Fire Emblem Awakening Character Bio: Ricken

[@Prof3ssorWalnut]

His logic behind is class set is that he looks up to chrom and aside from swapping lord to mage, he has the exact same class set of Chrom.

[@BigKlingy]

Okay, that makes sense.

[@thebravegallade731]

BigKlingy Also, he is from a noble house. One in hard times, but still a noble. And nobles (historically) either become schollers or knights and usually learn to handle a bow.

[@dungeonmaster3464]

+BigKlingy On top of that, his support conversations with Tharja give something of an in-game reason why Ricken can't be a dark mage. Apparently Ricken doesn't know how to use dark magic, and has never had someone to teach him.

[@dungeonmaster3464]

+BigKlingy On top of that, his support conversations with Tharja give something of an in-game reason why Ricken can't be a dark mage. Apparently Ricken doesn't know how to use dark magic, and has never had someone to teach him.

[@SSBBPOKEFAN]

You'd be surprised how many re-classing options are based on personality/backstory. Kellam, for instance, is known for being unnoticeable. So what better class options for him than thief (sneaking through the fight) and priest (who SHOULDN'T be fighting). Maribelle, as well, has the same class options as Lissa, symbolizing their strong friendship.

[@thrasher698]

Can't help but wonder if they made YurI Lowenthall voice Ricken intentionally to accentuate the fact that he is arguably Miriel's best pairing option stat-wise

[@linkuriboh471]

People moved on to Claude/Dimitri/etc. at this point, but Ricken is still one of my favorite Fire Emblem characters. I've never had a problem with him since characters in anime/manga/games tend to be kids or young teens. Even though he doesn't like to admit it, I feel he likes being doted on by Maribelle. His supports with Olivia are pretty cute too. I wish he got a bit more character development, since I feel like him and Kjelle got kinda shafted by the writing. It comes down to character preferences and archetype at the end. As much as I love Spec from Grappler Baki and Mercenary Tao from Dragon Ball, we don't really learn too much about their backstory or their motivation. I didn't mind using him since Awakening was a slog anyway. Plus, the game hands out rescue starts like candy. Him and Maribelle made a good team in my 1st Gen only no Robin Apotheosis run. I admit Awakening's gameplay and writing hasn't aged well for me. That keeps me from replaying it much. As much as I liked Three Houses, I feel like I'm not into JRPGS as much as I used to. They are just too time consuming for me nowadays.

[@BigKlingy]

It's funny because I kind of feel that way about Three Houses. It was fun the first two times through, but having to go through the monastery every single time gets really tedious, and you can't skip much of it or your team will be underdeveloped. I sum up Three Houses as: a fantastic game, but not a good Fire Emblem game. Awakening is kind of in the same category, but I still love Awakening's first arc, they're some of my favourite chapters in the whole series. I think people have turned around of Ricken, gameplay-wise Virion is the one everyone hates now.

[@linkuriboh471]

@@BigKlingy Looks like they are shutting down the 3ds eShop. I'll try to grab the Fire Emblem games later this year. I may not replay them much, but I'll try to revisit them once in a while. I found it hilarious that Ricken is on my waifu list website. Considering he's from a ten year old game, his fans moved on. Even Donovan from Berserk is on there. Let's just say that Donovan is someone Ricken needs to stay away from. I still wish the 3ds Fire Emblem games had better game balance and writing though.

[@cartooncritic7045]

That moment when Fates aged the best in terms of gameplay mechanics and replayability among the 3DS era onwards. We Fates enjoyers stay winning.

[@TheRedScizor]

I agree with this. The first 12 Chapters are a ton of fun but after that the chapters get progressively more boring and or frustrating. I also think that needing to do absurd amounts of grinding to get cool skill combos is tedious and by the time you finish getting those skills your unit can now solo the game because of all the stats they gained anyway. I think Fates handled the class system a lot better by not resetting your level. I'd love Awakening but with Fates' class system and pair up mechanics.​@@BigKlingy

[@starmaker75]

I surprising like Ricken. He is good gameplay wise. I also like his character because it reminds me a bit of me and his supports with panne is one my favorites( His immature stuff did get annoying at times but I blame that on how the supports are flow.

[@NoahOfTheArc]

I married Ricken's kid in my current file. The thought of having this young boy as my father-in-law is really funny to me.

[@raphaelsorel6907]

Yuri Lowenthal has come a quite a way from a midget mage to our lord and savior from Altea.

[@keithcarpenter9760]

ricken was my main mvp during my recent awakening playthrough when i promoted him to dark knight wow did he crit alot and he was one of my best units

[@BigKlingy]

That's pretty cool. He seems like he's more designed for that class.

[@keithcarpenter9760]

BigKlingy yeah and his inventory had thoron valflame arcwind and arcfire.

[@diamraina2041]

In a harvest scramble conversation with Henry, Ricken tries to learn dark magic from him and it doesn't work because "your heart is too pure." as Henry put it. He even tried transferring his dark energy and everything. Although when I first saw Ricken there were two things I said I wanted to see him do. One: Get a horse Two: Use dark magic. When I heard dark knight I thought it killed two birds with one stone. Until I learned it couldn't use dark magic. That annoys me. Same thing with dark flier. Sadly it is not meant to be.

[@Salivadora]

For some reason i find that picture of ricken I find kinda cute I don't know why

[@SierraGustafson]

I'm SO glad I made SasuSaku (as in Ricken and Lissa) canon in my playthrough of Awakening, even though I find Owain to be AMAZING and hilarious!

[@holyman-emoguy8702]

Actually, Ricken's reclass options are Chrom's. I think it has to do with his admiration for Chrom. Makes sense story wise, but he would've benefitted from a bit more magical options.

[@robinthedragonhunter64]

Yuri Lowenthal also voices Spider Man and he’s probably the best at it game wise

[@knotknight514]

Ok, the other character I lost in my classic hard playthrough so far. I did not have any time with him basically, so while it did suck, I'm not gonna lose sleep over it lol

[@BigKlingy]

Ricken seems to be considered one of the few actually "bad units" in Awakening, along with Virion.

[@knotknight514]

@BigKlingy guess I'm not missing out on much then lol But how dare they put disrespect on Virion's name! He is the archest of archers!

[@anthonychessar7179]

I'm pretty sure Mr.Yuri also voices Simon from the anime LEGEND gurren laggann

[@keithcarpenter9760]

one thing i noticed is that when you reclass to either cavalier or archer his strength growth is higher than his magic growth

[@BigKlingy]

Kind of like Virion getting better Magic than Strength when reclassing sometimes.

[@castblast4063]

Slightly altered growers that make him not as fragile, yea ill see how this goes

[@Turbotails08]

Never been a huge fan of Ricken combat wise. I like his concept (A non squishy Mage who can also jump into a Physical Class), but he's outclassed by basically every other Magic user you get in Gen 1. Maybe if you got him earlier (or maybe even have him and Miriel swap Bases) he could be a bit more useable. He's not bad at all, just a little underwhelming compared to everyone else in his niche. Credit where credit is due for being one of the most surprisingly good Father's in the game though. Seriously, his Class set may be confusing on him, but on the right kids? Forget about it.

[@BigKlingy]

You're probably seeing my playstyle here, I tend to be a fan of "underrated" characters in most games. I agree Ricken has issues, but honestly I've never liked Miriel very much (and I don't really know WHY exactly. She does have a very bad start.) so he never got outclassed. Out of the 1st gen Dark Mages, the first has some pretty huge flaws you really need to compensate for, and the second.... well, I THOUGHT I'd be using him as my main mage, but I ended up hating his character. Once his son joins, he's pretty much going to take over for Ricken, but that's not for a long way off.

[@Turbotails08]

BigKlingy I have absolutely no problem with that playstlye and mostly adhere to it myself (I've taken Fiona to Endgame before).

[@BigKlingy]

I've taken Meg and Astrid to the endgame before, but I haven't had the patience to use Fiona yet. Seriously, everything in the game is conspiring against her gettting exp. 1-7 is indoors, so lowers her movement, she's inexplicably unusable for 1-8 (seriously why?) and 1-E is indoors again. The next time you see her is 3-6... and its a map with lots of water mounted units can't go into. That said, I'd like to try and use Tormod and Vika one day. I hear Vika is actually pretty good, she just has horrible availablility. (Seriously, why so long until those three rejoin??)

[@Turbotails08]

BigKlingy She spent about an hour hitting a Priest Statue in 1-Endgame.... It was a good time, let me tell you... If Tormod and crew stayed with the Brigade throughout Part 3, I think they would be some of the best characters in the game.

[@BigKlingy]

I hear you pretty much need some kind of abuse to train her. I also think Meg and Aran would have been amazing if they'd swapped classes. With Meg though, her main issue is Gatrie has a better Speed cap, and he is VERY capable of reaching it (seriously, until Awakening RD Gatrie had some of the best physical growth IN THE SERIES), which sort of makes her pointless. EDIT: I just looked at the RD growths page. What the HECK is up with Tormod having a 55% Str growth? That's higher than his Magic! And it's pretty much useless!

[@MongoIndyleo]

I know that you said that you like Ricken, so I'm sorry for going against your opinion here but I really want to get this off my chest. In my opinion, Intelligent Systems really messed up with the mages in Awakening. Firstly, magic as a weapon type seems much weaker than it used to be. This is mainly due to base magics having extremely low might in the first place. You pretty much need El-tomes to be doing respectable damage. And then there's the designs. I think the robes are fine-ish but wow, the hats, in my opinion, are stupid. They look like something pulled straight out of Harry Potter, and they're ridiculously big and impractical. And finally, the characters. I just don't find Ricken or Miriel's characters appealing at all. I basically love every mage that we get from FE4 on. Lewyn and Ced are bad ass. Azel is meek but respectable, and Arthur is like Azel but a little but cooler. Tiltyu is cool and Tinny is like Azel. Azvel is basically Ricken done right. Homeros is bad ass and funny. Hugh is bad ass. Lilina is cute. Lugh is another Ricken archetype done right. Erk is a little bad ass and funny. Nino is a little bit like Ricken, but done right and cute. Pent's bad ass-ness is almost equal to Lewyn and Ced. Lute is Miriel done right. Ewan is Ricken, and the worst Ricken besides Ricken (more on this later). Soren and Calill are bad ass. Ilyana is cute and funny. Linde and Merric are both cool too. Ok, you may have noticed that there have been a lot of Ricken archetypes, as in novice mages that are naive and aspire to learn. I've noticed that the more naive and childish they act, the more I dislike the character. I just feel like such puerile mannerisms are out of place in the context of Fire Emblem, which is usually very serious. Ricken completely defies Chrom, the leader of the Shepherds and ROYALTY just because of his selfish desires. This is not something a soldier or a good warrior or even a good person would do. Sure, he saved Maribelle, but he could have easily got himself killed. Someone without maturity doesn't belong on the battle field. What's more is that this game has an almost essential romantic mechanic in it. And his immaturity really makes it hard for me to pair him. I usually can only bring myself to pair him with the younger-acting females like Lissa or Nowi. To put this in perspective, I also dislike Ewan as a character, though not as strongly as Ricken. Ewan rushes into the middle of Caer Plain and is almost killed by the monsters there, and he did this for almost no reason, thus making the party have to save him. That's immature, and so I don't like him too much. Now on to Miriel. The closest character to Miriel is Lute. Both extremely intelligent, socially unaware female mages. The difference is that Lute has this naive curiosity of everything and has funny quirks. For instance, she thinks she's better than everyone else, so she won't even talk to Ross. Or she watches people because she feels threatened by them (Knoll) or because she is interested in them (Artur). She doesn't want to know things for data sake. She wants to know them for knowledge and wisdom's sake. She also isn't completely cold and distant the entire time. Miriel is the opposite. Even in marriage conversations, she seems cold and distant because of Intelligent System's insistence on shoving big words into her vocabulary for no reason. Then, every support conversation I have got with her has been about gathering data. She usually explains how the data is essentially useless but she wants it anyway. This really annoys me. Why do something if it's useless. She doesn't even say if she enjoys it. Even if she did, she hasn't said why, so there's essentially no character development. Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest. Here's hoping for some non-annoying mages without hats in FE;If

[@BigKlingy]

I understand you having to get that off your chest. There's a character I dislike in this game probably as much as you dislike Ricken. And I agree Mages do have it badly in this game, though they aren't as awful as they are in Radiant Dawn (ugh...). And the hats do look weird and Harry Potter-ish, but I find it more amusing than anything. (It helps that the idea of dislikeing something based on design is utterly alien to me.) I can understand you disliking the character for those reasons. Honestly I don't like Ewan very much either, but Ricken just comes off as less of a jerk than he was. I kind of excuse Ricken disobeying orders and running off because he knew Maribelle was in danger, and its established he has a major crush on her, and I'm a huge Ricken/Maribelle shipper. I think "good person" is going a bit too far, but then again I sort of see myself as the kind of guy who'd go against orders to save someone they cared about. Though, I'm like you, I can really only ship him with younger-looking characters, but Maribelle is implied to be the same age as Lissa. I see them as 13 (him) and 16 (her) at most. It's why I dislike the Ricken/Miriel pairing despite it being really good for stats and their va's being married: she's just way too old for him. The thing is, the "character who starts out immature but grows and develops" is one of my favourite achetypes in all fiction. As weird as it seems, Karol is my favourite character in Tales of Vesperia, despite everyone hating him for being an annoying kid, due to how INSANELY badass he gets towards the end of the game. It's also why Junpei from Persona 3 is my favourite RPG character of all time. You'd probably hate him, because he's EXTREMELY immature at first and nothing but comic relief. By the end of the game, he's the party's voice of reason. In short, a character who becomes badass over time is far more interesting to me that a character who's always badass. Here's where Ricken (and Miriel, as well) suffer from this game's support system. Because any C-A support can happen at any time, character development is always reset every time someone forms a new friendship. And because of this, most characters have one very noticable trait that's played up most of the time. I guess this might be why I like Ricken, his overblown trait is being immature, something every single person was once, so it's a little more believable than, say, Miriel's. But he's still stuck in his immature state, which is bad, I agree. But it's more the support system's fault than his. Ewan I always found to be a bit of a dick, especially towards his love interests. (Looking up Amelia's skirt in the Japanese verison sort of killed my respect for him.) I'm also a pretty huge fan of Yuri Lowenthall as a voice actor as well, so that helps. I'm not really a fan of Miriel for pretty much the same reasons as you, but I actually do like her whole "treats magic like a science" thing. Her thesaurus-overload is annoying though.

[@Turbotails08]

BigKlingy Can I just point out that this video series is the one place on the internet where I can have an intelligent discussion about this game? Anywhere else I look it's either "X Should be bumped down a tier" or "Endgame X Lissa is Canon".

[@BigKlingy]

Don't get me started on the Fire Emblem forum community.... it's part of why I consider myself an FE fan, but not a member of the Fire Emblem community. I left the Serenes Forest forums a LONG time ago for the the exact reasons you said. I understand low turncount runs are impressive, but not everyone likes to play like that.

[@Turbotails08]

BigKlingy The only reason I ever really check the Forums anymore is for the Rom Hacks or updates to Translation Patches.

[@MongoIndyleo]

Turbotails08 Yeah that's one of the reasons I like BigKlingy's videos. First off, the videos are high quality. And then he almost always replies to every comment so if I want to have a discussion or ask him a question, I'm going to get what I want. If you want FE discussion that isn't like Serenes Forest you could check out www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem. I frequent there a lot and for the most part, there isn't much competitive discussion. Right now, there's some funny/interesting pictures there, which is odd. Usually there is a picture or two, but recently there have been a lot of character discussions. These can be used for gameplay discussion or personality discussion or whatever you want.

[@anthonychessar7179]

I'm pretty sure Mr.Yuri also voices Simon from the anime LEGEND gurren laggann