SoV character rankings according to Heroes CYL2

[AbsoluteZer0Nova]

Okay, so if we're to go by the CYL2 character popularity poll than we can have a somewhat of an idea how a Shadows of Valentia official character popularity poll would have looked liked if Japan did one, but of course this is worldwide so there's that, but anyway here are the results if we're to go by just playable characters in the cast.

Please note that the 4 Cipher OCs were not involved in the poll.

Male/Female:

1st: Alm/Celica

2nd: Kliff/Delthea

3rd: Lukas/Faye

4th Conrad/Genny

5th: Python/Silque

6th: Luthier/Sonya

7th: Zeke/Mae

8th: Leon/Catria

9th: Forsyth/Clair

10th: Saber/Tatiana

11th: Valbar/Palla

12th: Gray/Mathilda

13th: Fernand/Est

14th: Boey

15th: Kamui

16th: Atlas

17th:Tobin

18th: Deen

19th: Mycen

20th: Clive

21th: Jesse

22th: Nomah

Honorable Mention: Berkut/Rinea both taking 3rd place which I'm still trying to wrap my head around Berkut's fiancee being so high despite being for the most part non existent.

Edited February 5, 2018 by AbsoluteZer0Nova

[redlight]

Poor Jesse. He seemed like a okay guy that I somewhat liked.

[AbsoluteZer0Nova]

37 minutes ago, silveraura25 said:

Poor Jesse. He seemed like a okay guy that I somewhat liked.

I personally don't like him, but I would have him switch places with Deen. The fact he's the last merenary you get when you already have Saber and Kamui as options is what really hurts him. Same seems to be the case for Est as well but I feel like that it could because Est doesn't... well act like a Est archetype in the game which is baffling like her growths are not true to her character in the least.

Edited February 5, 2018 by AbsoluteZer0Nova

[gone]

1 hour ago, AbsoluteZer0Nova said:

5th: Python/Silque

I see, that rightful master of sass is breaking through. I'm warming up his seat in my hereos team already.

[Rezzy]

How is Conrad so high?

I 'd like to see a banner with Kliff, Forsyth, Python, and Valbar.

[AbsoluteZer0Nova]

1 minute ago, fOrEiGn sOUl said:

I see, that rightful master of sass is breaking through. I'm warming up his seat in my hereos team already.

It's nice to see him high up. I really wasn't expecting him to be above Leon. 

[AbsoluteZer0Nova]

1 minute ago, Rezzy said:

How is Conrad so high?

Ginger stud like Lukas? Check

Is a masked figure like Lucina helping a main protagonist from the shadows? Check

[gone]

5 minutes ago, AbsoluteZer0Nova said:

It's nice to see him high up. I really wasn't expecting him to be above Leon. 

It's no surprise to me at all. Python's character feels way more realistic and relateable than Leon's. I'm not implying he's a bad character (huge step up in comparsion to Niles in terms of writing), but Leon's supports are mainly focused on his crush on valbar and the idealization of a man (which in this case is a very personal/individual topic and therefore less appealing to a mass audience, I believe). Second indicator would probably be his astonishing Voice Actor: Doug Erholtz.

[AbsoluteZer0Nova]

57 minutes ago, fOrEiGn sOUl said:

It's no surprise to me at all. Python's character feels way more realistic and relateable than Leon's. I'm not implying he's a bad character (huge step up in comparsion to Niles in terms of writing), but Leon's supports are mainly focused on his crush on valbar and the idealization of a man (which in this case is a very personal/individual topic and therefore less appealing to a mass audience, I believe). Second indicator would probably be his astonishing Voice Actor: Doug Erholtz.

I don't know about comparing Leon to Niles. One is gay and the other is bisexual (or rather pansexual). They're not really alike because Leon has love for a man he has feelings towards where as Niles just has a strong sense of undying loyalty for a man who has become his lord due to the fact he was saved at his weakest point after being betrayed by the closest thing he ever had to a family.

 

If anything Niles can be more so compared to Soren in that regard as they're broken people with dreadful pasts of not having at least one moment of happiness nor love in their lives up until meeting Leo and Ike respectively. The only thing that separates them is that they go about things differently after their past experiences such as how Soren keeps to himself and doesn't try to forge new relationships and if something were to happen Ike then he's all alone which is troubling and then there's Niles who instead of being the exact same as Soren still does interact (even if Leo were to die Niles seems more like he would be able to survive), but it's clear when he does the way he talks or even acts towards trying to bring even a little pain to those that are undeserving of their lavish lifestyles, especially those that take pleasure in gloating about it is a coping mechanism (in which case you know that Niles would have a field day with Oliver). It's of the mentality that if I can bring even a little bit of pain towards this person who doesn't know what true pain nor sadness or hell if they haven't even experienced it once in their lives then it will bring me some form of comfort in making my past not so troubling or at least as much in retrospect. 

 

I'm just going to have to disagree with your opinion on Leon being a better written character than Niles.

Edited February 5, 2018 by AbsoluteZer0Nova

[gone]

20 minutes ago, AbsoluteZer0Nova said:

I don't know about comparing Leon to Niles. One is gay and the other is bisexual.

 

20 minutes ago, AbsoluteZer0Nova said:

If anything Niles can be more so compared to Soren in that regard as they're broken people with dreadful pasts of not having at least one moment of happiness nor love in their lives up until meeting Leo and Ike respectively.

To be honest, I didn't even dig that deep. I see Leon and Niles are Nintendo's attempt to please a certain target group of gamers. Leon as a gay character felt way more naturally to me than Niles did (im clearly not here to discuss fates writing, but imo characteres like Niles are suffering from it, cause they pushed him way to hard) when it came to writing. So to clear things up, the way nintendo presented the "gay" character to me felt more genuine in Echoes compared to Niles (whatever sexual orientation he may have).

20 minutes ago, AbsoluteZer0Nova said:

I'm just going to have to disagree with your opinion on Leon being a better written character than Niles.

That's fine, it's a different topic in that regard anyway.

Edited February 5, 2018 by fOrEiGn sOUl

[AbsoluteZer0Nova]

1 minute ago, fOrEiGn sOUl said:

To be honest, I didn't even dig that deep. I see Leon and Niles are Nintendo's attempt to please a certain target group of gamers. Leon as a gay character felt way more naturally to me than Niles did (im clearly not here to discuss fates writing, but imo characters like Niles are suffering from it, cause they pushed him way to hard) when it came to writing. So to clear things up, the way nintendo presented the "gay" character to me felt more genuine in Echoes compared to Niles (whatever sexual orientation he may have).

I can agree with you there that Niles does falter in that regard compared to Leon for far more sense as relatable gay representation and yeah we should probably not continue with this given the topic.

[Jingle Jangle]

Poor Mathilda being in 12th place. I guess being mediocre in Heroes will do that to you, same with Boey and Clive.

[YingofDarkness]

I get mixed feelings over the two in 3rd place. On one hand, Faye is that close to being first and I don't like that they gave her no development after Alm turns her down. On the other hand, the ginger stud is also super high and I really love his support with Clive and some of the analysis that people have done about him.

8 hours ago, AbsoluteZer0Nova said:

Honorable Mention: Berkut/Rinea both taking 3rd place which I'm still trying to wrap my head around Berkut's fiancee being so high despite being for the most part non existent.

I'm pretty sure it is because she is attractive and has that whole doomed lovers thing going for her. People might have also voted for her to see what IS would do with her if they had to release her (so sort of like Veronica).

[Shoblongoo]

Very surprised to see Mae and Gray aren't higher.

Faye @ #3 is  a travesty. 

Boey all the way down at #14??? Wut. 

Edited February 6, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[AbsoluteZer0Nova]

37 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Faye @ #3 is a travesty. 

Boey all the way down at #14??? Wut. 

Apparently she's more popular than Celica over Japan from what I remember hearing.

Also yeah that disappointed me, especially when his design is such an improvement over how he looked like before.

[Florete]

On 2/5/2018 at 9:55 AM, AbsoluteZer0Nova said:

Honorable Mention: Berkut/Rinea both taking 3rd place which I'm still trying to wrap my head around Berkut's fiancee being so high despite being for the most part non existent.

Rinea didn't have the most screen time but it really wasn't that much less than most of the characters who weren't plot-important, and despite the unfortunate circumstances of her character, she was pretty well-written. She was certainly more memorable than some of playable units.

[Lushen]

On 2/5/2018 at 1:42 PM, Rezzy said:

How is Conrad so high?

Cause Conrad is the best -_-

On 2/5/2018 at 12:58 PM, silveraura25 said:

Poor Jesse. He seemed like a okay guy that I somewhat liked.

Yea I think that has to do with already having Saber and then getting Keen right around the same time (and Atlas if you try to build him).  There's so many Mercs on Celica's route.  Dude has insane luck though, I didn't even need to give him a brave sword for high crits.

[Stroud]

Tatiana is so low D=. This makes me sad ._. People seem to dislike ships which are sailing from the beginning. 
Same goes with Mathilda and Clive. At least Kliff made it.

And Lolicons are too strong again...

Edited February 7, 2018 by Stroud

[SavageVolug]

For the most part I can see why X character landed where they are. Except for 1) Conrad 2) Berkut 3) Rhinea. Why did these guys & girl land so high?

[Troykv]

Mathilda (and perphans Tobin too) is probably the character most affected for being underwhelming in Heroes... I guess she will have a better time in a meta everytime turning more and more to the dragon's favor... (with the opposite case being with Celica and Delthea, where recent exposition and great gameplay values actually benefited the characters... And Faye is popular in Japan alongside the already mentioned girls xD.)

A lot of the top contenders are characters that people are desperate to see in the game (specially Kliff and Rinea).

I'm actually surprised Alm managed to be in the Top 4 Male Overall... I mean, being a balanced character without strenghts other that HP would make him very unappeling.

Edited February 7, 2018 by Troykv

[X-Naut]

You gave a passing mention to Berkut and Rinea, but what about my home-boy Brigand Boss?

Jokes aside I wouldn't consider CYL an accurate popularity poll, as some characters are heavily skewed by the game. Kliff is no doubt the best example due to not being in the game when all his villager pals are, but then there's unit viability dragging down other characters or in the Whitewings' case other iterations taking votes away.

[Troykv]

23 hours ago, X-Naut said:

You gave a passing mention to Berkut and Rinea, but what about my home-boy Brigand Boss?

Jokes aside I wouldn't consider CYL an accurate popularity poll, as some characters are heavily skewed by the game. Kliff is no doubt the best example due to not being in the game when all his villager pals are, but then there's unit viability dragging down other characters or in the Whitewings' case other iterations taking votes away.

Yeah, the only characters that doesn't seem affected for their in-game appearance are Berkut, Celica, Alm, Genny and Faye; every other SoV Character in Heroes is a lot less popular than it should be otherwise; specially extreme in cases like Tobin.

Edited February 9, 2018 by Troykv

[LucarioGamer812]

Seeing Delthea take no2 like the amazing mage she is.

[Frenzify]

It's been said, but it's the reason I came into this thread; the issue with using CYL as a representative for popularity outside of Heroes, is that it doesn't account for why people are voting for characters. Many voted for characters not yet in the game, just to give them more visibility and a chance to actually get in it. And, of course, conversely, many voted for characters they only knew from Heroes, seeing as there are many Heroes players who have never played SoV, or even any other FE game. Of course, that's not to say that some characters aren't pretty much around their appropriate place in terms of popularity, but besides the obvious ones like Alm and Celica, it's hard to treat CYL as reliable outside of just Heroes. I mean, with Heroes there's seriously not a lot of character building with many of the non-story units. They just have their summoning lines, their max level lines, and maybe something more if they're included in a story map.

[Res]

On 2/7/2018 at 2:07 AM, Stroud said:

Tatiana is so low D=. This makes me sad ._. People seem to dislike ships which are sailing from the beginning. 
Same goes with Mathilda and Clive. At least Kliff made it.

And Lolicons are too strong again...

I wouldn't say that a dislike of canon ships is why those characters are so low! First off, as people have pointed out, Mathilda isn't a good Heroes unit. Secondly, Tatiana is a minor character who doesn't join your party until a lot later in the game than most. 

I actually like the canon ships but wouldn't rank any of those characters highly, and from what I've seen, Mathilda and Clive's relationship is somewhat highly regarded amongst fans.

On 2/7/2018 at 12:57 PM, Troykv said:

A lot of the top contenders are characters that people are desperate to see in the game (specially Kliff and Rinea)

Yes - I'm sure that's why Kliff ranked as highly as he did (I like Kliff, but it was quite a surprise to see him *that* high. He's a fabulous unit in-game but he only has one support and we're given very little information about his character).