Opinions. Micaiah "Rate the Character" Post.

Disclaimer: This article was created with the intention to post my opinions about Micaiah's posibilities in Smash in the "Rate the Character" Thread in Smash Boards

Link: https://smashboards.com/threads/rate-their-chances-switch-edition-day-53-micaiah.453357/page-132#post-22037729

Let's begin

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The Chances.

Micaiah is a character in a hard position for a playable spot because she doesn't have the same recency that a character like (nowadays) Celica has, but Micaiah has some stuff on her side I would like to post some of them.

Micaiah is filled with niches and gimmicks that hadn't be replicate together, and she of course, is one of the Fire Emblem Main Characters.

1.- Micaiah is a user of Magic (Light Magic)

In the Fire Emblem Series exists different Light Magic Tomes, and like the anima tomes there exists tomes with different functions like being highly powerful but make you vulnerable (Aura), Long-Range Magic (Purge) and of course there are the ol'reliable ones that doesn't have particular disadvantages or advantages...

"But Robin alredy does the magic stuff"

Robin is more like a Mystical Knight, or whatever you think is the main focus in the moveset, the magic is a part of important of their gimmick, but they are essencially sword-user in most of their animations; Micaiah is a complete magic user that doesn't use swords, and she doesn't need them anyway; in fact, the lack of a sword make Micaiah more flexible in the way she can use the animations of her attacks to create some unusual hitboxes not possible with a weapon that is attached to the user.

But Magic isn't limited just to flashy movements, Micaiah also has in her side other way of using her power.

2.- Micaiah is a user of the Utility-Based Magical Staves.

The staves are one of the most useful tools you can find in a Fire Emblem because of their special uses. There are some very straighforward like the ones that heals HP or Status Ailments. But there are also some that offer many possibilities; Warping and Rescuing Units can be used to move units at positions that would otherwise being impossible, making them key to create powerful strategies to beat even the hardest maps.

Micaiah is the only lord that is actually associated (but not as much as the Light Magic) with Staves, and they're one of the key elements in the franchise (the Staves and their strategies are as old as FE1) that would be represented in some way.

3.- Micaiah's signature abilities.

Alongside the more well known use of Magic and Staves that appear across the series; Micaiah has her own abilities beyond these. Micaiah has Corona (also know as: Dawn Light), that is the name of the Micaiah's Proc Skill that does additional damage (more specifically, ignores the enemy's Magic Resistence) and can blind the enemies affected; in her game she isn't the only character that uses this skill, but unless you're very unlucky (getting Corona'd by Lekain or Sephiran), it's unlikely you ended up seeing someone using the ability that isn't her. 

When casting Corona, Micaiah creates a light sphere above her.

Micaiah also has another abilitiy, and this one is completely unique to her: Sacrifice (also known as: Healing Hands), this is a tricky skill, it's effect (as their names would indicate), is a healing skill that gives HP to other units; quite interesting

Also, Micaiah has her own personal magic tome: Thani, which would be an important element of how Micaiah would work in Smash Bros.

I did for Source Gaming a moveset exploring many of these ideas: http://sourcegaming.info/2016/12/22/ds-micaiah/

After explaining the gameplay stuff, the things that would interest Sakurai for a new character, it's time to explore other points; the things that helps or damages her chances.

Let's start with the negatives.

Micaiah hasn't have a new appearance in a Main Game since Awakening, and that was essencially a cameo; Micaiah most notable appearance in the last years was in the Fire Emblem Heroes some months ago (January 2018) and her moment as a Main Character being in Radiant Dawn 11 years ago (February 2007)

She is evidently behind some other people for a spot in the next Smash Bros; whoever is the New Fire Emblem Character from that Switch Game, and there would be another choices to consider too.

These are quite heavy problems, but Micaiah still has some things in her side.

Now the positives.

Something important for a character selection, it's stand out in the roster; Micaiah has a similar anime aesthetic to the rest of the Fire Emblem Character, so, isn't hard to see a which franchises she belongs, but the rest of her design makes her feel completely different from the usual Fire Emblem protags.

Also, related with her design, being a original female character kind of helps I guess.

Micaiah surprisingly got some support during the ballot time, as it was show for the Source Gaming Posts about it... Nothing super special, but the support actually exists.

And the last thing to consider... it's the Smash Bros Switch Weird timing; that ended ups hurting heavily the Fire Emblem Switch Protag, we don't even know if the game will still be released in 2018 (as DLC is practically is likely if the character is unique enough)

And so, I decided to give her a 15% Chance rate... she is definitely unlikely, but she just can't be ignored, the potential is here, waiting to be found.

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The Want

Micaiah is very important to me, she is the light that guided me to don't be a lazy person all the time; after knowing her, I start feeling a special attachment to her, even before I played her game, and I was already thinking how she would work as a Smash Character, and then... when I finally played her game; against my own fears of ended up don't like her; essencially signed for life my love for Micaiah. Now I dedicate to write and share stuff to show how Micaiah would work in Smash Bros, to help other people understand her character, and in general share Micaiah Love.

Maybe in the past I would have give 100% to other characters, but nowadays the only character I want with a burning passion is her. I love Micaiah in every way possible, I love her simple but extremely stylish and beautiful design, I love her character, I found her quite a charming person with many interesting aspects to see when you read the story, and of course, I love the fact she is a spellcaster unlike most of the Main Characters, I love my magic-based stuff in every single game I played.

- Troykv (The Dawn's Historian and Micaiah4Smash Main Admin)

Gaming Ideas: How would be Micaiah in Fire Emblem Heroes?

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening People!

Yesterday I asked people if would like to see a post talking about Micaiah and Fire Emblem Heroes.

And the tweet got better results than expected, so, I decided to write a little bit about some ideas that would work with Micaiah.

First of all, Micaiah is a slowish-glass cannon character with good res, so, her work is to take magical hits and take as much as is possible, and return to the enemies powerful counter-attacks; Micaiah is also a support unit in Radiant Dawn, so, I'll mention some ideas about it too.

Basic Idea

Stat Spread:

Base stats 5 stars

Level 1: 15/16/17 HP -- 8/9/10 Atk -- 7/8/9 Spd -- 2/3/4 Def -- 7/8/9 Res

Level 40: 32/35/39 HP -- 34/37/40 Atk -- 24/27/31 Spd -- 12/16/19 Def -- 33/36/39 Res

Growth Points: 5 HP (+19) -- 9 Atk (+28) -- 5 Spd (+19) -- 2 Def (+13) -- 9 Res (+28)

Weapon Type: Blue Tome

Unit Type: Infantry

Micaiah's spread is like a tankier version of Sanaki; I decided to give her Blue Tome because we lack characters in this category with spreads like Sanaki's or Julia's (slow-ish, powerful, good Atk/Res with bad defense)

Weapon (Undefined name for a new weapon or Thani): Unheritable; +2 Res and Spd; Heavy-Blade Res-Based Skill or Effective Damage against Armored and cavalry units.

Special: Growing Light (This special was decided as a reference too the AoE attacks in RD, and it would have a great synergy with the "Magic Blade" Skill)

A Slot: Warding Stance 3 (Her whole "mage tank" niche is amplified with this skill, and makes the use of the "Magic Blade" practically guaranteed)

B Slot: Yune's Blessing (New Skill, uninheritable, it's effect would denegate the activation or charge of Specials when Micaiah's HP ≥ 50%; this ability serves like a way to avoid be killed in the first combat with overwhelming combinations; YB has its base in skills like Nihil and Aurora in Radiant Dawn)

C Slot: Atk Ploy (This is mostly here because it works with her Res-Based Skillset and makes her even tankier against the enemy).

Special mentions:

Warding Breath: The Res Version of Steady Breath, it would be a fitting skill for the RD protagonist... I didn't use it because unlike Brave!Ike, Micaiah doesn't have natural access to battle specials.

Ardent Sacrifice (and some kind of special variant as it's promoted version): Sacrifice is Micaiah's signature ability, but personally I'm not sure how it would work a uninheritable version of Ardent Sacrifice.

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What do you think about these ideas? I started this post with the intention of seeing the opinions of all the fans and other interested people, I would be very happy to see your own ideas; thanks for your attention.

- Troykv (The Dawn's Historian and Micaiah4Smash Main Admin)

(Special) Radiant Dawn 10th Anniversary Article

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening people.

Original Picture here

Today, February 22^nd, we're celebrating a special day: the Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn's 10th anniversary (from its original release in Japan), and I thought it would be a interesting idea talk about this game; how is this game, its legacy and other influences in the Fire Emblem Series (for good or bad reasons), etc.

The Story

Let's begin with what happened before the release; Radiant Dawn is (as we know) the tenth entry of the main series, developed since May 2005, (the same year it were announced the “Nintendo Revolution” and the development of Super Smash Bros Brawl) this game begin its developed soon after the Path of Radiance release, sequel for their previous release; they wanted to take advantage of the Revolution's release, this made Radiant Dawn the first attempt to release a Fire Emblem game in the Earliest Days of a console lifetime.

Radiant Dawn got its official announcement the next year during the Pre-E3 Nintendo Conference (May 9^th, 2006), the Revolution had already changed its codename to the official “Wii” some days ago; Radiant Dawn was briefly showed that day, with most of the content in the teaser being the first two CG cut scenes; a extremely weak presentation if you ask me; but it doesn't surprise me, Fire Emblem don't have anything those days to try to give it a proper presentation; the game was then showed again in some Japanese events and Videogame-dedicated magazines before the eventual release.

When the game was finally released, even with good scores from Famitsu, it got .. underwhelming results, it got 160k sales, only a small improve compared with the PoR's Sales. (Radiant Dawn has the “honor” to be the Fire Emblem Game with the forth weakest first-week sales and the third lowest total sales in Japan), personally I find the fault in the extremely weak advertising (including a weak presentation, boring ads and be overshadowed for other games).

Only Path of Radiance and TMS #FE have overall worse sales in Japan.

As some interesting fun facts about the game pre-release and release; the game confirmed the presence of two main groups and details about the first two parts, with the only element from other Parts confirmed being “The Crossing” fragment of the Part 3 that appears in the intro; the game completely lacked any kind of representation for Ike, something that in the hindsight I find hilarious, specially when you see how the plot is handle after his appearance.

The advertising before the western release (during November 11^st, 2007) in the other hand, was a lot more Ike-centric, even if this was still small and weak; probably the changes in the focus was with the intention to show perfectly this game is a sequel, thing that I'm not completely sure if was or wasn't a good idea.

The Story wasn't that much better in America (and specially in Europe) sales-wise, with a weak performance, only getting roughly 300k~ in the West.

Without a doubt, Ike has a interesting story in the franchise

Before we pass to the next part, there is something important to point that happened during 2005 related with the Radiant Dawn: It's unknown how it affected the game's development, but during a moment after July 7h (when the roster was “essencially” done), Masahiro Sakurai was in the search of a “burly swordsman” and a “new Fire Emblem Character” for the already mentioned Super Smash Bros Brawl; apparently a suggestion from one of the member from the Fire Emblem's Staff ended mixing both ideas in the form of Ike, eventually his suggestion become a reality, as one of the members of Brawl's Starter Roster, officially revealed in August 1st, 2007. Ike is probably the luckiest example of a Fire Emblem character in Smash Bros, we was essentially selected to fit a criteria and gimmick instead of his character of what he would represent from Fire Emblem... and this decision changed his life forever even if didn't affected Radiant Dawn's development (something I'm going to explain later)

What happened next

After the last two games flopping; as a intent to test the waters and know what direction would the franchise go in future, Intelligent System decided (a little after Radiant Dawn's development was complete) to create a special project that would make the franchise less niche, the known details about the game suggest that this game had more RPG elements than the usual Fire Emblem Game; but this idea had a problem; the project was unable to find a proper objective and focus in its development; and as we know, it was cancelled.

It's unknown if there were other reasons to cancel this game, I ask myself this because just a bit after this game was cancelled, Fire Emblem enter in a Era where not only abandoned completely the Home Console Market, the franchise tried to milk the Marth's Popularity a lot, remaking his two games (Fire Emblem Dark Dragon and Fire Emblem Mystery of Emblem, the last one, the Fire Emblem's best seller) and making him a key aspect of Fire Emblem Awakening merchandise in the form of “Masked Marth” (aka Completely-no-Lucina), one of the most heavily advertised characters in the game (and actually lived his.. I mean, her hype, but that is topic for another day.)

Sometimes I think the Lucina's existence is a product of Smash.

Why I mention Marth's Popularity right now? Because this character has a very special reason to be popular: Smash Bros., even if Anna is officially the Fire Emblem's Mascot, for most of the people, Marth it's considered as such; and he wasn't the only character benefited for the Smash Bros presence... that is right, Ike, even if he was incorporated in the Smash Bros for COMPLETELY arbitrary reasons, he was able to gain tons of love, and even some times been considered the most beloved lord in the franchise; the Ike's love would have existed before, during the post-PoR days, but the Smash Bros establish him as a Fire Emblem Icon; in the Ike's case, Awakening decided to dedicate him a “cameo” with a character based in his design and personality; Paris/Priam, and, according with him, the Ike's descendant, apparently connecting his world somehow with the Akanea/Judgrall/Valentia Universe; also, while not as evident as Priam, Chrom looks in my eyes designed as mix between Marth and Ike, and it's extremely likely this isn't a coincidence.

Ike and the release of Fire Emblem Awakening, awakened (hehe) the interest for these games again, but it was already too late, the games are in most of the places sold out, and their prices increased... a lot, I remember how I found a Radiant Dawn copy in 50 Dollars during 2008, and now is practically impossible to find it cheaper than 90 dollars... How the times change eh?

The future

The recent success of Fire Emblem and Ike becoming even bigger and bigger as a Fire Emblem Icon, makes me wonder... What would happen if IS decided to release again Path of Radiance and/or Radiant Dawn? What would they change? The game's design was already to focused on benefit Ike when we didn't know if his confirmation in Smash Bros affected or not the development... but now, the Ike bias is complete real, and would have actual known consequences.

I mean, it would sounds weird nowadays because Ike is established as the main icon of both Fire Emblem Tellius Games; but he went so far in expense of complete destroy the possibilities of the original main character from Radiant Dawn, that isn't other that the maiden we have dedicated this small blog: Micaiah, to get her proper exposure in the story and complete successfully her character arc, a phenomenon it hadn't happened before; a game with a different lord but with the plot complete in the side of the older one unless is completely necessary.

I would now been a little bit pessimist right now, specially for a great day like this, but I'm some times afraid and what would happen if my fears are correct and the remakes of the Tellius became even bigger Ike's fests? Isn't unjust for the new characters that tried to gain a place in the fanbase, only to be completely defeat for Ike and his elite?

The structure of the game's story gave it a unique feeling compared with other FEs ... but at what cost?

Sometimes I think about what would had happened if IS decided to give completely the protagonism to Micaiah like they did with other games where the main character was changed and the story's focus (being the most similar case Thracia 776)... What would happen if we would have the opportunity to control most of the game the new lord? A story more focused in the Micaiah's side of the story, with more room to development and such... This kind of story doesn't need to invalidate Ike, but his presence and personality fit more for a legendary hero than a main character (some kind of Late-Game Character); he has already been developed and ended his character arc. He should already give an opportunity to another character to shine".

That is of course my opinion, but I invite you to think about it and then post your own thoughts.

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And that's it, it has been ten years of really interesting stuff, some good things happened, some bad things happened; I would have liked to see some changes in the aspects of these stories, but I'm glad I was able to share some of my thoughts and knowledge of the topic; and I hope that your enjoy this day as much as I.

Happy Anniversary everyone!!

We're still waiting for Micaiah in FEH.

- Troykv (The Dawn's Historian and Micaiah4Smash Main Admin)