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Ike and Lyn popularity?


Lucario666
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So, considering that their respective games have NEVER sold well outside Japan, how did Ike and Lyn become the most popular characters in the series? (outside of Smash) To me, there has to be a reason. 

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Fire Emblem 7 did sell decently well outside of Japan. Ike's games however did not sell well due to low amount of copies, no marketing, hard game (in radiant dawns case), and coming out towards the end of the systems life.

Smash was ultimately the biggest part of their popularity, Ike was in two games of smash so that really enhances his audience exposure. Lyn being an assist in those two games helps her as well. Though since FE7 did sell decently, there is an diehard audience for Lyn. That's basically it, there was a bit of exposure in awakening via the dlc but beyond that it's mainly due to their exposure in smash (I am pretty sure there was at least a few smash players who have never played Fire Emblem who just picked Ike and Lyn, since as of my knowledge Lucina isn't too popular a character, she's popular no doubt, but among the diehard smashers she's just a Marth clone to them and similar situation with Roy)

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You're exactly right, there is no reason besides Smash. The winners aren't the FE fanbase's favorite FE characters, they're the Smash fanbase's favorite FE characters.

That's why we need another CYL-style event, every character who won is technically in Smash.

Hell, maybe in this hypothetical second voting event they should just exclude lords, too.

Edited by Gebby
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I don't really think 7's sales can be considered too bad. If it hadn't performed to expectation Nintendo probably wouldn't have permanently brought the series out of Japan. 

Because we got (almost) every Fire emblem since then we can safely assume Nintendo deemed the western experiment to be a success rather than a flop.

Lyn was the first lord for many western players and with her more Asian looks she remains a distinct character compared to her peers. That probably explains her popularity. 

Ike's games may not have sold well but he's got Smash appeal going from him and is arguably the most well developed and relatable lord. Ike also has traits that appeal more to the west rather then the mild mannered pretty boys that do well in the east. 

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It's because of Ike and Lyn that I'm an FE fan at all. (Because the unlockable, Japanese-speaking Marth is going to be doing anything for it).

And really, just how many people do you think learned about FE from picking up a Smash game with their favourite characters as opposed to searching the miscellaneous releases?

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Ah, yes, you again. I'm starting to wonder if you actually want the answers to these questions or if you're just making noise.

Blazing Sword, as has been mentioned, did in fact sell well. Also, Lyn doesn't wear pants, which has to count for something to some people.

The main reason I see Ike's games not selling like hotcakes were that 1) PoR came out near the end of the GameCube's selling lifespan, meaning almost no effort was put into marketing the game because they were planning on having us all buy the Wii and those awful excuses for exercise games instead, 2) both PoR and RD were actually very difficult with not quite as much story focus as other FE games - more of a tactical exercise than a movie you're playing through, and 3) RD came out right around the same time as SSB Brawl, meaning most of us average joes had to choose between Smash Bros and Fire Emblem. Is it any wonder people chose Smash?

Also,

4 hours ago, Gebby said:

You're exactly right, there is no reason besides Smash. The winners aren't the FE fanbase's favorite FE characters, they're the Smash fanbase's favorite FE characters.

That's why we need another CYL-style event, every character who won is technically in Smash.

If you're looking at the top two of each side, how is that even a fair argument considering Roy is completely inaccessible to anyone who doesn't know about emulators - or chooses not to play them for their own reasons - without Smash? He's not even a valid Fire Emblem character to the majority of the public using that argument, and neither are Cordelia, Owain, Anna, the Black Knight, Ashnard, Sothe, Elincia, Lissa, Lon'qu, Gaius, Inigo, Validar, Tiki, Ryoma, or Xander, because all of those characters appeared in Smash, even if only as Trophies, and thus you can still use the same argument against them.

I would also like to point out that for better or worse the Fire Emblem fandom does actually owe the Smash fandom some credit - I only started Awakening because I wanted to know more about Lucina and Robin, who I never would have had interest in if I hadn't become a dedicated RoyBoy© the first time I played Melee, and I seriously doubt I'm the only person who was introduced to Fire Emblem thanks in large part to Smash. Even, then, Roy was the only Smash character I voted for, my other votes going to Limstella and Idunn with an even split of 5 votes each, so it's not like all the fans of Fire Emblem Smash characters only ever voted for Fire Emblem Smash characters.

This is of course discounting the fact that you're trying to discount a PUBLIC poll because a certain part of the public you don't feel is qualified for this kind of poll took advantage of the fact that they were part of the public and voted in a poll that was specifically designed to just see the most popular Fire Emblem characters - NOT the favorite characters of the Fire Emblem fanbase and nobody else. Choose Your Legends wasn't only aimed at the Fire Emblem fanbase, it was aimed at the world with the knowledge that a lot of the contributors to that event would also be part of the Fire Emblem fanbase, but also that a lot of contributors would just be going "I liek Ike" or "Roy's our Boi" and going from there.

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It's not bad for someone to get into Fire Emblem because they've played Smash and are curious about the characters. That's the entire reason I'm into FE, now. Ike has always been my favorite character to play. I can't get to his games right now because of time constraint/limited resources, but he's a huge part of why I played FE in the first place. Smash definitely boosted interest in Fire Emblem, which really isn't a bad thing. The more popular a series gets, the more content is released for it. 

I can't really say too much about Lyn, but I remember liking Ike in Smash because of play-style and aesthetic. Only after I watched a few playthroughts of Path of Radiance did I really grow to like him as the character he genuinely is. I've always been a sucker for beefcakes, too. STRONG.

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Smash, that's it. Both of them are in, and both are overliked and popular because of Smash. It's not that hard to understand. It's stupid honestly. Lyn is one of the worst lords in the series, and Ike is kinda bland, to be frank. 

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I'm not sure why Lyn is popular. People like to hate on her tutorial and she is in Smash, but only as an assist trophy. And imo, she's incredibly boring.

Ike is popular because of two things: 1. Smash, as people brought up. And 2, while his games didn't sell well, those who did play them generally find him a likeable and well done character. In the Famitsu poll that he won, the most common reason people gave for voting him was not Smash, but the fact that he was different and stood out among other lords in the series. That goes more to his games.

He also has the kind of appeal the west like. That cool, badass dude. He also looks very American in RD.

Edited by Anacybele
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I thought Ike was considered more of a has-been these days. Surely characters like Robin, Tharja, and Corrin are more popular among general fans.

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7 minutes ago, Umbran Darros 3 said:

I thought Ike was considered more of a has-been these days. Surely characters like Robin, Tharja, and Corrin are more popular among general fans.

I would hope not, those characters are all pretty terrible, imo.

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3 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

I would hope not, those characters are all pretty terrible, imo.

*Ahem* I happen to like Robin. :/

Anyways, the reason why Lyn is popular is because she was the first Fire Emblem character everyone met in the west. Blazing Sword is the first Fire Emblem game that was released outside of Japan. And not only that, but Lyn is the first character we see and use, and we stick with her in the beginning of the story. There's no doubt that that would make many people love her, because to many fans outside of Japan, she's the first Fire Emblem character they met with. Also, aesthetic design also brings in players as well, and thus they might love her for that. BlazingKnight made a video about the best designs, and he placed Lyn as the best one in his opiniojn, despite how his favorite characters are others. 

Ike's popularity has to come from Super Smash Bros. He was the heavy hitter that people loved to use to bash enemies away. And like Lyn, his aesthetic design is pretty kickass. His games sold terribly also due to the problem with how they translated the difficulty, changing Normal-Hard-Lunatic to Easy-Normal-Hard. This made many people play the game at a higher difficulty and got destroyed, which likely got bad reviews.

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Smash Bros. has a lot of weird assist trophies. I'd be surprised if even a noteworthy fraction of Smash players (specifically the ones that have no reference for Fire Emblem outside of Smash) could look at Lyn and say what her name is. To use another example for any Fire Emblem fan reading this, can you name me the assist trophy of two small girls with katanas? Or that transformer dude? I couldn't, not without google. Lyn's important because she's our Marth. The first lord from our first game. She's also the first girl. There is power in pixels. 

Ike's popularity is more cut and dry. You can tell he owes it to smash since the second place winner for men in the poll was some kid in the previous smash game whose game was never released outside of Japan. Some people played Tellius, I'm sure, but often not before Smash. I know I fall into that category.

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1 hour ago, Umbran Darros 3 said:

I thought Ike was considered more of a has-been these days. Surely characters like Robin, Tharja, and Corrin are more popular among general fans.

Ike won the CYL poll last January.

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1 hour ago, Glennstavos said:

To use another example for any Fire Emblem fan reading this, can you name me the assist trophy of two small girls with katanas? Or that transformer dude?

Kat & Ana, Sable Prince.

52 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

Ike won the CYL poll last January.

Lyn did actually, since Ike's votes were split into his PoR and RD incarnations (although if you add them together, he trumps Lyn).

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2 hours ago, omegaxis1 said:

*Ahem* I happen to like Robin. :/

Anyways, the reason why Lyn is popular is because she was the first Fire Emblem character everyone met in the west. Blazing Sword is the first Fire Emblem game that was released outside of Japan. And not only that, but Lyn is the first character we see and use, and we stick with her in the beginning of the story. There's no doubt that that would make many people love her, because to many fans outside of Japan, she's the first Fire Emblem character they met with. Also, aesthetic design also brings in players as well, and thus they might love her for that. BlazingKnight made a video about the best designs, and he placed Lyn as the best one in his opiniojn, despite how his favorite characters are others. 

Ike's popularity has to come from Super Smash Bros. He was the heavy hitter that people loved to use to bash enemies away. And like Lyn, his aesthetic design is pretty kickass. His games sold terribly also due to the problem with how they translated the difficulty, changing Normal-Hard-Lunatic to Easy-Normal-Hard. This made many people play the game at a higher difficulty and got destroyed, which likely got bad reviews.

I did say "imo" you know. That means "in my opinion." xP

By that logic, Marth should be the most popular character in Japan and he isn't. That's probably Lucina.

Smash is only part of it for Ike. Like I said, plenty of people who actually played his games also really like his character there. I'm one of those people. Hell, I didn't love Ike as much as I do UNTIL I played his games.

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10 hours ago, donkeykhang said:

Could emulation potentially making PoR/RD more "accessible" be a factor? Granted, it's not something that could really be measured.

I'd say so.  Not everyone is willing to hook up an emulator and download the ISO just to play the game, though.  It's not a problem for me, but I know a lot of people who would take issue with that.

6 hours ago, Kazuya said:

Smash, that's it. Both of them are in, and both are overliked and popular because of Smash. It's not that hard to understand. It's stupid honestly. Lyn is one of the worst lords in the series, and Ike is kinda bland, to be frank. 

While I disagree with Lyn being one of the worst lords in the series, a lot of Fire Emblem's popularity can be attributed to Smash.  Heck, part of the reason the series even started getting Western releases was due to Marth and Roy's appearances in Melee.  Lots of fans (myself included) got into the series due to the prominence it was getting in Smash Bros.  There's nothing stupid in that; the more people who get into Fire Emblem, the better, I say.

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25 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Lyn did actually, since Ike's votes were split into his PoR and RD incarnations (although if you add them together, he trumps Lyn).

I was counting both Ikes together.  I think they should have combined all the characters with multiple games, since guys like Ike and Marth got a bit screwed over by split votes, and it also prevented more guys from getting into the top 10/20, since Ike and Marth were taking up two slots.

10 hours ago, donkeykhang said:

Could emulation potentially making PoR/RD more "accessible" be a factor? Granted, it's not something that could really be measured.

Maybe, though GameCube and Wii are a lot harder to emulate than the GBA and DS games.

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25 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

I did say "imo" you know. That means "in my opinion." xP

By that logic, Marth should be the most popular character in Japan and he isn't. That's probably Lucina.

Smash is only part of it for Ike. Like I said, plenty of people who actually played his games also really like his character there. I'm one of those people. Hell, I didn't love Ike as much as I do UNTIL I played his games.

Fair enough.

Not necessarily. See, Marth might be the very first character in Fire Emblem history, but by today's time, Marth has had remakes where the first game is horrible, and the second is better, but still fails due to not even being able to be released. Marth is still plenty popular, especially since he is still the face of Fire Emblem, but his games aren't as grand due to the first ones being limited in systems, and the remakes kind of falling flat on its face. 

Oh yeah, Ike is very good, especially counting his Path of Radiance story, and he does also has the distinguished title of being the ONLY non-royal hero of the series.

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15 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Oh yeah, Ike is very good, especially counting his Path of Radiance story, and he does also has the distinguished title of being the ONLY non-royal hero of the series.

Yep, that's a reason people like Ike too. He's a refresher in that he's not of noble or royal birth and is still the only lord character not to be.

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I always did find it peculiar that Ike's games apparently bombed (I personally don't see it that way, but that's what they say), yet he's super popular. I'm sure Smash is a factor, but when you compare how actual FE fans think of him vs Roy, the difference is pretty big; FE fans typically aren't big on Roy, but Ike is still pretty well-loved.

I think Smash has very little to do with Lyn's popularity, if anything at all. Individual assist trophies are usually only a big deal for people who are already fans of that character. They may get some attention if their series doesn't have a rep on the playable roster, but that's not the case with Lyn. This may be shocking to some, but I think Lyn is popular because people just genuinely like her as a character in her game.

57 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

I was counting both Ikes together.  I think they should have combined all the characters with multiple games, since guys like Ike and Marth got a bit screwed over by split votes, and it also prevented more guys from getting into the top 10/20, since Ike and Marth were taking up two slots.

That really isn't accurate, though. If every individual character had only one slot, they'd likely have a bit less votes than the current combined total, and since Lyn and the two Ikes combined were pretty close as-is, there's no way to say who really would have had more votes. If IS were to look at that poll for a single "winner," it would be Lyn, not Ike.

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