Fire Emblem Engage (non-DLC) popularity poll results from Nintendo Dream Magazine!

[DefyingFates]

https://serenesforest.net/2023/04/21/fire-emblem-engage-the-results-are-in-popularity-poll-breakdown-via-nintendo-dreams-june-2023-issue/

Only the top 25 winners were ranked, what do you think of the results?:

Spoiler

1. Alear
2. Diamant
3. Alfred
4. Alcryst
5. Yunaka
6. Sommie
7. Céline
8. Pandreo
9. Veyle
10. Ivy
11. Framme
12. Etie
13. Lapis
14. Anna
15. Louis
16. Goldmary
17. Hortensia
18. Boucheron
19. Chloé
20. Amber
21. Kagetsu
22. Clanne
23. Panette
24. Fogado
25. Vander

My take, spoilered just so anyone reading the preview of this post won't get spoiled:

Spoiler

I'm really happy Alear came first! They really surprised me with how interesting they were as I mentioned back in January. I'm glad Veyle and Alfred got so high as well! Also, Sommie got sixth place, that's crazy. Hopefully it's not an option for CYL 8.

 

[link16hit]

didn't expect Pandreo, but WEAAAAAAA

 

[lenticular]

1 hour ago, DefyingFates said:

what do you think of the results?

Well, my tastes and opinions very definitely do not match the aggregated tastes and opinions of Nintendo Dream readers, that's for sure. Only two of my favourites cracked the top ten, several of my favourites didn't even make it to the top 25, and several characters who I actively dislike are very highly ranked.

Which, on the one hand, makes me a little bit sad because it means that (many of) my favourites aren't going to see light of day ever again, and that IS are going to continue designing characters that I dislike. But on the other hand, one of the joys of Fire Emblem as a series is that the big casts means there's always going to be someone for me to latch onto, and I'm glad that they are still able to make the relatively unpopular characters that I like.

[Morgan--Grandmaster]

Spoiler

As someone who just got to Alcryst's A Support, it delights me to see him and Yunaka round out the Top 5. Sommie is also a big hit, which is nice (I wouldn't have thought to even include it). Why couldn't more mascot characters be like Sommie? I do find it odd that Timerra and Rosado are absent, though.

 

Edited April 21 by Morgan--Grandmaster

[SnowFire]

The impression I get if you polled the English-language fandom is that the top characters would be some combination of the Alears, Ivy, Yunaka, Alcryst, and Diamant.  This is mostly echoed above, but Ivy does strangely worse than expected, and Diamant a little better (I'd guesstimate him at more like #5 with soft support, he's liked but not quite loved in English).  Wonder if the JP version was somehow notably different with those two.

Something that's a bit mixed is Veyle & Framme's position on the list.  IMO, those two aren't written great, and are very much into the JP "person who worships the player-stand in avatar" fanservice trope which I dislike.  (Okay, I'm being a little unfair here.  Veyle has at least some other things going on other than Alear-worship that are fine, but she's also trapped directly in some of the most poorly done plotlines in the game.)  Given that Veyle is probably the second most important person in the game behind Alear as far as screentime / plot relevance, clocking in at "only" 9th does suggest that the JP audience agrees something went wrong, since by default you'd expect such a character to score highly. (Like, equivalents would be something like Azura or Lucina in plot relevance, and those two score highly - exceptionally highly in Lucina's case.)  But obviously 9th place still isn't bad, so I don't want to overstate my case here.  Similarly, Framme has a bit of a leg up being one of the very first characters to join, which generally are at least somewhat memorable (equivalents are, say, Kaint/Sain, Boyd, or Wolt), so one one hand, 11 is a bit underwhelming, but it's also way too high for one of the most one-note characters in the game.  Oh well.

Etie is also a tad high.  I haven't seen most of her supports, in fairness, but I don't get the impression Effie was particularly popular in JP (and yes, I know she was written a bit differently there), and she seems a similar personality archetype.  Maybe file her with Ivy & Diamant for "maybe came off differently in JP?"

Fogado & Pandreo are also a bit more separated than I expected.  They're very similar archetypes, the haha-party-time-but-actually-serious sort, but Pandreo did substantially better.  Huh.

Did the poll include villains?  Not that I expect most of them would do any damage, but Griss was fine for what he was.  (Mauvier was pretty decent too, but I totally get that his character type isn't doing any damage in a raw popularity contest.)

[Morgan--Grandmaster]

12 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

Did the poll include villains?  Not that I expect most of them would do any damage, but Griss was fine for what he was.  (Mauvier was pretty decent too, but I totally get that his character type isn't doing any damage in a raw popularity contest.)

Yes. Also, Zephia has quickly climbed up my list of the most vile villains.

Edited April 21 by Morgan--Grandmaster

[DefyingFates]

11 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

Something that's a bit mixed is Veyle & Framme's position on the list.  IMO, those two aren't written great, and are very much into the JP "person who worships the player-stand in avatar" fanservice trope which I dislike.  (Okay, I'm being a little unfair here.  Veyle has at least some other things going on other than Alear-worship that are fine

Does Veyle really count? I don't think she really counts as an avatar worshipper, and I think the "other things" make up far more of who she is. Obvious Engage spoilers:

Spoiler

She does look up to Alear, but that's just older sibling admiration: of course she sees Alear as a role model. And as I said outside of this tag, I think her drive to atone for her actions (and stop Sombron) is a much bigger part of her personality as shown in her Supports.

Framme and Clanne though, those two definitely count - though they're at least a bit more justified than other examples (particularly in FE) since they're kids who have been told stories about how cool Alear is since they were little. That's straying outside the bounds of this topic though 😛

[SnowFire]

Mm. 

Spoiler

See my comments in this topic:

If Alear-Veyle B is to be believed, we CAN'T assume typical older sibling dynamics are at work.  Veyle met Alear ONCE in the 1000 years ago backstory.  Her life was apparently sufficiently bad that a single good interaction was enough to cause her to idolize Alear from afar, but it's definitely not a normal sibling relationship - it's closer to "abused person latches on to a single moment of kindness."  Luckily, said attachment turns out to be mutual and work out, but this is also, like, a villain motivation in other stories when it turns out that this conclusion was NOT accurate, and someone blindly follows someone terrible.  Like, say, Marni doing whatever Zephia or Evil Veyle says due to her own sob story of a past.

I also don't think Veyle really has much to atone for, oddly enough.  Mauvier, yes.  Veyle was simply mind-controlled, and mind-controlled so fully that her two halves don't seem to even share memories.  She's pretty well off the hook from the perspective of the player, and it seems like others in-setting accept this - her support chain with Diamant has her running around do-gooding among Divine Dragon worshipping populace without incident, for example.

There's a certain emotional cocaine hit from people telling you that you inspired them, turned their life around, let them see new perspectives, etc.  More recent Persona games are really into this, lots of support chains that involve the avatar character somehow being the catalyst for someone discovering their true self and finding happiness etc.  Veyle is the character in the story who most veers into this, probably by dint of everyone else being in a pretty good spot in their life already (with the sole exception, maybe, of Alcryst).  And she is indeed effusive in her praise of Alear for essentially saving her.  It's not 100% the same as the raw fanboy / fangirl of Clanne / Framme, but it's an adjacent archetype, at least.

Edited April 21 by SnowFire

[Medeus]

Looking at this makes me wonder how far many of the players who voted got. This was conducted in February, many of the Elusian and Solm characters are very low and Saphir and Lindon are flat out missing. It does give a good impression of what earlier characters are popular, but I'm hesitant to use it for anyone's standing past Chapter 10 (except maybe Pandreo).

[Etrurian emperor]

10 hours ago, link16hit said:

didn't expect Pandreo, but WEAAAAAAA

 

Don't you mean AWOOOOOO!?

[DefyingFates]

9 hours ago, SnowFire said:

And she is indeed effusive in her praise of Alear for essentially saving her.  It's not 100% the same as the raw fanboy / fangirl of Clanne / Framme, but it's an adjacent archetype, at least.

Okay, I see what you mean.

Spoiler

I think the "abused person latches on to a single moment of kindness" part makes her different enough to not be counted among Clanne & Framme since that dynamic carries far more weight that just idol worship. As for Veyle wanting to atone: while you're right that her alternate personality was the wrong-doer, that's not how Veyle sees the issue, which is what drives her. And it's understandable too, isn't it? Even if she wasn't actively doing harm, she was still a part of everything that happened.

For a really silly example: if your partner told you you kicked them in your sleep, you wouldn't say "I was asleep so it's not my problem", you'd apologize!

 

7 hours ago, Medeus said:

Looking at this makes me wonder how far many of the players who voted got. This was conducted in February, many of the Elusian and Solm characters are very low and Saphir and Lindon are flat out missing.

I hadn't thought of that, but that's a good point! I wonder what would happen if this poll were to be conducted again (say a month from now so that everyone has time to get to know the DLC cast too)...

[Morphy]

Was this a Japan-exclusive poll? Cause I'm surprised Timerra & Griss didn't make the top 25.


KOEI Tecmo has these polls too with their musou/warriors games, and it really shows that western fans & Japanese fans have different preferences.

[Dark Holy Elf]

A few thoughts:

1. If I recall correctly, there was a similar poll by Nintendo Dream of Three Houses popularity early in that game's lifetime which also turned out to be wildly off from the overall fandom. This poll is Japan-only, which already biases things, but also likely has all sorts of biases past that, some obvious (preference for male characters), and some not.
2. The placement of Fogado and Timerra is embarrassing and honestly a bit upsetting. The relatively high placement of Pandreo banishes some of the possible reasons for why this happened and leaves an obvious, unpleasant one.
3. Sommie deserves any and all high placements. If there's going to be a weird meme figure for popularity again, I'm glad this is one I actually like. That dog never failed to bring me joy as I played the game.

[Barren]

Funny that at first people either rejected Alear as a concept and design (memes were born too). Now Alear is the most popular character in the game according to the poll. Interesting how people’s tastes changes.

[DefyingFates]

35 minutes ago, Barren said:

Funny that at first people either rejected Alear as a concept and design (memes were born too). Now Alear is the most popular character in the game according to the poll. Interesting how people’s tastes changes.

I'm glad people were willing to give them a chance, even if I've seen plenty of playthroughs calling them the obvious memes.

[Barren]

1 hour ago, DefyingFates said:

I'm glad people were willing to give them a chance, even if I've seen plenty of playthroughs calling them the obvious memes.

Yeah same here. I’ll admit the design had me scratching my head at first but it grew on me.

[DefyingFates]

20 minutes ago, Barren said:

Yeah same here. I’ll admit the design had me scratching my head at first but it grew on me.

And then you have weirdos like me who were okay with it from Day One 😛

[Shadow Mir]

Sommie at 6th place let's fucking gooooo

Also, how in the seven hells is Pandreo so high?!?

[Light magic is cool]

Seeing the top four makes me think the fujos got to this poll.

[Metal Flash]

My thoughts:

1. Surprised Yunaka isn`t higher, since everyone seems to love her
2. Shocked Pandreo is ranked so highly
3. Interesting that Diamant ranks higher than Alfred and Ivy
4. Kinda sad that Citrinne and Merrin didn`t make the top 25, I like them a lot
5. Pleasantly surprised that Lapis is so high
6. After seeing the Persona character polls, Alear being the top voted was expected

[Mercakete]

I was pretty surprised that the highest-ranking female character (apart from fem Alear) came in 5th, what with how much it seems pushed that female characters will always sell better than male ones. Also, the kinds of female characters. I mean, Ivy barely made it into the top 20. Not to mention how more "normal" characters seemed to rank better overall compared to more polarized-ly eccentric characters did (characters with a very pronounced/in-your-face quirk, like Amber, Rosado, Hortensia, or Zelkov.) They really stand out as a result, but more traditional roles seem to be preferred. I kind of agree, really. It's fun having an eccentric character now and then, but it gets tiring when there are a lot of them jammed into once space. Keeping up with them can take a lot of energy.

Edit:

Skimmed a bit, so I'll give my take on the hero worship bit. I didn't like how overdone it was in Fates, but it makes sense to me here, and it's all because of context. The player character is the world's deity, so it makes sense that even royalty would have extreme and polarized opinions about said deity. So, because the worship is happening to a deity, it doesn't bother me. It's just kind of expected.

Also, Alear barely counts as a player character, imo. Both forms have their own voice actors and clear history, thoughts, opinions, and designs. The only things you can edit are the name, birthday, and gender, and sometimes kind of make a choice. Otherwise, it's just another character in the game. So, yes, Alear is technically the player character, but the identity they have is more their own than the player's in the actual writing.

Edited April 23 by Mercakete

[UNLEASH IT]

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Sommie at 6th place let's fucking gooooo

Also, how in the seven hells is Pandreo so high?!?

He's a really good unit. Kagetsu placed low though so idk.

[Dark Holy Elf]

The Alear hero worship is bad and I basically second Snowfire's thoughts on the subject. There is definitely a tendency for characters defined strongly by that to do better in JP polls than NA ones, so yeah I expect Framme to tumble once we get a stronger overall picture of popularity. Veyle I dunno, she is very plot-important so that should keep her ranking decently high, for all that I also don't think she's very popular by the standards of Fire Emblem deuteragonists.

7 hours ago, UNLEASH IT said:

He's a really good unit. Kagetsu placed low though so idk.

You kinda said it yourself in the second sentence, but unit worth clearly had little to no impact on this poll. I think Pandreo's personality definitely clicks with some people, though I was also surprised to see him this high.

8 hours ago, Mercakete said:

I was pretty surprised that the highest-ranking female character (apart from fem Alear) came in 5th, what with how much it seems pushed that female characters will always sell better than male ones.

I said it earlier but it's really worth emphasizing that the male characters doing much better is a particular bias of this poll. I'd strongly expect the actual popularity of male and female characters is relatively similar overall, as it is in most FE games.

Not sure what you meant by selling better... is that a reference to Heroes? I'm pretty sure female characters do actually sell better there, but again that speaks to specific biases, in that case, of so-called whales and who they're willing to spend huge amounts of money for, rather than of the entire fandom.

[Etrurian emperor]

On 4/22/2023 at 2:35 PM, Morphy said:

KOEI Tecmo has these polls too with their musou/warriors games, and it really shows that western fans & Japanese fans have different preferences.

Especially in the case where one's nice but fat old man and his rival is a prettyboy tsundere with all the charm of a rattlesnake. You'd never guess who ranks first and who ranks last. 

8 hours ago, Mercakete said:

Also, Alear barely counts as a player character, imo. Both forms have their own voice actors and clear history, thoughts, opinions, and designs. The only things you can edit are the name, birthday, and gender, and sometimes kind of make a choice. Otherwise, it's just another character in the game. So, yes, Alear is technically the player character, but the identity they have is more their own than the player's in the actual writing.

Yeah though I'd say the same goes for Corrin. Both of them are just normal characters who's name you can tweak. Robin's a bit of a special case since his character traits are more low key. 

[Viberum]

How very interesting. Surprised and happy that Diamant and Alcryst so high. I expected the girls to be higher to be honest considering how much more screen time they got throughout the main story.