Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-31549837-20200115185054/@comment-71.161.203.37-20200116180426

71.161.203.37 wrote: I geniunely didn't even know that a Direct was going on and only noticed the reveal by it popping up in my sidebar.

Think about it this way

Right before his passing, what were the two games Etika was the MOST hyped about?

The Smash DLC and Fire Emblem: Three Houses, he was pumped as fuck for the release of the latter game.

I myself was kind of like "Oh really Sakurai come on", but it's kinda Sakurai being a troll again like he did with Piranha Plant, and "put a Fire Emblem character in" has pretty much become Sakurai's running joke like ever since Melee.

You'd think it would be something Kirby or Kid Icarus related since he actually made those, but nope, although considering Fire Emblem became popular in the first place because of Melee, fair enough.

Melee gave us Roy and Marth, Brawl gave us Ike, Smash 4 gave us Robin and Lucina, the Smash 4 DLC gave us Corrin, Ultimate gave us Chrom and now the Fighters' Pass gave us Byleth. Every entry, without fail. I am however perfectly content with this, because I hoped Nintendo would acknowledge his passing somehow, considering literally Sakurai himself retweeted Etika's reaction to Mewtwo during the Sm4sh days.

They're probably not going to considering some of the stuff he did and said would reflect poorly on their image if they referenced him, which is probably why only Sakurai referenced him instead of Nintendo of America as a whole.

I am perfectly and entirely content with Byleth's inclusion as it's as close as an Etika tribute as we're ever going to get from Nintendo, even if it's not intentional.

Ironically, Etika is about the only reason I'd be happy to see yet another Fire Emblem character, same goes for if 2B was revealed (mostly, she's at least a bit more interesting) as I'm sure a lot of people will agree with.

Considering both the Fighters' Pass and Three Houses were the things Etika was the most happy about right before, well... you know what, happened and everything went downhill, now that the two are entirely combined, I am perfectly happy and content with the outcome.

I can assure you that Byleth will always (aside from the other Fire Emblem/Three Houses fans) pretty much always be seen as a living eternal personification of an Etika tribute by pretty much any Smash fan, competitive or casual.

As a tribute, here's a fanmade reconstruction of his reaction to the other Fire Emblem character in Ultimate, concluding with his actual reaction to the two echoes being added to the Smash mural. (Sadly we don't get to see his real reaction to Chrom due to technical difficulties he had during the Direct :/)

Rest in Peace 🖤