Context: Fire Emblem Heroes had a character popularity tournament thing.
Incidentally, Lucina is absolutely devastating Ephraim 4:1 in the finals... although when the brackets were all males in the West bracket, and all females in the East bracket, the finals are essentially guaranteed to favor the female side in the finals for this kind of game.
Novaheart said:
And Chrom was so close. And I mean it too, we only lost by a very narrow margin
I was pretty surprised that the Sealing Stones characters were so popular. That game seemed to fly far more under the radar, at least in the West, than games like Awakening or Fates or the constantly re-released Mystery. I'm not terribly surprised that a character like Leo would ultimately lose, but I'd expect flagrant imouto archetype Elise to do better than the deuteragonist of a game that's relatively faded from memory.
I was pretty surprised that the Sealing Stones characters were so popular. That game seemed to fly far more under the radar, at least in the West, than games like Awakening or Fates or the constantly re-released Mystery. I'm not terribly surprised that a character like Leo would ultimately lose, but I'd expect flagrant imouto archetype Elise to do better than the deuteragonist of a game that's relatively faded from memory.
I think most older fire emblems or pre Path of Radiance were alot quieter either due to popularity at the time or the ability to get art and opinion out as freely as we do now. So hardcore underground fans start to pop up or the art and stats from Heroes is just really appealing. I have no grounds for this just my thought.
I think most older fire emblems or pre Path of Radiance were alot quieter either due to popularity at the time or the ability to get art and opinion out as freely as we do now. So hardcore underground fans start to pop up or the art and stats from Heroes is just really appealing. I have no grounds for this just my thought.
I mean, I kind of liked it for that reason, but Sacred Stones was kind of a black sheep for having a Roguelike-style endless challenge dungeon and such that made the game more like traditional RPGs. (Not that Heroes and non-Conquest Casual-mode Fates doesn't do this, but it was a little more overt...)
There's also the endless remakes of the "classic" games, while Thracia 776 is way more obscure, especially in the West, so I'd think the games that are the focus of recent remakes and the simply most recently released games (with the most newbie-friendly game modes) would be the most popular.
Besides that, even when I played the game, I really didn't have much impression of Ephraim. He seemed like the vanilla default white-hat hero character with zero embellishment, especially compared to his sister who had at least some character for being so totally unprepared for a life of war. (Which is part of why I dumped him and kept playing as Eirika...)
Besides that, even when I played the game, I really didn't have much impression of Ephraim. He seemed like the vanilla default white-hat hero character with zero embellishment, especially compared to his sister who had at least some character for being so totally unprepared for a life of war. (Which is part of why I dumped him and kept playing as Eirika...)
Sacred Stones spoilers inbound. Read at your own risk. I believe you are not giving Ephraim not nearly the credit that he deserves. The deal with Ephraim is that he is an ace character -- somebody who is good at pretty much everything -- and his acedom is heavily deconstructed on his own route as he treks into the Grado Empire to battle it from within. Two of his peers are noticeably affected by Ephraim being who he is: Innes, who has grown jealous of and distant from Ephraim, and most importantly, Lyon, the main antagonist of the game.
Ephraim learns of what is truly going on in the Grado Empire by fighting all the way into Grado Keep, and finds out that Lyon, his lifelong best friend, was behind the ruination of Renais. We later learn that Lyon always envied Ephraim for being stronger than him and always having Eirika by his side, whom Lyon has always had a crush on; his desire to rise above Ephraim fueled his ambition to use the powers of darkness for admirable goals such as saving lives. This sent him down the path of possession, and the Demon King of old, Fomortiis, took advantage of Lyon's mental fragility. To really drive the point home: If Ephraim is your main Lord, you actually fight Lyon himself in the final chapter, rather than the Demon King using his body.
On top of that, we see Ephraim grow from a young man who just wants to live an exciting mercenary life into a man who learns to take responsibility for his kingdom and his people, inheriting his father's legacy to honor him. The growth AND deconstruction together make Ephraim into a fantastic character, in my opinion. I should also mention that he's statistically one of the best characters in SS, as he begins with amazing bases that are bolstered by great growth rates. Eirika has a much weaker start by comparison.
Honestly I feel like Ephraim's popularity in the voting gauntlet was probably fans of the older Fire Emblems just not wanting the finals to be two characters from the most popular game.
Honestly I feel like Ephraim's popularity in the voting gauntlet was probably fans of the older Fire Emblems just not wanting the finals to be two characters from the most popular game.
Ephraim ended up as the #7 on the males' poll, beating out the popular male Robin. I'm not surprised.
Sacred Stones spoilers inbound. Read at your own risk. I believe you are not giving Ephraim not nearly the credit that he deserves. The deal with Ephraim is that he is an ace character -- somebody who is good at pretty much everything -- and his acedom is heavily deconstructed on his own route as he treks into the Grado Empire to battle it from within. Two of his peers are noticeably affected by Ephraim being who he is: Innes, who has grown jealous of and distant from Ephraim, and most importantly, Lyon, the main antagonist of the game.
Ephraim learns of what is truly going on in the Grado Empire by fighting all the way into Grado Keep, and finds out that Lyon, his lifelong best friend, was behind the ruination of Renais. We later learn that Lyon always envied Ephraim for being stronger than him and always having Eirika by his side, whom Lyon has always had a crush on; his desire to rise above Ephraim fueled his ambition to use the powers of darkness for admirable goals such as saving lives. This sent him down the path of possession, and the Demon King of old, Fomortiis, took advantage of Lyon's mental fragility. To really drive the point home: If Ephraim is your main Lord, you actually fight Lyon himself in the final chapter, rather than the Demon King using his body.
On top of that, we see Ephraim grow from a young man who just wants to live an exciting mercenary life into a man who learns to take responsibility for his kingdom and his people, inheriting his father's legacy to honor him. The growth AND deconstruction together make Ephraim into a fantastic character, in my opinion. I should also mention that he's statistically one of the best characters in SS, as he begins with amazing bases that are bolstered by great growth rates. Eirika has a much weaker start by comparison.
Well, honestly, I'm not sure you can use "other people had interesting character arcs because of something related to him" as a reason for why HE has an interesting character... (In fact, "everyone changes just because (s)he's so perfect" or "his only flaw is that he's so flawless" is one of the classic Mary Sue traits, although I don't think he was quite that bad.) And "grew up from cocky young do-gooder prince on a LITERAL white horse after promotion to slightly more self-aware do-gooder king who wants to make his kingdom happy and prosperous" isn't exactly making me re-evaluate my "vanilla knight in shining armor" assessment.
And frankly, having really awesome stats isn't a reason for me to focus on a character. If anything, it's a reason for me to pull the character back, as I'm working double-time to try to find something Tana can eat to grow up and give me more than just a couple overpowered beasts and the whole rest of the bench made of sandbags. (Not that I didn't wind up just setting Ike to "frappe" and eliminate half the enemy army in one turn once I got to the bonus stages in Path of Radiance... Yeah, no wonder Aether was massively nerfed after that.)
All the most interesting characters are always the side characters, because they don't want to take risks making the main characters have real personalities with actual flaws that will turn people off about them, so main characters are nearly always tabula rasa lowest common denominator characters. (Which is, again, why I voted for Leo, but didn't at all expect him to win.) And I mean that about anime and games in general, not just Fire Emblem. It's always the side characters that never have a hope at romance that have the most interesting story arcs.
I think the reason Lucina won so handily at the end is because a bunch of people jumped onto her team for the feathers. I always Backes Tue team which ultimately lost... but I always got a decent standing in those armies since they were smaller than the Lucina legion.
And Chrom versus Ephraim was the most exciting contest on that bracket, even though Ephraim versus Leo was also exciting at the start.
I think the reason Lucina won so handily at the end is because a bunch of people jumped onto her team for the feathers. I always Backes Tue team which ultimately lost... but I always got a decent standing in those armies since they were smaller than the Lucina legion.
And Chrom versus Ephraim was the most exciting contest on that bracket, even though Ephraim versus Leo was also exciting at the start.
But I fought for my friends, and had no regrets.
I simply figured it was that the girls would have more people voting for them than the guys, just because this sort of game is always going to have more guys voting for their waifu than girls voting for husbandos or guys that vote for guys they think were respectable. Since the "divisions" were divided by gender, it basically wound up with the only boy/girl contest being at the finals, where the girl side crushed it 4-to-1.
Meanwhile, Ephraim was beating Leo 4:3 roughly the entire time.
