Roy (Fire Emblem)

Roy is a fictional character from Nintendo and Intelligent Systems' Fire Emblem video game series, who first appeared in the 2001 crossover fighting game Super Smash Bros. Melee as a representative character from the Fire Emblem series, along with Marth. He is the lead character of Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade; within the story, he is the son of Eliwood and heir presumptive of Pherae, who eventually becomes a major military leader. The inclusion of Roy and Marth in Melee is cited as one of the reasons Nintendo started localizing the series for international distribution. Roy continues to make recurring appearances in subsequent Fire Emblem media, such as a manga series and spinoff video games.

Concept and design
Roy was created for what became Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, a game with a long development cycle. He was originally named Ike, and he and Karel were the only characters kept when what became Binding Blade restarted development in 2000. Roy's character was designed to be free-spirited and emphatic to appeal to younger players and a wider audience, in contrast to earlier titles. The renamed Roy was first revealed at Nintendo Space World 2001, where a demo of Binding Blade was being shown.

When developing Super Smash Bros. Melee, Masahiro Sakurai wanted to include more characters who could cross blades with Link from The Legend of Zelda due to his personal preference for sword-fighting characters and campaigned for Roy's inclusion. Roy and Marth were kept in the international versions of Melee, and their popularity led to Nintendo releasing future Fire Emblem games outside of Japan. The first of these was Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, which has a younger Roy designed by Sachiko Wada.

In response to fan backlash against the addition of further Fire Emblem characters as DLC for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, game director Masahiro Sakurai stated that characters from the series are over-represented in the playable roster for Ultimate. However, he maintained that it is an unfounded concern and that the development team are diligent in ensuring that each character and the game would be balanced properly.

Appearances
Roy's first video game appearance was in 2001's Super Smash Bros. Melee, and was reintroduced into the series as downloadable content (DLC) for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. He also appears as part of the base roster in the series' 2018 entry, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. To promote his appearance in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, an amiibo figure of Roy was featured as an exclusive release at GameStop. In 2019, plushies depicting Roy and other Fire Emblem characters were released.

Roy is the lead character of Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade. The story begins when King Zephiel, ruler of the kingdom of Bern, conquers Ilia and Sacae and sets his sights on Lycia. In a small region called Pherae, Roy, the son of Pherae's ruling marquess Eliwood, is forced to return home when Bern begins its invasion. As Eliwood is unable to battle due to illness, Roy is assigned command of Lycia's army and eventually assumes command of the army of Etruria.

The next installment after The Binding Blade, Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, is a prequel featuring a younger Eliwood as one of its protagonists. Roy appears during the game's epilogue, where Eliwood reunites with his comrade Hector and their respective children are introduced to each other. Roy is available as a playable character in Fire Emblem Awakening as DLC. Roy also appears in Fire Emblem Heroes. He later appears as an Emblem character in Fire Emblem Engage.

Roy appears in the Fire Emblem: The Champion's Blade manga, which was first published prior to the release of The Binding Blade and takes place concurrently with the events of the game. Roy does not reappear in the 2008 entry Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but was remade in the fan mod Project M.

Critical reception
Roy's appearance in Melee alongside Marth brought further exposure to the Fire Emblem series outside of Japan, and was cited as a reason Nintendo began to localize and release Fire Emblem games internationally, beginning with the seventh title in the series. Due to popular demand from Japanese fans, Roy was added in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U as a DLC character. Chris Carter from Destructoid welcomed Nintendo's decision to reintroduce Roy and considered him his "personal favorite", although he found that the character played quite differently in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U compared to his previous iteration in Melee or to other Fire Emblem characters.

However, Roy's continued presence in the Smash series has invited criticism from some. In 2007, Lucas M. Thomas from IGN said that Roy's moveset in Melee overlapped too much with Marth's and drew an unfavorable comparison to Ike, a playable character set to be introduced in 2008's Super Smash Bros. Brawl and whom Thomas perceived to be more distinctive. Gavin Jasper of Den of Geek downplayed Roy's significance, and claimed that the character was added to Melee as a gamble because The Binding Blade was still in development at the time and Nintendo wanted to promote the game ahead of its release. Cecilia D'Anastasio criticized Roy for being the same sword fighter archetype as fellow Fire Emblem characters Lucina, Marth and Chrom, who were set to be included in the playable roster of Ultimate. Commenting on Roy's 30th-place ranking on a 2018 tier list of Smash playable characters published by Polygon shortly before the game launched, Jeremy Parish expressed a preference for Roy Koopa, a Koopaling character instead.

In his review of The Binding Blade, Mike Moehnke of RPGamer criticized Roy's weak in-game attributes for the majority of the game, to the point where his presence detracts from an otherwise satisfactory gameplay experience. Marianne Penn of TheGamer concurred that Roy is one of the series' weakest lords and a difficult character to optimize for gameplay viability, which is a stark contrast from his playable appearances in the Smash series. Penn felt that Roy is a decent character in terms of personality, and that his popularity is "rightfully warranted" in spite of his glaring flaws. In North American Fire Emblem character popularity polls running up to the release of Fire Emblem Heroes, Roy was ranked the second favorite male character behind Ike. The top four characters in the polls received new in-game costumes; Heather Alexandra of Kotaku has praised Roy's original costume by stating that "Roy’s outfit hits all the notes of overclass imagery one", but criticized that Roy remains as a red-colored unit. Ricky Berg from Nintendo Wire looked forward to seeing the release of a Binding Blade remake with localization; he opined that the brand awareness surrounding the character would serve a hypothetical remake well, noting that part of the appeal for players would be to discover the canon character's original personality, as he is less hot-blooded compared to his characterization in the Smash series.