Smash Bros. 4 Roster Update: Lucina and Robin’s Inclusion Explained

Fire Emblem fans got a huge surprise this week when not one but two stars of Fire Emblem: Awakening joined the Smash Bros. roster. Even in all the excitement, however, people couldn't help but notice that Awakening's main hero, Chrom, was being sidelined. His appearance in Smash is limited to a cameo, most likely as an Assist Trophy. So… how come?

You may have heard before that Smash director Masahiro Sakurai has a column in Japan's Famitsu magazine. NeoGAF user Masked Man was able to translate and share the latest article, which explains why Lucina and Robin got in and Chrom got left out. Robin was an easy inclusion since his / her playstyle —  a combination of short-range sword-fighting and long-range spellcasting — is unlike the other Fire Emblem fighters, Marth and Ike. But when it came to Chrom:

I played all the way through FE:A and really wanted to include a character from that rich cast in Smash Bros. Naturally, I considered adding Chrom to the roster, but the decision wasn't easy by any means. At the end of the day, Chrom would just end up being another plain-old sword-wielder like Marth and Ike. Compared with other characters, he lacks any unique characteristics.

Lucina, on the other hand, is a clone of Marth and was originally to be his alternate costume — this matches her role in Awakening when she initially tried to pass herself off as Marth. But she got lucky:

Initially, I had considered including Lucina as one of Marth's alternate costumes. After all, she has a close relationship with him in FE:A. In such cases, even if two characters' names and voices differ, as long as they function the same way, I assign them as alternate costumes. The Wii Fit Trainers, Villagers, and Robin are examples of this setup. However, even though Lucina shares her physical stats and techniques with Marth, the characteristics of their attacks differ. When two such similar characters function in an even slightly different manner, I give them a separate spot on the roster since that will affect battle records and whatnot.

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS comes out on October 3, while the Wii U version comes out in winter.