Sephie Wrote:Lyn was in Brawl but she wasn't the most popular is her game. I think they included her because she was everyone's first ;p

The unfortunate part is that Lucina being a Marth clone-ish is a huge part of the canon/story so they couldn't really have it any other way if they wanted to include Lucina lol. At some point in the story a very very old character mistakes Lucina for Marth (who is long dead).

Takebacker Wrote:Yeah i get you. I actually just thought of something though. Isn't lucina the first female swordsmen in smash ever? If she's the most popular of that series and they were going to have this kind of FE exposure, wouldn't it be disrespectful if she wasn't in her own slot?

Lozmaster Wrote:I would argue making her a clone is more "disrespectful". Not that I'm sure who is being disrespected in this situation. At least femrobin is a proper female original character (but I don't get why gender matters either).

Lozmaster Wrote:She isn't a marth clone in story though.
She uses an exact copy of chroms fighting style, not marths, and there's no reason to think they are the same.

 Lucina, Captain Falcon

 Robin

Sakurai from Famitsu Wrote:We've just announced two new characters who will be joining the fray in the upcoming Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U. One is Robin, the avatar from Fire Emblem: Awakening, and the other is Lucina, a swordswoman who plays an important role in the same title. I'll skip over the details.

"What? Not Chrom!?" I suspect a lot of you will ask. Of course, Chrom is quite popular, being the protagonist of FE:A and all. However, I chose Robin and Lucina, and I will elaborate on my reasoning.

Robin appears in the game as a Tactician and functions much like a Mystic Knight (note: FF terminology, but equivalent to magic swordsman). I thought to utilize his all-around nature by assigning swordplay to his Smash attacks and magic tomes to his special attacks--that is, allow him to use magic.

His neutral special is thunder magic that grows stronger the larger you charge it. He uses fire magic for his side special, and wind magic for recovery as his up special. Although Robin doesn't use dark magic in FE:A, I decided to assign it as his down special. It isn't the first time I've given moves to a character that they don't use in their respective game in order to capture certain aspects of the original title.

I also implemented the system used in FE:A, in which tomes break after overuse. Likewise, I included a similar system for the Levin Sword, which breaks after a certain number of uses. However, both the tomes and the Levin Sword will quickly regenerate after a set period of time.

Lucina uses the same techniques as Marth, a fighter with whom I'm sure most of you are already familiar. I even went so far as to make their strength, speed, and special attacks almost identical. However, what sets Lucina apart is the fact that the strength of her attacks is uniform along the blade. Marth's playstyle emulates the elegant swordplay of a fencer by dealing more damage when he strikes with the tip of his blade, but the damage Lucina deals is evened out. Thus, I think that Lucina will be much easier than Marth for novice players to play with.

I played all the way through FE:A and really wanted to include a character from that rich cast in Smash Bros. Naturally, I considered adding Chrom to the roster, but the decision wasn't easy by any means. At the end of the day, Chrom would just end up being another plain-old sword-wielder like Marth and Ike. Compared with other characters, he lacks any unique characteristics.

Conversely, when the idea of including Robin came to mind, conceiving the character was so easy that I immediately saw how it would work. From standards to specials, grabs to throws, all aspects of his moveset just fell into place. Not only did he possess characteristics unlike other fighters, but he also captured the essence of the Fire Emblem series. It was perfect!

In the end, if a game isn't fun, then there's no point. Of course, it would be really easy to make a game by churning out a ton of similar characters, but that's not how I produce games.

Initially, I had considered including Lucina as one of Marth's alternate costumes. After all, she has a close relationship with him in FE:A. In such cases, even if two characters' names and voices differ, as long as they function the same way, I assign them as alternate costumes. The Wii Fit Trainers, Villagers, and Robin are examples of this setup.

However, even though Lucina shares her physical stats and techniques with Marth, the characteristics of their attacks differ. When two such similar characters function in an even slightly different manner, I give them a separate spot on the roster since that will affect battle records and whatnot. In that sense, you could say she was very lucky to join the fray!

Sakurai Wrote:Pic of the day. We have Nintendogs plus cats! How could we forget them!! Just FYI, there are about five dog breeds in this game. This was me, reporting from the 3DS-exclusive stage, Living Room.

Quote:I played all the way through FE:A and really wanted to include a character from that rich cast in Smash Bros. Naturally, I considered adding Chrom to the roster, but the decision wasn't easy by any means. At the end of the day, Chrom would just end up being another plain-old sword-wielder like Marth and Ike. Compared with other characters, he lacks any unique characteristics.

Quote:However, even though Lucina shares her physical stats and techniques with Marth, the characteristics of their attacks differ. When two such similar characters function in an even slightly different manner, I give them a separate spot on the roster since that will affect battle records and whatnot. In that sense, you could say she was very lucky to join the fray!

ChronosXIII Wrote:What. Those two paragraphs are contradictory to each other.

"Okay, let's change Lucina's sweet zone to the whole length of her blade and now she's 'unique' enough to be a separate character!"

Sakurai Wrote:Pic of the day. Here's a Screen K.O. shot. There are also patterns where players will disappear into the sky for Star K.O.s, but as a match's time limit approaches, those K.O.s will not occur anymore.

Zerard Wrote:No more stalling the timer with star kos it seems.

Good change!

Takebacker Wrote:I don't think anyone does this. Doing that would be really hard even for competitive players unless they had a character that is strongest killing off the top, and even then they don't care about stalling for time if they're being aggressive and getting kills. It's also a contradiction. If you're stalling, then you can't really be going for killing anyone because then you're not stalling...

What this would have affected is if jigglypuff was in the game with her rest like it was in melee, the strategy to use is if you get hit is to DI to the side to avoid a star KO, so that you come back to the stage quicker to punish the rest with possibly a kill. If rest leads into a star KO then jigglypuff will wake up without taking damage (or at least, not dying). Even without jigglypuff or rest this change is good but i can't see it factoring into stalling or whatever.

I wonder if these kills appear even when time is off? He makes it sound like they only appear when time is on. Unless he's implying the game is always on time?

Zerard Wrote:Nevertheless, it was agitating when a kill escaped you because star koing took up so much time.

Takebacker Wrote:You mean the game ending before the KO registers? That can still happen with this animation. I don't know if you've played or seen the game in alpha build, but this new animation he's talking about is a longer animation than the previous games' bonk animation (i want to say twice or three times as long because the character "slides" down the glass instead of just hitting it and dying) which was pretty much instant before so that is still a possibility. You would probably have to kill them between the 1-2 second mark for that though.

Zerard Wrote:This isn't a thing to debate. kills aren't instant. but they're shorter. that's all i wanted to say

god damn