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• Americans Hate Tingle:
  • Well, not "hate", per say, just "aren't quite as fond of." Gaius is very popular among Japanese fans, to the point where he ended up being one of the two males to get a swimsuit scene in the DLC (and the other was Chrom, so that's really saying something), and placed fourth overall (Behind Chrom, Owain and Male Avatar) in the male section of official online character popularity poll. This was... quite unexpected for western fans.
  • Nowi is much less popular out of Japan, though the English localization changing her character alleviated this somewhat.
  • While Inigo is quite popular in Japan, he's more of a Base Breaker outside of it.
  • Tharja places extremely high in the popularity polls in Japan (high enough to warrant getting an exclusive scene in the beach DLC). Americans are a lot more divided or ambivalent about her, as many feel her outfit crosses the good taste line and her caustic personality toward most other party members tends to rub people the wrong way. And that isn't even going into her... interesting relationship with the Avatar.
  • The Chrom/Sumia ship is pretty much universally accepted as the game's Official Couple in Japan. In the west it's something of a Base Breaker. (Although in forums Sumia gets A LOT of heat, she ranked as the first marriage option for Chrom in the official poll.) This is most likely due to Values Dissonance concerning Romance Sidequests in Japan and the West: Japanese players prefer one Official Couple integrated into the storyline, while westerners prefer freedom of choice. (And thus dislike Chrom/Sumia simply because it's more canon than others)
    • Alternatively, Chrom/Sumia may be less popular in the the West because the meek, submissive Sumia is seen as a less ideal female character in the West compared to Japan. Her pie-filled supports with Chrom in the English localisation don't help because of the unfortunate implications they carry for some (this aspect of their relationship wasn't focused on ''nearly'' as much in the original script). Many Western female gamers have cited their appreciation of more assertive, independent female characters as their reason for preferring other Chrom pairings over Chrom/Sumia, including Chrom/Female Avatar and Chrom/Sully (who is MUCH more popular in North America than in Japan).
    • It may be subverted in the Chrom/Sumia ship's case, however. In at least one poll (specifically the Knight of Iris artbook), Chrom/Sumia doesn't even place in the top 10 favorite couples poll. Having been beaten out by Chrom/Olivia in the #10 spot, and Chrom/Female Avatar in the #1 spot.
  • Weird example: Olivia's Japanese voice. Most Westerners find it overly high-pitched and annoying, while Japanese players find it cute. Discussions over which of her voices is better has actually caused FlameWars on forums, seriously.
• Awesome Music: Probably the best soundtrack in the entire series. And that's saying something. Let's see some examples:
  • Serenity, the Avatar's theme.
    • "Purpose", a Boss Remix of said theme, with elements of the main Fire Emblem theme in there, as well.
  • Conquest and Conquest (Ablaze)
  • "Let's see what I'm capable of now." In other words, Took a Level in Badass: The Song.
  • Divine Decree and Divine Decree (Ablaze)
  • Mastermind
  • And the best for last: Don't speak her name!. One of the best ''Fire Emblem" themes ever.
  • In an interesting variation on this trope, the game also features an "Awesome Lack of Music". (for lack of a better term) Specifically, the music cuts after dealing the final blow to a Climax Boss. Makes the moment feel that much more cinematic and gives more weight to their Famous Last Words.
  • As if the music of the main game wasn't enough, the DLC offers a couple of new awesome themes:
    • Id (Hope) from "The Future Past" chapters.
    • Summer of Bonds. Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Funny in music form.
• Badass Decay: Story-wise, Gangrel gets this as he's a broken man when he and Chrom crosses paths in Paralogue 18, but...
  • Took a Level in Badass: Gameplay-wise, he is a Lv. 15 Trickster, with stats that are better than what he should have had on average had he levelled up normally from his Lv. 5 Trickster stats. And of course, grinding him for whatever purpose will make him on par with your units stat-wise.
• Base Breaker:
  • Nowi. Some fans hate her for the (pseudo) lolicon implications as well as contradicting Tiki's Last Of Her Kind status, but some fans don't care about that, and are just happy Manaketes are useful the whole game through.
  • Tharja. Some like her for her devotion to the Avatar (of any gender), usefulness in gameplay, her Creepy Good weirdeness and Fetish Fuel Station Attendant nature, while others find it hard to sympathise with her essential abuse of her daughter Noire, her devotion to the Avatar and her Fetish Fuel Station Attendant nature. There's also quite the share of Slut Shaming involved, as many of the criticisms against her come from her outfit and looks rather than her personality.
  • All of the Spotpass Paralogue units except the final one, for ruining the impact of several key scenes in the story.
  • Henry. Some fans love his malicious nature, effective dark magic, and sympathetic backstory. Others hate him because he feels like he was specifically made for the bad boy fetish and similiarities to Tharja (sans the stalking).
  • Sumia. Her reception as a character has been mixed (not so much as a unit, since she's arguably the best first generation Pegasus Knight). Some like her sweet, helpful disposition and enjoy seeing her slowly develop more confidence as a pegasus knight. So much that she ranked as the favorite marriage option for Chrom in the official poll. Others dislike her because they see her as being an underdeveloped Mary Sue, with some arguing that her tendency to randomly trip is a pseudo-flaw commonly given to Sues, while others have received this trait favorably for its Comic Relief value. Her supports with Chrom in the English localisation, in which she bakes him a series of pies and does his laundry to win his affections, are a particular sore point for some, who see them as having unfortunate implications that reinforce what they view as outdated concepts about the proper role of women.
  • Donnel. Unlike the other characters detailed above, this is purely from a gameplay point of view: His stat caps are slightly lower than most characters (so he'll end up a little behind in the late postgame), and he's hard to train in the beginning, but he has growths so high that he can easily solo the entire story mode after changing out of the Villager class.
  • It's not so terrible, but the news that Avatar (My Unit) would be returning (and, from photos, possibly removing Jase) caused a small rift, and My Unit broke the base from FE 12 because of how big a Game Breaker they (could) be.
  • There are people complaining about how the Avatar's customization has been neutered (can't choose background, and instead of being able to choose which weapons can be used, they can only use swords and magic). This has been somewhat mitigated by the revelation that Avatar can use a Change Seal to change into almost any class.
  • Casual Mode. On one side, a base that is happy for a means for new people to get into the game without all the frustration. On the other, long-time fans who think it's all being dumbed down.
    • Some debates countered accusations of this by mentioning a "Casual Challenge". You play the game on casual mode just to allow you to save anywhere...however, if somebody dies, you restart the chapter.
  • The art direction alone has created a few rifts. Some fans like the more over-the-top anime-stylized character designs and visuals, but others prefer the simpler outfits and gravity-obeying hair that was present in past games.
  • The paid DLC alone is being met with both a warm reception and some resistance, with this being the first Nintendo game to ever utilize it, as well as people assuming that the DLC will just be Valve and EA style aesthetic junk or content that was intended to be in the final version.
    • Neither turned out to be true. Two of the DLC chapters turned out to be incredibly useful grinding tools, with the others being challenging stages, full of great loot, or both.
  • Everything regarding Eirika's DLC has triggered massive bouts of flame on many a forum. Given her redesign from a frontline fighter to a White Magician Girl and accusations of sexism over the "Bride" Class... while conveniently "ignoring" that, at Spotpass, she can be downloaded as a Myrmidon and thus as a full-blooded Action Girl from the very start.
  • Fans also overlook the fact the Bride class can use bows and lances in addition to staves and isn't exactly a weak class.
• Complete Monster: The alternate Algol from the DLC chapter Death's Embrace, who's surprisingly awful for a minor villain without a unique name or portrait. He razes whole villages to the ground, slaughters the weakest of his victims, and converts the strongest into his unwilling undead slaves. He shows absolutely no remorse for this, your troops are sickened at having to fight his captives, and his chapter is probably one of the darkest written for this game. At least all the bandit leaders you faced elsewhere didn't continue to torment their victims beyond the grave.
• Continuity Lockout: Zig-zagged. The game is able to stand on its own, not directly referencing events from Japan-only titles such as New Mystery and Gaiden, but those who are familiar with the events of those games will immediately recognize The Shield of Seals being the Fire Emblem, and Valentia on the other side of the ocean.
  • Some of the conversations with DLC characters play this straight though. Not the characters themselves and what they went through (you're always given a "do you know X?" question, and if you answer no they introduce themselves), but some of the things they say might leave the uninformed scratching their heads. (Marth's referral to "a member of my royal guard who became one of my closest friends", for example. That's alluding to the previous game with Avatar creation, which was never released overseas.)
• Counterpart Comparison: Fans like to call Gerome "Batman" due to their similar demeanors and outfits. Others note that he looks more similar to Nightwing instead.
• Cliché Storm: While the characters themselves mostly avert this (although you need to see many supports to notice it), the main story mostly falls onto this as well as Black and White Morality. The Kingdom and the cute Divine Dragons vs the Monstrous Dark Dragon Grima and the Religion of Evil.
• Crack Pairing: Completely, utterly averted. Every possible pairing has a unique set of supports building up to it, and everyone seems to have a legitimate reason for falling in love with anyone else.
  • Except for Chrom and Olivia, who barely talk to each other and have supports you couldn't possibly see. The only way to get them married is to deliberately snub, marry off, or even kill off Chrom's other possible love interests so that Olivia wins by default. Even Lissa realizes how ridiculous this is.
• Die for Our Ship: A quite big chunk of the hate Sumia receives in the West comes from this. Her implied Chrom's Official Couple status has made her the target of the supporters of other couples by default.
• Double Standard: The fandom complains about Nowi, but nobody says a thing about Ricken and Donnel, though the latter says he is the same age as Lissa. There's also the fact you can make your Avatar look like an Adorably Precocious Child, effectively making any pairing involving them Lolicon or Shotacon.
  • On the other hand, Nowi is designed with a very sexualised outfit whereas Ricken and Donnel are not sexualised at all, which can be taken as quite the sexist Double Standard in itself; still, it's no reason to bash on Nowi as a character, and the fact that she's a thousand-year-old dragon means she could perfectly well choose for herself what she wants to wear.
    • It doesn't help that going with her outfit is her remarkably (and annoyingly) childish personality; Ricken and Donnel mostly act their ages, while Nowi, as mentioned, is a thousand year old dragon.
  • Also, lots of the people who throw tantrums at Sumia "reinforcing gender stereotypes" in regards to her supports with Chrom... are actually reinforcing OTHER harmful gender stereotypes as well: that "manly" or "tomboyish" women are 'better' than the rest whereas any display of shyness and/or femininity is to be condemned and censored, thus going by the "masculine is good, feminine is bad, only women who fight/act like stereotypical men are good" deals. And that's not harmful for gender roles and/or feminism, not at all...
  • Even stranger, none of this hate gets leveled at Cherche, despite her being a straight-up Yamato Nadeshiko whose hobbies are specifically stated to be cooking and sewing (and who even the developers admit they designed with that image in mind, with one even using the "good wife and mother" idiom when talking about her in an interview). This may be due to the fact that Cherche's wife traits get balanced by her Fluffy Tamer and Tranquil Fury traits, while Sumia leans more towards a Submissive Badass (the keyword for her haters being "submissive").
  • Despite there being several male characters with similarities to the three main female Base Breakers (Henry's personality is similar to Tharja's, Ricken looks pretty much as young as Nowi does, Stahl uses his cooking skills to win over Panne in a very similar way to Sumia using hers to win over Chrom in the English version), none of them have a Hatedom as vocal as Tharja, Nowi or Sumia; in fact, Henry's the only guy out of the three named here to have any substantial Hatedom at all.
  • People who complain about Tharja's Stripperific outfit tend to forget that most male Dark Mages wear similarly form-fitting attire. (Henry just happens to be an exception to the rule.) Granted, it comes off as Fan Disservice on the random male mooks, but consider that Libra can be reclassed as a Dark Mage, Sensual Spandex and all.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Henry being changed from a Stepford Smiler to an unrepentant Heroic Comedic Sociopath, to some. See Base Breaker.
  • Similiarly, Tharja's stalking of the Avatar and treatment of her daughter also cross into this for some as well.
  • For Yarne fans, the supports with FeMorgan. Their S comes off as creepy rather than lovey-dovey.
• Ensemble Darkhorse:
  • The major fan favorites seem to be Lon'qu the gynophobic Myrmidon, Donnel the inexperienced Villager, Tharja the Yandere Dark Mage, Sully the tomboyish Cavalier, and Virion "the Archest of Archers."
  • Gaius the thief, Cherche the Wyvern Rider, Basilio, and Flavia are also getting really popular.
  • Lucina is already becoming possibly the most popular female Lord in the entire series. It has special merit considering that at first some Western fans got a small outrage when they knew that the character that was supposed to be Marth wasn't him after all, and that the real Marth was going to be a DLC character. Fortunately, once they started to know her properly, her popularity started to grow at a ridiculous speed.
    • The Japanese popularity poll here proves just how popular the character has become in Japan. The popularity poll on Nintendo's Facebook shows similar results in the west, as Lucina is nearly three times more popular than Chrom.
  • Inigo, Olivia's son, has more fans asking for info on him than other kids. He also placed the highest of the children characters in the popularity poll, discounting the aforementioned Lucina.
  • Over at Serenes Forest, fans totally ate up Henry (the Dark Mage) like he was going out of style. And, apparently, so did the fans in the west.
  • In the English fandom at least, Vaike's popularity skyrocketed after his Badass Boast in the trailers.
  • Owain. Take a guess as to why.
  • Out of all the minor antagonists in this game, Mustafa and Cervantes seem to be the most memorable.
  • Of the major villains, Gangrel and Walhart are the most popular ones. Walhart in particular managed to claim second place (after "Marth"/Lucina) in the American poll, of all people, though given the stunned disbelief of many after this was announced, some suspect this was a joke vote.
    • To be fair, that poll consists of only 1st generation characters. Fan favorites like Owain were unable to be picked and Walhart was arguably the 2nd hammiest character in the game right after Owain. Also the Avatar was also excluded from the poll meaning players cannot vote for themselves.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • The Marthlike individual and the Shield of Seals seen in the February 2012 trailer and pictures of the world map have ignited speculation that there is some sort of connection to the Archanea universe present, either through being set in the future, an alternate timeline, or a mere crossover. ALL of these turned out to be true, in a sense.
  • The mysterious Spotpass character Priam sparked a lot of these. He's listed in the credits despite never appearing in the main story, and his Japanese name Paris was Ike's name in a really early build of Path of Radiance. As it turns out, he claims to be a descendant of Ike, and wields Ragnell. Many fans probably already called this.
  • A new one has been spawned after the discovery that high-level spells contain Heron script in their animations, even ones that originated from Jugdral like Valflame. It's lead some to theorize the Tellius games where actually the first ones in the chronology, with the magic of all the other worlds originating there.
• Fanon Priam being Ike's descendant has made the Mist x Boyd pairing more popular as it allows Ike x Soren to be unimpeded whilst also letting Priam be related to Ike... making it a fairly logical bit of fanon, as Priam is only a descendant, and it never describes Ike as ever marrying or having kids.
  • Considering what's revealed in New Mystery/Heroes of Light and Shadow, it makes sense considering how while Marth is called Anri's descent, it was Anri's brother that carried on the bloodline. The same could easily go for Priam.
• Fan Preferred Couple: Since most of the pairings are potentially canon, this is more a case of which pairings are more popular.
  • Regarding Avatar pairing options, it would seem that female Avatars are mainly paired with Chrom, though some other characters, such as Henry and Lon'qu, are also popular choices. Based on forum topics, most male Avatars are paired with either Cordelia, Tiki or Tharja. Lucina is also an immensely popular romantic pairing for a Male Avatar.
  • Regarding Chrom, Female Avatar is obviously the most popular option, due to player Wish Fulfillment (he's a prince) and the impact the pairing has on the story (not to mention he's the only way male Morgan will get a sibling). Not only does it give a special Tear Jerker scene between the Female Avatar and Lucina, but it can also be seen as presenting a general theme of The Power of Love overcoming fate, given the characters' respective statuses as Prince of Ylisse and Grima's vessel..
    • For Chrom's other options, Sully is the most popular in America, due to their status as childhood friends and the general heartwarming tone of the supports, not to mention how popular she became among Western fans after the demo came out. On the other hand, Sumia has far more followers in Japan due to her kind and sweet personality, the possible Rescue Romance in chapter 3 and her implied Official Couple status.
    • Chrom X Olivia is a strange case that combines this with Gameplay and Story Segregation. The pairing gives Lucina probably the best set of classes and skills she can have, and a Chrom-fathered Inigo is very powerful. But storywise, it's a ridiculous case of Strangled by the Red String. As such, the pairing is very popular with MinMaxers, but largely hated by story fans.
  • By far, Lucina's most popular pairing is male Avatar, both in Japan and America. Their supports are pretty heartwarming, the confession scene is cute and gets Lucina's biggest "moe" face (and that's saying something!), and if they get together, the scene where she almost kills him in order to avoid Grima's return is one of the biggest Tear Jerker moments in the entire game. It's also popular because of the sense of Screw Destiny the pairing creates, much like with Chrom and female Avatar. Plus, they make Morgan a total Person of Mass Destruction thanks to being a child of Second gen and with Aether as an exclusive skill.
    • Among the other options, Inigo and Gerome would be the most popular. The former due of their lovely supports, where he tries to make Lucina a more cheerful person. The latter, because of their similar personalities, and the explanation that Gerome was who gave her the mask she uses to impersonate Marth was a very nice touch.
    • Amusingly, Inigo and Gerome are also popular pairings for female Morgan, who, thanks to the above, has a better-than-average chance to be Lucina's daughter.
  • Olivia/Henry became very, very popular in the fanbase, after their Japanese supports were translated. However, the English version altered the tone of their supports considerably, so it remains to be seen if they'll still be popular.
  • Ricken/Maribelle also has quite a number of followers due to the Rescue Romance in the main storyline.
  • Another Ur Example in this game is Virion/Libra, who got immensely popular before the game was released since Virion considered Libra attractive (and still does). Many were disappointed by the game's lack of a more-or-less official Gay Option.
  • There are many who wish Chrom and Cordelia could actually get together.
  • Ditto for Basilio and Flavia.
  • Among the Second Generation romances, Yarne x Nah is fairly popular, because like Henry x Olivia, it's very cute and heartwarming.
  • Another popular Second Generation pairing is Morgan (M) x Nah, due to their adorable supports and the implication that Naga is a Shipper on Deck.
  • Among the English fanbase, Donnel tends to be the most popular choice for Nowi, since they look closer in age than Nowi's other choices, their support is very sweet and makes sense romantically, and from a mechanics perspective, Donnel turns Nah into an absolute monster.
  • Ricken/Nowi is also rather popular since it's one of the few pairings involving either of them that doesn't look illegal. Additionally, Nah's personality is quite similar to Ricken's.
• Fan Yay: As if the gay fans weren't prominent enough (just check out the amount of Tellius, particularly laguz art out there), the male and female cast is bringing the community out in full force. Granted, it's not just gay and lesbian fans falling for same-sex characters.
• Fetish Fuel Station Attendant: Tharja, with the merchandise figure◊ to prove it.
• Game Breaker:
  • Anything with access to the Sorcerer class, or who has Dark Blessing, has access to one particular tome: Nosferatu! Nosferatu makes the entire game a cakewalk on three difficulties, and is almost required on Lunatic+ due to blatant cheating on the computer's part. And as stated above: the Ruin tome, coupled with skills that boost Critical Hit and lowers Critical Avoid, is certain death to almost anyone in your way.
  • Avatar is this to a ridiculous degree, with his/her easy access to almost every class in the game allowing him/her to collect a ludicrously powerful selection of skills.
    • On a Boring, but Practical level, the Avatar's starting skill: Veteran. It multiplies gained exp by 1.5x when Paired Up with another unit. It may not sound like much, but seeing as it's very possibly to keep the Avatar paired up from the moment you get them, that extra exp really adds up, and they can easily become an overleveled Disk One Nuke very quickly. It was so broken that the easiest way to beat Lunatic Mode was, in fact to play Frederick Emblem until Avatar grows enough and solo the entire game with Avatar.
  • Avatar's child Morgan can easily become one as well, especially if you pair Avatar with a second gen character who already received boosts from their parents. Or really, Avatar children in general thanks to their acess to every generic class in the game. While having a Third Gen Morgan is pretty amazing, you can opt to have TWO "Morgans" on the team, by having your Avatar marry a character that can sire a child.
  • Aggressor, a skill gained from the Dread Fighter DLC class. It grants a flat +10 to attack power to every attack of the character with it on the players phase. This is a huge amount in the main game, and considerable even in the hardest DLC.
  • The Galeforce skill, learnt by Dark Fliers. It gives the user another full action (as in, both moving and attacking) after defeating an enemy once per turn. Any character with the skill can very easily become a One-Man Army, potentially slaughtering two units a turn (Or more, with support from a Dancer). It does, however, go from "completely unfair" to "well balanced" in the higher-level DLC maps, due to the huge number of overpowered enemy units. It's also limited by the fact that a character likely won't have the raw power to capitalise on it until later levels.
  • Certain Spotpass Units, such as Sigurd or Alvis are easy to obtain (Oh, look 17000 in-game gold) L20 Promoted units with a bunch of skills and very high stats, not unlike The Black Knight in Radiant Dawn... except they can be reclassed to lower levels, and don't leave your party. Oh you can get one as early as Ch6.
    • Spotpass teams in itself. More accurately, the ability to buy items from them. These include otherwise pretty rare and hard to replace things that only appear regularly in lategame, such as Silver, Brave and Killer weapons.
  • Second Seals, which not only change the class of one of your characters, but also have them keep the same class by resetting their level back to 1, allowing them to keep all of the stats and skills they had acquired up to that point. This means its possible to max the stats of ALL of your characters if you are willing to do enough grinding. Reeking Boxes also count, since they're rather easy to get and it allows you to pretty much farm Risen for experience and gold (on normal difficulty at least, you won't be able to profit on higher difficulty levels).
  • Perhaps the greatest Game Breaker is a certain combination of rather monstrously powerful skills and spells. Vantage allows you to always attack first if your health is below half Wrath increases your critical chance is if your health is below half. Vengeance increase base damage more the lower your health is. Combine all of these with a forged Ruin tome and it's perfectly possible to one shot the final boss on Lunatic difficulty.
  • And want to boost the above? Use the very simple Pair Up! Not only does it give stat boosts (which can get bigger if the two characters support), but it also gives the chance for the second character to also attack, as well as negate a attack his/her partner might take. A S ranked couple can potentially solo maps even on Lunatic difficulty. While it does make you lose one character for a battle, if they so happen to both have galeforce...
  • A Sumia-mothered Lucina can be just ridiculous. Switch her to Pegasus Knight, run all the way up through Level 15+ Dark Flier, swap back to Great Lord, and you've got a Galeforce'd monster that can often trigger Aether and Critical and double strike in the same turn. Watch everything in her way get smoked as she hits like a nuke.
  • Nah, if you pair up Donnel and Nowi. Inheriting Donnel's Aptitude skill, which gives all stats a higher chance of increasing when leveling up, makes Nah borderline unstoppable when grown properly. Class-change her to Mercenary to get Armsthrift, Galeforce from Dark flier, and change her back to Manakete, and slap a Dragonstone+ on her; her max luck stat of 50 will ensure that it never breaks.
    • Or even better, pair a Kellam-fathered Nah with Male Avatar. The resulting Morgan is easilly the most terrifying unit in the entire game.
  • Perhaps the most powerful skill in the game: Armsthrift, which allows you to use a weapon without expending one of its uses when it activates. More importantly, it has a rather high activation rate: twice the Luck stat of the unit who's equipping Armsthrift. With Pair Up and/or sufficient grinding, it's possible to raise your Luck to 50—which means your weapons will never break. All those legendary or expensive forged weapons and tomes which were Too Awesome to Use? Feel free to combine them with any of the above Game Breakers for even more unstoppable power.
  • In short, some have criticized this game for being a little too easy to break.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Sully tends to rank toward the bottom half of character polls in Japan. If the Internet is any indication at all, in America she would effortlessly take a spot in the top three among the women, possibly surpassing even Lucina for the top spot.
  • Gregor ranked pretty low in popularity in Japan as well, with his character being a rather standard Oyaji sellsword in their version. In America, however, his character received a Heavy Woolseying into a jolly expy of The Heavy, making him one of the most loved and oft-quoted characters in the American fanbase.
  • When Reggie Fils-Aime let it slip that the game will be localized, the fan reaction was so happy that Nintendo decided to just announce the news on their Twitter account anyway to disprove any doubts.
    • It ended up trending on Twitter as well.
  • When the game was released in America, the sheer volume of people trying to download it crashed the E-Shop!
    • Due to a shipping miscalculation, the game was quickly sold out in many retail stores. This lead to the few remaining physical copies online to being sold at inflated prices. Fortunately, digital copies of the game are available at Nintendo's E-Shop.
  • Walhart placed second on the official Facebook character popularity poll, while on the Japanese character popularity poll he placed sixteenth.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Three of the DLC chapters revolve around a conflict between Ike and Roy. They're either this or a Mythology Gag: it's a bit ambiguous whether or not they were constructed with the Super Smash Bros series in mind.
    • Considering the localization calls this set Smash Brethren, they probably did have it in mind...
    • Even funnier when you consider the common WMG that Chrom could be replacing Ike and Roy in the next Smash Bros. game. Seems like this was how he had to earn the spot.
  • Spike Spencer, who voiced Marth in the OVA from the 90's, comes back to the series to voice Excellus.
  • Lissa, after Chapter 4, implies that she's kind of smitten with "Marth". Come the end of Chapter 13, and it turns out "Marth" is actually her niece.
• Ho Yay: Oh, it's there all right. Possibly even moreso in the English version in some cases, particularly between Lissa and Maribelle. The latter constantly calls the former "darling" and "my treasure" and frets over her to the point of (claiming to) grow grey hair over her...
  • Mothers can pass down female-only Skills to their sons, including Demoiselle (Secluded LADY in the Japanese version.). It still gives boosts to male units within three spaces...
  • Chrom and Male Avatar can especially come off this way. Their supports have Male MU fulfilling the role of "nagging wife."
  • Chrom and Frederick have this as well, though it's mostly one-sided on Frederick's part. This leads to some very uncomfortable moments for Chrom in the Harvest Scramble DLC. And then there's the poster incident...
  • Tharja and Female Avatar. Even during supports with other characters, Tharja will bring up the Avatar in some manner.
  • Severa and Kjelle share one "awkward" moment in their C rank support when Severa "contemplates" Kjelle's perfect abs...
    • And then there is their scene in Harvest Scramble where a drunk Kjelle accidentally hits on Severa, causing much flustering from the latter. Until it's revealed it's not alcohol she drank, but a TRUTH SERUM. The actions were Kjelle's actual feelings!
  • No Yay: Vincent and Victor have deliberate subtext played-up In-Universe...despite the fact they're ''twin brothers!''
    • This seems to be a staple of the series.
  • Gerome/Inigo to the most painful extent. Specially if you do their scene in Harvest Scramble.
• Hype Backlash: Considering the insane amount of praise the game was receiving, this was pretty much unavoidable. Albeit still a minority, some people didn't consider the game to be neither as complex nor as compelling as the majority did in any way. Some see the story as a Cliché Storm with one-dimensional villains, others consider the characters utterly one-noted and devoid of Character Development (although most people who claim this usually ignore the support conversations), and some complain of a brokenly unbalanced gameplay with bland level design. The worst cases, consider all at once. And of course, Internet Backdraft ensues...
  • There's now an in-game example with the Galeforce skill. The many claims of it being one of the most overpowered and useful skills in the game has led some to argue that it isn't. (The most common grounds being most combat in the game takes place during the Enemy Phase, where the skill doesn't work)
• Internet Backdraft: Just as fans were hyped for release, the game suffered some last-minute shipping and distribution problems. In Canada, Gamestop officially broke the street date and sold the game when shipments came in. American Gamestops decided to follow suit. Soon after, Nintendo made the Gamestops honor the street date. However, some Gamestops started to report that they wouldn't be selling the game until the eighth of February. Needless to say, fans haven't taken this well.
  • Some people have even gone so far as to assume the release problem was a ploy by Nintendo to get more eShop sales, where it was released on the 4th as scheduled.
  • The idea of there being 'canon' pairings. Just try and bring it up on any given forum. We'll watch. With popcorn.
  • People are now complaining about Nintendo of America censoring Tharja in the "Summer Scramble" DLC.
    • Ironically, the censorship makes it look more risque than the uncensored version.
• Iron Woobie: Lucina SOOOO MUCH! Specially if if female Avatar is her mother or male Avatar is her husband.
  • Cordelia. Not only was she forced to escape a brutal ambush while the rest of her squad stayed behind and were slaughtered (and she says she can still hear their screams), but the game makes it impossible to pair her with the man she loves! And yet she still remains calm and stoic in spite of all this.
• It Was His Sled: Due to the game having such a long time between the NA and EU releases, many of the games' main twists had been spoiled ahead of time. Part of the reason they were so quick to propagate them was out of doubt that they would be released outside of Japan. Even worse, some English trailers close to release (and even some reviews post-release) went the Trailers Always Spoil route.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Donny's pot-hat is quite popular among photoshoppers.
  • NUNSWITHAXES, referring to the War Cleric class, which is a priestess that uses axes.
  • "It's Vaike time!" seems well on its way to becoming this.
  • Some variation of "Where did the characters' feet go?!". This odd character model design choice is surely annoying some fans (and reviewers).
  • 'Lucina is the best and most courageous', referring to Lucina's status as both an Iron Woobie and fan favourite for pairing with a Male Avatar.
  • Mentioning Olivia's son's localized name on any forum is bound to result in The Princess Bride references throughout the remainder of the topic.
  • Referring to Panne or Yarne as Killer Rabbits
    • GIANT KILLER RABBITS!
    • There's also Yarne's statement, "Don't mess with a bunny!"
  • "Pie-re Emblem A-Bake-ening". The prevalence of pies in the English support conversations has not gone unnoticed in the fandom.
  • PICK A GOD AND PRAY!! *
    One of Frederick's crit lines.
  • "Marth is in this game?" "Which Marth?" This question is brought up by fans when comparing them to the Original Marth or Lucina.
    • Theres also the variative intrepetation of DLC and Spotpass Marth Pr. or King Titles.
  • Kellam? Who's that?*
    For those who don't get it, the game makes a Running Gag out of the fact that Kellam hardly ever gets noticed by the other characters, despite being The Big Guy of the Shepherds. Fans generally decided to run with it.
    • Related: Kellam is a ninja. (To explain why he's capable of such insane cases of Stealth Hi/Bye despite wearing full armor, and due to him having the Thief line as a reclass option.)
  • SUMIA IS YANDERE! after a glitch was discovered where the image of Sumia appears if you pair Chrom/Mariabelle
  • FIRE-BREATHING BUNNIES (or something similar). A common, popular fan theory of what Yarne and Nah's kids would be like.
  • I WANT TO BE MANHANDLED! An out-of-context quote from Inigo to Gerome during supports.
  • Darth Validar says: "Avatar, I am your FAUDER!"*
    Both Validar's Japanese and English names just beg for Star Wars refferences, considering a certain reveal...
  • The Summer of Bonds Battle Theme was already memetic when it came out... and then fan remixes started showing up using other characters' Voice Grunting. It's only a matter of time before there's a version of it for everyone...
    • There are now fan-remixes for characters who aren't even in Awakening.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • Every character's critical quotes.
  • Each character's marriage confession scene is accompanied by one line of fully voiced dialogue. It's the perfect conclusion to your Avatar's romance.
• Narm: Chrom's line whenever the Avatar is killed in battle.
  Chrom: No! Not you, {Avatar's name}! Open your eyes! OPEN YOUR EYES!
  • The localised names of the Deadlords. Yeah, everything sounds more ominous in Latin, but if you actually understand it, some of their names sound quite silly, like "Gallus" (Chicken).
    • Although, one could argue this is justified because of the reference made.
• Perverse Sexual Lust: The amount of players who treat whoever their Avatar is married to as their actual spouse is staggering.
  • Wasn't that the point though?
  • Chrom, Tharja (unsurprisingly for the two of them), Nowi, and (very surprisingly) Yarne have the most *ahem* fanart of the cast.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Lissa was really unpopular, due to being perceived as kind of a brat...then fans got the demo, and now Lissa is viewed as hilariously cool.
  • Sully got a lot of hate at first for being a female cavalier and looking more gonkish than the other female characters. When her localized name was revealed (from Soiree to Sully), the base broke even more. But then her debut in the demo featured her threatening to kick Virion in the face for hitting on her, as well as having some very well-written dialogue, which caused the fandom to warm up to her.
  • Gregor to an extent. See They Changed It, Now It Sucks for more detail.
  • The Archer/Sniper class is much more useful on Lunatic+, thanks to enemies being able to spawn with the Counter or Vantage+ skill.
• Ron the Death Eater: Pariodied in-universe with one of Miriel's conversations with Sumia in the Summer Scramble map. However, it only added fuel to her Hatedom's fire...
• The Scrappy:
  • Micaiah. Many had already hated her and accused her of being a Mary Sue, but her new artwork caused a boatload of rage.
  • The Bride class. See Base Breaker above for why.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The Villager class would seem to go under this as an entire useless class is not considered needed just to hold one good skill. Possibly crossing over into Replacement Scrappy territory for being playable over Soldier.
  • All of nobody likes the supreme lack of supports the special Spotpass characters get especially considering how Emmeryn and Yen'fay are related to other characters but can only support Robin. Many also wish Chrom had more female options like Panne or Tharja, considering, unlike Olivia, they join earlier and wouldn't suffer the red-string strangling she did.
• So Bad, It's Good: The censorship◊ of Tharja's swimsuit scene in the English version, to some.
• So Cool It's Awesome: Receiving rave reviews from both gaming press and fans, many agree this is not only one of the best games in the series, but one of the best games to hit the 3DS.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: Go ahead, admit you play Casual Mode to a "hardcore" FE fan. Just try. You'll be looked down on even if you still restart when losing someone. It gets to the point that even playing Lunatic on Casual will get you flamed for "not playing properly."
• Strangled by the Red String: With so many pairing possibilities, the quality of the writing in the support conversations that can end in marriage has ups and downs. The downs come across as this.
  • Chrom and his wife can be a specially jarring case if Chrom doesn't reach at least a support level B or A with one of his possible wives before chapter 11. Specially if he ends up marrying Olivia, who joins the party at the beginning of the chapter. (To be fair, the game absolutley Lampshades the hell out of it if this happens)
  • And if you managed to completely avoid having him interact with any possible candidates including Olivia, he ends up marrying a random villager girl instead.
  • A common problem with the supports is that the vast majority of them have only platonic or friendly conversations for the CBA conversations with a romantic scene in the S support seemingly coming from out of nowhere. This is pretty unavoidable, however, since the CBA supports can be made even when the characters in question are already married to others, so the inclusion of romance in those conversations may cause a lot more problems than it would solve.
• Superlative Dubbing: Similar to Kid Icarus: Uprising, Nintendo opted to use more well known voice actors for the English version. Naturally, this is getting high praise.
• Tastes Like Diabetes: Emmeryn's supports with Avatar.
• That One Skill: Counter. It's been buffed considerably since its Fire Emblem Tellius incarnation. It now always works, and returns the full damage of a melee hit back to the attacker, instead of half. To put it in perspective, that very same ability was previously reserved for the Final Boss of Radiant Dawn! Given that, at the point in the game where you're likely to start seeing enemies with it, your characters are dealing huge amounts of damage with each hit, and you realize how much of a big deal this is. Worse, the enemies that get it are usually Warriors or Entombed, both of which have massive HP but low defense, a recipe for receiving big damage... which is reflected right back at you. A strong melee fighter attacking a Counter-equipped enemy can very easily kill itself, and this is a game with Final Death... yeah. Long range weapons are the only way to avoid it, and that alone makes bow users and other long-range options invaluable on the higher difficulties. Oh, and if you were thinking 'hey, that's great! My Warriors can do it too!', then think again. They technically can, but given that the skill requires taking massive damage to be useful, and Final Death is in effect for your characters if you're playing on Classic Mode, you probably don't want them to. What's funny is it was a textbook Useless Useful Skill in the Tellius games.
  • Combined with Miracle, Counter has become a go-to skill in Streetpass for trolling other players who are abusing Lethality. Nothing like dealing a one-shot to yourself while the enemy unit survives with 1HP.
• Theiss Titillation Theory: Some have remarked that the censorship given to Tharja's Summer Scramble Fanservice actually makes it look sexier than it was originally.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks: You have seen the Broken Base section, right?
  • Soiree's Dub Name Change to Sully. See above.
  • Similarly, Ronku's name in the Western version to "Lon'qu" raised some eyebrows.
  • Gregor is an interesting Subversion. After seeing a brief snippet of Gregor's dialogue in trailers, the fact he talks in Hulk Speak annoyed some, believing they'd turned him from a Genius Bruiser into a generic Dumb Muscle. Once the English version was released though, people found he'd been given a Russian Accent Adaptation that was both hilarious and Badass, practically making him an Expy of The Heavy. His popularity proceeded to skyrocket.
  • Some of the Support Conversations were changed drastically in the localization, but the ones that tend to draw the most controversy are Chrom/Sumia and Henry/Olivia.
  • The game itself: Fire Emblem games traditionally run off of Earn Your Happy Ending or Bittersweet Ending, while this one is pretty much "they lived happily ever after and everything was fixed", right down to the Book Ends ending and the survival of characters like Emmeryn and Gangrel. Needless to say, plenty of fans have complained heavily about this.
• Tier Induced Scrappy:
  • Maribelle and Brady both have pretty decent growth rates (though for Brady it's dependent on his father) but many have complained about how they got screwed by the RNG.
  • Ricken also gets a lot of hate because of his sub-par class options. He also has the issue of having a very low Speed base despite the growth being decent, meaning he'll be behind in that area for a while.
  • Zig-zagged for Donnel and the children, but in different ways. Donnel is of the Villager class, and takes some time to get going, but once he does he can solo most of the story mode until he hits his caps, whereupon other units become better than him. The children meanwhile start at a somewhat low level, but can become your most powerful units with grinding, but Lunatic difficulty sours this a lot for the kids with the harder Paralogues, while the ones with the easier ones are still somewhat feasible. The DLC called "The Strongest One's Name" however has units that are so powerful that the best (or only) way to beat it is with max-stats children.
• Unfortunate Character Design: Many have noted that the neck portion of Sully and Stahl's armour◊ looks like a toilet bowl.
• Unfortunate Implications:
  • Much to the chagrin of the series' Yaoi and Yuri fans, (not to mention its gay fans), the Gay Option doesn't technically exist. Sure, there's Ho Yay/Les Yay here and there, but you still cannot pair any same-sex characters together, and as one Serenes Forest poster put it: "Marrying kids? Ok. Marrying your best friends' kids? Ok. Marrying same-sex allies of the same age?".
  • The Bride class. See Broken Base above.
  • There's also the fact you can't change the Avatar's skin colour, and pairing them with Basilio or Flavia doesn't make Morgan dark-skinned.
  • The Flanderization of Sumia in the English localization hits its worst in her supports with Chrom. She basically wins him over by baking him pies over and over, while in the Japanese text, she only prepares him a bento in the B Rank and the topic is mostly never brought up again afterwards. Needless to say, the implications aren't pretty for a lot of people.
    • ... Which also does not say a lot of good things about those who CRUCIFY poor Sumia for it either, as it gives the impression that said fans believe a woman is ONLY good when she doesn't do anything seen as archetypically feminine. And considering how several of these Sumia haters support Chrom with other women aside of her, and how they seem to think these women are "worthier" of him for being "stronger", the REAL intentions behind their Sumia hate tend to be... obvious.
  • On a meta level, there's the fact that all the characters with the most vocal Hatedoms (Tharja, Nowi and Sumia) are female, even though there are male characters with similar traits (Henry, Ricken and Stahl) who don't receive it, or at least at that level...
• Values Dissonance: The game's translation is pretty faithful, for the most part... except for Nowi's character being radically changed. The implications of someone who looks and acts like a child being a romantic option (despite being Really 700 Years Old) are much more unfortunate in America than in Japan.
  • Lucina, Chrom's canon daughter, can marry Owain, Lissa's canon son. The North American version attempts to hide this by labeling them "Companions" in the "Husband/Wife" slot on the stat screen and removing talk of marriage from their S Support, but they give each other the same love-quotes in Events together as they do any of their other possible spouses...
  • Oddly, Nintendo's censorship doesn't stop Morgan from marrying her uncle (Lucina's brother)/his aunt (Lucina herself) in either version, even if they'd be more closely related than Lucina and Owain are. This is most likely a design oversight, since Morgan could alternately be completely unrelated to them, and romantic supports only get replaced if the two characters are direct siblings.
• What an Idiot
  • Many of the enemy commanders just love to loudly proclaim that reinforcements are coming to "surprise" the enemy, not realizing that the Sheperds (or at least the Avatar) can hear exactly what he is saying! Granted, they aren't surprise attackers, but just reinforcements in hopes to overrun you from as many sides as possible.
• What Do You Mean, It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: The Fortune Telling option. Then again, the DLC reveals that the fortune teller himself is a major Cloudcuckoolander, so it's probably to be expected.
• Woolseyism: The Western localizations are full of them, certainly for the best.
  • Chrom's army's name goes from simply "Chrom's Vigilantes" to "The Shepherds", lending a metaphorical connotation to an otherwise generically-named faction. (As Frederick mentions in the prologue, they guard the "sheep", i.e. the defenseless citizens threatened by war)
  • Marth (the DLC character, not the story one) has the class "Star Lord" in the Japanese version of the game. Sounds cool, but it doesn't have any actual meaning. The English release changes his class name to Lodestar, sidestepping a potential Dub Induced Plothole with Shadow Dragon at the same time.
  • The Thief's name went from the feminine Gaia to the more masculine-sounding Gaius.
  • Nowi's dialogue was changed to make her sound more mature, and her English voice is more teen-sounding. This helps tone down the Unfortunate Implications on romancing her in the Japanese version, although some may find it also flattens her character a lot. There is a similar approach for Ricken, as his voice acting is also more teen-sounding to avoid the same Unfortunate Implications and Double Standard when romancing him ^note And the fact that they hired Yuri Lowenthal, who is best known for Kid Hero characters, help make Ricken a bit more appealing.
    • Similarly Nah's supports with her father go from calling him out for being a Lolicon to wondering if he was forced to marry her mother because he got her... Many find this to be much funnier.
  • It was inevitable with Nn... justified, obviously. It got changed to Nah.
  • Mark's name was changed to Morgan in the west. As this character can be either gender, changing the male name Mark to the gender-neutral Morgan certainly works.
    • This also applies to the default Avatar name, Robin.
    • Though the Mark example becomes a Lost in Translation shout out to the tactician of Blazing Sword.
  • With regards to legacy weapons, Swanchika becoming Helswath has been very well-recieved by most of the fandom.
    • Helswath is an example of every language localization getting it right in their own way: German and Spanish names are Hels Zorn and Phuria, both really good-sounding names for it.
  • The translation took out a LOT of Old Hubba's homophobia and otherwise toned down some of his more uncomfortable dialogue.
  • The English version managed to fit a Title Drop into the name of a late-game chapter. (The chapter was just called "The Holy Ruler's Successor" in the Japanese version)
  • Chapter 18 also takes place in a volcano that's named "Doma's Remains". Given that Fire Emblem Gaiden wasn't actually released out here, it'd make most western gamers think "...Huh?". They actually bypassed this Continuity lockout by naming it the Demon's Ingle. This actually works - and since its significance isn't actually important apart from a small Call Back to Fire Emblem Gaiden, it still works. Of course, they still have a temple of Mila and the Mila tree untouched in the western version, but they don't actually show any significance apart from just simple theme naming.
  • In contrast to the Dude, Not Funny! entry above, some people think Henry's characterization changed for the better, as he gets some of the funniest and best lines in the game.
  • Allegedly, the "pies" were bento boxes in the Japanese script. While making sense to Japan, not everyone really knows of Bento Boxes outside of Japan... nor does it make sense in a Medieval European setting like Fire Emblem. However, pies, on the other hand...
  • In one of the more significant character changes, Gregor went from being a typical Cool Old Guy mercenary to a loud boisterous Funny Foreigner that 'make with many humorous japing'. To say it was well-received would be an understatement.
  • The relationship between Owain and Lucina (as well as Cynthia and Kjelle if Chrom marries either Sumia or Sully respectfully) is labeled "Companions" instead of "Wife/Husband" to avoid the cousin incest taboo as mentioned in Values Dissonance
  • A very minor Translation Correction occured in Panne's generic Barracks dialogue. Her Japanese quote translates to "Humans are somewhat strong creatures too. [Name], how about we fight together next time?" It's possible to have her say that to one of the army's Manaketes, who obviously aren't human. So the English version changed it to "It seems the Taguel aren't the only strong beings out there."
  • The Non-English localizations also had a good amount of Woolseyism on their own. Here are some examples from the Spanish version:
    • The term "Shepherds" (which in Spanish would be "pastores") for "Custodios" ("custodians"), which make it sound more epic.
    • On a similar note, the title "Exalt" (which direct translation doesn't make much sense in Spanish as a title) was changed to "Venerable".
    • Donnel's accent in Spanish, which is like a mix of several countryside Spaniard accents, makes the character even more hilarious!
    • Virion's speech is very reminiscent of the Spanish from the XVI century (basically, the era when the Dashing Hispanic trope was codified), albeit in an Affectionate Parody fashion, which fits his personality to a T.
  • The twelve dead warriors from Jugdral fame, brought back in Awakening, were changed from the slightly generic "Dark Warlords" to the more menacing "Deadlords", and their names were changed from German numbers to Latin names of the animals in the Eastern Zodiac. The group are also called by the similiarly menacing "Todesfürsten" (the Princes of Death) in Germany, and the "Resurgidos" (the Arisen) in Spain.
  • Lon'qu's Dub Name Change to "Lon'zu" in the non-English translations was particularly convenient for French: phonetically, Lon'qu sounds the same in French as "long cul" (which translate roughly to ''long ass'').
    • On a similar note, Morgan's name was changed to "Linfan", a changed that benefited the French translation more than the other languages. First, because the feminine name for Morgan in French takes an extra "e" in the end. Second, because "Linfan" sounds very similar to "L'enfant", which is the French word for "the child" (and that's exactly what Morgan/Linfan is).