Kuzu

forces would've been better if it bothered to be about anything, instead of just being a pile of half-formed ideas

Shadow's role in Forces bugs me to know end. In the prequel episode, he's the reason that Infinite had his breakdown and chose to become the super villain that he is throughout the rest of the game. Shadow then proceeds to disappear for half of the events of Forces, with nobody actually questioning where he is is why he's sided with Eggman. You could infer that Shadow was in Infinite's virtual reality for six months, but that's ambiguous at best. And let's ignore the fact that in Episode Shadow, the city is already destroyed and Infinite creates a sandy Green Hill illusion. Apparently Shadow left such a big impact on Infinite that not only led to him becoming a super villain, but also led to him creating countless Shadow clones for his army.

But Infinite and Shadow don't have any interactions outside of Episode Shadow. Despite Shadow being Infinite's trigger, Infinite suddenly turns all his attentions to Sonic. And Shadow hardly bats an eyelid either. Infinite is such a boring character and the only time we get any semblance of personality from him is in Episode Shadow.

I still can't believe after all the hype they gave Infinite they just unpersoned him after the game. What a waste of everyone's time that character 

@Blue Blood All of this is exactly why I made this post; the entire sequence of events hinders on Sonic, Shadow, and Infinite but none of that ever gets elaborated on while they force some narrative with the Avatar and Classic Sonic remains an afterthought.

Had the game been about Infinite's descent to madness against Sonic and Shadow, the main two people he's antagonistic towards.

Wouldn’t the moment you come into the world be considered a birthday?

What do you mean? His role is give Sonic someone to talk to. Someone to save when we need that plot. Someone to explain the plot. Someone to give false conflict like in Lost World. Someone to share bad jokes with. Someone to make other villains or heroes look good at his expense. That's plenty right?

Someone to be a friend to

Now that I think about it…how do you think the Smash community would feel about Claude being the TH rep instead of Byleth? I know I’d be less disappointed about the DLC placement and more excited over a completely unique fighter.

I wonder how the Japanese Smash fanbase sees this addition 

I mean tbh, I'm sort of getting sick of this whole narrative surrounding, well, anything Nintendo that people aren't allowed to be upset with announcements.

Like yes, the threats against Sakurai are completely uncalled for but that should go without fucking saying. It shouldn't be the main argument/ knee jerk reaction to people when they voice general disappointment.

We're seeing a lot more backlash with this recent fighter because I believe the general consensus is that FE really shouldn't have this many reps. If you're excited that Byleth made it in then more power to you honestly. I went through a similar harping session back with 4 when Dark Pit made it in so I genuinely do get what some FE fans are going through atm. It's not fun when a character you like is getting shit on by the majority. Though, at the same time, lets not act like people voicing concerns don't have anything to stand on or should just stay quiet.

At the end of the day, there's always some bias coming out anyway no matter what side you're on in these cases.

I understand people have biases, and I understand that people aren't obligated to like any new addition to the game.

But I kinda don't like how Smash Bros. has become this bastion of hype; that if things "aren't hype", people don't bother with it. It's gotten to the point where people have an issue with a NINTENDO character being put into a game about...nintendo characters instead of some other third party franchise. 

No, people do not have to like every single character and people are free to voice their concerns...but at the end of the day, nothing about this character's inclusion I feel warrants the reactions I've been seeing. It would have been so much easier to just be "oh well" and kept it moving...

We've gotten to the point when franchises like Pokemon or FE can't even add characters without being accused "commercialism" or "Favoritism" even if they are Nintendo franchises themselves. 

It's pretty dumb when they ask us to pay for a fighter pass without telling us who the characters are, and suggesting to us that they will all be from brand new series not currently represented by Smash (and btw the "actually they meant new FIGHTERS" rhetoric doesn't work here considering Smult already includes everyone from past games). So the people who bought the pass thinking that everything will be new, as we were told, only to find that the last one is yet another fucking Fire Emblem character who has at least seven other reps, are probably going to feel a little swindled.

Goes for every single game that does season passes without telling players what the contents will be, not just Smash. I think the practice is extremely bad and I wish companies would stop doing it.

Season Passes are kind of a grey area in general; because if you reveal everything all at once, then there's no more surprise to entice customers to actually buy it. It's a very questionable business practice, but I do understand that Nintendo has to make money somehow to sustain itself, and many other companies as well. 

My problem with Byleth isn't even just that it's another FE character in a season pass full of nothing but third parties (if they had to sell us another FE I'd rather it be a separate purchase like Piranha Plant), but also that there are so many characters from 3H that would have been way more unique and interesting. Smash is a game that prides itself on how unpredictable its reveals and fanservice can be; Byleth is the most boring, predictable choice you could have pulled from that game.

Also, I don't think Smash picking a single house lord as its 3H rep would be anymore problematic than picking Incineroar as its sole SM character, so it's also weird to me seeing people say that they couldn't have gone with just Claude or Edelgard for that reason.

Also note how every character trailer before at least had some buildup before actually revealing who the character is, except maybe Isabelle, Terry at least build up to which Fatal Fury charcter would be picked.

Byleth in comparison instantly comes up with absolutily no bulidup, and thus no fanfare. Despite Sakurai hyping up how you can figure out who he is pretty quckly in the stream, the execution ended up making me dread that statement rather than hype me up now.

Most of the characters from their series represent the game they're from; so Byleth does make the most sense, given we had Robin, and Corrin in the past. At the very least, they could have added the three Lords along with Byleth to alleviate it; we got Chrom and Lucina. No reason we couldn't have got Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude in addition to Byleth. 

Most of the fire emblem reps reuse so many mechanics and animations from one another that I actually consider it less indulgent than the band of entirely unique Pokemon fighters.I understand if casual players don't feel that way just looking at the CSS at a glance but Most people in the online Smash fandom agree that there aren't actually six Zelda characters being represented due to the abundant number of clones but Fire Emblem never gets this consideration when it's on the hot seat.

I feel like buying the fighters pass  is up to the purchaser and putting enough faith in the developers that they'll have characters you find appealing in every pack. It's really no harm to just wait and buy the character passes one at a time instead Imo, which is what I did. 

This is one of those cases where the narrative that people were mad, just cause FE is incorrect. 

Byleth was just very poorly timed and really did not fit in with the pass given how it was advertised. 

Byleth's just boring. I don't really care about the outside factors as much, though the build-up from something as random as Joker, to big surprises with Hero, Banjo and Terry to... another FE avatar really did make this reveal a letdown (doesn't exactly help with the reasoning they initially gave for Rex and Pyra or Springman not making it and not even being considered for DLC)--and I didn't even purchase the pass.

Like I said before, if we were gonna get a new FE rep on this pass anyway, I just wish it wasn't something so boring and safe and that they broke the mold on how people perceive the series as it appears in Smash. The spirits in Ultimate and the trophies in past games show such a huge variety of cool characters that an avatar that can use everyone's weapons is a boring creative choice versus using a house lord. No, I'm not a game developer, no, I don't answer to shareholders, no, I'm not designing things under a deadline, but as a consumer I just want to see something interesting that will win me over if I'm not already a fan.

I'm not going to say that her current character is perfect but tbh, this was the logical step forward that they should've taken with her after SA1 imo.

I don't think that trait of hers should be as muted as it is now, but I still do like how 80% of her dialogue in everything that she's in isn't some pass at Sonic anymore. It's just another area where I hope improvement comes if/ when Sega actually starts giving two shits about their characters.

I mean, its kinda 50/50; I largely didn't care for her prior characterization, but that's who she was for the most part and she had her fans. But now she's just...kinda there. 

At least before she kinda warranted a reaction from Sonic, but now she just doesn't even register on his radar anymore. 

Tbf that's most of the cast with him as far as the games are concerned.

As for the comics, yeah I won't really argue that but I guess it's more of personal taste for me. Again, I think that side of her should come out a bit more than it does now, but just not anywhere near where it was before if that makes any sense.

I actually liked her in issue 2 because it did a good job of showing her as affectionate for Sonic, but she was still able to pull her weight when it came down to it. We largely haven't gotten anything like that since...which yea, I get because the current plot just doesn't allow for it. 

That's why I hope Flynn focuses on smaller, character-focused conflicts after the Zombot arc so the cast can largely be fleshed out. Right now, they're just a bunch of a archetypes running around in a larger plot. 

I disagree whole-heartedly 

I mean, what's actually interesting about her now then?

I would've rather SEGA built on Amy's other traits instead of playing her safe. It's better that she's not obsessive over Sonic now, but I'd rather it become an innocent schoolgirl crush than the nothing it is now.

Amy has other traits too, as she's shown herself to be resourceful. If she wants something or to be somewhere, Amy will find a way. And she’s the heart of any team, as Amy has played emotional and morality support for more than a few characters. All this with a young mind; she’s hardly mature at her age.

That’s my view on Amy, at least.

I wouldn't say kinda boring, I'd say super boring. Almost if not equivalent to mid 2000's Tails boring.

I think people exaggerate how much they downplayed her. They just actually show her doing things besides chasing tail now

Well, if we look at post 06; she's a minor character in Unleashed, only cameos in the DS version of Colors, and once again a minor character in Generations, Lost World, and Forces.

Boom is her most prominent role to date, and she's basically a different character there for the most part in a similar vein to Knuckles. She's a good character there mind you, but vastly different from her main counterpart.

can i pretend neither exists

@Diogenes Depends if you bought the Fighter Pass or not 

Did you buy the fighter pass?

sadly yes

Whoops 

I'm sorry

Edelgard did nothing wrong 

She did a lot of wrong things, but so did everyone else so it evens out.

I think you must surely understand why people are disappointed though? Playing and liking Three Houses doesn't mean that you're not going to disappointed that Byleth was the last fighter the DLC. At least there's are more fighters to come, because this would have been a very dull note to end on.

Oh I know why, this was a pretty safe pick after all of the unexpected choices prior. And it was deliberate too otherwise Sakurai wouldn't have put that disclaimer beforehand.

Its just that I never had the large expectations everyone else had to begin with, Byleth looks fine. So I'm just like "neat, new fighter". There's really no reason for me to be upset.