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

[Mercakete]

10 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

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.

I meant in general, not just in FE, but across various fandoms. For example, at one time (I don't know if this still holds true or how thoroughly it was researched) there was a statistic that said that manga with a female character on the cover sold more than ones with a male character. 

10 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

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. 

Except that Corrin's appearance could be customized (build, hair color, hair style, eye shape, etc.) so that fits a bit more into the "player character" sort of character. Otherwise, yeah, and same with Kris and Robin. Mark and Byleth are more comparable to Alear, I think, just because the same things can be customized for all of them, except that Byleth and Mark are both silent protagonists (except that, even though the player can't see what they say, especially in Mark's case, their responses to things can be assumed based on how other characters react to them. So, they're still individuals within the narrative rather than true self-insertable player characters.) All that said, I think Mark was the most effective at being a player character, having minimal presence except for being a conduit for the player to interact with other characters with. This is strengthened by being able to "look through Mark's eyes" while other characters were interacting, to the point that the player was looked at directly (especially by Lyn, Eliwood, and Hector.)

All that said, I feel like IS does their best when they're free to just make a character instead of trying to make a self-insert. Frees up their writing since they don't need to worry about the player feeling immersed (which, ironically, becomes so generalized that immersion becomes difficult, and contrastingly, immersion winds up being more effective when the main character has his/her own, strong presence, such as in the cases of Marth, Ike, and Alm.) That's what I've observed, anyway.

But yeah, Alear feels like (s)he's kind of trying to startle being a player character and having his/her own presence in the game, and leans more towards the latter (not that I've finished my first playthrough yet, mind you. I'm on ch20 or so.)

[SnowFire]

@Mercakete: I feel like the move away from customizable main characters was more of a technological issue + a particular plot quirk.  In DS FE12, Kris was just a simple portrait and was hair colors on the vanilla class sprites.  In the 3DS games, most scenes were rendered with the in-game engine, so all of the default options for "eh this class with this build and this hair color" worked for free.  It did mean that animated cutscenes involving Robin / Corrin were rendered in a rather strange, first-person style so that they didn't have to show what they looked like.  It seems that for the Switch games, the models were such that they didn't have confidence in such customizability looking good, perhaps due to the more detailed models.  It could also be that they wanted to show the characters in the larger cutscenes. 

The plot quirk is that both Three Houses and Engage happen to have Actual Plot Points about the main character's hair color.  It would have been kind of a jerk move in 3H to throw away the player's chosen hair color for a new one.

Anyway, the point is, it's not clear that the lack of appearance customizability doesn't mean the character isn't meant as a player-stand in.  Byleth is quite clearly a player stand-in, down to not really have lines of dialogue that aren't chosen or in-battle stuff, and they aren't deeply customizable either beyond gender.  Alear has all the hallmarks of a player-stand in otherwise, notably being an "outsider" with amnesia who thus has an excuse to learn about the setting with the player.  To be sure, they're certainly their own character as well, more so than Byleth, and that's good!  But it's definitely expected for at least some identification with Alear.

[Shadow Mir]

On 4/23/2023 at 1:35 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

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.

On what grounds, though? Because his incessant howling is So. Fucking. ANNOYING. Even Navi wasn't half as unpleasant to hear constantly.

[Sentinel07]

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

On what grounds, though? Because his incessant howling is So. Fucking. ANNOYING. Even Navi wasn't half as unpleasant to hear constantly.

I gotta agree. I like the idea of a priest with a casual and party-going kind of personality, but the constant wolf howling got annoying after a while.

[Seazas]

On 4/23/2023 at 11:39 AM, Etrurian emperor said:

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. 

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. 

Not sure about that. Corrin was officially described as a my unit type but as a lord now. They have the customization and everything that Byleth onward gave up on.