History ScrappyMechanic / TurnBasedStrategy

*** The titular Dual Strike mechanic that allowed you to choose two [=COs=] for one map and, if you charged up both [=COs=] powers they could attack twice in that turn with both their Super [=CO=] Powers ''and'' extra attack power on top of the power boost if you picked [=COs=] with Tag Bonuses. It so thoroughly broke the game that it was disliked by casual and competitive players alike for just how absurdly broken and unbalanced beyond all reason it was. It's not uncommon to be dominating a match thanks to superior tactics and play, only to be crippled to the point you now can ''not'' win because your opponent just happened to get their Dual Strike at the wrong time. It's especially bad in the campaign, as often you will control three small armies against your opponent's one big army, meaning they get Dual Strikes ''much'' more often than you are. Because it so completely shifts gameplay from one of tactics to Dual Strike cat-and-mouse, your only feasible options with it are to either focus your ''entire'' strategy around it or to just agree not to launch two [=COs=] at once.

*** The titular Dual Strike mechanic that allowed you to choose two [=COs=] for one map and, if you charged up both [=COs=] powers they could attack twice in that turn with both their Super [=CO=] Powers ''and'' extra attack power on top of the power boost if you picked [=COs=] with Tag Bonuses. It so thoroughly broke the game that it was disliked by casual and competitive players alike for just how absurdly broken and unbalanced beyond all reason it was. It's not uncommon to be dominating a match thanks to superior tactics and play, only to be crippled to the point you now can ''not'' win because your opponent just happened to get their Dual Strike at the wrong time. Because it so completely shifts gameplay from one of tactics to Dual Strike cat-and-mouse, your only feasible options with it are to either focus your ''entire'' strategy around it or to just agree not to launch two [=COs=] at once.

* ''Franchise/FireEmblem''
** {{Permadeath}}. Other games like ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' have it too, but often they at least give you a ''chance'' to revive downed characters. In ''Franchise/FireEmblem'', however, characters are gone forever the moment they hit 0HP. This one mechanic has probably caused more [[RageQuit rage-resets]] than any other in gaming history. The idea is that players should take their units seriously and not simply toss unit after unit at the enemy like they're disposable ammo, but some fans point out that {{permadeath}} in practice turns into [[SaveScumming "restart the chapter if somebody dies"]] and that the only way to have a "true" experience with the trope is to [[SelfImposedChallenge only ever use saves to suspend gameplay]]. For those who don't like this, ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem New Mystery of the Emblem]]'' onwards introduces Casual mode (with ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' bringing it to the west), in which defeated units are only gone until the end of the chapter.
** Multi-game example: Any game where enemy reinforcements spawn at the end of the Player Phase instead of the end of the Enemy Phase. This can very easily result in a unit getting killed because the game decided to spawn a group of enemies right on top of them without giving you a chance to react. While sometimes the reinforcements are marked by certain tiles such as castles or staircases, other times they come out of nowhere with no way of planning for them except [[TrialAndErrorGameplay playing the chapter over and over until you learn all the spawn points]] and/or [[LuckBasedMission getting lucky]]. It can also be hard to tell when the reinforcements will spawn, making it difficult to prepare for them. This had mostly been phased out of the series by the time it reached western audiences, but for some reason, it was back in the Hard modes (and above) of ''Shadow Dragon'', ''New Mystery of the Emblem'', and ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Awakening]]''.
*** Additionally, later on in some long maps, reinforcements appear right at the start of the map. Hope you didn't leave any weaker units behind at the start - they're sitting ducks for them. Also, while ''Blazing Sword'''s reinforcements at least politely wait a turn before moving, there's a mostly stationary unit that stands at the start of the map easily able to be torched if let unguarded against such reinforcements. (Thankfully, there's not much punishment to losing Merlinus.)
*** ''Echoes: Shadows of Valentia'' gives us reinforcements on the world map. While enemies showing up on the world map is something that happened in ''Awakening'', here they move and need to be engaged when encountered. If there happen to be other enemies on the spot the reinforcements appear, you engage them too and if the enemies move to your position they attack first. Even worse, Celica's side of Act 3 has ''two separate spawn points'' for the map reinforcements.
*** ''Three Houses'' only includes this mechanic on Maddening mode. The Divine Pulse mechanic allows you to rewind time if you lose a unit to this, but the charges are finite, and an ambush you aren't prepared for can end up forcing you to waste some.
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'':
*** Mounted units, or rather, the drawbacks of not being one - there is no other game that widens the gap more than this one does. Those with the misfortune of going on-foot are stuck eternally lagging behind in the biggest maps the series has ever had. Not only that, there's many things that make the imbalance even worse. Mounted units can also move after combat, so they're not only better at getting around, they're better in the fight as well. Tools that could have let units catch up easier, like the Warp staff, are nerfed so you can only warp to owned castles. Mounted units get +1 movement after promotion; foot units don't, assuming they remain on-foot.
*** Unlike all the games before and after this one, units can't just trade items between each other. To "trade" the holder needs to sell their items to a pawnbroker, where the receiver then needs to fork up the money to buy it for themselves (something the game itself [[GuideDangIt never tells you]]). This is paired with each unit having their own separate wallet, and money also can't be traded most of the time. The apparent purpose of this whole system was to make each unit's inventory much more rigid, helping to give them distinct identities based on what they acquire for themselves. But it ends up amounting to a ''lot'' of extra inventory management (plus arena grinding for money) if you don't want to handicap your units, and turns the simple act of receiving items/money into a tough choice, making for a pretty clear reason why it was never used again.
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThracia776'', apart from being [[NintendoHard one of the hardest games in the series]], suffers from a fair share of Scrappy Mechanics. To name a few:
*** The Dismounting feature is the most prominent. Intended as a {{Nerf}} for mounted units as it made them fight on foot using swords during indoor levels. However, it only ended up hurting Lance Knights and Axe Knights, who were forced to illogically use swords when they dismounted rather than the weapons they trained their entire lives with. Worst of all, the player army was left with no indoor Lance users apart from their Generals: Xavier and a promoted Dalsin, though both have a starting E rank in lances, which means they're better off using other weapons anyway. Keep in mind the final chapter took place indoors, and Lances were pretty much BetterOffSold.
*** Many players liked the [[NonLethalKO Capturing System]], claiming it added a new layer of depth to the series. It has one incredibly aggravating problem, though. Units who can't fight are automatically captured. Normally this makes sense; after all, it saves you viewing an OverlyLongFightingAnimation when you know how the fight's going to turn out, but it also means your healers will be captured ''if an enemy so much as touches them''. Sure, you can get them back by killing the captor, but they still will have swiped ''[[SoLongAndThanksForAllTheGear the healer's entire inventory.]]'' Long story short, an enemy so much as touches your healer, you lose all their staves. On the plus side, this does mean that ''enemy'' staff-users are very easy prey, and if you do lose a healer, it's generally trivial to capture the enemy right back and retake your possessions (some players even ''deliberately'' do this, sending a healer to the frontlines so the enemy will be forced to carry them around).
*** Status effects. In this game, they last ''for the entire chapter'' unless cured (and status healing staves are in VERY short supply). Especially annoying since [[ReligionOfEvil Dark Mages]] are very common enemies, and the standard dark spell inflicts poison. Worse still, when you later recruit a Dark Mage of your own, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard his magic DOESN'T inflict poison!!]] Oh, and sleeping characters can be one-touch captured as above. That said, the two above factors also mean that sleeping an opponent and then capturing them is one of the more foolproof methods of dealing with a boss.
*** Healing staves, on characters with less than 10 Skill, have a chance to miss. In the early game, this can be pretty damnably frustrating.
*** On that note, ''any'' attack can miss. Or hit. Unlike in every other game in the series, Hit chance has a floor of 1% and a ceiling of 99%, which means that no matter how outclassed your enemies are, you always have a chance to miss them and they always have a chance to hit you.
*** The fatigue system. It forces the player to cycle through numerous characters in a game with a finite amount of experience.
** Weather in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'' was very much a one-and-done mechanic, and with good reason. Essentially, what it amounted to was that every so often on certain maps, it would start raining or snowing, which reduces the movement of nearly all units. There's never a point where the player can really meaningfully exploit this, and it's most common on maps where the goal is to reach an objective, so most of the time, all it does is make maps more tedious.
** The reclass system in ''Shadow Dragon'' created something of a BrokenBase. Some think it adds an element of customization to your army, while others think it misses the point of every character being unique. ''Awakening'' fixed this by limiting every character to only 3 class paths (although reclassing is also a bit of a GameBreaker, at least for the postgame...). ''Fates'' tried for the middle ground by offering reclass options, but maintaining the unit's level, preventing the abuse possible in ''Awakening''.
** The Biorhythm exclusive to the Tellius games wasn't well-received for fluctuating how well your units fight each turn. As it gets lower, accuracy and evasion rates are lowered (and vice versa for high Biorhythm).
** ''Radiant Dawn''[='=]s Support system earned a lot of ire. Despite allowing any character to support another, this came at the cost of reducing the normally rich and CharacterDevelopment filled support conversations to a few generic lines per character. And then things went FromBadToWorse when ''Shadow Dragon'' removed the system entirely. (One of the few cases where the ''lack'' of a mechanic became a ScrappyMechanic) Fortunately it was brought back for the subsequent games.
** In games with supports, the five-support limit tends to fall into this- you can only see five support conversations per character per playthrough, and each support chain has three supports. While meant for game balance, support bonuses are quite small, and it means you can't see most of the game's conversations without playing the game through ten times.
** ''Shadows of Valentia'' gives really low Resistance growths to units (there is a 0 - 8% chance of getting a boost in Resistance depending on the unit). Therefore, classes that are strong against magic are likely to be the only ones with a Resistance stat in double figures and magic is just as dangerous as it normally is, especially late game (particularly Celica's route) where powerful magic users are increasingly prominent. Granted, the original ''Gaiden'' gave '''everybody''' 0% in the Resistance column, but it's still frustrating for newer fans to come in and have even their Mages and Pegasus Knights (classes known for their Resistance in other titles) have such low Res stats.
** Supports in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' face a few issues.
*** The first is that you can't guarantee paired endings, since characters will pair up with whoever they have gained the most support points with among their A ranks. And in the case of ties, pairings are given priority in order of Black Eagles > Blue Lions > Golden Deer > Church/Non-Students. [[GuideDangIt The game doesn't tell you any of this, of course]], so it either takes trial and error to get the paired endings you want, or you simply have to not achieve A ranks but miss out on conversations.
*** The second is the matter of the S ranks, which only Byleth can achieve. You can choose Byleth's S rank partner only before the final maps of each route, meaning that to max them out for completion's sake, you have to go through all of those final maps over and over and over. Making this worse is that Crimson Flower and Azure Moon both have two-part final chapters.
*** Finally, some support levels ''cannot'' [[PermanentlyMissableContent be raised past a certain point in the story]], and the only way the game lets you know is [[GuideDangIt telling you after the fact that you missed your chance]].
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemEngage''
*** Starting up an Emblem's paralogue will automatically disengage the Emblem to the person who is engaged to it. If you change your mind and go back to the world map, the Emblem doesn't automatically re-engage itself, which can be a real pain if you forget to do it before entering a battle.
*** Enemies killed by Lyn's doubles don't give experience points. Seeing as the doubles use high-crit Mani Kattis, this is more common than it sounds. Although given that said doubles only have 1HP, they usually won't last ''too'' long for this to become a big issue.
*** Leif's ability ''Adaptable'' makes the user counter with the best weapon available when engaged on Enemy Phase. While this sounds like an excellent ability, the game's idea of "best weapon available" often causes more harm than good. For example, if a unit is holding a silver great lance and is attacked by a lance-wielding enemy, they'll choose to counter with a killer axe instead, even if countering with the great lance would have done more damage. Additionally, Leif's set of Engage weapons consists of both physical and magical weapons as opposed to sticking to one side of the spectrum, which can cause problems like a MagicallyIneptFighter automatically switching to the Light Brand to do middling amounts of magic damage. Its one saving grace, though, is that it prevents the user from being broken.
*** Growth rates in ''Engage'' are unusually low for a game that allows for class changing. Individual characters typically have below average growths across the board (most capping around 40 percent), and classes barely give any additional bonuses as well. The result is a lot of artificial difficulty because units struggle to get decent level-ups in classes they are seemingly meant to be in; for example, Alfred isn't very viable for some because his growths are very weak for someone the game seems to think is meant to be a strong cavalier given his importance in the game. Even Alear, the main character, has low growths, making it harder to use them. This is likely meant to encourage more careful play, and to use the Emblems more carefully, but it can make playing on harder difficulties unappealing to some due to how weak the cast can feel. Unless the player uses the [[BribingYourWayToVictory DLC-walled Starsphere]] to boost the growths of a given character, it can take a lot to really feel like the player has a strong team. Somewhat related to this, many of the characters who join early on - not just [[CrutchCharacter Vander]]- often end up being benched in favor of a later recruit who fills a similar role.
*** Related to growth rates, the game is relatively stingy with experience, and player units can often end up falling behind the advised level for story maps, not just on [[HarderThanHard Maddening]]. There is the ability to level grind, but since the skirmishes have higher-level enemies than the story chapters, it's obvious that [[AntiGrinding the game is discouraging you from doing so]].
*** The rather difficult skirmishes are also an example in and of itself. While they would be good ways of helping weaker units catch up, the fact that they're more difficult than the story missions makes them less than practical for this purpose. [[HarderThanHard Maddening]] has another problem, since the skirmishes are much rarer on that difficulty. Even worse, the skirmishes also tend to scale every single enemy in a given skirmish to whoever is the strongest unit you have, making training your weaker units even harder to level up than necessary.
*** As in previous games, gaining HP during a level-up won't increase a unit's current HP along with it. However, it's particularly annoying here because certain abilities, like Chain Guard and Claude S's Wind God, are contingent on the unit being at full HP, meaning that an HP level-up can screw over their next-turn gameplan out of nowhere despite never actually getting hit by an enemy.
*** From a cosmetic standpoint, not being able to use a character's "default outfit"[[note]]The outfit that a unit wears in their starting class, official artwork, and during Support[=/=]Bond conversation[[/note]] outside of their starting class in battle can be a letdown for players who prefer the character's unique outfit over the generic class outfits, a contrast towards ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses Three Houses]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemWarriorsThreeHopes Three Hopes]]'', which had the option to do so as a [=QoL=] feature, albeit ''Three Houses'' not having the option until Version 1.1.0, while ''Three Hopes'' has it from launch (and in both cases the option did not work for mounted classes). This means that units who start in a Base class will inevitably have to abandon their default attire if the player wants to promote them to an Advanced class and make them stronger. Prepromotes and Special (Thieves, Dancers, and [[spoiler:Fell Child]]) classes avoid this problem to an extent, but that means that they cannot switch to another class if they want to keep their default outfit. Being forced to use the generic outfits (specifically those with {{fanservice}}sy designs like the Sage and Warrior) can be particularly problematic for Anna and Jean, both of whom are too young to be subjected to fanservice elements.

** In games with supports, the five-support limit tends to fall into this. While meant for game balance, support bonuses are quite small, and it means you can't see most of the game's conversations without playing the game through ten times.

*** The titular Dual Strike mechanic that allowed you to choose two [=COs=] for one map and, if you charged up both [=COs=] powers they could attack twice in that turn with both their Super [=CO=] Powers ''and'' extra attack power on top of the power boost if you picked [=COs=] with Tag Bonuses. It so thoroughly broke the game that it was disliked by casual and competitive players alike for just how absurdly broken and unbalanced beyond all reason it was. It's not uncommon to be dominating a match thanks to superior tactics and play, only to be crippled to the point you now can ''not'' win because your opponent just happened to get their Dual Strike at the wrong time. Because it so completely shifts gameplay from one of tactics to Dual Strike cat-and-mouse, your only feasible options with it are to either focus your ''entire'' strategy around it or to just set a HouseRule that prohibits two [=COs=] at once.

** The game ditched the grid inventory of its predecessors in favor of equipment slots. So you get a slot for your armor, your main weapon, and your side weapon. So far so good, even if it means each soldier is restricted to a single gun. But then you get an auxiliary equipment slot, and there is where it gets stupid. This slot is used for first aid kits, stunners and grenades, meaning no soldier can have both or have more than one of each. Worse than that, it is also used for ''the sniper scope''. That's right, snipers carry their scopes in their pockets and they're incompatible with grenades or medpacks (granted, it's an optional scope that only enhances their accuracy, but still how backwards is that)! Worse than that, it is also used for '''armor plates'''. That's right, soldiers carry [[MindScrew armor in the pockets of their armor]].

*** The method by which items are traded between your units. The general idea is to make trading more difficult, which makes each unit's inventory more rigid, thus giving them distinct identities based on what they acquire for themselves. As is tradition for designer Shouzou Kaga, it's an interesting concept that was executed in a pretty strange way: you have to sell your things to a pawnbroker, so that others can buy them back. [[GuideDangIt You're never told in-game that selling things makes them available to others]], and because the item storage doesn't work this way, you might simply assume that it follows the same logic. There's a chance for a player to go through the entire game without realizing it's a thing, and simply conclude that trading doesn't exist.

* The promotion exams of ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea|Hour of Darkness}}'' were terrible and exposed many of the game's balance problems. It requires the use of the student system to stand a chance in if you use healers. Moreover, if you wanted to utilize transmigration to any significant degree, you would be taking these exams ''very'' often. This system was wisely taken out in [[VideoGame/Disgaea2CursedMemories the second]] and [[VideoGame/Disgaea3AbsenceOfJustice third]] games, where any character with enough mana could transmigrate to a new class if they had enough mana to do so.
** The Dark Assembly in the first game was utterly broken. You had to dump massive amounts of items in the laps of the senators in order to have a ''chance'' they would vote in your favor - and there was still a chance they'd screw you over even if you pushed them all the way onto your side. It quickly became less about bribery and more about [[BloodOnTheDebateFloor having a party strong enough to beat the entire Assembly]].
** Speaking of ''Disgaea'', the method of reaching the [[BrutalBonusLevel Land of Carnage]] in ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea 2|CursedMemories}}'' wasn't much better. It sounds fair enough in theory-- Go to the Item World, get ambushed by one out of 16 possible pirate crews, beat their leader to get a map, (or alternately just steal it) rinse and repeat until you have all 16 at which point the Land of Carnage is unlocked. Problem being... Every single pirate is a random encounter, and some of them (Jolly Pirates, we're looking at ''you'') are so impossibly rare one will probably end up clearing multiple Item Worlds without even encountering a single one. Spending hours upon hours of going through random Item Worlds searching for that one last map, only to run into the Ambling Pirates over and over and over and over and over and over and [[OverlyLongGag over and over and over]] gets ''really'' annoying after a while.

*** The two-front battle mechanic made just about everyone cringe. It involved two battles that took place at the same time, and required you to funnel extra units to the second front for your AI-controlled partner to battle with. Not having control over the second front meant you were at the mercy of some [[ArtificialStupidity rather thick AI]] and, even in spite of being improved over the preceding games, it's still not one where you could count it to be especially effective without [[NotPlayingFairWithResources the buttload of extra funds and units]] the enemy used to keep up with the player's tactics. While you ''could'' give your AI partner extra resources, they couldn't be recovered once you did even if you won on the second front, meaning it made the first front a lot harder since you were blowing expensive resources you could be putting to better use there. In the end, players wished they could just be in control of the second front[[note]]You ''do'' get the option to do this, but it's not until much later in the game when you've already finished most of the two-front battles[[/note]], if this overall pointless mechanic that only existed to [[{{Waggle}} make use of the second screen]] even had to be a thing at all.

** ''Advance Wars: Dual Strike'':

** The game ditched the grid inventory of its predecessors in favor of equipment slots. So you get a slot for your armor, your main weapon, and your side weapon. So far so good, even if it means each soldier is restricted to a single gun. But then you get an auxiliary equipment slot, and there is where it gets stupid. This slot is used for first aid kits, stunners and grenades, meaning no soldier can have both or have more than one of each. Worse than that, it is also used for ''the sniper scope''. That's right, snipers carry their scopes in their pockets and they're incompatible with grenades or medpacks (granted, it's an optional scope that only enhances their accuracy, but still how backwards is that)! [[UpToEleven Worse than that]], it is also used for '''armor plates'''. That's right, soldiers carry [[MindScrew armor in the pockets of their armor]].

* Powers that globally drain the health of all enemies in ''[[VideoGame/AdvanceWars Advance Wars]]'', simply because there's no way to avoid it, other than spending all the time and money for repairs (assuming you even have the bases to do so) or picking Andy with his healing power (who's only usable for a fraction of the campaign in ''[=AW2=]'' and ''DS''). Beating an opponent charges their power meter faster than it does yours, which can be incredibly annoying in CPU missions where the enemy starts with a very large army - those expensive units equate to huge amounts of fuel for their power. The [=COs=] who have these abilities tend to combine them with other equally annoying effects as well, such as Olaf's movement-reducing snow, Drake's fuel-halving rain, and Hawke healing his own units at the same time.
* ''[[VideoGame/AdvanceWars Advance Wars: Dual Strike]]''
** The titular Dual Strike mechanic that allowed you to choose two [=COs=] for one map and, if you charged up both [=COs=] powers they could attack twice in that turn with both their Super [=CO=] Powers ''and'' extra attack power on top of the power boost if you picked [=COs=] with Tag Bonuses. It so thoroughly broke the game that it was disliked by casual and competitive players alike for just how absurdly broken and unbalanced beyond all reason it was. It's not uncommon to be dominating a match thanks to superior tactics and play, only to be crippled to the point you now can ''not'' win because your opponent just happened to get their Dual Strike at the wrong time. Because it so completely shifts gameplay from one of tactics to Dual Strike cat-and-mouse, your only feasible options with it are to either focus your ''entire'' strategy around it or to just set a HouseRule that prohibits two [=COs=] at once.
** The two-front battle mechanic made just about everyone cringe. It involved two battles that took place at the same time, and required you to funnel extra units to the second front for your AI-controlled partner to battle with. Not having control over the second front meant you were at the mercy of some [[ArtificialStupidity rather thick AI]] and, even in spite of being improved over the preceding games, it's still not one where you could count it to be especially effective without [[NotPlayingFairWithResources the buttload of extra funds and units]] the enemy used to keep up with the player's tactics. While you ''could'' give your AI partner extra resources, they couldn't be recovered once you did even if you won on the second front, meaning it made the first front a lot harder since you were blowing expensive resources you could be putting to better use there. In the end, players wished they could just be in control of the second front[[note]]You ''do'' get the option to do this, but it's not until much later in the game when you've already finished most of the two-front battles[[/note]], if this overall pointless mechanic that only existed to [[{{Waggle}} make use of the second screen]] even had to be a thing at all.

* Powers that globally drain the health of all enemies in ''[[VideoGame/AdvanceWars Advance Wars]]'', simply because there's way to avoid it, other than spending all the time and money for repairs (assuming you even have the bases to do so) or picking Andy with his healing power (who's only usable for a fraction of the campaign in ''[=AW2=]'' and ''DS''). Beating an opponent charges their power meter faster than it does yours, which can be incredibly annoying in CPU missions where the enemy starts with a very large army - those expensive units equate to huge amounts of fuel for their power. The [=COs=] who have these abilities tend to combine them with other equally annoying effects as well, such as Olaf's movement-reducing snow, Drake's fuel-halving rain, and Hawke healing his own units at the same time.

* Powers that globally drain the health of all enemies in ''[[VideoGame/AdvanceWars Advance Wars]]'', simply because there's way to avoid it, other than spending all the time and money for repairs (assuming you even have the bases to do so) or picking Andy with his healing power (who's only usable for a fraction of the campaign in ''AW2'' and ''DS''). Beating an opponent charges their power meter faster than it does yours, which can be incredibly annoying in CPU missions where the enemy starts with a very large army - those expensive units equate to huge amounts of fuel for their power. The [=COs=] who have these abilities tend to combine them with other equally annoying effects as well, such as Olaf's movement-reducing snow, Drake's fuel-halving rain, and Hawke healing his own units at the same time.