History FranchiseOriginalSin / FireEmblem

* [[VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses Byleth]]'s nature as an [[PlayerCharacter Avatar]] character earned criticism for being both a thinly characterized silent protagonist and one of the most important characters, which some felt hurt the game severely. Past Avatars had the same issues; The Tactician from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'' was a nothing character who only existed to explain the tactical gameplay elements and act as MissionControl, while [[VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem Kris]], [[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Robin]], and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates Corrin]] were intended to serve as wish-fulfillment {{Escapist Character}}s. However the Tactician barely impacted the game's story, and later Avatars would get personalities, even if fairly basic ones, which made them feel enough like actual people that they weren't ''just'' a blank slate for the player to project themself onto, especially with Supports or interactions giving them depth and traits. Detractors argue that taking the lack of characterization of the Tactician and combining it with major story importance and frequent reactions from other characters and dialogue options created someone who wasn't enough of a blank-slate to be inconsequential while also not having enough characterization to be rewarding.

** This is a particular thorn in the side of the flying classes, since flying cavalry tends to be really strong and gender-locking it to women is a frustrating series tradition for, as far as most fans are concerned, no good reason. This was also present from the very first game, with the only playable Pegasus Knights being Caeda, Palla, Catria and Est, all of whom are female, and with seeming male Pegasus Knights and Wyvern Knights uniformly non-playable. There's even a mention in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemThracia776 Thracia 776]]'' that Pegasus Knights were ''typically'' female, hinting at the possibility of male Pegasus Knights. But no subsequent title ever followed up on that, ''only'' making Wyvern Knights availible to males, even as female mounted units only got stronger and stronger with each passing game, to the point of having a seeming near-monopoly on mounted casters without a lot of frustrating EmptyLevels in ''Three Houses''. Even ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'', often complimented for getting rid of the gender barriers, clarified the male [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Sky Knights]] were not actually riding Pegasi.

* CharacterDevelopment being tied to Supports has become a recurring criticism of the more modern games (''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Awakening]]'', ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates Fates]]'', ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses Three Houses]]'', ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemEngage Engage]]'') due to it creating StoryAndGameplaySegregation (such as Cordelia getting over her one-sided crush on Chrom, but still showing sadness about not being with him in other supports, or Peri letting go of her AxCrazy mindset only to do so in other supports), and [[OnceAnEpisode formulaic]] conversations (like every other Bernadetta C-support [[OverusedRunningGag hammering you with the fact]] that she's a ShrinkingViolet, or how all of Yunaka's supports has her keep bringing up the fact she was a former assassin as part of the plot of the support). These issues have always been a problem in the series, but what made them not an issue for fans was the limited Support system and how many games in the series used Supports to give characters personality after their introduction. Games like ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Genealogy]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade Binding Blade]]'' limited the amount of Support Conversations to only allow a few, meaning you had to actually be a bit strategic with it, since trying to do multi Supports would lock you out of the full Support plot, while doing a full Support Conversation locked you out of doing any others. Plus many Supports were the sole reason some characters had personalities beyond whatever they did/said in their recruitment, so it made sense to have Supports be based around CharacterDevelopment, because that was all they could actually get. Newer games allow for as many Supports as possible with the exceptions behind the final one usually being for romance, which combined with the characters having more defined personalities from the start, means that the Supports suffer from being repeating the same bits or causing conflict with each other, without any way to try and naturally build off each other.
* The series' overuse of the MyCountryRightOrWrong trope for some of it's antagonists began to be accused of this as the series has gone on, particularly after ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' had Xander remain loyal to his ObviouslyEvil father and died fighting the heroes rather than join them, with some feeling these characters had fallen into being UnintentionallyUnsympathetic as a result. The archetype has been around since day one, but early examples were [[UnbuiltTrope rather subversive about it]], such as [[VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragonAndTheBladeOfLight Camus]] surviving and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden eventually]] [[VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem undergoing]] CharacterDevelopment, or [[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Eldigan]] and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemThracia776 Reinhardt]] deconstructed the concept by showing the consequences of someone in that position. ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'' introduced Selena however, who played the trope straight without any exploration beyond being stated to be a "good person in a bad situation", even as several of her fellow allies defect, and as the game never really gives a concrete reason for her blind loyalty to her king's increasingly-obviously impaired state[[note]]It is discreetly implied she might be in love with Vigarde, but this is never made explicit, and could just as easily be read as platonic admiration.[[/note]], this made it harder to find the game painting her sympathetically warranted. After this tipping point, it became easier to notice the writers rely on the [[MyCountryRightOrWrong noble enemy general]] archetype without analyzing when that loyalty steps into AccompliceByInaction, like [[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance Bryce]] or [[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates Xander]] during the ''Birthright'' route, and shed all subversive elements or deeper storytelling in favor of just having them be a good person serving an evil ruler out of misguided loyalty and patriotism and coming to a tragic end.
* Critics of modern titles often complain about {{fanservice}}-laden character designs as a [[SexSells sign of cynical selling-out]]. But as early as '''the first game''', there was concept art of some of characters — of both sexes, drawn without pants; that includes Marth, himself. Linde in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem Mystery of the Emblem]]'', released in '''1994''', had promotional artwork of her being dressed like [[https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/File:FEMN_Linde_04.png this]]. Female characters in this series are often depicted wearing impractically-designed armor and clothing. ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemThracia776 Thracia 776]]'' is perhaps the ONE modest exception to this, as just about every flying unit, soldier, and archer was smartly dressed in its artwork.
** Most of these came from their artwork, something you wouldn't be able to really see in the game itself due to the games' use of simple character portraits and most characters having basic sprites that were purposely designed to be used by other characters. [[TechnologyMarchesOn Thanks to modern technology]], characters can now almost one-to-one match their artwork in-game, meaning sexualized designs are now more obvious to many consumers due to being much easier to see. Also, it was more accepting early on because female characters were {{Fragile Speedster}}s that needed lighter clothing to move around (and to fly light) and were all but restricted to Pegasus/Wyvern flight, magic, and support roles. When (for example) ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' came around, and female characters could go into ''any'' role, it made the skimpy armor of, say, Effie (who leaves her thighs quite exposed despite being an armored knight) or [[{{Stripperiffic}} Charlotte]] much less acceptable to fans.
* [[VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses Byleth]]'s nature as an [[PlayerCharacter Avatar]] character earned criticism for being both a silent protagonist, while also being the most important character in the game's story, which some felt hurt the game severely. Past Avatars had the same issues; The Tactician from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'' was a nothing character who only existed to explain the tactical gameplay elements and act as MissionControl, while [[VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem Kris]], [[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Robin]], and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates Corrin]] were Avatars in that they served as essentially a wish-fulfillment character the player would insert themselves into and control. The difference between past ones though was that, after the Tactician, the Avatars would get personalities, even if fairly basic, which made them feel like real characters as opposed to just a blank-slate for self-inserting themselves into, with Supports or interactions giving them depth and traits. Byleth, by contrast, takes the lack of characterization of the Tactician, and combines it with the major story importance of someone like Robin or Corrin, creating someone who isn't enough of a blank-slate to feel like a PlayerCharacter like the Tactician was, while also not having enough characterization to feel like an actual character like Robin or Corrin was, which detractors felt badly hurt the game's story.

* One of the biggest complaints with ''VideoGame/FireEmblemWarriors'' was the sheer amount of {{Moveset Clone}}s among the roster, with the only unique characters in the roster (DLC included) being [[VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragonAndTheBladeOfLight Tiki, Linde]], [[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates Corrin, Azura, Xander, Oboro]], [[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Frederick, Lissa, and Olivia]]. Even the {{NPC}}s and villains were clones of some of the playable characters, with [[VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragonAndTheBladeOfLight Gharnef]], [[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Validar]], and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates Iago]] all being clones of Robin, and [[OriginalGeneration Darios]] being a clone of Rowan and Lianna. While fans have criticized and accused Koei for being lazy, the entire ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors'' series was practically built off of having most of the roster be clones of each other; the actual number of unique characters has always been quite low compared to the sheer number of clone characters. The main reason this proved to be such a problem for ''Fire Emblem Warriors'' was because the previous Nintendo Warriors collaboration, ''VideoGame/HyruleWarriors'', had no clones at all, and there were fan favorite heroes and villains alike that fans were hoping for that got left out in favor of less-popular characters who seemed like they were only included due to laziness (such as Iago, whose inclusion was met with widespread derision and bafflement). Notably, Koei would go on to overdose on moveset cloning again in ''Dynasty Warriors 9'', to a similarly unimpressed reaction from the fanbase.

* Some critics of ''Engage'' disapproved of the number of callbacks to past games, but this has been present since ''Awakening''. However, in those games, not only was Awakening made to be the franchise's swan song on account of fears the franchise would be indefinitely shelved, the call-backs were relatively subtle so new players didn't feel as though they were missing much. ''Awakening'' took place on [[VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragonAndTheBladeOfLight Archanea]] and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden Valentia]], and had weapons wielded by past heroes, but most of them weren't all that obvious. Similarly, ''Three Houses'' included several reforgable weapons from past games, such as the Gradivus, and had the items in the ChainOfDeals quest for Shamir or Catherine be references to previous games (e.g. the Tome of Crestological Mysteries is a reference to ''Mystery of the Emblem''). ''Engage'', on the other hand, has the Emblem heroes reminisce about specific events in their Paralogues and bond conversations, which are more obvious and [[ContinuityLockout harder to fully appreciate if you haven't played their games]].
* Many players have criticized the gender-locked classes as a major ScrappyMechanic, due to limiting freedom on build variety and downright almost nearing GameFavoredGender at worst. This was also present from the very first game, with the only playable Pegasus Knights being Caeda, Palla, Catria and Est, all of whom are female, and while there were male Pegasus Knights and Wyvern Knights, all of them were non-playable. There's even a mention in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemThracia776 Thracia 776]]'' where Pegasus Knights were considered ''typically'' female, hinting at the possibility of male Pegasus Knights. Also, the series wouldn't see a playable female cavalier until ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem Mystery of the Emblem]]'', similarly applied to Mercenary/Hero, Armored Knight/General, and Archer/Sniper. ''Mystery of the Emblem'' also hinted most of the [[BrutishCharacterBrutishWeapon Brutish axe-wielding classes were generally male]] by their [[WeaponOfXSlaying weakness]] to the Ladyblade. There were also more gender-locked classes later on in the series, but without the ability to reclass, alongside the fact that some of them were enemy-exclusive, this meant that it was mostly forgivable. Most of these games also lacked class trees, and when ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'' included one, only a handful of classes weren't democratized. Once reclassing was an option in ''Shadow Dragon'', however, it still remained like that since Falcon Knight was mostly a sidegrade towards Wyvern Knight, but once ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Awakening]]'' introduced the series to a wider audience, the problems became more pronounced as the most [[GameBreaker overpowered classes and skills]], such as Dark Flier with Galeforce and Bride with Rally Heart, were exclusive to females, eventually escalating in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses Three Houses]]'' having classes locked to specific genders for ''9'' classes, and ensuring entire weapon groups were sub-optimal for many characters entirely on the basis of gender. Even ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'', often complimented for getting rid of the gender barriers, clarified the male [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Sky Knights]] were not actually riding Pegasi.

* The series' overuse of the MyCountryRightOrWrong trope for some of it's antagonists began to be accused of this as the series has gone on, particularly after ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' had Xander remain loyal to his ObviouslyEvil father and died fighting the heroes rather than join them, with some feeling these characters had fallen into being UnintentionallyUnsympathetic as a result. The archetype has been around since day one, but early examples were [[UnbuiltTrope rather subversive about it]], such as [[VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragonAndTheBladeOfLight Camus]] surviving and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden eventually]] [[VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem undergoing]] CharacterDevelopment, or [[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Eldigan]] and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemThracia776 Reinhardt]] deconstructed the concept by showing the consequences of someone in that position. ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'' introduced Selena however, who played the trope straight without any exploration beyond being stated to be a "good person in a bad situation", even as several of her fellow allies defect, and as the game never really gives a concrete reason for her blind loyalty to her king's increasingly-obviously impaired state[[note]]It is discreetly implied she might be in love with Vigarde, but this is never made explicit, and could just as easily be read as platonic admiration.[[/note]], this made it harder to find the game painting her sympathetically warranted. After this tipping point, it became easier to notice the writers rely on the [[MyCountryRightOrWrong noble enemy general]] archetype without analyzing when that loyalty steps into AccompliceByInaction, like [[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance Bryce]] or [[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates Xander]] during the ''Birthright'' route, and shed all subversive elements or deeper storytelling in favor of just having the them be a good person serving an evil ruler out of misguided loyalty and patriotism and coming to a tragic end.