I canonically consider Robin to be both genders, if only because it's funnier that way.
I tend to gravitate towards Anna Robin as my usual palette though.
What are the standings for Smash 4 at APEX right now, by the way?
You know, when I think about Robin in Smash, I was recently thinking of how getting Robin into Smash required them to basically do away with most of the branches related to him in Awakening and also not completely carrying over everything about Robin from Awakening in order to get him ready for Smash... which was to both give him a unique playstyle and capture the spirit of the character:
- Gone are the different hairstyles and eye shapes.
- He's locked into the Tactician class.
- Robin in Smash is portrayed as not being a particularly skilled swordsman (his dash DOINK attack in particular showcases this), instead using his aptitude for spells and magic weapons to compensate for this (he can use high-level spells, and even dark magic, and he makes good use out of the levin sword's lightning magic to extend the range of his attacks). This is in contrast to how Robin could have higher strength than magic in his home game, and even have lower aptitude for magic than he is portrayed as having in Smash, though it should be noted that the optimal way to play Robin in his home game was to make him a spellcaster, so many Avatars in the home game would likely have a higher aptitude for magic than the sword for most stat combinations.
- Robin can use dark magic. While he can if he switches to a class, he can't do it as a Tactician. This was done to fill in certain aspects of Fire Emblem. As for what these aspects are, I'd say that Nosferatu itself is one of them, being a very old spell of the franchise and worth repping. The other might be the fact that Robin was bred as a vessel to a dark dragon and the main villain of his game, Grima, and both him and his subordinate who happens to be his father use dark magic.
- Robin is shown to prefer lightning attacks: His Levin Sword is packed with lightning magic, Robin zaps the player with lightning in his pummel, and he can cast all four lightning spells that are common to his game. His lightning attacks in general also have different roles in his moveset (KOing, trapping, comboing, etc.) while the other elements are rarely used outside their particular purpose as a spell. This is based off of something that was merely implied in the original game (and the player could have different tastes), where Robin was often shown using Thoron in cutscenes, and starting with a Thunder tome.
- Robin only needs to use a single tome to be able to access all the spells he needs. Furthermore, they regenerate when he uses up all of their uses. Not only does this add a strategic bent to him (FE is a strategy series), but it also serves as a way to add breakable weapons (a prime feature of FE) into Smash in a way that is true to the series and Robin's character as a strategist yet doesn't get in the way of gameplay in a way that is annoying.
- Female Robin's size and physique was altered to make her more alike to her male counterpart. This was of course done in order to make sure that they had no differences in gameplay.
- Chrom is a Final Smash. This of course refers to the Pair Up feature of Awakening, but it could also be a way of having the main lord enter the ring in Smash when this might not have been the case: Since Chrom is a part of Robin's moveset, this allows for both of the two most important reps of Awakening (and which one is the most important depends on the person's views) to be a part of the main roster, even if one of them is relegated to an assist role.
Essentially, Robin loses his role as the Avatar from Awakening in order to become a rather full-fledged character on his own (though remnants of the Avatar role did make it over). In a way, Robin in Smash is different from Robin in Awakening by means of Smash!Robin being tailored for Smash over Awakening, despite him supposedly being the same character as the Robin/Avatar you see in Awakening. Of course, given that the style and the setting of the two games are different, this is appropriate and is not exclusive to Robin. It does however mean that I consider Robin in Smash as a wholly different character from the Robin in Awakening (and while I consider Avatar!Robin to be genderless, I consider Smash!Robin to be male).
As for why male Robin ended up the default gender, I can think of many things:
- Robin in Smash is characterized as being more adept in magic than with the sword, hence he fits more as a spellcaster than a swordsman. While these traits would typically be prime material for making Robin a girl, especially since he comes from a JPRG where this is the norm, we already have a female magic-user in Zelda and several other female characters use magic or supernatural moves (like Peach, Rosalina, and Palutena, the latter two having many magic/supernatural moves in the same vein as Zelda). Having Robin's default gender be male might have been done to contrast with all these females.
- Lucina was elevated to clone status from being a mere alternate costume of Marth. As a female swordfighter, having a male spellcaster from the same series contrast to her (or the opposite, considering that Robin was made before her) would make him stand out more and invert a common trope of RPGs (or games in general). This aspect is best seen in their introductory trailer and Kozaki's official artwork of the two in Smash. And technically in their appearance as extra units for Project S.T.E.A.M. through amiibo use.
- Male Robin was the default gender in Awakening as well, and you could only use the default male Robin in the Awakening demo as well. This is admittedly not as important a reason as the others.
- Robin is typically used as a self-insert character by the fanbase (particularly in fan fiction and fan art), and female Robin's in these situations tend to find themselves married to Chrom (even when Chrom technically already has a canon spouse). As Robin in Smash was made more of a character than he (or she) was in Awakening, and because Female Robin can be much more than friends with Chrom in the original, he might have gotten male as a default gender in order to establish the bond between him and Chrom as being more of a good friend to him than a potential spouse of his (and, subsequently, being a potential mother to Lucina). The characterization of Robin in regards to Chrom and Lucina when it comes to Smash, while somewhat ambiguous, confirms (and only confirms) that they are good friends.
You might think that "hey, whatevs, female Robin is in as a costume, I can just choose that and ignore male Robin since it doesn't matter who I fight with". That's true gameplay-wise. But being the default gender does have it's advantages:
- The default gender/character/costume is typically featured more than the alternate gender/character/costume in official trailers and artworks, though an effort is typically made to properly promote the alternates as well.
- The roster icon only has the main gender/character, and Wii U defaults to this gender/character/costume.
- The main trophy (Classic Mode in both versions) feature the default gender/character/costume, and so do the Final Smash trophy (Wii U All-Star Mode). To be somewhat fair, the alternate gender/character/costume typically gets featured in the alternate trophy (Gotten in All-Star Mode on 3DS, or simply gotten through normal means once you get that character's main trophy on Wii U), but some (typically in the cases where the alt costume is a different character, like Olimar, Little Mac, and Bowser Jr. on the 3DS version) don't.
- The default gender/character/costume is given priority in some cases (like 3DS Classic Mode if you're not using the default in question, or in the All-Star Events or their exclusive event where you can't pick the other gender without having a custom build). Again, to be fair, the alternates get equal representation in All-Star Mode.
- Being featured on the main trophy, the main gender/character/costume are the ones featured on amiibos. This can rise to include games where the amiibos get special roles, like in Project S.T.E.A.M. for Robin (only Male Robin has been seen).
There's also another thing that points towards one gender being favored over the other in this case: Notice how the Female Fighters trophy case saw fit to include a Wii Fit Trainer trophy governing one of the Yoga poses she can do (because the alt trophy would be the male Wii Fit Trainer in this case), but not the alternate trophy of Robin? This especially stands out because the Female Fighters trophy case primarily feature the alt trophies of the female Smash Bros. fighters, including Lucina (who basically was a bonus addition to the roster).
Fantastic Supreme Überkaiser Emperor Folt of The Infinity and Beyond" ... "The First"!![]()
Perhaps that was a forerunner for what he'd be like in 4?
That type of Artificial Stupidity occurs in Wii U's Classic Mode, too. It's easy to lure Little Mac into one of those weight platforms in Garden of Hope and watch the hilarity ensue.
edited 1st Feb '15 3:18:41 PM by BurntMario
Call me Willy Whistle 'cause I can't speak, baby. Something in TV Tropes really drove me crazy.That stage should be brought back...true to its N64 original form. It was one of my favorite stages.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.I still really want Brinstar Depths back, the music was awesome and I thought the gimmick was really fun!
I would also love to have Mushroom Kingdom, Mushroom Kingdom II, Fountain of Dreams, Mute City, Venom....heck, I loved a lot of Melee's stages and wish they'd return.
At least bring back Brinstar Depths!
Temple seems to be my all time favorite. I wish they made more stages like that.Course then it's less of an even match and more of a mini maze, but that's what I like.
The Great Cave Offensive and Palutena's Temple are often too big for me. Those could fit like 16 players...by Smash 5 where 16-player Smash is a thing, they can bring back those stages.
Where y is the number of players and x is the game number, the curve will average as follows: y=2^(x-1) ;p
You gotta believe me when I scare you away, all that I wish for is that you would stayPlayed again for the first time since before Christmas, got my ass handed to me a few times as i shook the rust off. Got a few good ones near the end though, including a triple KO with Kirby's final smash on Lylat Cruise (brawl)
A very frustrating Villager is what got me through much of the earlier phase. It was satisfying to deflect his lloids with Reflect as Palutena.
So, at Apex it seems the three underdogs that people were rooting for are Greninja, Duck Hunt and Pacman. The former got Top 12 and the latter two Top 8.
Not bad at all, at very least this means people are going to open their eyes and start exploring them more now that they got good results in such a big tournament.
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I usually play on GCO's omega form. I rarely play on Palutena's temple, and that's usually to show Palutena's Guidance convos to my friends (for both groups, they happened to both be the convo on Palutena herself)
I'm still having a hard time getting over my friends constantly spamming specials...while my response might be over the top (I usually say "you can't use this character if all you'll do is *insert spammable move*"), I have been kinda indoctrinated by Youtube videos to hate spamming B moves. It's stuff like that that make people think that Wolf is a clone/semi-clone of Fox.
edited 1st Feb '15 5:10:47 PM by powerpuffbats
AAAAUUUUGGGHHHH!!!!

I count Wii Fit Trainer as female and Villager as overall a male addition, but Robin I count twice, since they bothered to draw up a totally different render for Female!Robin instead of repeating Male!Robin's pose like they did with Villager and Wii Fit Trainer.
I sure said that!