History YMMV / EtrianOdyssey

** In the DS games, you can rename your characters, but it costs 1,000 en per rename; [[EarlyGameHell early on]], that's a steep cost that could go towards things of actual functionality such as equipment and Warp Wires / Ariadne Threads. There's no practical effects that come with renaming a character, so it seems rather greedy of the game to charge for a rename. The 3DS games thankfully removed this cost, allowing you to rename your characters as much as you want while in town. Unfortunately, the HD remasters of them bring back the renaming fee.

** In the DS games, you can rename your characters, but it costs 1,000 en per rename; [[EarlyGameHell early on]], that's a steep cost that could go towards things of actual functionality such as equipment and Warp Wires / Ariadne Threads. The 3DS games thankfully removed this cost, allowing you to rename your characters as much as you want while in town. Unfortunately, the HD remasters of them bring back the renaming fee,

** In the DS games, you can rename your characters, but it costs 1,000 en per rename; [[EarlyGameHell early on]], that's a steep cost that could go towards things of actual functionality such as equipment and Warp Wires / Ariadne Threads. The 3DS games thankfully removed this cost, allowing you to rename your characters as much as you want while in town.

** The 2023 CompilationRerelease of the first three games are contested due to the fact that ''I'' and ''II'' lack the story modes added by ''The Millennium Girl'' and ''The Fafnir Knight'' respectively.

* {{Woolseyism}}: Creator/{{Atlus}} changed the names of the character classes during translation; Landsknechts were originally Swordsmen, Protectors were Paladins, Survivalists were Rangers, and so on. This may have been done to give the game a more original flair and help it stand out. A later example from ''The Drowned City'' is Beast King to Wildling, probably because (like most classes) you can make a female version, and it didn't change the class name like it did for Prince/Princess.
** For the rest of the classes, it was more than likely to avoid classes having the same first letter in their name as to make it easier for the item shop menu to characterize them. It would have been a little difficult to tell the difference between Princess and Phalanx or Ballista and Beast King (the class names in the Japanese version).
*** ''The Millennium Girl'', with the addition of the Highlander class (not to mention the expanded screen real-estate of the 3DS), had the abbreviation icon as "Hi" in the English version, breaking this pattern. ''The Fafnir Knight'' does a similar thing, abbreviating Sovereigns to "So".
** Despite being a [[NarmCharm cheesy pun]], [[PunnyName Primevil]] is a more memorable and intimidating name for an EldritchAbomination superboss than the generic Yggdrasil Core, and many fans still call it by the former name even after ''Untold'' reverted the name back to the latter.

* ItsTheSameNowItSucks: Some players who had taken interest in ''The Drowned City''[='=]s and ''Legends of the Titan''[='=]s overworld exploration and the ''Untold'' games' Story modes find it disappointing that ''Beyond the Myth'' has neither.

** While the conditional drops mechanic across the series is generally accepted by the fandom for injecting a little challenge to fighting monsters, some of the more difficult conditions are guaranteed to elicit much rage and make people reach for their Formaldehydes with disgust.
*** Conditionals that require killing with Curse backlash damage are some of the worst, because HealthDamageAsymmetry means that curse damage incurred by bosses and [=FOEs=] will only constitute a small amount of their HP while your party still runs the risk of dying.
*** Death by poison damage is not as difficult to achieve on random encounters, but on bosses or [=FOEs=] that possess mountains of health, trying to whittle their health low enough for the poison tick to kill without actually killing the boss yourself can become difficult, even if you're using the strongest source of poison available to you. And while you're carefully managing the target's health there's still the chance the target can simply wean off the poison by itself.
*** Killing a target while it sleeps gets tricky because the status condition is automatically lifted when damage is dealt to it. You do get a significant damage bonus when attacking a sleeping enemy, so the plan on a boss is to whittle its health down, put it to sleep, then set up several buffs and debuffs before bursting it down. It's easier said than done.

* ThatOneComponent: Many conditional drops that require you to kill a monster with [[UselessUsefulSpell curse damage]]. Due to HealthDamageAsymmetry, this will generally be a long, drawn-out process that will have players reaching for a [[RandomDropBooster Formaldehyde]]. The few conditional drops that are based on RNG rather than killing a monster in a certain way can also be examples, especially if it has a low drop rate.

* TaintedByThePreview: The announcement of the Etrian Origins Collection [[SugarWiki/AndTheFandomRejoiced revived a dormant fandom]] after years radio silence regarding the franchise. That joy died immediately as it was discovered the PC port has intrusive Denuvo DRM, the remasters are based off of the original DS versions instead of the updated Untold ports for 3DS, and are sold individually at $40 each rather than a single collection and the optional bundle costs $80 ($10 more than ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom Tears of the Kingdom]]'''s already controversial price).

* TaintedByThePreview: The announcement of the Etrian Origins Collection [[SugarWiki/AndTheFandomRejoiced revived a dormant fandom]] after years radio silence regarding the franchise. That joy died immediately as it was discovered the PC port has intrusive Denuvo DRM, the remasters are based off of the original DS versions instead of the updated Untold ports for 3DS, and that the bundle costs $80 ($10 more than ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom Tears of the Kingdom]]'''s already controversial price).

** Rob from ''Nexus'' makes one during the ending credits. While it seems to be intended as a joke about Charis' appetite, you could very well assume he's refering to something ''else'' entirely. Charis for her part acts appropriately flustered.
-->''Rob'': It's because you've started eating right. You've grown in a lot of ways. And in a lot of places...

** This came in the opposite direction with ''Etrian Odyssey Nexus'' and ''Persona Q 2''. Persona fans were ''exceptionally'' vocal on every single social media post involving ''Nexus'', all but outright demanding Atlus put them first due to it being the CashCowFranchise and being certain it wouldn't get released otherwise due to the 3DS's age. Meanwhile ''Etrian'' fans had been hopeful for either to get a release and, having been put first this time around, simply wanted ''Persona'' fans to at least wait until near ''Nexus'''s release before panicking, a stance proven justified by the announcement for a western release of ''Persona Q 2'' made a week before Nexus's release.

* {{Fanon}}: Outside of bits of story and the Untold games' story modes, this is literally encouraged by the developers! [[http://www.atlus.com/etrian/ As explained on the first game's website]] (Director's Diary, entry 5), one of the major elements the games take from "old-school" dungeon crawlers is that the party is meant to be defined largely in the imagination of the player. How they react in detail to what's going on, what they adventure like, how they interact with one another, is meant to be up to the player to define. This is why the games only ever describe your actions in the broadest of terms - they want to encourage you to invent your own interpretation and "canon" for what your characters do and say. This is also why the Story Mode of the ''Untold'' games has proven divisive: having five pre-defined characters, as opposed to the party that lives in the mind of the player, seems to many to go against the wider spirit of the franchise.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: ''The Fafnir Knight'' is generally considered one of the weaker games in the series in Japan, due to the many balancing issues, an average plot that contradicts itself at times, the HP stats of enemies being through the roof, and paid DLC. In the US, it's considered one of - if not the - best games in the series in spite of its flaws, largely thanks to its stylishness, the breadth of options in its Classic Mode, the availability of both soundtrack modes, and an absolutely on-point localization including some ''killer'' [[SugarWiki/SuperlativeDubbing dub work]] courtesy of some of the best actors in the business.

** Alchemists in ''The Fafnir Knight'' get a new skill called Compression, which massively boosts the elemental ATK of their target-all Formulas but reduces them to single-target attacks. If you use the Grimoire system to combine them with target-all composite attacks - those that have both a physical and an elemental attribute, like the Ronin's Frigid Slash - you'll find that they do benefit from the damage bonus but still hit all enemies, allowing you to sweep through random encounters easily.

** In Story Mode of ''The Fafnir Knight'', suffering a TotalPartyKill will elicit some sort of last words from one of your group, most of which are fairly {{tearjerk|er}}ing - except for Fafnir himself, who [[HeroicMime lets out a yell that sounds more annoyed than anything]]. This also happens with the Highlander in ''The Millenium Girl''.

** ''Millenium Girl'' addressed the shortcomings of the original game's plot. After the original version's plot was heavily criticized for [[spoiler:portraying your Guild as little more than loot-obsessed sociopaths who literally commit genocide and ''doom the world'' purely for the sake of finding treasure, ''Millenium Girl'' retooled the plot heavily to make things less grim, such as the entire Forest People subplot being rewritten so the heroes are fighting plague-crazed members of the tribe instead of slaughtering them to the last man, and while Visil is still a WellIntentionedExtremist, the party is given actually genuine motivations to oppose him beyond "he's in the way of our treasure", the consequences of his defeat are far less dire.]]

* TaintedByThePreview: The announcement of the Etrian Origins Collection [[SugarWiki/AndTheFandomRejoiced revived a dormant fandom]] after years radio silence regarding the franchise. That joy died immediately as it was discovered the PC port has intrusive Denuvo DRM, the remasters are based off of the original DS versions instead of the updated Untold ports for 3DS, and that the bundle costs $80 - $10 more than Breath of the Wild's sequel.

** Alraune in ''The Millennium Girl'' has Ancient Pollen which inflicts random status ailments across the party, leaving them severely disabled if not completely petrified. The superboss also has this skill.

*** To top it all off, in the original, the only shortcut in the stratum is ''[[CheckpointStarvation right at the very end]]'', linking the beginning of the stratum to the doors to the ultimate BonusBoss, so if you're making any return trips you ''must'' traverse the floors in their entirety. Mercifully, the remake adds shortcuts in each floor to shorten your return trips, in addition to the whole Floor Jump mechanic letting you focus on mapping out new ground.

** In ''Etrian Odyssey II'' and its remake, the Chimaera battles Hrothgar and Wulfgar, [[spoiler:managing to eventually kill them both in the original game]]. In ''Nexus'', which recreates the Ancient Forest and the Chimaera, Artelinde shows up with Wulfgar’s son, Wulfgar Jr, and both end up confronting a new Chimaera. However, the Chimaera’s history with Wulfgar isn’t brought up or alluded to, which wastes a possible character moment and muddles if ''Nexus'' takes place in the Classic or Story Mode canon.

** The four-races system was only used for ''Beyond the Myth'' and was dropped for ''Nexus'', likely because it would not be compatible with [[MegamixGame the game bringing back classes from all previous games]]. Not just that, but the two classes (out of the 18 returning ones; note that ''EOI'' and ''II'' are repretented by 7 classes, ''III'' by 5 classes, and ''IV'' by 4 classes) representing ''EOV'' in ''Nexus'' are Earthlain classes, with no classes native to any other race available. Were you hoping to have a {{Necromancer}}, [[ImplausibleFencingPowers Masurao]], or [[SupportPartyMember Shaman]] in your ''Nexus'' guild, for example, even just as subclasses? Too bad! The closest you can get is the free ''Beyond the Myth'' portrait DLC that allows you to put any of the ''EOV'' player character portraits onto your ''Nexus'' characters, which is strictly cosmetic.[[note]]That said, the other returning classes do borrow a bit from the ''EOV'' classes; Protectors have a few Shield Bearer Dragoon skills like Full Guard, Ronin borrow several skills from the Blade Master Masurao such as Helm Splitter, Medics function very similarly to Merciful Healer Botanists, and Zodiacs have the all-targeting elemental magic and ChargedAttack skills that Elemancer Warlocks use.[[/note]]

* {{Woolseyism}}: Creator/{{Atlus}} changed the names of the character classes during translation; Landsknechts were originally Swordman, Protectors were Paladins, Survivalists were Rangers, and so on. This may have been done to give the game a more original flair and help it stand out. A later example from ''The Drowned City'' is Beast King to Wildling, probably because (like most classes) you can make a female version, and it didn't change the class name like it did for Prince/Princess.

* AudienceAlienatingPremise: ''Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millenium Girl'' was hit with this since it was announced. Why? Well, take a franchise that's beloved by fans for [[{{Fanon}} the ability to create your own completely customizable party and interpret what the world is like for yourself]], then make a game with an actual story mode with pre-existing characters, and you can see why people were skeptical. Sure, you could still create your own party in Classic Mode, but then you lose out on all the new content, including the Gunner and Highlander classes and the second dungeon.
* BaseBreakingCharacter: Arianna from ''The Fafnir Knight''. Is she a kind-hearted heroine that, despite being an airhead, is a nice reprise from the dark things that happen in the story? Or is she an idiot that has no idea what she's doing and ruins serious moments with her inability to grasp situations the party ends up in? The fact that the game's artbook says she was created to be the opposite of the fairly popular Fredericka isn't helping her.

* CriticalResearchFailure: The Furyhorn in ''The Fafnir Knight'' neighs like a horse when encountered.

* DisappointingLastLevel: Downplayed in ''Beyond the Myth'' -- while the floor design and random encounters of the final few floors of the fifth stratum and the entire BonusDungeon can certainly keep a player on their toes, it's difficult to ignore the fact that these floors are almost devoid of Adventure Episodes or floor events which would have made things a little less monotonous. The BonusDungeon doesn't even ''have'' any events at all barring the occasional story-focused cutscene, on top of only one postgame quest requiring items obtained there.

* EsotericHappyEnding:
** The first game. [[spoiler:Hooray! You've defeated Visil and uncovered the truth! Too bad it involved killing the guy who probably saved the world and likely plunging Etria into an economic disaster.]] This gets fixed in the remake.
** In an inversion, getting 100% completion in the first game has [[spoiler:the characters lament that Etria will become a ghost town because there's no longer any mysteries left in the labyrinth]]. Instead, if you think about it, the exact ''opposite'' would occur: [[spoiler:Lost Shinjuku and the Claret Hollows are ''goldmines'' for scientific research and will have Etria become a hub for scientists all over due to the massive amount of unique and valuable things to research that are quite literally unavailable anywhere else. Also, since the labyrinth is still incredibly dangerous, adventurers will still be needed and will have a far greater life expectancy due to everything being catalogued and mapped. Rather than being a suicidal destination for adventurers, it will end up becoming a scientific Mecca that adventurers will also thrive in]].
* EvenBetterSequel: The Fafnir Knight in comparison to The Millennium Girl. It boasts a better storyline and features 15 classes to use. The Story Mode characters and [=NPCs=] are also given more conversational lines than before, the restaurant management is an improved version of the Guildkeeper's enhancement system from EOU, Grimoires have been improved to be easier to acquire and actually show what skills you get mid-battle, the new Story Mode dungeon is available in Classic Mode, among other various and well-received changes.

* ItsEasySoItSucks: Part of the problem veterans have with ''The Fafnir Knight'' is that the difficulty is toned down compared to previous entries, even on the hardest difficulty. Boss fights in particular feel less like a challenge and more like a slog, due to everything being a DamageSponge.

* SequelDifficultyDrop: ''Legends of the Titan'' is significantly easier than the previous three, though it tries to mask this by increasing the encounter rate by a lot. ''The Fafnir Knight'' is also ''much'' easier than both ''Heroes of Lagaard'' (its original version) and ''The Millennium Girl'' (its predecessor) even on Classic, and it tries to mask this by upping the HP of enemies through the roof... and nothing else.

* SignatureScene: The reveal of the original game's 5th stratum is the most talked-about scene in the entire series, since the labyrinth goes from standard forest and desert settings to [[spoiler:[[EarthAllAlong the ruins of the Shinjuku district]]]].

* ThatOneAchievement: Attaining the Seven Kings Grimoire in ''The Millennium Girl'' is a GuideDangIt. Nothing in the game clues you in on where and how to get the King Grimoire skills, and even if you do know how [[note]]Match certain digits on your Guild Card, then battle one of the bosses[[/note]] it takes a significant amount of effort to get everything to line up ''and'' for the [[RandomlyDrops Grimoire Stone to appear]] during the battle. ''Then'' you need to fuse all of the skills into a single stone that has 7 slots, and again it takes luck to get a 7-slot stone to drop. At least you can attain these skills off other players' Guild Cards, either through Streetpass or QR codes, but the skills generated from Grimoire Stones obtained this way are, again, random.

** The early game of ''Nexus'' toys with the expectations of a veteran player as they visit returning dungeons. [[spoiler:The Berserker King getting the drop on the party and Cernunnos showing up as the Lush Woodlands' actual boss, followed by the the Wyvern (originally a SkippableBoss) becoming Primitive Jungle’s main story boss, stand out this way; to a lesser extent, there's also the different ''modus operandi'' to meet and fight Narmer/Wicked Silurus in Waterfall Wood, as it will no longer attempt to flee like it did in its original game ''and'' you have a GuestPartyStarMember helping in battle]]. However, by the time you complete the second Shrine dungeon and enter the middle phases of the game, the BaitAndSwitch just... stops, and most of the labyrinths' events proceed like in a normal ''Etrian'' game, while their bosses are fought normally without any extra gimmicks or curveballs. It takes until the third area for out-of-place foes to pop up in classic dungeons again[[note]][[spoiler:High Lagaard[=’=]s Salamander as the first boss of Golden Lair and Ginnungagap’s Basilisk as the first boss of Sandy Dunes]][[/note]], but at that point it’s more telegraphed.

** From ''Heroes of High Lagaard'', there's the War Magus and the Beast classes. With War Magus, its problems are that it requires ailments to be inflicted to use their offensive skills, necessitating a sword Dark Hunter or Hexer. Even if you do land an ailment, none of the WM's skills are any good beyond Cursecut, which requires an ailment so useless that you're better off not having your Hexer try to inflict it, their healing skills are lackluster compared to the healing-focused Medic, and their buff skills being worse than the Troubador, ultimately making them [[MasterOfNone bad at every role]]. As for Beast, its main problem is that its Loyalty passive (which is required for some of its defensive skills) has it take attacks for other party members while using the ''intended'' target’s defence instead of their own, has a high 40% chance to activate at level 5, and ''75%'' at level 10, and lacks much to offset the damage that it soaks up, or does it so poorly that a Protector does the job better. Autoheal only recovers ailments at the end of the turn, En Garde doesn't reduce any damage from loyalty activations, it lacks a way to draw aggro so En Garde ''can'' activate, and its autorevive skill only has a 30% chance to activate at its highest level. While it can boost its defences, it's ultimately a mediocre soak tank that isn't designed to be able to actually soak damage.

* SpiritualAdaptation: As Jeremy Parish from 1UP pointed out, the original game's TwistEnding is this to ''Manga/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind''.

* BaseBreakingCharacter:
** Arianna from ''The Fafnir Knight''. Is she a kind-hearted heroine that, despite being an airhead, is a nice reprise from the dark things that happen in the story? Or is she an idiot that has no idea what she's doing and ruins serious moments with her inability to grasp situations the party ends up in? The fact that the game's artbook says she was created to be the opposite of the fairly popular Fredericka isn't helping her.

* HighTierScrappy:
** In ''Nexus'', many players make it a point to not use Heroes in their guilds, due to [[GameBreaker effectively being the Fafnir Knight of this game]]. They're [[MasterOfAll Masters of All]] who can do basically everything well especially damage, as well as generate Afterimages to serve as decoys and to double down on damage. ''Un''like the Fafnir Knight, you can have multiple Heroes in your party, and they’re perpetually powerful.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Arianna from ''The Fafnir Knight''. Is she a kind-hearted heroine that, despite being an airhead, is a nice reprise from the dark things that happen in the story? Or is she an idiot that has no idea what she's doing and ruins serious moments with her inability to grasp situations the party ends up in? The fact that the game's artbook says she was created to be the opposite of the fairly popular Fredericka isn't helping her.

* TierInducedScrappy:
** The Ronin and Hexer classes in the original game. They already suffer hard from LateCharacterSyndrome because you can only recruit them at the start of the 3rd and 4th strata respectively, yet they still start at Level 1 [[CantCatchUp in a game that requires a lot of grinding.]] However, if you put in all that effort to grind them up, they're still the two worst classes in the game. Ronin has the strongest attacking potential in the game, but because it requires a turn to set up a stance to use it, it becomes too slow for use in random battles and bosses can still dispel their stance to nullify their abilities. Hexer is a class dedicated to StatusEffects, which, unlike in later entries, are as much of a UselessUsefulSpell as the genre standard here (and Dark Hunter, which statuses and does damage, is already available at the start of the game, leaving the Hexer in a support role at best (for a whip DH) or for binds (for a sword DH), rather than the obscenely powerful mezzer it is in later games.
** From ''Heroes of High Lagaard'', there's the War Magus and the Beast classes. With War Magus, its problems are that it requires ailments to be inflicted to use their offensive skills, necessitating a sword Dark Hunter or Hexer. Even if you do land an ailment, none of the WM's skills are any good beyond Cursecut, which requires an ailment so useless that you're better off not having your Hexer try to inflict it, their healing skills are lackluster compared to the healing-focused Medic, and their buff skills being worse than the Troubador, ultimately making them [[MasterOfNone bad at every role]]. As for Beast, its main problem is that its Loyalty passive (which is required for some of its defensive skills) has it take attacks for other party members while using the ''intended'' target’s defence instead of their own, has a high 40% chance to activate at level 5, and ''75%'' at level 10, and lacks much to offset the damage that it soaks up, or does it so poorly that a Protector does the job better. Autoheal only recovers ailments at the end of the turn, En Garde doesn't reduce any damage from loyalty activations, it lacks a way to draw aggro so En Garde ''can'' activate, and its autorevive skill only has a 30% chance to activate at its highest level. While it can boost its defences, it's ultimately a mediocre soak tank that isn't designed to be able to actually soak damage.
** Almost no one who plays ''The Drowned City'' likes Farmers. While they're excellent for making money and gathering item ingredients, they're virtually dead weight in battle, which can make it hard to level them up since you have to work with a one-person handicap. Thankfully they got retooled into a more useful combat class in ''Nexus''.
** The titular ''Fafnir Knight'' himself is this, essentially being a BaseBreakingCharacter where neither side can agree how ''awful'' he is. He's either hated for being so overpowered that he demands the increased HP of bosses of 2U, or he's the single worst character in the game that ruined the experience of having to play story mode with a deadweight, with little in between. The only thing people can agree on is that nobody likes him. The reasoning behind this is due to his Force Boost, which turns him into an unworldly monster that eviscerates nearly everything and is built around being in the mode as much as possible...but outside of it is a monumental pushover to the point where if the mechanic didn’t exist, he’d be a bottom tier class across the entire series. As such, your opinion on him will generally be related to your thoughts on the Force mechanic as a whole.
** In ''Etrian Odyssey IV'', Medic as main class is not well-liked because most of their skills don't scale well past half their max level (in particular, they tend to overheal), and coupled with their fairly lackluster stats you're better off having them as a subclass for another magic-focused class.
** In ''Nexus'', On the opposite end of this trope, many players make it a point to not use Heroes in their guilds, due to [[GameBreaker effectively being the Fafnir Knight of this game]]. They're [[MasterOfAll Masters of All]] who can do basically everything well especially damage, as well as generate Afterimages to serve as decoys and to double down on damage. ''Un''like the Fafnir Knight, you can have multiple Heroes in your party, and they’re perpetually powerful.
** Pugilists in ''Nexus'' are much less surefire than their former selves, with fists being much weaker than in ''5'', Overexertion being completely absent from the toolkit, and binding skills being much weaker on them than say, gunners.
** Hexers in ''Etrian Mystery Dungeon'' tend to not be effective, despite their infamous legacy. This is for a few reasons: enemies tend to be fewer in number when encountered due to the nature of Mystery Dungeons, the Protector already does crowd control better due to Provoke completely breaking the AI on top of making them practically immortal, dealing damage tends to be superior over disabling your foes, and most damningly, killing something through poison (the Hexer’s damage dealer) doesn’t give experience.

** From ''Heroes of High Lagaard'', there's the War Magus and the Beast classes. With War Magus, its problems are that it requires ailments to be inflicted to use their offensive skills, necessitating a sword Dark Hunter or Hexer. Even if you do land an ailment, none of the WM's skills are any good beyond Cursecut, which requires an ailment so useless that you're better off not having your Hexer try to inflict it, their healing skills are lackluster compared to the healing-focused Medic, and their buff skills being worse than the Troubador, ultimately making them [[MasterOfNone bad at every role]]. As for Beast, its main problem is that its Loyalty passive (which is required for some of its defensive skills) has it take attacks for other party members, has a high 40% chance to activate at level 5, and ''75%'' at level 10, and lacks much to offset the damage that it soaks up, or does it so poorly that a Protector does the job better. Autoheal only recovers ailments at the end of the turn, En Garde doesn't reduce any damage from loyalty activations, it lacks a way to draw aggro so En Garde ''can'' activate, and its autorevive skill only has a 30% chance to activate at its highest level. While it can boost its defences, it's ultimately a mediocre soak tank that isn't designed to be able to actually soak damage.

** The titular ''Fafnir Knight'' himself is this, essentially being a BaseBreakingCharacter where neither side can agree how ''awful'' he is. He's either hated for being so overpowered that he demands the increased HP of bosses of 2U, or he's the single worst character in the game that ruined the experience of having to play story mode with a deadweight, with little in between. The only thing people can agree on is that nobody likes him.
** In ''Etrian Odyssey IV'', Medic as main class is not well-liked because most of their skills don't scale well past half their max level, and coupled with their fairly lackluster stats you're better off having them as a subclass for another magic-focused class.
** In ''Nexus'', On the opposite end of this trope, many players make it a point to not use Heroes in their guilds, due to [[GameBreaker effectively being the Fafnir Knight of this game]]. They're [[MasterOfAll Masters of All]] who can do basically everything well especially damage, as well as generate Afterimages to serve as decoys and to double down on damage. ''Un''like the Fafnir Knight, you can have multiple Heroes in your party.
** Pugilists in ''Nexus'' are much less surefire than their former selves, with fists being much weaker than in ''5'', Overexertion being completely absent from the toolkit, and binding skills being much weaker on them than say, gunners.

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** ''Millenium Girl'' addressed the shortcomings of the original game's plot. After the original version's plot was heavily criticized for [[spoiler:portraying your Guild as little more than loot-obsessed sociopaths who literally commit genocide and ''doom the world'' purely for the sake of finding treasure, ''Millenium Girl'' retooled the plot heavily to make things less grim, such as the entire Forest People subplot being rewritten so the heroes are fighting plague-crazed members of the tribe instead of slaughtering them to the last man, and while Visil is still a WellIntentionedExtremist, the party is given actually genuine motivations to oppose him beyond "he's in the way of our treasure", the consequences of his defeat are far less dire.]]
** ''Fafnir Knight'' improved ''2's'' less than savory plot elements. [[spoiler:In the original, the Overlord was a genuinely noble man with a genuinely noble goal, and his experiments only ended up becoming threats as a direct result of the party's meddling in his affairs, and his senseless death and the destruction of his world-changing work are treated as afterthoughts to the treasures he was "in the way of". In ''Fafnir Knight'', the Overlord is considerably more villainous, his hunt for immortality combined with elongated solitude corrupts his noble goal into one of selfishness (also allowing him to contrast with Bertrand), and he possesses a shortsighted disregard for containing his experiments and the damage they cause. This all serves to let the party's opposition to him feel much more natural.]]

* ThatOneComponent: Practically any conditional drop that requires you to kill a monster with [[UselessUsefulSpell curse damage]]. Due to HealthDamageAsymmetry, this will generally be a long, drawn-out process that will have players reaching for a [[RandomDropBooster Formaldehyde]].
** The few conditional drops that are based on RNG rather than killing a monster in a certain way can also be examples, especially if it has a low drop rate.

** The early game of ''Nexus'' toys with the expectations of a veteran player as they visit returning dungeons. [[spoiler:The Berserker King getting the drop on the party and Cernunnos showing up as the Lush Woodlands' actual boss, followed by with the follow-up of the Wyvern becoming Primitive Jungle’s main story boss, stand out this way.]] However, during the middle phases of the game, the BaitAndSwitch just... stops, and most of the rest of labyrinth events proceed like a normal Etrian game. It takes until the third area for out-of-place foes to pop up in classic dungeons again[[note]][[spoiler:High Lagard’s Salamander as the first boss of Golden Lair and Ginnungagap’s Basilisk as the first boss of Sandy Dunes]][[/note]], but at that point it’s more telegraphed.

** The early game of ''Nexus'' toys with the expectations of a veteran player as they visit returning dungeons. [[spoiler:The Berserker King getting the drop on the party and Cernunnos showing up as the Lush Woodlands' actual boss stand out this way.]] However, once the player's proceeded to the later phases of the game, the BaitAndSwitch just... stops, and most of the rest of labyrinth events proceed like a normal Etrian game.

** ''Fafnir Knight'' improved ''2's'' less than savory plot elements. [[spoiler:In the original, the Overlord was a genuinely noble man with a genuinely noble goal, and his experiments only ended up becoming threats as a direct result of the party's meddling in his affairs, and his senseless death and the destruction of his world-changing work are treated as afterthoughts to the treasures he was "in the way of". In ''Fafnir Knight'', the Overlord is considerably more villainous, his hunt for immortality being far more selfish than noble, and possessing a callous disregard for containing his experiments and the damage they cause, making the party's opposition to him feel much more natural.]]

** "Explorers Guild Trial" in the first game has your party spend a total of five in-game days on the 8th floor. It's alleviated by the fact that there's a healing spring on the same floor offering unlimited refills for your party, but the whole experience is still grueling. The remake offers two things that make it more convenient: the first is that the Wyvern's room has encounters disabled so that you can run laps and pass time without worry of an encounter; the second, exclusive to Story Mode, comes in cutscenes that skip past night portions and make the experience less boring.

* ValuesDissonance: The hot springs DLC in ''Fafnir'' have, in addition to one for Arianna, a fanservice portrait for ten year-old Chloe. Not only is this creepy enough as it is, the art book gleefully mentions that the art team was in love with this portrait, even claiming Chloe "seduced" them. Even if the entire thing were an elaborate inside joke, it would '''not''' fly in other countries where pedophilia is taken seriously.