Nintendo Adds Two Robins, Lucina, and Captain Falcon to Smash Bros.

@civid: Gota keep that 1080p/60fps ;)

Dorcas 4eva

That's been true since Melee (Ness).

I don't know who any of these people are, but there voice acting and designs is amazing

4 Fire Emblem characters and still no Hector or Seliph. Cryin shame I tell you!

It's interesting how some of these characters have now been in more Smash Bros games than in their own franchises.

Too bad Falcon couldn't have just knocked all these jabronis out to begin with so we could finally get some Advance Wars generals in this game

I continue to be ridiculously stoked for both versions of SSB but, where the hell are all the baddies?

Seriously, where's Wolf, Ganon/Yuga, Vaati, Bass.......................Tom Nook?

I'm going to be so goddamn sad if they don't add Lucas

@patrickklepek: Blazing Sword (simply called "Fire Emblem" in North America) and Path of Radiance are your best bets to start with. Good characterization, difficulty is challenging but not overbearing, and have a good variety of maps/ mission types (something I thought Awakening lacked).

If you play PoR and like it, Radiant Dawn is a direct sequel, though be warned it's very uneven in terms of quality. Parts of that game are really great, others are a total slog. There can be some crazy difficulty spikes too. It's also really long- 45 or so chapters, all of them mandatory. It basically feels like Intelligent Systems was dedicated to making the biggest, craziest, most hardcore and most epic game in the series, and things sort of got out of control. Overall it's quite good, but it's also probably the least friendly in terms of accessibility. FE veterans only.

I've never really liked Sacred Stones too much. Too easy, short, you have to play the game twice to get all the content (there's a point where the story branches and you have to choose one or the other- you can't play all the missions in one playthrough), and the game hands out game-breaking legendary weapons like candy. I wouldn't say you wouldn't like it though, it just doesn't feel like it was made for the FE obsessive type like myself.

Shadow Dragon can be safely ignored unless you feel like you have to play every FE game.

Shadow Dragon also has the problems of ugly visuals and painfully low character stat caps, making the fact that enemy reinforcements arrive at the start of a turn instead of the end, letting them move (and kill your guys) instantly, a big problem. Awakening has the same reinforcement mechanic, but reinforcements rarely spawn right next to you, and the game is a joke difficulty wise until lunatic anyways.

@turambar: Ok, that makes sense in retrospect.

@themanwithnoplan said:

He's just a part of Lucina's final smash.

It's not. He hasn't played another Fire Emblem game before. Awakening was basically Patrick's introduction to the tactics genre in general, to hear himself tell it.

Not really mentioned here, but it looks like you get to play as Chrom as well.

@patrickklepek:

Despite Awakening kind of changing the style, the core itself is still intact and I'd highly recommend the Gamecube game, Path of Radiance and its sequel Radiant Dawn on the Wii. Both are fairly expensive to get, but I'm sure you've got...ways.

Not exactly. All of Awakening's mechanics can be found spread out amongst Geneology of Holy War (eugenics), Sacred Stones (an overworld), Path of Radiance / Radiant Dawn (Character Skills), Shadow Dragon (changeable classes), and Mystery of the Emblem (player avatar character). Awakening was, if nothing else, a Best Of album for the franchise, which makes sense since it would been the franchise's swan song if it didn't do gangbusters.

Only Fire Emblem 7 and beyond were released outside of the Japan. Of those, I would suggest Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, which were for the Game Cube and Wii respectively. You'll find some familiar things from those two games, particularly character skills that were Awakening copied over.

If you're willing to patch some roms though, Fire Emblem 4: Geneology of Holy War is the game from where Awakening got its central mechanic: pairing up characters to produce off springs. It has much larger and longer stages compared to any of the other games in the franchise, some with multiple castles to capture, and is the only game to have weapons not completely disappear when reaching 0/x durability.

@vigorousjammer: Huh you know not what you say.

@chicken008:

F-Zero should make like Zelda and go open world. something like Midnight Club 2

This alternate universe where Fire Emblem characters have feet is really blasting my brain.

I really hope you can customize robin's name and look. If im ever going to even think about using that character it has to look like my girlfriend dammit!

Uh, they DID announce a new Fire Emblem, sort of. Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem on the Wii.

As for other games in the series, my favorite is the first game released stateside, just called Fire Emblem. The Sacred Stones is probably easiest to access since it's available on the 3DS, though the story is weaker and it's not as balanced. Path of Radiance on the Gamecube is great, though hard to find at this point. Pick one of those three. If you liked PoR, get Radiant Dawn on the Wii, since it's a direct sequel.

Avoid Shadow Dragon. Not worth playing at all.

I didn't see anything too different from Marth in Lucina's attacks. I'd honestly prefer it if she was just a Marth reskin if she isn't bringing any new attacks to the table.

I figured Lucina would end up in this game, and I'm glad she is because she was by far my favourite character in Awakening.

I also continue to be impressed with the production values of these trailers. I seem to recall Nintendo announcing that there wouldn't be any story mode, but this stuff feels oddly high-quality for one-off trailer appearances.

This means a new Fire Emblem will be announced soon, right? RIGHT???????

Uh... why?

My favorite thing I've seen about the new trailer online:

@zktr: do you think it's possible that he already played them and is still excited about a new one??

When compared to the non-anime characters, yeah the FE characters look a bit bleh. There are so many anime games that are made to specifically get the look right whereas in Smash it comes off as average. Also I don't feel that the in game models look the part of the source art either. It is odd to be a bit down on these things because I have always thought super highly of the Smash renditions of Mario, Zelda, and other Nintendo franchises.

What's with all the people so focused on graphics?

Vaike gets no love?? :(

@civid: I feel the same way. The visuals were something that quite impressed me in Melee and Brawl, but this one doesn't seem like such a step up and looks a bit bland. It's lacking that polish Mario Kart 8 has.

@civid said:

The close ups on the characters, especially the anime human ones like Palutena and Lucina, do look flat. The game is meant to be played from a farther perspective and ready to drop a Pokemon, Assist Trophy, or a scenery change at a moment's notice. Compared to Mario Kart 8, Smash Bros. 4 has a distinct lack of fancy lighting and snazzy effects. Maybe that's what the developer chose to sacrifice in order to lock down the frame rate.

Anyway, yay for Lucina, Robin, and Captain Falcon!

@shaanyboi said:

@chicken008 said:

More importantly, a new F-Zero would be nice.

Sakurai either making a dig at Nintendo, or teasing inside info. Either way, he knows what's up.

If Nintendo announced an HD F-Zero game I would buy a Wii-U right now. Real talk.

It just blows that Nintendo has no interest in producing one. Although I'm glad Sakurai understands.

Agreed, he knows what's up.

@def said:

Well... At least that's something.

I'm glad to see Nintendo reppin' hard on Fire Emblem, Awakening was such a great game. Going forward, I'd still like to see a Metal Gear character somewhere in there, personally.

@chicken008 said:

More importantly, a new F-Zero would be nice.

Sakurai either making a dig at Nintendo, or teasing inside info. Either way, he knows what's up.

@patrickklepek said:

The thing about Awakening is that it's a sort of love letter to the series. It took as many mechanics and features from previous titles and tossed them in to sort of a "best of Fire Emblem" game. A World Map, marriage and children, split promotions, and so on. The older games start to fall into that SRPG hole that you've mentioned before. They don't have all of the features that made Awakening a joy to play despite its weak story. Characters aren't as fleshed out on the surface, as support conversations are optional rather than highly encouraged. I can't really recommend going back to them unless you really enjoyed the combat and mechanincs of Awakening and really want to get your hands dirty.

But if you are feeling bold, I'd recommend trying the first GBA game, just "Fire Emblem" in the US. It has a nice tutorial prologue to the main story. It's a short 10 chapter thing that would give a clear indication if you really wanted to keep going or not.

You really can't go too wrong with any of the installments that have reached the US (the first DS one, Shadow Dragon is pretty weak, and the Wii one, Radiant Dawn, is a direct sequel to Path of Radiance for the Gamecube). The Sacred Stones is very easy, but it's also the one closest to Awakening in terms of mechanics (i.e. world map, infinite grinding, split promotions), and you probably own it if you cashed in on those 3DS ambassador program games. Not a bad place to start I think.

If they wanted to put more Fire Emblem characters in Smash, I would have liked them to go a little more obscure. Personally I would love to see a young Hector in Smash. Not every Fire Emblem character uses swords ya know.

Sakurai did express a desire for fewer clones in the new game, and so far, that is true. (No Ganondorf or Wolf/Falco in the game.) Sakurai did recently note on Miiverse however that unlike some of these other alternates in the new game (Female/Male variants of the Wii Fit Trainer, Villager, and Robin), Lucina and Marth do have some differing properties despite sharing the same moves. Thus, Lucina is different enough that she gets her own character slot rather than be considered an alternate Marth skin.

No console will ever have modern specs.
They'd have to be customizable PCs for that to happen.

@patrickklepek: Fire Emblem 8 (Sacred Stones) on the GBA is the closest in structure to Fire Emblem: Awakening due to the ability to grind if you're having difficulties and overall lower difficulty. You likely have ambassador status on your 3DS, so you might actually already own a copy of this game!

Fire Emblem 7 (Known just as Fire Emblem in North America) for the GBA is probably the best in the series (though a very good argument can be made for Awakening) and the first to make it to North America.The game progresses sequentially from map to map, meaning you have very little opportunities to grind beyond enemy manipulation and the Arenas and you have to really work toward maxing out support conversations (Which you only get 5 of for each character in games prior to Awakening). It's probably the hardest game of the three I'm recommending, but the most rewarding experience.

Fire Emblem 9 (Path of Radiance) is the lone Gamecube title in the series, which already puts up a big barrier due to you having to dig out your Wii/Gamecube from storage. Being a gamecube game, it's kind really ugly by today's standards, losing a lot of the animation and artistic charm that the GBA titles had (and Awakening brought back to the series). It's also the most expensive and rarest of the three. On the plus side, while it does move sequentially like Fire Emblem 7 with no overworld maps or optional missions, it's easier than Fire Emblem 7 and has a lot of quality of life features that you'd expect after playing Awakening (Support conversations outside of battle, highlighting on the map where multiple enemies can move at the same time, for example). You also gain Bonus EXP after each mission that you can allocate to any of your units to make sure they don't fall behind. Plus, Ike (the main character, who is playable in the new Smash game and seen in the trailer above) is one of the most broken characters in the series, so you can lean on him pretty heavily in the later portions of the game.

Any of those three are good titles to jump into after playing Awakening, which is the most approachable entrant in the series.

Anything prior to Fire Emblem 7 were Japan-only and, frankly, haven't aged all that well (Fire Emblem 6, the first (and weakest) GBA game, being the exception). Fire Emblem 10 (Radiant Dawn) on the Wii should only really be played if you're a big fan of the so-so story in Path of Radiance. Avoid Fire Emblem 11 (Shadow Dragon) on the DS.

While I'm a big fan of the Fire Emblem games and all three of the games I recommended above are excellent titles that are very much worth your time, I agree Valkyria Chronicles will probably be a more enjoyable because it's a completely different experience.

It's been a while since I've seen any new Smash footage so when they switched from the cartoon pre-rendered scene into the real game it made me really disappointed. I wonder if Nintendo will ever put out a console that has modern specs.

Wonder Red is a trophy in the game. No chance.

@patrickklepek: The GBA games (6-8) are a good place to start. Many people grew to love the series with FE7's localization, titled simply Fire Emblem, and it remains a popular favorite among fans.

From here you have two other camps who prefer the older games (FE4 being the cream of the crop) or the GC/Wii titles featuring Ike. It really just depends how far you're willing to explore, I'm just echoing what has already been said and some of us are so deep into it that we'll take anything we can get. I myself prefer the GBA games since I started with 6, but I can recommend them wholeheartedly to just about anyone willing to give the series a chance. Awakening borrowed several different aspects of games across the series, so some mechanics will be familiar.

Always nice to see you open to trying new things Patrick, even if it's just to get a better understanding of the genre/fanbase.

@zeg: I think I remember a quote from Sakurai saying that he wanted less clones, but maybe i'm just making stuff up. Up until this point I don't think they are doing a bad job at all because Melee and Brawl had around 5 or 6 clone characters each and in this game i think the only 2 clone characters are Toon Link and Lucina. With that said if they announce Ganondorf/Mewtwo/Falco with only minor changes to their moveset, then yes it's just gonna be tha same as the past 2 games.

@patrickklepek: I'd recommend Path of Radiance for the Gamecube. It's a great game and it has a direct sequel in Radiant Dawn for the Wii. Playing those games will also give you an appreciation for Ike in Smash Bros.

Well Toon Link was announced early on so that no clones idea is odd.

You could also say Luigi could be a Mario skin. Lucina is a set character unlike the customizable avatar that Robin is.

And Yes, white hair was the default.