History HighTierScrappy / FireEmblem

* '''The second generation units''', while popular as characters, tend to be seen as so powerful that it makes the game unbalanced, and makes the first gen units almost completely inferior as a result. Each kid inherits stats, growths, skills, and classes from their parents, giving them more versatility, power, and starting strength than either parent, and they quickly outperform their parents with ease. Even kids that aren't viewed as "top tier like Laurent are still going to be stronger than than their parents, making some dislike using them, since they end up so powerful that they make using other units like their parents useless.

* '''Lysithea''', though a popular character, is regularly criticized for being the best mage in the game, rendering all but healing focused mages obsolete. Not only does she have some of the beast Faith and Reason spells like Seraphim and Dark Spikes for effective damage output, and Warp for extra utility, but her Magic growth ties with the DLC character Constance for the highest in the game. Unlike Constance though, Lysithea has two Crests, one of which is the Crest of Gloucester, which lets her use the broken Thyrsus staff to get additional range on her spells without having to equip the NewGamePlus-exclusive Craft Dragon Sign, and her personal skill, Mastermind, lets her level in classes twice as fast as everyone else [[note]]Although Jeritza also has Mastermind, it's not his personal skill, so for him, it takes up an equippable skill slot which could be given to a more valuable skill, while Lysithea lacks this issue as Mastermind does not take up one of her equippable skill slots.[[/note]] and move between many classes to get skills. Already that makes her really powerful, but she's recruitable on all routes if the player wants, and isn't as hard as some characters to recruit, meaning she can quickly be recruited and upstage all other non-healer focused mages, to the point of the game being harder without her due to other mages lacking the same advantages she has[[note]]To give an example: Lysithea is fully capable of one-shotting the final boss of the Verdant Wind route with [[ArmorPiercingAttack Luna]], and she can do it without going out of your way to setup.[[/note]]. Her only downsides are not having some of the more unique spells, or having much healing support, but the trade off for raw magical damage, especially when she becomes a Gremory, makes her so good that she is often criticized for being simply way too strong.[[note]]This isn't even mentioning her potential as a MagicKnight, where she can also be broken in.[[/note]]

* The second generation units, while popular as characters, tend to be seen as so powerful that it makes the game unbalanced, and makes the first gen units almost completely inferior as a result. Each kid inherits stats, growths, skills, and classes from their parents, giving them more versatility, power, and starting strength than either parent, and they quickly outperform their parents with ease. Even kids that aren't viewed as "top tier like Laurent are still going to be stronger than than their parents, making some dislike using them, since they end up so powerful that they make using other units like their parents useless.

* '''Lysithea''', though a popular character, is regularly criticized for being the best mage in the game, rendering all but healing focused mages obsolete. Not only does she have some of the best Faith and Reason spell lists, ranging from Seraphim and Dark Spikes for effective damage output, to Warp for extra utility, but her Magic growth ties with the DLC character Constance for the highest in the game. Unlike Constance, Lysithea has two Crests, one of which is the Crest of Gloucester, which lets her use the broken Thyrsus staff to get additional range on her spells without having to equip the NewGamePlus-exclusive Craft Dragon Sign, and her personal skill, Mastermind, lets her level in classes twice as fast as everyone else [[note]]Although Jeritza also has Mastermind, it's not his personal skill, so for him, it takes up an equippable skill slot which could be given to a more valuable skill, while Lysithea lacks this issue as Mastermind does not take up one of her equippable skill slots.[[/note]] and move between many classes to get skills. Already that makes her really powerful, but she's recruitable on all routes if the player wants, and isn't as hard as some characters to recruit, meaning she can quickly be recruited and upstage all other non-healer focused mages, to the point of the game being harder without her due to other mages lacking the same advantages she has[[note]]To give an example: Lysithea is fully capable of one-shotting the final boss of the Verdant Wind route with [[ArmorPiercingAttack Luna]], and she can do it without going out of your way to setup.[[/note]]. Her only downsides are not having some of the more unique spells, or having much healing support, but the trade off for raw magical damage, especially when she becomes a Gremory, makes her so good that she is often criticized for being simply way too strong.[[note]]This isn't even mentioning her potential as a MagicKnight, where she can also be broken in.[[/note]]

* The second generation units, while popular as characters, tend to be seen as so powerful that it makes the game unbalanced, and makes the first gen units almost completely inferior as a result. Each kid inherits stats, growths, skills, and classes from their parents, giving them more versatility, powerful, and starting strength than either parent, and they quickly outperform their parents with ease. Even kids that aren't viewed as "top tier like Laurent are still going to be stronger than than their parents, making some dislike using them, since they end up so powerful that they make using other units like their parents useless.

* Even though they're genuinely liked ([[BaseBreakingCharacter for the most part]]) as characters, '''the royal siblings''' are generally regarded as [[GoneHorriblyRight too good at their jobs]]. ''Fates'' has a rather large cast (especially on ''Revelation''), and an ArbitraryHeadcountLimit. Naturally, whenever any of the siblings join, several units may wind up being benched for the simple crime of [[OvershadowedByAwesome not being able to stand up to the royals they share a potential promotion with]]. This definitely comes into play in ''Revelation'', when you get all ''eight'' of them over the course of the game, with one of the biggest complaints leveraged at ''Revelation'' at there being no reason to use any of the retainers when the royals exist and do their job better by default, which greatly annoys players who like any of the retainers.

* '''Ilios''' is an an odd case of a character who isn't considered top tier, but still gets dislike for being stronger than another character. In his case, he's one of the game's MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers, being impossible to recruit if you already have Olwen. Olwen is one of ''Thracia's'' most popular characters, owing to her CharacterDevelopment and her tragic relationship with her brother Reinhardt, not to mention her impressive potential... but she also joins with pretty awful bases as a prepromote, while Ilios joins with already competent stats in the same class. This means efficiency-minded players tend to ignore Olwen in favor of Ilios, which annoys people who like Olwen, especially when Ilios is nowhere near as fleshed out.

* '''Lysithea''', though a popular character, gets a decent amount of ire from players for breaking the game and rendering most other magical units obsolete in the process. Not only does she have some of the best Faith and Reason spell lists, ranging from Seraphim and Dark Spikes for effective damage output and Warp for extra utility, but her Magic growth ties with the DLC character Constance for the highest in the game. Unlike Constance, Lysithea has two Crests, one of which is the Crest of Gloucester, which lets her use the broken Thyrsus staff to get additional range on her spells without having to equip the NewGamePlus-exclusive Craft Dragon Sign, and her personal skill, Mastermind, lets her level in classes twice as fast as everyone else [[note]]Although Jeritza also has Mastermind, it's not his personal skill, so for him, it takes up an equippable skill slot which could be given to a more valuable skill, while Lysithea lacks this issue as Mastermind does not take up one of her equippable skill slots.[[/note]] and move between many classes to get skills. Where she dips into outright being disliked by some, though, is that Lysithea can be recruited on all routes, meaning getting her is generally easy, and doing so makes all other mages obsolete when put against her, to the point that not using her makes the game harder due to other mages lacking the same advantages she has. Her only downside is not having healing support, but it doesn't impact her at all when weighed against her sheer brokenness, making some hate how objectively better she is than other magic users.

* '''Deen''' was already a good unit in the original game, but the remake just makes him even better. It's especially jarring as he's already [[BaseBreakingCharacter controversial]] due to being seen by some as a relatively generic edgy character, manages to be an absolutely broken unit for his join time. Deen starts out with exceptional bases, and unlike the original game, utterly eclipses his [[MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers Mutually Exclusive Party Member]] [[LadyOfBlackMagic Sonya]] in terms of base stats enough to carry him over to the end of the game, even if Sonya has better growths than him. What truly pushes Deen into this category is not just his status as an excellent unit, but his characterization seen as paling to the HiddenDepths of Sonya's characterization, and just being seen as a less likable character by comparison. This has convinced quite a few fans who don't play for keeps to instead go with Sonya, precisely because of them feeling Deen takes away the choice from an actually likable character for being far superior.

* The '''Wyvern Lord''' class is often disliked, as its high power, unmatched movement, and easily negated weaknesses boil the endgame meta down to "make everyone a Wyvern Lord as fast as possible". It's not the only flying class in the game, but since it isn't gender-locked or DownloadableContent, it gets most of the ire.

* '''Palla''' in both games is often held as irrefutable proof that series creator Shouzou Kaga had no idea how to balance his games properly. In the original [=SNES=] game, she joins near her class caps in a game where stats cap at 20, a high enough weapon rank that lets her fight with a Silver Lance right out of the gate, a Master Seal that can promote her immediately afterwards into a Dracoknight, and has MightyGlacier growths on top of FragileSpeedster bases. This would already be a recipe for a GameBreaker in any other game, but she's ''also'' a flier, and she joins obscenely early in Chapter 3, solidifying her as by ''far'' the best unit in her game, with nobody else coming even close to as broken as she is. The only "downside" is that she's forced to dismount in indoor maps, but given her Weapon Level remains consistent due to how the older games calculated weapon rank, this is virtually no problem at all. The remake kept her about the same, and she's arguably even ''better'' there, as she joins in a game with bases that are on level to [[LowTierLetdown prepromotes you get far later in the game]] at a FAR earlier point while unpromoted, can now reclass with her weapon ranks transferring due to being as ludicrously high as they are, and unlike in the original game, keeps her mount indoors and can freely use 1-2 range weapons as a result. What truly pushes her into High-Tier Scrappy-dom is the fact that some people take issue [[AllLoveIsUnrequited with her unrequited infatuation]] with Abel [[SingleIssueWonk taking up most of her character]] and [[FranchiseOriginalSin setting up precedent for the MANY clones of this archetype that came afterwards]], but what truly solidifies her is that in both games -- ''New Mystery of the Emblem'' especially -- you practically ''have'' to use her because many other units that players like more are practically unusable on Lunatic, which only infuriates people more given unlike units like Sirius (who, [[spoiler:being [[AntiVillain Camus]]]], gets a heap of CharacterDevelopment that makes him well-liked both as a unit ''and'' character), she doesn't often have the same characterization that would justify a casual player using her, [[Catch22Dilemma but are forced to use her regardless because the game would be unwinnable without a unit like her]].

* '''Palla''' in both games is often held as irrefutable proof that series creator Shouzou Kaga didn't balance his games properly. In the original [=SNES=] game, she joins near her class caps in a game where stats cap at 20, a high enough weapon rank that lets her fight with a Silver Lance right out of the gate, a Master Seal that can promote her immediately afterwards into a Dracoknight, and has MightyGlacier growths on top of FragileSpeedster bases. This would already be a recipe for a GameBreaker in any other game, but she's ''also'' a flier, and she joins obscenely early in Chapter 3, solidifying her as by ''far'' the best unit in her game, with nobody else coming even close to as broken as she is. The only "downside" is that she's forced to dismount in indoor maps, but given her Weapon Level remains consistent due to how the older games calculated weapon rank, this is virtually no problem at all. The remake kept her about the same, and she's arguably even ''better'' there, as she joins in a game with bases that are on level to [[LowTierLetdown prepromotes you get far later in the game]] at a FAR earlier point while unpromoted, can now reclass with her weapon ranks transferring due to being as ludicrously high as they are, and unlike in the original game, keeps her mount indoors and can freely use 1-2 range weapons as a result. What truly pushes her into High-Tier Scrappy-dom is the fact that some people take issue [[AllLoveIsUnrequited with her unrequited infatuation]] with Abel [[SingleIssueWonk taking up most of her character]] and [[FranchiseOriginalSin setting up precedent for the MANY clones of this archetype that came afterwards]], but what truly solidifies her is that in both games -- ''New Mystery of the Emblem'' especially -- you practically ''have'' to use her because many other units that players like more are practically unusable on Lunatic, which only infuriates people more given unlike units like Sirius (who, [[spoiler:being [[AntiVillain Camus]]]], gets a heap of CharacterDevelopment that makes him well-liked both as a unit ''and'' character), she doesn't often have the same characterization that would justify a casual player using her, [[Catch22Dilemma but are forced to use her regardless because the game would be unwinnable without a unit like her]].

* '''Seth''', a CrutchCharacter who goes well past his intended role into being flat out overpowered. Despite initially meaning to be the games early crutch, Seth has really good growths and starting stats, high rank in both Sword and Lances, and joins on the very first level, making him really good out of the gate much like Marcus in the previous games, and he only gets better as you use him. Not using Seth at all is considered closer to a challenge run than a Seth only run in fact, to the point that, for all his popularity, some players hate using him because he can solo almost the entire game without issue. Worse, even if the player uses him but makes an effort not rely solely on him heavily, he's still the best cavalier in the game, beating out all the other options like Forde and Kyle, and would only really lose out if a player actively never uses him, and only focused on other characters.

* Dread Fighters are one of a few Tier 3 promotions, and are given a boost to Resistance and a skill that reduces magic damage by half in a game where Resistance growths are nonexistent. That alone makes a Dread Fighter extremely powerful, but they also have 7 movement in a game where other non-mounted classes have 5 at best. They're also the only class that can loop back to Villager without the use of the Pitchfork item, which allows them to gain even more stats. Many players, regardless of the version of the game, hate how broken and objectively better Dread Fighters are, for just invalidating almost all the other classes.
* Deen was already a good unit in the original game, but the remake just makes him even better. It's especially jarring as he's already [[BaseBreakingCharacter controversial]] due to being seen by some as a relatively generic edgy character, manages to be an absolutely broken unit for his join time. Deen starts out with exceptional bases, and unlike the original game, utterly eclipses his [[MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers Mutually Exclusive Party Member]] [[LadyOfBlackMagic Sonya]] in terms of base stats enough to carry him over to the end of the game, even if Sonya has better growths than him. What truly pushes Deen into this category is not just his status as an excellent unit, but his characterization seen as paling to the HiddenDepths of Sonya's characterization, and just being seen as a less likable character by comparison. This has convinced quite a few fans who don't play for keeps to instead go with Sonya, precisely because of them feeling Deen takes away the choice from an actually likable character for being far superior.

* Palla in both games are often held as irrefutable proof that series creator Shouzou Kaga often had absolutely zero idea how to balance his games properly. In the original [=SNES=] game, she joins near her class caps in a game that only has stats go up to 20, a high enough weapon rank that lets her fight with a Silver Lance right out of the gate, a Master Seal that could promote her immediately afterwards into a Dracoknight, and has MightyGlacier growths on top of FragileSpeedster bases. This would already be a recipe for a GameBreaker in any other game, but Palla also happens to ''fly'' too, ''and'' joins obscenely early in Chapter 3, solidifying her as by ''far'' the best unit in her game, and nobody else coming even close to as broken as she is. The only "downside" is that she's forced to dismount in indoor maps, but given her Weapon Level remains consistent due to how the older games calculated weapon rank, this was virtually no problem at all. She's meanwhile practically just the same in the remake, and arguably even better as she joins in a game with bases that are on level to [[LowTierLetdown prepromotes you get far later in the game]] at a FAR earlier point while unpromoted, can now reclass with her weapon ranks transferring due to being as ludicrously high as they are, and unlike her previous game, keeps her mount indoors and can as a result freely use 1-2 range weapons. What truly pushes her into High-Tier Scrappy-dom is the fact that some people take issue [[AllLoveIsUnrequited with her unrequited infatuation]] with Abel [[SingleIssueWonk taking up most of her character]] and [[FranchiseOriginalSin setting up precedent for the MANY clones of this archetype that came afterwards]], but what truly solidifies her is that in both games -- ''New Mystery of the Emblem'' especially -- you practically ''had'' to use her because many other units that players like more were practically unusable on Lunatic Mode, which only infuriates people more given unlike units like Sirius (who, [[spoiler:being [[AntiVillain Camus]]]], gets a heap of CharacterDevelopment that makes him well-liked both as a unit ''and'' character), she doesn't often have the same characterization that would justify a casual player using her, [[Catch22Dilemma but are forced to use her regardless because the game would be unwinnable without a unit like her]].
* Kris, meanwhile, manages to be the best unit in ''their'' game. Already a pretty controversial character in the fandom due to their CanonForeigner status and accusations of being a SpotlightStealingSquad or a CreatorsPet, one thing that ''really'' doesn't help the debates is that Kris is incredibly powerful. Not only do they have parameters that are at least above average in just about every category, and not only can they start in eight different classes, but they also have a pretty lengthy prologue and tutorial where they'll pretty much always be your best character and where most of the units you use won't be playable again for a good while. This means, invariably, the best way to play ''New Mystery'' is to have Kris solo the tutorial, and then join up with Marth's gang as a level 10 or so DiscOneNuke that can proceed to turn even Lunatic into a joke.

* Ilios is an an odd case of a character who isn't considered top tier, but still gets dislike for being stronger than another character. In his case, he's one of the game's MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers, being impossible to recruit if you already have Olwen. Olwen is one of ''Thracia's'' most popular characters, owing to her CharacterDevelopment and her tragic relationship with her brother Reinhardt, not to mention her impressive potential... but she also joins with pretty awful bases as a prepromote, while Ilios joins with already competent stats in the same class. This means efficiency-minded players tend to ignore Olwen in favor of Ilios, which annoys people who like Olwen, especially when Ilios is nowhere near as fleshed out.

* Mounted classes have traditionally been strong, but these games' incarnation of the Paladin class is considered a step too far by many fans. Not only is it a MasterOfAll statistically, along with great movement, Canto and rescue utility, but it can use Swords, Lances ''and'' Axes in these games, and an E rank in axes is all it needs to wield the 1-2 range Hand Axe. Not helping matters is the games' CrutchCharacter units having this class.
* Marcus in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'' gets this treatment from some. Considered to be a CrutchCharacter and "waste of exp" early in the game's lifespan, fans later realized that his base stats were ''just'' good enough to carry him through most of the game, and he only needs to gain a couple of points of Speed on a 35% growth to double everything he needs to for its entirety. With the game's weak enemies and his access to Javelins and Hand Axes, much of the game boils down to "point Marcus at the enemy and watch them die." Those who play to watch units grow find him BoringButPractical with an emphasis on "boring", while his brokenness even on Hector Hard Mode drove more hardcore players to the later games' higher difficulties. However, many still use him as intended, or dislike using him at all, as he'll handily have the lowest stats of any of the five potential Paladins, and Kent and Sain have Lyn's ten chapters to grow to outperform him.

* Seth, a CrutchCharacter who goes well past his intended role into being flat out overpowered. Despite initially meaning to be the games early crutch, Seth has really good growths and starting stats, high rank in both Sword and Lances, and joins on the very first level, making him really good out of the gate much like Marcus in the previous games, and he only gets better as you use him. Not using Seth at all is considered closer to a challenge run than a Seth only run in fact, to the point that, for all his popularity, some players hate using him because he can solo almost the entire game without issue. Worse, even if the player uses him but makes an effort not rely solely on him heavily, he's still the best cavalier in the game, beating out all the other options like Forde and Kyle, and would only really lose out if a player actively never uses him, and only focused on other characters.

* Even though they're genuinely liked ([[BaseBreakingCharacter for the most part]]) as characters, the royal siblings are generally regarded as [[GoneHorriblyRight too good at their jobs]]. ''Fates'' has a rather large cast (especially on ''Revelation''), and an ArbitraryHeadcountLimit. Naturally, whenever any of the siblings join, several units may wind up being benched for the simple crime of [[OvershadowedByAwesome not being able to stand up to the royals they share a potential promotion with]]. This definitely comes into play in ''Revelation'', when you get all ''eight'' of them over the course of the game, with one of the biggest complaints leveraged at ''Revelation'' at there being no reason to use any of the retainers when the royals exist and do their job better by default, which greatly annoys players who like any of the retainers.
** Takumi deserves special mention for this. On both the routes he is available, he is considered a GameBreaker due to a mixture of his stupidly overpowered weapon and the buffs to the Archer class bumping its usefulness up to this. He joins early as well: chapter 10 in both ''Birthright'' and ''Revelation''. He's also a BaseBreakingCharacter par excellence, with much of him completely outclassing any and all archers for his slot in ''Revelation'' being seen as even worse for it (including {{Ensemble Dark Horse}}s like Setsuna and Niles).
** Ryoma practically has no restrictions and blows every other Myrmidon[=/=]Swordmaster in the game out of the water. He's not a mounted character like Xander, but his exclusive Raijinto can be used at range, meaning magic and arrows are a joke against him. The Swordmaster class learns [[DeathByAThousandCuts Astra]], so he can attack more times than he needs to. He's still one of the strongest, fastest characters in the game, so the rest of the army might as well take a nap if he's deployed. All of this make him border on TheDreaded for players of [=StreetPass=] battles. What truly solidifies him as this is, even though he's well-liked as a character, he's exclusive to the two easier paths of the game, where you don't ''need'' such a GameBreaker.
** Xander's Siegfried has all the advantages Raijinto does on a mounted unit in addition to buffing Xander's avoid and defense. Xander himself may not be as fast as Ryoma, but he is otherwise a MasterOfAll in everything that isn't magic related, able to tank better than most tanks and hit harder than anyone not named Charlotte or Camilla. And even then, his Speed can be patched up with favoritism or a Berserker backpack, making him into an utterly horrifying LightningBruiser. Him being a mounted unit on TOP of a tank makes him effectively invalidate any Paladins and Generals as soon as you get them, which is especially grating on ''Revelation'' where there's a lot of units and a ton of competition for the slot.
** And of course, Camilla. Take everything about Xander, make it hit ''harder'', give it a class with an ability that is basically anathema to the majority of Hoshidan units (most Hoshidans don't use mounts, and the ones that do (i.e. Mechanists) tend to be less obviously threatening than Nohrian mounts despite possessing [[GameBreaker game-breaking]] versatility elsewhere, meaning Trample gives Camilla essentially a free boost to damage) and finish by making them more accurate, faster, ''and'' is a Res tank (normally the one weakness besides arrows that flying units that aren't Pegasi have) and you have Camilla. If not for Siegfried, Camilla would be better than Xander in nearly all categories. This is [[BrokenBase especially inflammatory]] due to Camilla's, ahem, [[MsFanservice provocative appearance]] and {{Yandere}} tendencies, which annoys the daylights out of less-skilled players who don't like her character but are otherwise forced to use her as a crutch in Lunatic.

* Lysithea, though a popular character, is a unit that gets a decent amount of ire from players for breaking the game and rendering most other magical units obsolete in the process. Not only does she have some of the best Faith and Reason spell lists, ranging from Seraphim and Dark Spikes for effective damage output and Warp for extra utility, but her Magic growth ties with the DLC character Constance for the highest in the game. Unlike Constance, Lysithea has two Crests, one of which is the Crest of Gloucester, which lets her use the broken Thyrsus staff to get additional range on her spells without having to equip the NewGamePlus-exclusive Craft Dragon Sign, and her personal skill, Mastermind, lets her level in classes twice as fast as everyone else [[note]]Although Jeritza also has Mastermind, it's not his personal skill, so for him, it takes up an equippable skill slot which could be given to a more valuable skill, while Lysithea lacks this issue as Mastermind does not take up one of her equippable skill slots.[[/note]] and move between many classes to get skills. Where she dips into outright being disliked by some, though, is that Lysithea can be recruited on all routes, meaning getting her is generally easy, and doing so makes all other mages obsolete when put against her, to the point that not using her makes the game harder due to other mages lacking the same advantages she has. Her only downside is not having healing support, but it doesn't impact her at all when weighed against her sheer brokenness, making some hate how objectively better she is than other magic users.
* The Wyvern Lord class is often disliked, as its high power, unmatched movement, and easily negated weaknesses boil the endgame meta down to "make everyone a Wyvern Lord as fast as possible". It's not the only flying class in the game, but since it isn't gender-locked or DownloadableContent, it gets most of the ire.

* The [[DownloadableContent DLC Emblems]] get this reaction from some. While the Bracelets are undoubtedly very powerful, many feel that they're ''too'' good, which undermines a number of chapters which are designed around the player having access to specific emblems (the most obvious examples being [[spoiler:Chapters 11 and 22, where the player loses the Emblem Rings]]). Furthermore, some feel that the DLC giving you access to SP-boosting items invalidates much of the game's balancing, as it gives the player immediate access to some of the game's more powerful skills right off the bat.
* Kagetsu gets some dislike for having such incredible base stats ''and'' growth rates that he's effectively an objectively better version of some early joining characters like Lapis (who is also an infantry sword-wielder), which frustrates their fans. He also joins with an internal level of 15/1, meaning he has no trouble leveling up despite being pre-promoted.

* Kris, meanwhile, manages to be the best unit in ''his'' game. Already a pretty controversial character in the fandom due to their CanonForeigner status and accusations of being a SpotlightStealingSquad or a CreatorsPet, one thing that ''really'' doesn't help the debates is that Kris is incredibly powerful. Not only do they have parameters that are at least above average in just about every category, and not only can they start in eight different classes, but they also have a pretty lengthy prologue and tutorial where they'll pretty much always be your best character and where most of the units you use won't be playable again for a good while. This means, invariably, the best way to play ''New Mystery'' is to have Kris solo the tutorial, and then join up with Marth's gang as a level 10 or so DiscOneNuke that can proceed to turn even Lunatic into a joke.

!!''VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemEchoesShadowsOfValentia''

!!''VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemNewMysteryOfTheEmblem''

* Palla in both games are often held as irrefutable proof that series creator Shouzou Kaga often had absolutely zero idea how to balance his games properly. In the original [=SNES=] game, she joins near her class caps in a game that only has stats go up to 20, a high enough weapon rank that lets her fight with a Silver Lance right out of the gate, a Master Seal that could promote her immediately afterwards into a Dracoknight, and has MightyGlacier growths on top of FragileSpeedster bases. This would already be a recipe for a GameBreaker in any other game, but Palla also happens to ''fly'' too, ''and'' joins obscenely early in Chapter 3, solidifying her as by ''far'' the best unit in her game, and nobody else coming even close to as broken as she is. The only "downside" is that she's forced to dismount in indoor maps, but given her Weapon Level remains consistent due to how the older games calculated weapon rank, this was virtually no problem at all. She's meanwhile practically just the same in the remake, and arguably even better as she joins in a game with bases that are on level to [[LowTierLetdown prepromotes you get far later in the game]] at a FAR earlier point while unpromoted, can now reclass with her weapon ranks transferring due to being as ludicrously high as they are, and unlike her previous game, keeps her mount indoors and can as a result freely use 1-2 range weapons. What truly pushes her into High-Tier Scrappy-dom is the fact that some people take issue [[AllLoveIsUnrequited with her unrequited infatuation]] with Abel [[SingleIssueWonk taking up most of her character]] and [[FranchiseOriginalSin setting up precedent for the MANY clones of this archetype that came afterwards]], but what truly solidifies her is that in both games -- ''New Mystery of the Emblem'' especially -- you practically ''had'' to use her because many other units that players like more were practically unusable on Lunatic Mode, which only infuriates people more given unlike units like Sirius (who, [[spoiler:being [[AntiVillain Camus]], gets a heap of CharacterDevelopment that makes him well-liked both as a unit ''and'' character]], she doesn't often have the same characterization that would justify a casual player using her, [[Catch22Dilemma but are forced to use her regardless because the game would be unwinnable without a unit like her]].

* Palla in both games are often held as irrefutable proof that series creator Shouzou Kaga often had absolutely zero idea how to balance his games properly. In the original [=SNES=] game, she joins near her class caps in a game that only has stats go up to 20, a high enough weapon rank that lets her fight with a Silver Lance right out of the gate, a Master Seal that could promote her immediately afterwards into a Dracoknight, and has MightyGlacier growths on top of FragileSpeedster bases. This would already be a recipe for a GameBreaker in any other game, but Palla also happens to ''fly'' too, ''and'' joins obscenely early in Chapter 3, solidifying her as by ''far'' the best unit in her game, and nobody else coming even close to as broken as she is. The only "downside" is that she's forced to dismount in indoor maps, but given her Weapon Level remains consistent due to how the older games calculated weapon rank, this was virtually no problem at all. She's meanwhile practically just the same in the remake, and arguably even better as she joins in a game with bases that are on level to [[LowTierLetdown prepromotes you get far later in the game]] at a FAR earlier point while unpromoted, can now reclass with her weapon ranks transferring due to being as ludicrously high as they are, and unlike her previous game, keeps her mount indoors and can as a result freely use 1-2 range weapons. What truly pushes her into High-Tier Scrappy-dom is the fact that some people take issue [[AllLoveIsUnrequited with her unrequited infatuation]] with Abel [[SingleIssueWonk taking up most of her character]] and [[FranchiseOriginalSin setting up precedent for the MANY clones of this archetype that came afterwards]], but what truly solidifies her is that in both games -- ''New Mystery of the Emblem'' especially -- you practically ''had'' to use her because many other units that players like more were practically unusable on Lunatic Mode, which only infuriates people more given unlike units like Sirius, she doesn't often have the same characterization that would justify a casual player using her, [[Catch22Dilemma but are forced to use her because the game would be unwinnable without a unit like her]].

* Palla in both games are often held as irrefutable proof that series creator Shouzou Kaga often had absolutely zero idea how to balance his games properly. In the original [=SNES=] game, she joins near her class caps in a game that only has stats go up to 20, a high enough weapon rank that lets her fight with a Silver Lance right out of the gate, a Master Seal that could promote her immediately afterwards into a Dracoknight, and has MightyGlacier growths on top of FragileSpeedster bases. This would already be a recipe for a GameBreaker in any other game, but Palla also happens to ''fly'' too, ''and'' joins obscenely early in Chapter 3, solidifying her as by ''far'' the best unit in her game, and nobody else coming even close to as broken as she is. The only "downside" is that she's forced to dismount in indoor maps, but given her Weapon Level remains consistent due to how the older games calculated weapon rank, this was virtually no problem at all. She's meanwhile practically just the same in the remake, and arguably even better as she joins in a game with bases that are on level to [[LowTierLetdown prepromotes you get far later in the game]], can reclass, and unlike her previous game, keeps her mount indoors and can as a result freely use 1-2 range weapons. What truly pushes her into High-Tier Scrappy-dom is the fact that some people take issue [[AllLoveIsUnrequited with her unrequited infatuation]] with Abel [[SingleIssueWonk taking up most of her character]] and [[FranchiseOriginalSin setting up precedent for the MANY clones of this archetype that came afterwards]], but what truly solidifies her is that in both games -- ''New Mystery of the Emblem'' especially -- you practically ''had'' to use her because many other units that players like more were practically unusable on Lunatic Mode, which only infuriates people more given unlike units like Sirius, she doesn't often have the same characterization that would justify a casual player using her, [[Catch22Dilemma but are forced to use her because the game would be unwinnable without a unit like her]].

!!''VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemEchoesShadowsOfValentia'')

!!''VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden''

!!''VideoGame/FireEmblemNewMysteryOfTheEmblem''
* Kris. Already a pretty controversial character in the fandom due to their CanonForeigner status and accusations of being a SpotlightStealingSquad or a CreatorsPet, one thing that ''really'' doesn't help the debates is that Kris is incredibly powerful. Not only do they have parameters that are at least above average in just about every category, and not only can they start in eight different classes, but they also have a pretty lengthy prologue and tutorial where they'll pretty much always be your best character and where most of the units you use won't be playable again for a good while. This means, invariably, the best way to play ''New Mystery'' is to have Kris solo the tutorial, and then join up with Marth's gang as a level 10 or so DiscOneNuke that can proceed to turn even Lunatic into a joke.

!!''VideoGame/FireEmblemEchoesShadowsOfValentia''
* Deen, who is already controversial due to being seen by some as a relatively generic edgy character, manages to be an absolutely broken unit for his join time. Deen starts out with exceptional bases, and utterly eclipses his [[MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers Mutually Exclusive Party Member]] [[LadyOfBlackMagic Sonya]] in terms of base stats enough to carry him over to the end of the game, even if Sonya has better growths than him. What truly pushes Deen into this category is not just his status as an excellent unit, but his characterization seen as paling to the HiddenDepths of Sonya's characterization, and just being seen as a less likable character by comparison. This has convinced quite a few fans who don't play for keeps to instead go with Sonya, precisely because of them feeling Deen takes away the choice from an actually likable character for being far superior.

''!!''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones''

* Lysithea, though a popular character, is a unit that has a decent amount of ire from players for basically rending all other magical units obsolete, and breaking the game while doing so. Not only does she have some of the best spells for both Faith and Reason magic, ranging from Seraphim to Dark Spikes, but her Magic growth is the highest (tied with Constance from the DLC) in the game, and she has two Crests, letting her use the broken Thyrsus staff to get additional range on her spells. She also has Discipline as a personal skill, letting her level twice as fast in classes as everyone else and move between many classes to get skills, and she has Warp to throw units around the map and break levels, making her the strongest mage in the game. Where she dips into outright being disliked by some though, is that Lysithea can be recruited on all routes, meaning getting her is generally easy, and doing so makes all other mages obsolete when put against her, to the point that not using her makes the game harder due to other mages lacking the same advantages she has. Her only downside is not having healing support, but it doesn't impact her at all when weighed against the sheer brokenness she offers, making some hate how objectively better she is over the other magic users.

* Lysithea, though very popular character wise, is a unit that has a decent amount of ire from players for basically rending all other magical units obsolete, and breaking the game for it. Not only does she have some of the best spells for both Faith and Reason magic, ranging from Seraphim to Dark Spikes, but her Magic growth is the highest (tied with Constance from the DLC) in the game, and she has two Crests, letting her use the broken Thyrsus staff to get additional range on her spells. She also has Discipline as a personal skill, letting her level twice as fast in classes as everyone else and move between many classes to get skills, and she has Warp to throw units around the map and break levels, making her the strongest mage in the game. Where she dips into outright being disliked is that Lysithea can be recruited on all routes, meaning on all routes, getting her means having no reason to ever not use her, to the point not using her is actively weakening your party on many levels. All of these make her really controversial, because the only area Lysithea lacks is healing, but once she becomes a Gremory (itself a contender for a broken magic class people dislike), there isn't really a need to use other Mages save ''maybe'' a healer.

* Dread Fighters are one of a few Tier 3 promotions, and are given a boost to Resistance and a skill that reduces magic damage by half in a game where Resistance growths are nonexistent. That alone makes a Dread Fighter extremely powerful, but they also have 7 movement in a game where other non-mounted classes have 5 at best. They're also the only class that can loop back to Villager without the use of the Pitchfork item, which allows them to gain even more stats.

* Dread Fighters were already top tier in the original game, but here they carry over all the same brokeness and more, because of the ability to loop back to Villager, and go through the Mercenary class line, and get basically double the growth and level potentials. Any character who can become a Dread Fighter can basically level up as many times as they want, and get such a huge ball of stats, that it becomes silly and questionable why it was a feature. Even if one doesn't do the loop strategy, Dread Fighters are such overpowered units due to the skills and stats they get, that many players outright hate them for being so objectively good, that it discourages using anyone that isn't one, or makes all the Villager characters basically want to go through it to stay relevant.

* In an odd case of a character who isn't considered top tier but still gets dislike for being stronger than another, there's Ilios from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThracia776''. Ilios is one of the game's MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers, being impossible to recruit if you already have Olwen. Olwen is one of the most popular characters, owing to her CharacterDevelopment and her tragic relationship with her brother Reinhardt, not to mention her impressive potential... but she also joins with pretty awful bases as a prepromote, while Ilios joins with already competent stats in the same class. This means efficiency-minded players tend to ignore Olwen in favor of Ilios, which annoys the people who like Olwen, especially when Ilios is nowhere near as fleshed out.

* Even though they're genuinely liked ([[BaseBreakingCharacter for the most part]]) as characters, the royal siblings in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' are generally regarded as [[GoneHorriblyRight too good at their jobs]]. The game has a rather large cast (especially on ''Revelation''), and an ArbitraryHeadcountLimit. Naturally, whenever any the siblings join, several units may wind up being benched for the simple crime of [[OvershadowedByAwesome not being able to stand up to the royals they share a potential promotion with]]. This definitely comes into play in ''Revelation'', when you get all ''eight'' of them over the course of the game, with one of the biggest complaints leveraged at ''Revelation'' at there being no reason to use any of the retainers when the royals exist and do their job better by default, which greatly annoys players who like any of the retainers.

* Deen. He is already controversial due to being seen by some as a relatively generic edgy character, he nonetheless manages to be an absolutely broken unit for his join time. Deen starts out with exceptional bases, and utterly eclipses his [[MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers Mutually Exclusive Party Member]] [[LadyOfBlackMagic Sonya]] in terms of base stats enough to carry him over to the end of the game, even if Sonya has better growths than him. What truly pushes Deen into this category is not just his status as an excellent unit, but his characterization seen as paling to the HiddenDepths of Sonya's characterization, and just being seen as a less likable character by comparison. This has convinced quite a few fans who don't play for keeps to instead go with Sonya, precisely because of them feeling Deen takes away the choice from an actually likable character for being far superior.

* The Wyvern Lord class is often disliked, as it's so powerful, has unmatched movement, and its weaknesses are easily negated, that the endgame meta typically becomes "make everyone Wyvern Lords as fast as possible". It's not the only flying class in the game, but since it isn't gender-locked or DownloadableContent, it gets most of the ire.

* The [[DownloadableContent DLC Emblems]] gets this reaction from some. While the Bracelets are undoubtedly very powerful, many feel that they're ''too'' good, which undermines a number of chapters which are designed around the player having access to specific emblems (the most obvious examples being [[spoiler:Chapters 11 and 22, where the player loses the emblems]]). Furthermore, some feel that the DLC giving you access to SP boosting items invalidates much of the game's balancing, as it gives the player immediate access to some of the more powerful skills right off the bat.
* Kagetsu gets some dislike for having such incredible base stats ''and'' growth rates that he's effectively an objectively better version of some early joining characters like Lapis(who is also an infantry sword-wielder), which frustrates their fans. He also joins with an internal level of 15/1, meaning he has no trouble levelling up despite being pre-promoted.

* Marcus in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'' gets this treatment from some. Considered to be a CrutchCharacter and "waste of exp" early in the game's lifespan, fans later realized that his base stats were ''just'' good enough to carry him through most of the game, and he only needs to gain a couple of points of Speed on a 35% growth to double everything he needs to for its entirety. With the game's weak enemies and his access to Javelins and Hand Axes, much of the game boils down to "point Marcus at the enemy and watch them die." Those who play to watch units grow find him BoringButPractical with an emphasis on "boring", while his brokenness even on Hector Hard Mode drove more hardcore players to the later games' higher difficulties.