Today Nintendo held a small direct for Super Smash Bros Ultimate. The direct was hyped up by the Smash fandom, as the character revealed would be the last one in the first Fighters Pass. The four previous characters were all from third-party games, so surely this last character is going to be a hit. Well, the new character is Byleth from Fire Emblem: Three Houses and the majority of the community isn’t too happy. With the addition of Byleth, there are now eight Fire Emblem characters in Super Smash Bros Ultimate.
Now please don’t get me wrong, I love Fire Emblem. It’s probably my third favorite video game series, with only Final Fantasy and Persona in front of it. Still, even my passionate self can see how disappointing it is to have yet another Fire Emblem character represented in this game. The only way I would have enjoyed seeing Byleth in this game is if the character had mechanics similar to Pokemon Trainer. Instead of fighting with Byleth, players can choose between Claude, Edelgard, or Dimitri and change characters with a down special. That option would at least be more interesting. Instead, Byleth simply gets to use a weapon from each house.
Amongst the madness and frustrations, Nintendo also revealed the first Fire Emblem Three Houses expansion: Cindered Shadows. The neat expansion reveals a fourth house that lives underneath the monastery. The expansion seems to promise tons of story content, new characters, and loads of stuff to do. Somehow this wasn’t a part of the Nintendo Stream (At least in the United States) and is being completely overshadowed by the Smash news.
While it’s unlikely that this new expansion will introduce an entirely new route for players, it’s still pretty intriguing. Even if it’s just a side-story, it will likely add tons to the lore of Three Houses. The new characters all have wonderful designs, and it looks like they are all recruitable. It remains to be seen if players lock themselves into the new house and then recruit from the main three houses, or vice versa. I’m hoping to get the opportunity to recruit the three lords onto the same team, which is kind of hinted at in the trailer.
Regardless of the direction that the expansion takes, it seems like it will bring tons of content to one of the best games in the series since Radiant Dawn. Obvious Super Smash Bros Ultimate is possibly the best game on the Switch, but the character announcement is overwhelming. I’m hoping Cindered Shadows will get more attention as we learn more about it. Until then, I’m going to continue to watch that trailer on loop and hope that I can unite Claude, Edelgard, and Dimitri, even if it is for only one battle.
