I've heard Byleth getting talked about a fair amount, and I get the impression that they have decent moveset potential. One notable trait I can glean from them is their use of a whip-sword at some point in the game. As someone who isn't too familiar with Three Houses, can you tell me what other properties and mechanics they could bring to Smash? I'm genuinely curious.
Along with the sword-whip move potential, Byleth has access to just about any spells that can be learned in the game and a time-based mechanic (which, lets be fair, would be used for a counter akin to Shulk's and other FE characters if its used at all).
They can also reclass to any class in the game, so it wouldn't be out of place to give them other weapons for attacks or even some sort of weapon-swapping mechanic akin to characters like Zelda-Sheik or Pokémon Trainer..only the character stays the same while the moveset changes, which could reference something else not really used much in Smash for Fire Emblem yet, the ability to use different weapons or re-class to a different type of unit.
My take on Fire Emblem is that it has too many characters, but that's kind of the fault of Everyone is Here; I don't think Corrin and Lucina would have made the transition from 4. Many franchises suffer from it (Dr. Mario and Young Link come to mind) but Fire Emblem suffers the most imo because it's not (yet) as mainstream as any series with that amount of characters. That said I do think Three Houses' success and acclaim warrants a character, and I'd love to see Byleth in Smash, but I understand anyone who feels it's too much; bar Marth and maybe Ike, the characters aren't known enough to really draw in non-fans. I think a Smash 6 with a few key cuts, and distinctive additions such as Byleth and the long-overdue Lyn could go a long way in making non-fans like the characters too.
Tl;dr maybe Ultimate DLC isn't the best place for an FE newcomer
I think Corrin would have made it back simply due to having a unique moveset. I think the Fire Emblem characters most likely to be cut or reduced to alternate costumes would be Roy, Lucina, and Chrom due to all of them just being extensions of Marth's moveset.
However, I kinda feel like people wouldn't be as upset about 'too many FE characters' if they all shared a slot with Marth (with the option to have them all separate like we currently have with Echo Fighters), like, you just select Marth and then you can select Marth, Roy, Lucina, or Chrom, each with their own separate properties and a few altered moves.
All the same, if characters were cut for Fire Emblem, the FE roster would definitely be Marth, Ike, Robin, & Corrin.
And maybe, but with how everyone always says they want to keep ALL the characters from previous games, than they should have seen this coming..if characters were ALWAYS kept, of course series with rotating rosters like Fire Emblem would eventually somewhat dominate the roster akin to Pokémon (which, while not having a rotating roster, does always add new Pokémon). Were Final Fantasy a Nintendo series the same thing would have happened..its simply that Nintendo doesn't tend to have a lot of rotating roster series that are big enough to get new characters into Super Smash Bros, the closest one would be Xenoblade Chronicles which is starting to pick up steam following Xenoblade Chronicles 2's success. Series like Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Kirby keep the same primary characters with maybe one or two being added. Its kind of telling that for those series you have to try and find a secondary character like Waluigi or Impa or a one-time character like Midna or Ghirahim (and yes, I know the irony in this when one of my wanted Echoes is Princess Hilda, a one-time character).
In order for Fire Emblem to continue to have current representation in the game, characters have to either be cut or fans just have to accept that it will have a lot of characters.
It's just that Smash fanbase were clamouring for Chrom to join the game while everyone was just more "eh" with Lucina from what I've seen.
That was mostly due to a couple things.
- Chrom was 'leaked' through that Gematsu leak, so everyone expected Chrom.
- Chrom is seen as the 'main lord' for the game.
- Lucina was revealed as a Marth clone, which, until characters were called Echoes weren't a big thing.
