical player-insert protagonist, and I would've preferred a Three Houses character with more personality, but hey, I'll take it. On the subject of Three Houses, rest assured I'm working on the blog entry for that. I just gotta finish a few more story routes before I finish writing. If you want to see that, look forward to it coming in a few weeks or so. WHAT'S NEW: The main attraction is obviously the new playable character Byleth. On the surface, they seem like the often-derided "anime swordsman" Smash fans are tired of, but their moveset actually features more than just the sword. Byleth actually uses three other prominent weapon types in Fire Emblem games: the lance, the axe, and the bow. Many characters throughout the series are able to use multiple weapon types depending on their class (e.g. ninjas can use daggers and swords, mage knights can use lances and magic), so this ability to swap weapons is accurate to the series. Byleth uses a different weapon depending on the attack input, which I thought was a cool way to handle the concept without getting too complex (I envisioned a stance change kind of character where Byleth had an entirely unique moveset depending on the equipped weapon, then I quickly realized: that's sort of what Pokémon Trainer's gimmick is, except you change characters instead of weapons). Overall, Byleth is pretty straightforward; they don't have outlandish gimmicks like Joker or Hero had, and a lot of their moves are basically just offensive moves, so no tricky stuff like counters or reflectors. They're not impressive in terms of mobility, with their below average speed, and a while a lot of their moves hit hard and have great range, a lot of them are pretty slow both in terms of startup and recovery, so throwing moves out willy-nilly is unsafe and ill-advised. They do have some neat tools, like a few combo options, and the specials are simple but usable: up-b is a really fun move with lots of potential, side-b is an awesome long-range option, neutral-b is a slow, but lethal projectile, and down-b is a hard-to-land but satisfying big damage option. I wasn't doing any crazy shit like I was with Terry, but I still liked what Byleth had to offer in terms of combat. References to the original games in FE reps can be hit or miss, but Byleth very much excels in that department. The moves don't feel arbitrary, as some animations are reminiscent of the Combat Arts in Three Houses. The weapons themselves are prominent items in the lore, including Byleth's signature Sword of the Creator, which doubles as a badass whip. The color variations made total sense, referencing the most important characters in the game, and stuff like taunts and the voice lines are straight out of the game. The only thing I found odd was how Byleth would yell the weapon's name when she throws out moves; no one does that in FE unless you're using magic (see: Robin, who shouts the spell names). Byleth of course comes with the stage, and it's none other than Garreg Mach Monastery. This was pretty much the only sensible choice for a Three Houses stage, as it is the location you spend most of your time in the game in. It's nothing special in terms of gimmicks, as it's just a traveling stage showing off iconic sections of the monastery, but the stage looks gorgeous, and there are character cameos to appease the hardcore fans. Best of all, it comes with eleven new tracks from Three Houses (which has a killer OST), and they got pretty much all the best tracks in here. In addition, there are new Three Houses spirits, all representing most of the important characters (plus a couple of fan favorites), and their respective Spirit Battles reference them perfectly (for the most part). There's also a new Classic Mode route for Byleth, where you face off against every other Fire Emblem character (which I'm sure will only add fuel to the "too many Fire Emblem characters" dumpster fire). I found the boss fight for the route especially amusing. Outside of Byleth-related content, there are new Mii costumes. A couple were returning costumes from Smash 4 (the two Mega Man outfits), one was a terrifying-looking hat representing Ubisoft's Rabbids franchise, and a costume of Altaïr, the protagonist of the first Assassin's Creed game. The highest profile costume addition is Cuphead, who, like Sans before him, is a high-quality Mii costume that's the spitting image of the actual character. Also similar to Sans, the Cuphead costume comes with a bonus music track from his original game, which I had to have. I like this growing precedent of big indie game characters being represented as costumes and getting their own music tracks as a bonus; I hope they continue it, because they're pretty much the only cosmetic items in this game I feel are worth getting. If they aren't willing to promote an indie character to full playable fighter status (though I hope they are), I would find this an acceptable compromise. V7 is also reportedly a huge patch in terms of balance changes. I only follow competitive Smash on a casual level and don't really take the game too seriously, but I'm nonetheless interested to see how the changes shape the tournament scene going forward. Competitive Smash in 2020 is only getting started with events like Genesis 7 and Evo Japan having happened just a few days ago, so these big changes coming in at pretty much the beginning of the year should result in something interesting. VERDICT: Online vitriol be damned, I found Byleth to be a satisfying addition to the roster, with enough flavor to stand out from all the other "anime swordsmen" and a lot of love shown for Three Houses in general. The Mii costumes this round were neat as well, and the big balance changes have me intrigued. Good patch overall. However, the focus will now shift from Byleth to the next wave of DLC moving forward. There will be a total of six new characters added throughout the course of this year and the next, and as always, I am ever excited for whatever insane shit they add to this already insane game in the future. Smash Ultimate has become a truly unprecedented celebration of games, and I am ready to see that celebration become even grander. - end -
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June 2024
Derryck
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