Marth: Difference between revisions

|image = {{tabber|title1=New Mystery of the Emblem|tab1=[[File:FEWA Marth.png|x300px]]|title2=Trading Card Game|tab2=[[File:Marth FE3.png|x300px]]}}

|lastappearance = ''{{s|fireemblem|Fire Emblem Engage}}'' (2023)

Marth was introduced in the first ''Fire Emblem'' game, ''[[Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light]]'' for the Famicom console, which was later remade for Nintendo DS as ''{{s|fireemblemwiki|Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon}}''. While he was absent from the tangentially-related second game in the series, ''{{s|fireemblem|Fire Emblem Gaiden}}'', Marth's role and place in the story of Archanea was later expanded on in the third game, ''[[Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem]]'', released on the Super Famicom in early 1994. ''Mystery of the Emblem'' featured both a remake of the original game and a continuation of that game's story, and the continued story was itself later remade for Nintendo DS as ''{{s|fireemblemwiki|Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow}}''.

As the first lord in the ''Fire Emblem'' series, Marth established many trends in both narrative and gameplay roles that later series protagonists, such as [[Roy]] and [[Chrom]], would closely follow. The majority of ''Fire Emblem'' protagonists share the lord class with Marth, with only a few notable exceptions, such as [[Ike]] and [[Corrin]]. Despite only being the star of four out of the series' sixteen games, Marth is treated by Intelligent Systems as the mascot of the entire ''Fire Emblem'' series.

Outside of his own games, Marth is also a notable part of the backstory of ''{{s|fireemblemwiki|Fire Emblem: Awakening}}'', and two of its protagonists, [[Chrom]] and [[Lucina]], are his distant descendants. He has made frequent appearances as an optional bonus character, unrelated to the main story, in many ''Fire Emblem'' games from ''Awakening'' onward; he is available in ''Awakening'' via SpotPass and DLC, ''{{s|fireemblemwiki|Fire Emblem Fates}}'' via [[amiibo]] as a recruitable unit, and ''{{s|fireemblemwiki|Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia}}'' via amiibo as an illusory unit. He features prominently in ''Fire Emblem'' crossover productions, including the video games ''{{s|fireemblemwiki|Fire Emblem Heroes}},'' and ''{{s|fireemblemwiki|Fire Emblem Warriors}}'' as one of their many playable characters, and the series' two trading card games. He was also the star of a short-lived direct-to-video [[fireemblemwiki:Fire Emblem (anime)|anime adaptation of ''Mystery of the Emblem'']] in 1997, which featured actor [[wikipedia:Hikaru Midorikawa|Hikaru Midorikawa]]'s first performance as the character, five years before he reprised that role in ''Super Smash Bros. Melee''. This anime was notably the first appearance of Marth outside of Japan, as it was translated and released in English; his name was translated as "Mars", an alternate reading of his Japanese name. Most recently, ''{{s|fireemblemwiki|Fire Emblem Engage}}'' features Marth as one of the game's numerous Emblems, ethereal clones of protagonists from various other ''Fire Emblem'' games who dwell within special rings.

Neither Marth nor any ''Fire Emblem'' content appears in the original game. However, according to an interview from ''{{S|fireemblem|The Making of Fire Emblem – 25th Anniversary Development Secrets, Awakening and Fates}}'', [[Masahiro Sakurai]] wanted to include Marth as a playable character in that game but was unable to do so due to time constraints.<ref>[http://www.sourcegaming.info/2015/12/13/sakurai-fe25/ Source Gaming: "Sakurai Interview: Fire Emblem 25th Anniversary"]</ref>

Marth makes his ''Smash'' debut (and by extension, his international debut, excluding the ''Mystery of the Emblem'' anime adaption, which was released in North America) as an [[unlockable character]] in ''Melee''. His design is based on his appearance from ''Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem''. He can be unlocked in one of the three ways: using all fourteen starter characters at least once each in Vs. Mode matches, beat or fail Classic mode with all fourteen starter characters on any difficulty, or play 400 Vs. mode matches. In each of these cases, Marth must be battled one-on-one to be unlocked.

Marth returns as an unlockable playable character. Like ''Melee'', his appearance is based on his design from ''Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem''. Marth has a superior reach to most characters in the game and relies on the length of his sword to effectively zone against his opponents. While his changes are mixed, he was somewhat nerfed from ''Melee'' like many other higher-tier characters. He is currently in the A- tier according to the official SBR tier list.

During the initial release of ''SSB4'', Marth was considerably nerfed, with few noteworthy buffs. These nerfs left him with less mobility and range relative to the cast (though his own range had been improved from Brawl), weakening his neutral game and depriving him of his potent comboing and punishing capabilities from previous games. Because of this, he had previously seen a huge drop in his tier placement. However, he has since received multiple buffs in update patches, with the most notable patch, [[1.1.4]], granting him improvements to his aerial combos and juggling game, as well as granting bigger tipper [[hitbox]]es, and higher damage output on several attacks. As a result, Marth is reasonably better than he was during the initial release of ''SSB4'', and has since seen significantly improved tournament results. Overall, although he's still considered fairly nerfed from ''Brawl'', he ranks highly on the ''SSB4'' tier list, ranking 11th out of 55 characters (tying with {{SSB4|Ryu}}).

Marth returns as a playable character in ''Super Smash Bros. Ultimate'', as with all previous characters. He uses a more detailed version of the ''New Mystery of the Emblem'' design from ''SSB4'', and now has a different hairstyle to match his more recent appearances in titles such as ''{{s|fireemblemwiki|Fire Emblem Heroes}}''. Like in ''[[Melee]]'' and ''[[Brawl]]'', Marth is an unlockable character. ''Ultimate'' is the first ''Super Smash Bros.'' game in which Marth is dubbed in English in overseas versions, specifically by {{s|wikipedia|Yuri Lowenthal}}, his English voice actor in all appearances from {{uvm|Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.}} onwards. In Japanese, Hikaru Midorikawa returns to voice Marth with new voice clips for the first time since ''Brawl''.

As Marth was a high or top tier character in all of his previous appearances, he received a mix of buffs and nerfs in the transition from ''Smash 4'' to ''Ultimate'', but was nerfed overall. While he received buffs both directly and from some universal changes, the faster pace of ''Ultimate'' combined with the removal of micro spacing techniques like [[perfect pivot]]ing makes it much more difficult to land his tipper sweet spots. He also received several direct nerfs: his jab is no longer an effective combo starter, and his sour spots are much weaker. Some buffs were tweaked a bit for Marth as an instance, they've made his tippers a bit bigger or easier to hit, but this didn't really improve Marth very much. As a result of these nerfs, Marth sees little representation in tournaments, with many players considering him outclassed by Lucina. As a result of this, Marth currently ranks 54th out of 82 on the current tier list, placing him in the B- tier as an upper mid tier character.

*Prior to ''Ultimate'', Marth was one of the only three playable characters in the game that spoke Japanese in the Western localization of the game (a trait he shares with Roy and {{SSB4|Cloud}}), despite the fact the ''Fire Emblem'' games (including one of his own) started seeing international releases. The first game to grant him an official English voice actor ({{s|wikipedia|Yuri Lowenthal}}) was ''{{s|fireemblemwiki|Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.}}'', which was released after both versions of ''Smash 4''; Lowenthal's first ''Smash'' performance as Marth was in ''Ultimate''.

**However, long before this, Marth was voiced by {{s|wikipedia|Spike Spencer}} in the dub of [[fireemblemwiki:Fire Emblem (anime)|the ''Fire Emblem'' OVA]].

*Marth is the only playable {{uv|Fire Emblem}} character to debut in the 20th century.

**He is also the only playable {{uv|Fire Emblem}} character to appear in every ''Super Smash Bros.'' game since the debut of his universe in ''Melee''.