Lucina

Lucina (, Lucina) is a character from the series. As one of the three main characters of , Lucina is a distant descendant of Marth and the daughter of Chrom. Lucina traveled back in time in order to save her father and thus avert the apocalyptic damage inflicted during her future by the "Fell Dragon".

Lucina made her  series debut in Super Smash Bros. 4 as a playable character, and returns in that capacity in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Origin
Lucina is a distant descendant of the legendary "Hero-King" Marth. She is a princess of, the successor state to the now-ancient kingdom of Archanea, and is Chrom's daughter. Lucina bears the holy bloodline of Ylisse's rulers, the Exalts, who carry the power of the legendary dragon and her holy gifts to humanity: the Fire Emblem and the blade. This power is signified by the presence of a distinctive Brand on their bodies; in Lucina's case, hers is located in the iris of her left eye.

The adult Lucina the game primarily features is a time-traveler from an alternate future, who travels back to the current timeline in Fire Emblem Awakening due to the "Fell Dragon" possessing Robin, and his legions of  zombies bringing her own world to ruin. Desperate to reverse this unfortunate event, she and other future children of Chrom's allies, the, travel back in time to prevent the revival of Grima in Chrom's timeline and change the future. When she travels back in time, she initially hides her identity by tying her hair back and wearing a distinctive mask given to her by, one of her allies from the future, and adopting the name "Marth" from her famous ancestor.

Lucina first encounters Chrom and the Shepherds by saving her aunt from the first of the Risen. She would later duel Chrom in Arena Ferox, during which Chrom noticed that her fighting style was strikingly similar to his own. Lucina's disguise is ruined during an assassination attempt on her aunt while defending Chrom, causing her to disappear. She would then reappear two years later, again defending Chrom from an assassination attempt. Lucina is then accidentally revealed to be a woman after an unexpected assassin appears and inadvertently destroys her mask in in attempt to kill her, at which point she is saved by Chrom. Later, Lucina confirms that she is Chrom's daughter by allowing him to see the Brand of the Exalt in her eye, just like his newborn daughter. Lucina then joins the Shepherds to assist them in a new war.

In Awakening, Lucina starts out as the class by default, inheriting the class from Chrom. As she is pivotal to the story, she is the only child unit whose recruitment is forced, and one of the few units that will not be permanently lost, even in Classic mode. Like Chrom, her weapon of choice is, but her version of the famed sword is the brought back from her future. Unlike Chrom's version, it is more powerful and can be used to self-heal, whereas Chrom's Falchion is initially weaker with its power sealed away and must be upgraded before the final battle to become stronger than Lucina's. Lucina can either be a potential wife for male Robin or female Robin's daughter if the latter is married to Chrom. There is also a variety of potential affine relationships between Robin and Lucina which are not acknowledged in game.

Alongside international success of Fire Emblem Awakening, Lucina has become one of the most popular Fire Emblem characters worldwide outside of Super Smash Bros. Since her debut, she has appeared as a guest character in ', ', and , in each case summoned in-game using her amiibo. She appeared with Chrom and fellow smasher Ryu in , a crossover strategy game featuring characters from Bandai Namco, Capcom, Sega, and Nintendo. Several outfit variations of Lucina are also featured in the crossover game ', and she is also playable in '. Most recently,  features Lucina as one of the game's numerous Emblems, ethereal clones of protagonists from various other Fire Emblem games who dwell within special rings.

As a playable character
Lucina appears as a newcomer in Super Smash Bros. 4. She is a clone of, though she is shorter, and the strength of her blade is balanced throughout, rather than stronger at the tip like Marth's blade.

Appropriately, she is unlockable by completing Classic Mode with Marth on any difficulty in the 3DS version. She is unlockable by completing Classic Mode with any character on 5.5 Intensity or higher in the Wii U version.

Of note is that she was originally planned to be an alternate costume of, but was given her own character slot later in development due to "the characteristics of their attacks being different".

On the tier list for SSB4, Lucina is ranked 14th out of 55 characters, placing her three spots below Marth. While her Parallel Falchion grants her a good disjointed reach, she still suffers from high endlag in her moves, much like Marth. She also lacks a tipper, giving her a generally weaker neutral game than Marth, though this still gives her some slight advantages over Marth, as the consistent damage from her sword allows her to afford being closer to opponents, all while still delivering decent damage and knockback. As a whole, the few strengths she possesses over Marth are fairly minor, and although she has been buffed to similar degrees by game updates, she is generally seen as an inferior version of him, resulting in lower tournament representation and results in comparison.

As a playable character
Lucina returns in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as an unlockable Echo Fighter of. She retains her primary difference setting her apart from Marth, that being her lack of sweetspots and sourspots on the Parallel Falchion, but has been subtly recloned in other aspects, such as no longer being shorter than Marth.

Lucina received a mix of buffs and nerfs in the transition from SSB4, but has been overall buffed. While she received some direct nerfs, mostly shared with Marth, she benefits greatly from universal changes to the point of counterbalancing those nerfs, as the faster pace of Ultimate allows her to more easily take advantage of her balanced damage output compared to Marth's weaker sourspots and less forgiving tipper sweetspots. As such, Lucina has very strong representation and results in tournaments, with many players considering her a viable top or high-tier character, as well as one of the best swordfighters in the game.

Trivia

 * Lucina is the first female fighter to debut as an unlockable character (discounting Wendy, who is one of the seven Koopalings serving as alternate costumes for Bowser Jr.).
 * Lucina, Robin, and Chrom are the only Fire Emblem fighters in the Super Smash Bros. series to debut in the same Fire Emblem game.
 * Although Lucina's name is the same between Japanese and English, the announcer pronounces it differently between regions: the English version pronounces it as "Lu-see-na", while the Japanese version pronounces it "Ru-ki-na" (in a similar vein and stress to how Lucas is pronounced in English).
 * Laura Bailey, Lucina's English voice actress in the Super Smash Bros. series is uncredited in Ultimate, similar to how she was uncredited in Fire Emblem: Awakening, as well as how Antony Del Rio (Pit and Dark Pit's English voice actor in Kid Icarus: Uprising) is uncredited in both SSB4 and Ultimate and how Hynden Walch (Viridi's English voice actress in Kid Icarus: Uprising) is uncredited in SSB4.

Lucina