Byleth is already the most disliked Smash Ultimate character reveal yet

Michael Gwilliam
Fire Emblem's male Blythe clashes swords with a female version in Smash Bros Ultimate

Fire Emblem’s Byleth has rounded out the first Super Smash Bros Ultimate Fighters Pass, and fans aren’t too happy with her arrival.

Mere hours after the January 16 reveal, the YouTube announcement “Mr. Sakurai Presents ‘Byleth’” is already the most disliked DLC presentation in the game’s history. As of 1:30 PM EST, the video has a whopping 33,000 dislikes to 58,000 likes.

Part of the drama seems to stem from Fire Emblem already boasting many characters in Smash Ultimate. With Byleth’s addition, the Nintendo franchise has eight unique fighters. By comparison, The Legend of Zelda, despite its history, only has six.

This means that Fire Emblem is now tied with Pokemon at eight representatives each (that is, if you count Pokemon Trainer as one fighter).

After four third-party DLC fighters in a row with Joker, Hero, Banjo and Terry Bogard, the reveal of yet another first-party Fire Emblem character has provoked the audience of a game that has become a celebration of gaming, in general.

Popular Smash Bros personalities such as retired pro Gonzalo ‘ZeRo’ Barrios noted the backlash on Twitter. “Byleth seems to be by far the worst received newcomer out of all them in Smash,” he wrote. “That’s a title certainly nobody wants.”

https://twitter.com/zerowondering/status/1217828997595389952

Terry main Michael ‘Riddles’ Kim wasn’t pleased with the reveal. “The dislike ratio on the Byleth trailer is actually so sad it’s insane,” he Tweeted, later revealing that he “disliked it” in a reply to his post.

Samuel ‘Dabuz’ Buzby was a bit more optimistic. “While I may not be hype for Byleth, there are people who are and I’m happy for them!” he said, and added that he was pleased with the news of additional DLC.

While many seem aggravated by Byleth’s announcement, there are at least six more DLC fighters scheduled to join the game. Hopefully whoever joins the roster next receives a bit more love from the community.

The unfortunate news, however, is that the six fighters have already been decided on internally. Even if Nintendo reels from the backlash over this latest announcement, it’s unlikely they will change their plans if they have decided to add more Fire Emblem characters.

Byleth will be joining the roster January 28, 2020.