Aninymouse
3DS Surfer
I think it's no secret that I'm a big fan of Ike. I've generally stayed away from discussing this topic in particular: how Awakening made me feel (and still makes me feel, at times) about the Ike vs. Chrom hype. In fact, I haven't seen many people address it at length at all (at least, from a pro-Ike viewpoint). I suppose that, before Ike's reveal, tensions were high between the Ike and Chrom camps, even though they never did have to be at odds with one another; and so, it didn't get debated much.
Well, it was this thread that helped me distill my feelings about the topic, and brought to memory a lot of the reasons I didn't care for certain aspects of Awakening. Allow me to quote our own moderator, ---, from that same thread:
There's a lot of sexy clothing, yes, but also, some character classes even move in enticing ways; the way the female Trickster class shake their hips in the idle animation comes to mind. You almost expect the Dancer class to be a sensual character, sure, but should the other female classes also be this way?
Yeah, it's mostly tame. No, it doesn't ruin the game for me. But I'd be lying if I said I wanted more of that in the future. I think FE has always had attractive female characters, though they were once very cartoony. That's not it. It's the fact that the female form was definitely exploited in Awakening to make the game more enticing. Every other anime-styled RPG that comes out of Japan has strong sexual overtones these days, it seerms. I kind of enjoyed that Fire Emblem has tended to be the exception in that regard. It's not to say that sex is the enemy. No, but we are awash in a sea of sexual exploitation and over-saturation in America. And although the last time I was in Japan was in 2004, Japan certainly has its own problems with handling sex in a respectful and healthy manner that I can only assume have intensified since then.
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It took me a year to finally break down and buy FE:A. When I first saw the blatant exploitation in the promotional artwork, I decided not to buy it. But... boredom got the better of me. It's a good game, I've come to find out, but not for the same reasons that PoR or RD were good, per se.
How does this relate to characters in Smash? Well, for one thing, it's a small part of why I was never very enthused about Chrom's possible inclusion, and especially offended that people wanted Chrom to replace Ike. There is also the fact that Chrom has a lot - much more than Marth - of visual similarities to Ike. Also, in my opinion, Chrom's character is not inspiring or especially praiseworthy. Chrom behaves much like a warrior figurehead, with the hard decisions all being made for him throughout the story - mostly by Avatar/Robin, but also by the other rulers and local leaders he surrounds himself with.
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So what's the point, right? Am I here just to trash talk on Awakening? No. I do have some concerns with the direction Awakening took, but I still consider myself a Fire Emblem fan. My hope is that people who maybe were introduced to Fire Emblem by way of Awakening can come to understand the viewpoint of the more long-time fans who came to understand Fire Emblem through the other games. In fact, there are a LOT of things I do love about Awakening, and there are some incredibly well-done characters as well, like Lucina and Gregor. Heck, I hope Awakening fans will check out Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn sometime.
If Chrom makes it into Smash, will I be upset? No. I might get a bit miffed if a scantily-clad female fanservice character is put in, but that's not nearly as likely, so I don't feel I have much to worry about, there. No, in fact I have a lot of hope that Sakurai will pull off a character like Chrom, or Robin, or whoever, with aplomb. If he can make a character as iconic and well-liked as Captain Falcon out of literally nothing, he can certainly manage another FE character. I do have some concerns with the animations Chrom has in Awakening (such as the prevalence of jumping attacks), but who knows! Maybe that will be the thing that sets Chrom apart, if he makes it.
No... I just wanted to share some thoughts. Maybe spark some conversation. The one thing I didn't do much of was to build a positive case for Ike and his games, so in closing, here's the love letter that Fatmanonice composed, which echoes some of my feelings about Ike nicely:
Well, it was this thread that helped me distill my feelings about the topic, and brought to memory a lot of the reasons I didn't care for certain aspects of Awakening. Allow me to quote our own moderator, ---, from that same thread:
On the subject of FE: Awakening, yes, I think the fanservice levels were off the charts for a FE game. Compared to other franchises, it probably looks tame by comparison, granted. Marriages have been done before in FE games, so romance is not the issue. I feel it has more to do with the overall character design being very intentional about sex appeal. Some characters, like Aversa, don't even wear clothes so much as they have body paint as their main covering. Tharja sports a thong bikini and a sheer bodysuit as her standard battle attire. Cherche wears a very conservative suit of armor in-game, but her promotional artwork has her back turned to the viewer, revealing that her armor has a plunging open back, from her shoulders all the way down to the top of her butt. The back of her tunic is also a miniskirt that barely covers her rear quarters. So in Cherche's case, they took an otherwise modest character design and turned it into something kinky for the purpose of sex appeal. Her back isn't even in view through normal gameplay, but it is her promotional artwork that has her turned around. There are countless other small touches for other characters that are unnecessary or handled in an exploitative manner: Tiki has the huge cleavage, sure, but she also has slits up her dress above her hip, and her garter belts (which most female characters have in this game); Lissa's corset and German bar maid top; Nowi's entire character trope, as a barely-clothed 1,000-year-old lolicon (it's almost self-parodying, if it wasn't so sad), which is pretty uncomfortable for me, if you consider that the roots of this character type are rooted deeply in animated child porn; Olivia's half-bare ass.Am kinda embarrassed to be saying this, but honesty one of the primary reasons I just can't get into Awakening was Path of Radiance as a whole and Smash.
Granted I like the sheer amount of depth that FE13 has and I'd never not recommend someone play it, but everything else I felt that past FE games had done a lot better; as well as the direction towards more fan service turned me away from a once respectable anime styled game, which are rare to begin with. To see it suddenly be getting the reviews, sales, and praise that other games in the series never got, was just plain upsetting to me as a diehard fan who owns every game bar FE6; not that I don't want to see the series do well.
Smash in particular was a sore spot for me with everyone suddenly changing boats from having Roy and Ike back to having Chrom. Though the biggest offense for me was how people compared Chrom to Ike, while there is some truth based on concept designs, both are radically different from one another. Seeing people, even some Ike mains, say just give his moveset to Chrom was a major sore spot. I think objectively (sorry) Ike is the better character of the two in every way, and to see people treat him as someone forgettable both in and out of his series flat out hurt.
With both his, and to a lesser extent, Lucario's, confirmation the last real big worry I had for this game's roster has lifted. Granted there are still characters I want to see return and would be bummed if they didn't return, but Ike was the one that I would have thrown a fanboy fit over. Overall though, Ike's return has lifted one of the many dark clouds over speculation for this game and I couldn't be happier.
There's a lot of sexy clothing, yes, but also, some character classes even move in enticing ways; the way the female Trickster class shake their hips in the idle animation comes to mind. You almost expect the Dancer class to be a sensual character, sure, but should the other female classes also be this way?
Yeah, it's mostly tame. No, it doesn't ruin the game for me. But I'd be lying if I said I wanted more of that in the future. I think FE has always had attractive female characters, though they were once very cartoony. That's not it. It's the fact that the female form was definitely exploited in Awakening to make the game more enticing. Every other anime-styled RPG that comes out of Japan has strong sexual overtones these days, it seerms. I kind of enjoyed that Fire Emblem has tended to be the exception in that regard. It's not to say that sex is the enemy. No, but we are awash in a sea of sexual exploitation and over-saturation in America. And although the last time I was in Japan was in 2004, Japan certainly has its own problems with handling sex in a respectful and healthy manner that I can only assume have intensified since then.
**********
It took me a year to finally break down and buy FE:A. When I first saw the blatant exploitation in the promotional artwork, I decided not to buy it. But... boredom got the better of me. It's a good game, I've come to find out, but not for the same reasons that PoR or RD were good, per se.
How does this relate to characters in Smash? Well, for one thing, it's a small part of why I was never very enthused about Chrom's possible inclusion, and especially offended that people wanted Chrom to replace Ike. There is also the fact that Chrom has a lot - much more than Marth - of visual similarities to Ike. Also, in my opinion, Chrom's character is not inspiring or especially praiseworthy. Chrom behaves much like a warrior figurehead, with the hard decisions all being made for him throughout the story - mostly by Avatar/Robin, but also by the other rulers and local leaders he surrounds himself with.
***********
So what's the point, right? Am I here just to trash talk on Awakening? No. I do have some concerns with the direction Awakening took, but I still consider myself a Fire Emblem fan. My hope is that people who maybe were introduced to Fire Emblem by way of Awakening can come to understand the viewpoint of the more long-time fans who came to understand Fire Emblem through the other games. In fact, there are a LOT of things I do love about Awakening, and there are some incredibly well-done characters as well, like Lucina and Gregor. Heck, I hope Awakening fans will check out Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn sometime.
If Chrom makes it into Smash, will I be upset? No. I might get a bit miffed if a scantily-clad female fanservice character is put in, but that's not nearly as likely, so I don't feel I have much to worry about, there. No, in fact I have a lot of hope that Sakurai will pull off a character like Chrom, or Robin, or whoever, with aplomb. If he can make a character as iconic and well-liked as Captain Falcon out of literally nothing, he can certainly manage another FE character. I do have some concerns with the animations Chrom has in Awakening (such as the prevalence of jumping attacks), but who knows! Maybe that will be the thing that sets Chrom apart, if he makes it.
No... I just wanted to share some thoughts. Maybe spark some conversation. The one thing I didn't do much of was to build a positive case for Ike and his games, so in closing, here's the love letter that Fatmanonice composed, which echoes some of my feelings about Ike nicely:
And here is Rhys' excellent post on Ike, as well:When I first created this thread, I intended to post a memory of each new character as they were revealed but that would have taken way too long, especially now that we already have 30 characters. With E3 roughly two weeks away, I've decided to revisit this idea but, instead of each character, I'm going to try to tackle each franchise. With Ike being shown off on Friday, I've decided to start off with Fire Emblem.
When I first saw Marth in Melee, I actually thought he was a Castlevania character for some weird reason and for a short time I couldn't figure out if Marth was a boy or a girl. I remember a lot of people complained about him and Roy at first because it felt like "Nintendo was scraping the bottom of the barrel for new characters" but by the end of 2002 there was a ton of demand for Fire Emblem to be released in other regions. Eventually those people got their wish and the first international FE was released in 2003 to a lot of acclaim. I was hesitant to get it though. I wasn't really into strategy games and it looked boring so it was a franchise that I avoided.
Fast forward a couple of years to the days of Brawl speculation and there was demand for Lyn and Ike everywhere. I didn't really get it because it was a franchise that I knew nothing about. Ike's reveal was probably one of the most memorable for Brawl for me though. It had been roughly 15 months after the first trailer and we had yet to see any new newcomers since then. E3 2007 was largely a huge disappointment for Smash fans because there wasn't hardly any new news despite many people expecting there to be a huge blowout of info. People were beginning to suspect that Wario, Pit, ZSS, and Metaknight were the only newcomers in the starting roster and some people believed it because Melee's only had five newcomers (Bowser, Peach, Ice Climbers, Zelda, and Sheik). People were expecting a few more veterans before the game came out but then, all of a sudden, we got Ike. Needless to say, people went nuts. People who cared nothing about Fire Emblem went nuts. It was a great time and it kicked off the string of newcomer reveals that lasted the next three months. Lyn was revealed as an AT about a month and half later and the most memorable thing about that was that there was a girl on Nsider who so devastated abut the news that she threatened to commit suicide for several days until she finally calmed down.
Fast forward to Brawl's release. I came to hate Ike very quickly. It seemed like everybody used him and online was stuffed with people who were completely god awful with him who did little more than spam smash attacks. To me, he was the ultimate noob character and I had little respect for most people who played as him. Fast forward about a year later to my first college summer away from home. Living in a college town where nearly a third of the population up and leaves when classes are not in session, summer jobs are hard to come by and I was unemployed until August. Needless to say, I had a lot of free time on my hands and that summer I dedicated my time to playing Nintendo franchises I had never touched before. I went to Game pawn shops all over the place and picked up a ton of games that I had simply overlooked in the past. One of those was Fire Emblem for the GBA and, after playing it, I was hooked on the franchise. I went out and bought Sacred Stones after beating FE probably three times back to back and did the same with it. Then I decided that I finally wanted to give Ike's first game, Path of Radiance, a shot but I had a hard time finding in pawn shops and it typically ran for more than a hundred bucks on eBay. Luckily, on of my old friends from high school had the game and he let me borrow it. Soon, my whole opinion of Ike changed.
I will say that, without a doubt, Ike is easily the most compelling character the FE franchise has ever produced and, arguably, one of the best characters Nintendo has ever created. I think his story is amazing and really inspiring overall. To those of you not familiar with it, Ike was the son of a famous vigilante named Greil who was the leader of a group called the Greil Mercenaries. They made a good living dealing with local crime until one day war broke out and it was decided that mercenaries were now illegal, leading the local kingdom to aggressively pursue them. They flee to find sanctuary in another kingdom but, in the process, Greil is killed trying to protect his clan by a man known as the Black Knight. Ike then is made leader of the Greil Mercenaries but things are off to a rocky start. He hardly knows what he's doing, huge mistakes are made, and some members outright leave. Throughout the rest of the game, he struggles through his "Famous Father" complex and learns his own strengths as a leader, which is mostly his people skills and sense of empathy. He goes from a kid who utterly lacks self confidence to the leader of a massive army that includes soldiers from just about every nationality in his world.
This is why Ike came to be one of the characters that I wanted to see return the most because I felt like his story spoke to me. I too have a wildly successful father who I question if I'll ever live up to and have spent my time in college trying to carve out my own niche, bit by bit. Like Ike, I have had a lot of set backs and I have come to find that one of my biggest strengths is being able to connect with other people. I think Ike represents a struggle that most of us go through which is why I feel he's such a likable character. He starts off as pathetic but turns into someone that, even as a fictional character, you respect. Since playing PoR, FE has become one of my favorite Nintendo franchises. As said, I find it funny how things turned out because I avoided it for nearly six years because I didn't think I'd like it and then one of the characters I liked least in Brawl eventually became not only one of my favorite Smash characters but one of my favorite video game characters.
I agree. I have played both portions of Path of Radiance and completed Radiant Dawn and most certainly share your view on Ike. Shockingly, him and Fox have fairly similar personalities, so similar in fact that if I had played PoR or RD first, I may have written that post about Ike instead.
Ike and Fox McCloud both share a strong sense of empathy and compassion for those close to them, and their childhood friends. In Ike's case, he's protective of Soren, Mist and others (though I can't remember if Soren is a childhood friend of his or not) and shows consistent compassion for those in need, but does not have a lust to kill the Black Knight, despite his feelings towards him. Ike is shown to have excellent decision making to preserve his army and also pursue what will stop the onslaught faster, rather than simply going to take out Zelgius immediately in Radiant Dawn.
Similarly, Fox shows empathy and respect for his wingmates (especially during Peppy's sacrifice during Assault) and will do anything to assist them. But he also expresses the authoritative discipline that Ike has, also seen in the ending of Assault, where instead of sobbing over the losses experienced in the Aparoid Invasion (General Pepper, Peppy Hare, ROB and Star Wolf) he immediately orders his team to move onward, in order to save the Lylat System from being corrupted by the Aparoids. Keeping in mind that Peppy is Fox's remaining link to his Father. While Star Fox games have more of a cheesy dialogue and direction than the Fire Emblem games, the elements are there.
Ike, like Fox, will not hesitate to take revenge on the Black Knight once he gets his chance in Radiant Dawn, but he doesn't endanger his team to take revenge, he does it alone. Fox McCloud has the help of Falco, Slippy and Peppy to get into the depths of Venom to Andross, but Fox fights him alone, likely for his own closure and to avoid his wingmates getting killed by Andross. I think this adds a sort of depth and "real" part of their characters; they still feel they need to take revenge, but are capable of controlling it. It makes them both more believable characters. It's also worth noting that Ike and Fox are some of the only Nintendo protagonists to remain humble, but are extremely confident in their capabilities, but are never shown to be overwhelmingly arrogant and/or egotistical (Samus might apply here, but I haven't really played the Metroid games).
And I'm happy I could make your view on Fox a little more positive. Not many people that play him actually enjoy his character the way I do, and usually play him simply because he's top tier in Melee and arguably one of the best characters (tier wise) across all three games. I have always liked Ike after playing his games, and he's the reason I love Fire Emblem the way I do now.
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