Marth

**Marth** (Japanese: マルス, Hepburn: *Marusu*) is a fictional character from the *Fire Emblem* series, developed by Intelligent Systems and owned by Nintendo. He is the protagonist and Lord class character in the first and the third games in the series, *Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light*, and *Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem*, as well as their respective remakes, *Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon* and *Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem*.

On December 4, 2020, Marth's original Famicom game and the first installment in the *Fire Emblem* series was localized and released outside of Japan for the first time to commemorate the franchise's 30th anniversary. Marth's first appearance outside of Japan was in Nintendo's *Super Smash Bros.* series of fighting games. Marth and Roy's appearances increased western interest in the *Fire Emblem* series, and in part it led Nintendo to start releasing the games internationally, beginning with *Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade*, the seventh installment in the series, released to the west under the title *Fire Emblem*.

Marth was one of the characters created for *Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light* by the game's designer and writer Shouzou Kaga. According to Kaga, though Marth takes a prominent role in the story, he is not technically the main protagonist. During early development, a scene would have depicted Marth kneeling in grief next to the body of his retainer Jagen in a pool of Jagen's blood: this was designed to be a symbolic moment of Marth violently coming of age by losing a father figure. Due to hardware limitations, this and other similar scenes needed to be cut. Marth's character designer is currently unknown, though the graphics and character art for *Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light* was cooperatively handled by Tohru Ohsawa, Naotaka Ohnishi, Saotshi Machida and Toshitaka Muramatsu. Marth's appearance underwent alterations for promotional posters, having a slightly different hairstyle and an altered shade of blue for his hair.

Marth was redesigned for *Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem* by the game's character artist Katsuyoshi Koya. For the first game's remake, *Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon*, Marth underwent a redesign. The staff's main aim for the redesign was to make the character look and feel fresh while not straying too far from what fans had come to expect. His redesign was handled by *Ghost in the Shell* artist Masamune Shirow. He was redesigned once again for the third game's remake, *New Mystery of the Emblem*, by Daisuke Izuka. Marth's design for his appearance in downloadable content for *Fire Emblem Awakening* was by Senri Kita, the character artist for *Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn*. This, along with other character redesigns featured in the game's DLC, was dubbed an "underworld" design.

*Super Smash Bros.* developer Masahiro Sakurai initially wanted Marth to be part of the roster for the original game, but time constraints prevented this. The developers of *Super Smash Bros. Melee* originally intended to make Marth playable only in the Japanese version of the game, but when he garnered favorable attention during the game's North American localization, they decided to keep both him and fellow *Fire Emblem* protagonist Roy in the North American and European versions. Sakurai redesigned the character for *Super Smash Bros. Brawl*, where he was included as a playable character alongside other *Fire Emblem* protagonists. By this time, Marth had also been redesigned for *Shadow Dragon*, with Sakurai being shocked when he saw it. He commented that, if he had known earlier, he would have incorporated the new design into the game rather than his own. Marth's later appearances in the *Super Smash Bros.* series were brought in line with his design from *New Mystery of the Emblem*.