Marth (Fire Emblem)

Marth is the central protagonist from the Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryu to Hikari no Tsurugi game.

Marth is the prince of Altea. He is a very just and noble person, both in name and at heart.

Personality
Marth is a kindhearted yet incredibly idealistic leader and has subtle pacifist morals. Said morals are a result of him experiencing loss directly, as his sister has been kidnapped twice and parents killed. His idealism takes a toll on him, however, as he melancholically visits the graves of those whom have been killed as seen in New Mystery of the Emblem.

He has been shown to be overly trusting at times as he has been betrayed and almost killed by two comrades. Regardless, his faith in his people do have its benefits, as recruitment of an assortment of people from different backgrounds directly contributed to his success in both wars.

Outside of his duties, Marth can be aloof and rather shy when it comes to personal relationships; after defeating Medeus in Shadow Dragon, Marth had trouble professing his love to Caeda, only doing so in the first place after some encouragement by Princess Nyna. And even after their engagement, Marth tends to be oblivious to the feelings that other girls have for him, such as Catria, Marisha, and so forth.

While Marth shares a passionate bond with Caeda, they tend to quarrel due to both having a similar fear about each other's well being, and wanting to protect one another.

Marth has also been shown to be extremely humble as reflected in his supports, to the point he gets somewhat uncomfortable with the praise he gets from his descendants. In addition, Marth often seeks consistent reassurance in his decisions, of which can be seen as both a flaw and a strength, as while it may hinder him at times, once determined, he becomes a beacon of inspiration for others.

Abilities
In Mystery of the Emblem and its remake, Marth starts with quite average bases, and as he will be used as a convoy and is the only character that can visit villages, he shouldn't see too much combat. If trained, he will usually have high HP, speed and luck, but will end up with below average defensive stats. He will often do a lot of damage due to his rapier, which will be useful early-game, and could be useful late-game due to his decent offensive stats. Levelling him up should be easy, however, he has more important things to do then to kill enemies, and there are better units who can easily fill his place in combat. His biggest drawback is his lack of promotion, this takes out a needed one time boost to all of his stats. Marth has received a significant boost in New Mystery of the Emblem, with slightly higher bases, making him more usable throughout the game. The Shield of Seals also give him an additional +2 points to all stats (If he has maxed out any of them, these bonuses will also stack), this allows him to be a more functional late-game unit.

Special Moveset

 * Neutral Special: Shield Breaker: Marth's standard special move. In Melee, this was performed as an downward-arcing vertical slash. In Brawl, it was changed into Marth's standard thrust move from his battle animations in the Fire Emblem universe. The move can be charged in place and will initiate once the player lets go of the special attack button. The longer the move is charged, it will do more damage and has a higher chance of breaking a shield if the opponent is shielding, leaving them stunned for a short period of time. Unlike most charge moves, Marth's Shield Breaker cannot be stored for later use.
 * Custom Neutral Special 1: Storm Thrust: Marth's thrusting animation gains a small whirlwind in front of him, giving him higher knockback.
 * Custom Neutral Special 2: Assault Dash: Marth gains a lunging property to his thrust.
 * Side Special: Dancing Blade: Marth's side special move. Marth performs a series of different slashes depending on the button input by the player. After performing the standard Side Special input, the player can press the special button while pressing up, down, or forward, up to 4 attacks. With all the different move variations, Marth can perform 18 different versions of the Dancing Blade move. High variations are outlined with blue streaks, middle variations are outlined with red streaks, and low variations are outlined with green streaks.
 * Custom Side Special 1: Easy Combination: Marth's combo is executed much quicker, however it has low damage output and low knockback.
 * Custom Side Special 2: Heavy Combination: Marth's combo is executed much slower but has higher damage and knockback. Due to the higher knockback, all three strikes do not fully combo off of each other.
 * Up Special: Dolphin Slash: Marth's stage recovery move. Marth performs an extremely quick, leaping vertical slash that launches him almost straight up. However it has little horizontal movement making it difficult to recover from the sides of the screen.
 * Custom Up Special 1: Crescent Slash: Marth propels himself with a diagonal trajectory
 * Custom Up Special 2: Dolphin High Jump: Marth propels himself much higher than its base form, however it does not deal any damage.
 * Down Special: Counter: Marth's down special move. Marth takes a defensive stance and his body flashes for a few seconds. If any character attacks him with a non-projectile move up close, Marth will reflect the damage. In Melee Marth's counter will deal at least 1% to a maximum of 7% in reflect damage depending on the strength of the move the Marth is countering. In Brawl, Marth's counter will deal x1.1 of the damage he would have received with a minimum 8% should the counter deal less than 8%. Marth can counter/negate items thrown at him using this move, however projectiles with explosive properties cannot be reflected and will detonate on him if he tries to reflect these.
 * Custom Down Special 1: Easy Counter: Marth's counter starts up faster and lasts longer but deals less counter damage and has low knockback
 * Custom Down Special 2: Iai Counter Marth's counter starts off a bit slower and has a slightly longer recovery period. However, it deals more counter damage and has a much higher knockback. Also, he will take a step forward on the slash, ending the move slightly in front of where he began if he successfully counters a hit.
 * Final Smash: Critical Hit: Critical Hit is an extremely fast and powerful Final Smash. After raising his sword, Marth quickly rushes forward, instantly blowing away all enemies he comes in contact with off screen. A Health Meter appears, which rapidly decreases to zero, though this is purely an aesthetic. Arguably the most powerful Final Smash, not just for the 60% damage if it connects, but for the knockback effect, able to offscreen KO Bowser, the heaviest character in the game, even when he is at 0% from the opposite edge of a medium sized stage. It can also be launched in the air and he will still propel him straight forward. However, Marth risks flying offscreen using this move and self-destructing. The move can be cancelled by pressing the special attack again to stop him from dashing.

Trivia

 * Marth and Sigurd are the only two Fire Emblem Lords that cannot promote in their base games.
 * However, he can promote in Warriors as a Lodestar, which is his base class in Awakening and Fates.
 * While his circlet appears to be his in the games, the anime implies it is a memento given to him by his sister Elice and in the manga it is a gift from Caeda. In Heroes, Marth attests to this, saying it was a gift from someone close to him.
 * Marth has starred in more Fire Emblem games than any other Fire Emblem protagonist.
 * If the player starts Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 with the save created after completing Book 1, Marth will have the Fire Emblem icon near his name and will have the shield on his battle model, despite not actually having the Fire Emblem at the moment. If the player starts a new game directly at Book 2, neither will be present until after Chapter 2.
 * Marth is the only Outrealm character in Awakening to not be built from the Avatar creation system, instead being identical to Lucina's disguise, just without the mask.
 * Marth speaks Japanese in all releases of Super Smash Bros. Melee, Brawl, and 3DS/Wii U, not having English voice clips in the series until Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, where he's voiced by Yuri Lowenthal.
 * Marth's first game appearance with English voice acting is in Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.
 * Marth shares his Fates voice actor, Yuri Lowenthal, with Ricken from Awakening, Kiragi from Fates, and one of the Fates male Avatar voices.
 * In the OVA, he shares his English voice actor, Spike Spencer, with Awakening's Excellus.
 * Marth is the only character that can wield all three versions of Falchion in Awakening. He is also the only SpotPass/DLC character capable of using Prf rank weapons.
 * Marth's Awakening DLC artwork depicts him wielding a Rapier.
 * In Awakening, Marth is the only unit to have access to the Lodestar class.
 * The units that join the fight amongside Prince Marth as a SpotPass character from Shadow Dragon represent some of his allies:
 * 3 Paladins (Cain, Abel, and Jagen)
 * 1 Sniper (Gordin)
 * 1 General (Draug)
 * 1 Falcon Knight (Caeda)
 * 1 War Monk (Wrys)
 * Marth's amiibo Hero Battle team in Fates is also based on some of his allies from Shadow Dragon, albeit at lower levels/ranks than in Awakening:
 * 1 Paladin (Jagen)
 * 2 Paired Up Cavaliers (Cain and Abel)
 * 1 Archer (Gordin)
 * 1 Knight (Draug)
 * 1 Sky Knight (Caeda)
 * Marth is one of the few units whose status screen portrait changes at some point of the game, a trait he shares with Alm, Celica, Ike, Sothe, Volke, Micaiah, Avatar (New Mystery of the Emblem) and Lucina. His change happens between the Prologue and Chapter 1 of Shadow Dragon.
 * The "Choose Your Legends" event of Fire Emblem Heroes revealed that his Shadow Dragon incarnation was 12th place out of 791 with 15,877 votes, while his Mystery of the Emblem incarnation was 33rd place out of 791 with 8,670 votes. This makes him the highest scoring character from both games, with his Shadow Dragon self being the 6th most popular male character overall.