Fire Emblem: Three Houses was arguably Nintendo’s best game of 2019. The strategy RPG was the best-reviewed title Nintendo released that year and is the highest-selling entry in the long-running series thus far (over 2.29 million units were reported sold as of September 2019).

Meanwhile, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was the zenith of Nintendo’s 2018 lineup. The game came out in December that year and has become one of the crown jewels in the Nintendo Switch software library. This entry in the venerable fighting game franchise brought back every fighter who had ever been playable in the series’ history and added several new faces. In fact, new characters continue to be added to the game via DLC, and it’s generally a pretty big event every few months when a fresh fighter is revealed to be joining the roster.

And so, when Smash Bros. series mastermind Masahiro Sakurai announced this past week that Byleth—the player character of Fire Emblem: Three Houses—was joining Smash Bros. Ultimate, it was a little like peanut butter and chocolate joining forces to create a delicious treat. It just makes sense that Nintendo would want a representative from one of its biggest recent success stories to show up in their premiere crossover game, where many of gaming’s most legendary characters hang out and battle.

However, many have criticized Byleth’s inclusion. Whether Smash fans just feel that Fire Emblem is over-represented in the game’s roster or believe that this character isn’t as exciting as their dream choices (Master Chief from Halo, Sora from Kingdom Hearts, etc.), there’s undoubtedly a lot of salt on the internet over this latest addition to the Smash Bros. roster.

Of course, how hyped you are for a given character’s inclusion is a purely subjective matter, and players could theoretically choose to vote with their wallets and simply not purchase this character. However, Byleth has come as the culmination of the Fighters Pass DLC set, which could be paid for in advance and would contain five mystery characters that would be announced and released sporadically over the course of roughly a year. The very first character they announced for this set was Joker from the Atlus RPG Persona 5, and I recall a very split reaction for that character, as well. Many were utterly underwhelmed, and others (like me) believed the inclusion of Joker alone justified the price of the Fighters Pass. In any case, many fans were already locked in to the Pass by the time this final character was announced, so they’re stuck with this choice whether they like it or not.

Prior to the announcement of Byleth, the DLC releases for Ultimate had included only third-party characters: Joker, the Hero (from legendary JRPG series Dragon Quest), Banjo-Kazooie (a wayward mascot from Nintendo’s N64-era partners-in-crime Rare, who are now owned by Microsoft), and Terry Bogard (an iconic battler from developer SNK’s storied fighting game history). In terms of gameplay, attention to detail, and other bells and whistles (such as the accompanying music, stage, and spirit battles included with these characters), each new combatant has been a unique and worthy addition to the roster by most accounts. And even if the mere thought of each character doesn’t hype you to your core, reasonable people can agree that these are all worthy additions based on their standings in the video game history books.

Based on what Sakurai showed in the reveal presentation, it looks like Byleth has been produced with a commensurate level of care, and he is a worthy representative of Nintendo’s contemporary output. But this doesn’t address the issue of Nintendo franchise parity in Smash Bros. I am sympathetic to this concern. After all, the Fire Emblem series now has eight representatives in Smash, which is on par with Pokemon and dwarfed only by the Mario series (which, by my count, has eleven reps).

Eight seems like a lot in some ways, but the number is a little misleading. For one thing, two of the Fire Emblem reps are Echo Fighters, so they are essentially fancy skins (this is a simplification, I know, but work with me here). Moreover, Fire Emblem is one of Nintendo’s longest-running franchises (dating back to the 80s in Japan) and has a lot of entries (seventeen, as Sakurai pointed in his presentation).

I think some Western fans don’t fully appreciate Fire Emblem’s place in Nintendo’s history, and this is a fact that’s forever intertwined with Smash Bros. history. In Western territories, Super Smash Bros. Melee (for the GameCube) was the first official acknowledgment of Fire Emblem in a Nintendo game. It contained two fighters (Marth and Roy) from previous Fire Emblem games, and this was before any title in that series had ever been published outside of Japan. Within a few years, Fire Emblem finally made its debut in the West on the Game Boy Advance. Since then, Sakurai has added new characters from the series to every new Smash Bros. game.

Sakurai has talked in the past about his love for the Fire Emblem series, and it’s evident from his character choices for the Smash roster. Keep in mind that, prior to the success of Fire Emblem: Awakening in 2012 (2013 outside Japan), the series was literally on the brink of cancellation. Perhaps Sakurai was just happy to have new titles in the Fire Emblem series to draw from, or he felt that the series’ newfound success was a mandate to add more of its characters to Smash Bros. Either way, he keeps adding the protagonist from every new game in the series, and so perhaps Byleth’s inclusion was inevitable. But the facts are: a) the Fire Emblem series’ popularity is trending upwards, and b) by all accounts, Sakurai works so hard on Smash Bros. that he arguably deserves to get to add a character of particular importance to him every now and then.

The most recent substantive new Fire Emblem additions to the Smash roster (Robin and Corrin) have been pretty unique and interesting to play. In the end, I think Byleth looks to be enjoyable to play as well (that Up Special grappling-hook-to-footstool move is calling my name). And hey, Three Houses was brilliant. So I’m actually pretty OK with this pick, even if it’s not my top choice. For the haters… well, I hope some fans will be placated once the next DLC picks are announced (since Sakurai unveiled a second Fighters Pass with six new characters). So there are six more chances coming for you to get your Waluigi, or Doomguy, or whoever you’re praying for.