And it's all over the place. The general principle is to add more detail to the cartoony characters, while simplifying the more realistic characters, in an effort to bring them closer together.
Which doesn't even apply sometimes. Byleth looks the exact same as in Three Houses, even carrying the art style from that game and contrasting with their FE peers. Pyra/Mythra look like they jumped out of an anime, in a game where literally no one else is modeled in that art style. It's all over the place.
It also falls flat because some characters are botched beyond recognition. Bowser, Peach, Young Link, ZSS, Shulk, Chrom? Yikes.
Ultimate's art direction just wasn't executed well. Unless the goal was washed out, soulless husks of these characters; then I guess it succeeded.
No, because it wasn't an artistic choice. It was a change made out of obligation to keep the age rating low.
On the Byleth point specifically, I don't think it's bad that Byleth retains their original art style. If anything, I think the opposite is true, and that all of them should do their best to maintain their original style, since that's always been something Fire Emblem itself has celebrated.
Chrom's model quality notwithstanding (though the quality can be somewhat excused due to the repurposed nature of his addition, and even then it's not as bad as the likes of Young Link and Wolf imo), all of Kozaki's characters match fairly well with how they are in Smash with, imo, the sole exception of Lucina's eyes (something about how they are in Smash has always bothered me). The angular faces match well for Chrom, Robin, Lucina (minus the aforementioned eye issue), and Corrin. Byleth, as mentioned, carries the Kurahana design very well. Ike flows fairly well with Kita Senri's design, though I do wish Radiant Dawn Ike specifically was a bit more vibrant to match how he's usually drawn. Roy...well, Roy is an odd case of being a Smash original design mishmash.
But if anything, I'd say the issue isn't with Byleth, but with Marth (and also Lyn and Tiki, the latter for the same reason as Lucina). It might be a grandfathered problem of not being associated with a specific artist, but at this point Daisuke Izuka has become the de facto Marth Artist, so I'd be fully in support of Marth getting a visual overhaul to match the Izuka design.
And this holds true for me of any future Fire Emblem additions that may or may not happen. Alm or Celica? Base them on Hidari's art. Alfonse or Veronica? Kozaki's. Alear? Mika Pikazo's. Lyn or Hector? Wada Sachiko's designs. Making Fire Emblem itself match a cohesive style is, in my eyes, missing the point, because there's never
been one.
Joking aside, yeah, they're highly varied colorful games. ...Even TP, the darkest game(literally and figuratively speaking).
