Fire Emblem Heroes / Tropes M to R

Fire Emblem Heroes tropes: A to E | F to L | M to R | S to Z

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This game has examples of:

M

• Mage Killer:
  • The Kitty Paddle, Regular Guinivere's Aureola and Legendary Guinivere's Radiant Aureola deals effective damage against tome-wielders.
  • Jeorge's personal weapon Parthia has an exclusive refinement that mitigates damage from a tome wielder's first attack and gives him +6 Atk during combat if he's facing ranged opponents, including tome wielders.
  • The exclusive refinement for Regular Felicia's eponymous Plate gives her an extra special charge for each attack she lands when she is in combat with a tome wielder, which synchronizes quite well with her high Res and Res-based special Glacies.
  • Dragons Breaths which are released post-2.0.0, including refined and character exclusive, are a Downplayed Trope. They target the lower defensive stat of any unit with an attack range of two, including tome users, whose Def is usually lower than their Res.
  • The Distant/Close Ward skills allow the user to gain +5 Atk/Res and allow the user to counterattack regardless of range if the foe uses a tome, staff or breath weapon, and in the latter's case, negate skills that target the user's lower defensive stats, allowing them to increase their offenses while reducing damage against magic users.
  • The exclusive refine for Regular Jaffar's Deadly Dagger and Regular Innes' Nidhogg prevents mages from counterattacking them.
• Magic Pants: Anna discusses creating and selling special outfits for Laguz characters to use when they transform in-between forms.
• Magically-Binding Contract:
  • The reason why you fight all the Heroes in the story. Heroes defeated by the Emblian Empire must agree to the contract, which states that they must serve the empire, or they'll presumably be killed. However, the contract is null and void if someone else defeats them in combat. A majority of Book I (and a few Paralogues) focuses on freeing the Heroes from the Empire's contracts. From Book II onwards, the plot is less focused on the contracts, although some Heroes (i.e. Regular Micaiah, Sacred Memories Eirika, Branded King Chrom, Kaze) still comment on them.
  • Heroes that are summoned by the player through the Breidablik are also bound under a contract, which a few characters point out.
• Magically Regenerating Clothing: Just as damaging a character below 50% health will cause Clothing Damage to their portrait, healing them back up will repair their clothes too.
• Magikarp Power:
  • Alfonse, Sharena, and Anna all start out at two stars^note four stars since 2.5.0 and require significant investment to become viable, but once they get upgraded to five stars, they all become pretty decent to use.
  • Com Mons are usually not summonable at the 5-star rarity, unless they are featured in a summoning focus. Other than that, the only way to get them at 5 stars is to spend lots of feathers to upgrade them from lower rarities. Additionally, most of these units gain access to new personal weapons through version updates, which in turn can be refined with unique effects or stat boosts by using the rare Divine Dew material.
  • Units designated as trainees such as the youthful dragons (like Fae or young Tiki) or villagers and trainees (like Donnel and Amelia) start with low base stats, but when they're raised to their highest levels, they end up having higher base stat totals than other units of their class.
  • Grand Hero Battle units, who are never acquired as 5-star units; they must first be ranked up from 3 or 4 stars. They also usually have poor area of effect Specials with long charge times and rather underwhelming skillsets. However, it's almost always worth it to upgrade them to five stars and put enough investment into them. They usually have pretty good stats, and some of them can acquire unique weapons with incredible effects. Most notably, Xander and Camus acquire weapons that have Distant Counter built in, and Michalis gets the Hauteclere, which accelerates the charge time of his special and boasts a high 16 Mt.
  • It's theoretically possible to turn any unit you like into something amazing, even units that are only good for Cannon Fodder or Skill Inheritance. The process tends to be a lot more involved and drawn out than simply pulling a 5-star unit, requiring a large amount of Promotions, Merges, Skill Inheritance and Dragonflowers, and sometimes Trait Fruits, to bring them up to par with the game's all-stars, but it can be done. It's a common practice for players to do this with their favorite character at the very least.
• Magitek: In Paralogue 8, Anna uses a magic tome that is basically a modern camera in all but name. In the following Paralogue, Anna uses a magic tome that works like a video recorder.
• Marathon Level: Tempest Trials, Squad Assault, and Chain Challenge have you fight on 3 to 10 maps in a row with no breaks or After-Combat Recovery. The Blessed Gardens initially only gained one "new"^note every map in the Blessed Gardens thus far is merely an already released Paralogue or Main Story map where its units have souped-up stats map every several days, but the introduction of Blessed Grounds as part of the Gardens began adding two maps, then eventually three.
• Meaningful Name: The two warring kingdoms are the Kingdom of Askr and the Empire of Embla. In Norse Mythology, Ask (or Askr) and Embla are the first two humans, basically the Norse version of Adam and Eve. On top of that, Askr means "ash tree," and Embla sounds like "emblem," so the two names combined could be interpreted as "ash emblem" which is very close to "fire emblem".
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter:
  • Halloween Xane. While his has stats to at least make him work if he's alone, if he is near allies, his stats during combat is mostly dependent on his allies near him with his weapon. His weapon Jokers Wild, in addition to being the only weapon that gives +5 HP by default, allows the user to match stats equal to the highest Atk/Spd/Def/Res of all allies within 2 spaces of the user during combat, each calculated individually, and if all allies have certain stats lower than him, his stats decrease during combat as well.
  • Regular Tailtiu. After her weapon refine, the Tome of Thoron, she gained the Wrath skill built into her weapon. What is so unique about that is that, Mages are not allowed to use the Wrath skill, meaning that she is the only Mage unit capable of using it, giving her a unique role as a low HP special thrower, while freeing her B skill slot for something like Vantage.
  • Julius and Regular Haar, for very similar reasons. The former's unique weapon, Loptous, gives him a weakness to dragon-effective weaponry, but if his opponent's weapon lacks dragon effectiveness, he debuffs their Atk/Res inside and outside of combat while reducing damage with a Dragon Wall effect. The latter's unique weapon, Tempest's Claw, gives him a weakness to blue tomes, though it does remove his weakness to Flying-effective weaponry in exchange.
  • Ascended Joshua. His Blade of Jehanna, in addition to inflicting -6 Spd/Def to the foe during combat as well as ignore bonuses on those stats during combat, has a strange effect where if his target foe is in a cardinal direction of him, he prevents the foe from counterattacking, but if not he deals damage equal to 15% of his foe's Atk during combat, meaning that his weapon functions differently depending on his position compared to his foe.
  • Valentine Female Robin. Her Achimenes Furl gives her -1 maximum special cooldown, as well as inflict -5 Atk/Spd/Res to all foes within 3 spaces of the user during combat if there is 1 or more different movement types on her team, reduces damage taken from the foe's first attack by 30% if there is 2 or more, and grants herself and allies within 3 spaces of her 5 HP recovered per attack they perform if there is 3 or more, so the more different movement types Valentine Female Robin has on her team, excluding herself, the more effects she gains.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender: The mortality rate among males introduced in Heroes is far greater than that among females. As of the end of Book VII, a whopping 10 out of 14 men are unambiguously dead (the exceptions being Alfonse, Hríd, Múspell, and Elm, although Líf comes Back from the Dead), compared to 16 out of 34 women (with Thrasir, Triandra, and Plumeria all coming Back from the Dead).
• Mentor Archetype: Seth takes a stab at trying to teach Veronica that her people should come first. It serves as the initial trigger for her eventual Heel–Face Turn.
• Mighty Glacier: Armored units. While their individual stats vary and they can be everything from a Stone Wall to a Lightning Bruiser, their defining characteristics are very high stat totals, and having the slowest movement type in the game, being only 1 space per turn. (With that said, there are some skills that allow them to move further on certain conditions.)
• Modesty Shorts: The towel-wearing Ryoma from the Hostile Springs event is clearly wearing underwear under his towel; lucky for him as he also suffers a full Wardrobe Malfunction in his injured artwork. Camilla also wears something under her towel, which is only apparent when she gets a wardrobe malfunction as well.
• Modesty Towel: Bath units do battle while wearing only their towels. It doesn't hinder them in the slightest.
• Mood Dissonance:
  • All Forging Bonds cutscenes are set to a lively tune, which was inconspicuous at first, as the first few events were Slice of Life stories set around the Summoner getting to know the new Heroes. However, in darker, more serious stories, the music doesn't change.
  • In "The Sworn Oath", the Nifl royals discuss a coming war with Múspell (which is already depressing because it was released after the end of Book II), and Fjorm has a nightmare of Surtr burning her kingdom, all the while cheerful music plays in the background.
  • Forging Bonds that focuses on the Fallen Heroes. The conversations are focused on them being possessed by another entity, or losing control of their powers and very much afraid of themselves has those characters experiencing nightmares, violent murderous outbursts, and otherwise suffering through madness and despair... and the same upbeat music plays through the entire event.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • After Xenologue 1 is completed, a cutscene plays where Veronica asks the Mysterious Man to have tea with her. He declines and instead asks Veronica about how she's been feeling, which leads to her talking about a voice in her head that compels her to kill people.
  • This is also how more light-hearted Paralogues have succeeded dire Main Story chapters. Take, for example, the climax of Book II where Surtr manages to tank the spell that was supposed to kill him, rendering everything the Heroes did futile and leaving them fleeing for their lives... Come Paralogue 21, and it's back to Anna's hijinks, attempting to get a quick buck to keep the Order of Heroes afloat. Paralogue 27 is itself this compared to the previous Paralogues, tackling a young Azura's childhood neglect and escapism.
• Money Multiplier: The skills Live for Honor and Live for Bounty respectively increase the amount of badges and shards/crystals obtained from Training Tower maps by 50%.
• More than Mind Control:
  • While it's more obvious with enemy Heroes summoned by Embla, even the Heroes (including villains!) you summon have a compulsion to trust you. Some voice confusion about it, but it is strong enough for them to not be bothered by it too much. Bring a character to 5-star rarity and level 40, and you earn that trust properly.
  • Camilla recognizes that she's under a compulsion; but she states she doesn't care. She's so starved for affection; she'll accept the "magic" loyalty and make it real.
• Multiple Reference Pun: The weapon's name "It's Curtains..." has two meaning behind it: the first is it's Exactly What It Says on the Tin, being just bath entrance curtains on a wooden pole, and the second being part of the phrase "it's curtains for you", meaning that your show is over.
• Multi-Slot Character: Alternate versions of certain characters such as seasonal or Legendary versions have different abilities and stats and are treated as separate characters from their base version. There are also characters who get variants based on canon events in their original games, like Edelgard, who has her Officer Academy student variant, her Flame Emperor disguise variant, her time skip outfit variant, and her Hegemon Husk variant from where she's a Final Boss in the Blue Lions route. It's possible to have multiple versions of the same character in one team. Eleven special maps featuring several of these characters and their alts were available from late April to early May 2018.
  • You can have a team that consists entirely of Ryoma^note Regular, Legendary, Yukata, Bath, Alm^note Regular, Legendary, Brave, Duo Valentine (with Celica), Laevatein^note Regular, New Year's, Summer, Ninja, Alfonse^note Regular, Spring, New Year Duo (with Sharena), Valentine, Morgan^note Regular Male, Regular Female, Fallen Male, Fallen Female, Palla^note Regular, Spring, Young Duo (with Catria & Est), Valentian, Julia^note Regular, Legendary, Fallen, Scions of Twelve, Fae^note Regular, Winter, Spring Duo (with Idunn), Legendary, Mia^note Regular, Halloween, Summer Harmonized (with Masked Marth), Young, Est^note Regular, Spring, Young Duo (with Palla & Catria), Valentian, Seliph^note Regular, Legendary, Scions of Twelve Harmonized (with Leif), Brave, Hilda^note Regular, Winter, Summer Duo (with Marianne), Ascended/Three Hopes , Leo^note Regular, Summer, Picnic, Valentine, Sakura^note Regular, Halloween, Bath, Valentine Duo (with Elise), Sothis^note Regular, Winter, Halloween Duo (with Male Byleth), Fallen (Possessing Female Byleth), L'Arachel^note Regular, Halloween, Young, Summer, Eir^note Regular, New Year, Ascended, Summer Duo (with Ymir), Lysithea^note Regular, Brave, Winter Harmonized (with Lute), Tea Party, Sigurd^note Regular, Dancing Duo (with Deirdre), Legendary, Tea Party, Plumeria^note Regular, New Year, Summer Harmonized (with Caeda), Rearmed, Triandra^note Regular, New Year Duo (with Peony), Spring, Attuned, Peony^note Regular, New Year Duo (with Triandra), Flame Harmonized (with Tana), Attuned, Black Knight/Zelgius^note Regular Black Knight, Regular Zelgius, Winter Black Knight, Ninja Zelgius, Sanaki^note Regular, Bridal, Winter Harmonized (with Altina), Ninja Duo (with Micaiah), Severa/Fates Selena^note Fates Regular, Spring, Fates Winter Harmonized (with Cordelia), Awakening Regular Inigo/Laslow^note Fates Regular, Performing Arts, Spring, Awakening Regular, Kana^note Regular Female, Regular Male, New Year Male, New Year Female, Reinhardt^note Regular, World of Thracia, Dancing, Rearmed, Altina^note Regular, Winter Harmonized (with Sanaki), Summer Harmonized (with Edelgard), Nabata, Alear^note Regular Female, Regular Male, Legendary Female, Legendary Male and Lissa^note Regular, Winter, Valentine, Young.
  • There are 5 different versions of Roy^note Regular, Brave, Valentine, Legendary, Groom Harmonized (with Eliwood), Ninian^note Regular, Bridal, Halloween Harmonized (with Young Tiki), Fallen, Legendary, Laegjarn^note Regular, New Year's, Summer, Ascended, Ninja Duo (with Fjorm), Takumi^note Regular, New Year's, Fallen, Summer, Valentine, Elise^note Regular, Summer, Bath, Ninja Duo (with Female Corrin), Valentine Duo (with Sakura), Tana^note Regular, Summer, Young, Flame Harmonized (with Peony), Rearmed, Rhea^note Summer Duo (with Female Byleth), Seiros, Halloween, Fallen, Regular, Hinoka^note Regular, Wings of Fate, Bath, Pirate Duo (with Camilla), Legendary, Shez^note Regular Male, Regular Female, Legendary Female, Summer Female, Summer Male, Soren^note Regular, Valentine, Young, Khadein, Brave, Kagero^note Regular, Spring, Halloween, Thief Duo (with Nina), Wind Duo (with Orochi), Elincia^note Regular, Yukata, Summer, Ascended, Legendary, Nino^note Regular, Scattered Fangs, Winter, Khadein, Attuned Myrrh^note Regular, Halloween, Spring Harmonized (with Nah), Legendary, Valentine, and Cordelia^note Regular, Bridal, Summer, Winter Harmonized (with Fates Selena), Spring Harmonized (with Chloé).
  • There are 6 versions of Lilina^note Regular, Valentine, Summer, Duo Halloween (with Hector), Legendary, Bridal, Xander^note Regular, Spring, Summer, Yukata, Pirate Harmonized (with Veronica), Legendary, Celica^note Regular, Fallen, Brave, Legendary, Duo Valentine (with Alm), Ascended, Veronica^note Brave, Spring, Pirate Harmonized (with Xander), Valentine, Legendary, Hector^note Regular, Valentine, Legendary, Brave, Duo Halloween (with Lilina), Young, Eliwood^note Regular, Valentine, Legendary, Brave, Groom Harmonized (with Roy), Young, Fjorm^note Regular, New Year's, Bridal, Ascended, Ninja Duo (with Laegjarn), Summer, Tharja^note Regular, Winter, Bridal, Plegian, Spring Harmonized (with Sonya), Summer, Catria^note Regular, Spring, Valentian, Duo Young (with Palla & Est), Bridal Harmonized (with Thea), Wind, Anna^note Heroes Regular, Awakening Apotheosis, Heroes New Year, Awakening Bridal, Halloween Harmonized Engage and Awakening, Dimitri^note Regular, Brave, Legendary, Fallen, Summer, Winter, Claude^note Regular, Brave, Legendary, Summer, Wind, Winter, Lyon^note Regular, Duo (with Ephraim), Fallen, Young, Summer, Valentine (with Eirika) and Caeda^note Regular, Bridal, Young, Summer Harmonized (with Plumeria), Legendary, Attuned.
  • There are 7 variants for Micaiah^note Regular, Yukata, Brave, Bridal Duo (with Sothe), Legendary, Summer, Ninja Duo (with Sanaki), Edelgard^note Regular, Flame Emperor, Legendary, Brave, Fallen, Summer Harmonized (with Altina), Winter, Marth^note Regular, Groom, Legendary, Duo Winter (with Elice), Young, Brave, Emblem, Ike^note Regular, Brave, Legendary, Valentine, Fallen, Young Duo (with Mist), Emblem and Azura^note Regular, Performing Arts, New Year's, Adrift, Legendary, Hatari Harmonized (with Leanne), Attuned.
  • There are 8 variants for Lucina^note Regular, Spring, Masked, Brave, Legendary, Masked Summer Harmonized (with Mia), Valentine, Rearmed, Eirika^note Regular, Sacred Memories, Legendary, Winter, Young Duo (with Ephraim), Brave, Summer, Valentine Duo (with Lyon) and Ephraim^note Regular, Legendary, Brave, Winter, Duo (with Lyon), Young Duo (with Eirika), Summer, Valentine.
  • There are 9 variants for Lyn^note Regular, Bridal, Brave, Valentine, Legendary, Summer, Ninja Duo (with Florina), Flame, Young Duo (with Mark) and Chrom^note Regular, Spring, Winter, Branded King, Legendary, Valentine Duo (with Male Robin), Brave, Fallen Rearmed, Young Duo (with Female Robin).
  • There are 10 variants for Camilla^note Regular, Spring, New Year's, Summer, Adrift, Bath, Brave, Pirate Duo (with Hinoka), Ninja, Legendary.
  • There are 11 variants for Tiki^note Regular Young, Regular Adult, Summer Adult, Summer Young, Legendary Young, Fallen Young, Halloween Harmonized Young (with Ninian), Brave Adult, Ascended Young, Bridal Harmonized Adult and Young and Byleth^note Regular Male, Regular Female, Female Summer Duo (with Rhea), Male Legendary, Male Halloween Duo (with Sothis), Female Legendary, Female Brave, Male Khadein, Female Fallen (Possessed by Sothis), Winter Duo Male and Female.
  • There are 14 variants for Corrin^note Regular Male, Regular Female, Summer Female, New Year's Male, Adrift Male, Adrift Female, Fallen Female, Fallen Male, Legendary Female, Ninja Male, Female Ninja Duo (with Elise), Halloween Female, Halloween Male, Brave Female.
  • There are 16 variants for Robin^note Regular Male, Regular Female, Summer Female, Winter Male, Fallen Male, Legendary Fallen Female, Fallen Halloween Female, Fallen Halloween Male, Valentine Female, Valentine Duo Male (with Chrom), Rearmed Fallen Female, Legendary Male, Groom Male, Brave Male, Young Male, Young Duo Female (with Chrom).
• The Multiverse: Where you're implied to be plucking heroes from. For clarities sake this is different than the outrealms like the settings of all the previous games the heroes go to. FE does both the multiverse and other dimensions.
• Mundane Utility: Winter Chrom determines that the Falchion can be used to slice cake.
• Mutually Exclusive Power-Ups: Legendary and Mythic Blessings are exclusive to each other due to blessing only having one slot, as the Mythic Blessing are only active in Aether Raids, while the Legendary Blessing are active everywhere else. Mythic Blessing, however, give more stat benefits than Legendary ones to compensate.
• My Future Self and Me:
  • Tiki exists in the game as both a little girl (as seen in the Archanea subseries) and as a young adult (as seen in Awakening), and there's nothing to stop you from putting them on the same team. Taken to its logical conclusion with their Bridal version, a Harmonized hero featuring both incarnations of Tiki.
  • Ike, Mia, Sanaki, Elincia, and the Black Knight/Zelgius are all available as they appear in both Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, while Inigo/Laslow, Owain/Odin, and Severa/Selena are available as they appear in both Fire Emblem: Awakening and Fire Emblem Fates.
  • Paralogue 27: Adrift has normal Azura confront her Adrift variant, who appears as a young child. Nothing will keep you from teaming them up, however.
  • Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude, Lysithea, Marianne and Seiros/Rhea from Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Hilda and Ingrid from Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes have their Pre- and Post-Time Skip versions available to the player, and they can be put onto the same team.
  • Both Lilina and Zephiel appear as their younger selves from Blazing Blade and their older selves from Binding Blade, in addition to the younger version of Hector, his epilogue version from the prequel, and his child self from the "No Matter Where" banner.
  • Including the child version of Hector, units from every child banner with young versions of heroes from a total of four games as of 2024^note Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light in 2020, The Sacred Stones in 2021, Path of Radiance in 2022, The Blazing Blade in 2023, and Awakening in 2024. can team up with their older selves. The only exceptions to this are Young Boyd and Young Mark, as neither of their older selves appeared in Heroes yet.
  • Discussed by Legendary Lilina in one of her castle quotes, where she mentioned that she saw a younger version of Hector with a child, who she believes is her younger self, referencing Duo Halloween Hector and Lilina. However, this doesn't stop you from putting both of them in your team.
    Lilina: I caught a glimpse of a young version of my father! He had a child with him. I think it might have been me...
  • The Forging Bonds conversation with Brave Soren has him encounter his child version, and the antics that ensue.
  • Book VII focuses on time travel, so naturally this comes up. As it turns out, Kvasir, Seiðr, and Gullveig are all different incarnations of the same individual.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules:
  • The enemy team can consist of up to six units compared to the player's limit of four (five in Aether Raids). This does not take reinforcements into account, as they can arrive even if there are already a certain amount of enemies on the field.
  • In Aether Raids, the attacking team can trigger tile traps when they stop on them (either by movement or positioning assists), but the defenders cannot.
• Mythology Gag: Given the crossover nature of the game, there are a lot of nods to past Fire Emblem titles. We put them all on another page.

N

• Nerf:
  • Tomes and Daggers in Fire Emblem are usually able to attack at melee range, but they lose this ability in Heroes for balance reasons. It's still possible to counterattack at melee range, but it requires skills such as Close Counter and Close Foil.
  • Stat debuffs now only last until a unit completes their next turn, rather than gradually recovering 1 point per turn like in Fates.
  • In Fates, Savage Blow inflicts Splash Damage on its user's opponent and other enemies within two spaces of the user's opponent. In Heroes, Savage Blow only inflicts Splash Damage on enemies within two spaces of its user's opponent.
  • Rally skills in Heroes target only one adjacent ally after movement, instead of affecting all allies within range of the user in Awakening (3 spaces away) and Fates (2 spaces away for the single version, 4 spaces away for Rally Spectrum). Slightly Downplayed with the Rally Up variants, which the stat boosts also affect any allies within 2 spaces of the ally target.
  • Raijinto, Siegfried, Gradivus, Ragnell, and Alondite lose their ability to attack from range, though they at least have built-in Distant Counter to counterattack at range. They initially lose their passive stat bonuses until their unique refinements gives them something very similar to those boosts.
  • The version of the Yato that male Corrin wields is the Omega Yato, which is Purposefully Overpowered in Fates. Heroes strips away (unrefined)/nerfs (refined) its passive stat bonuses and lowers its Might from 18 to 16.
  • Armored Blow and Warding Blow have their hefty Damage Reduction^note -10 physical damage for "Armored Blow", -20 magical damage for "Warding Blow" changed to giving a max of +6 to Defense and Resistance, respectively.
  • Wary Fighter, which prevents follow-up attacks for the enemy and user during combat, has a HP threshold to remain active (the lowest being 50%) and is now restricted to armored units only, instead of being always active and usable by everyone in Fates.
  • The -breaker skills in Heroes, while reworked from Awakening and Fates, now have some of them have restrictions on who can equip them, where for example Swordbreaker cannot be equipped by Green units, including Axe users, and Bowbreaker cannot be equipped by Flying units. The only -breaker skill that does not have a restriction is Daggerbreaker, and even then Daggerbreaker only works against Colorless Daggers in Heroes.
  • In their home games, Silvia, Lene, Reyson, Leanne, and Rafiel could refresh more than one unit at a time: Silvia, Lene, Rafiel, and Reyson could refresh all four adjacent units (Reyson only if transformed), while Leanne could refresh two units on opposite sides of her regardless of her state. In Heroes, however, they are reduced to one at a time like other singers and dancers in game.
  • In Fates, Kaden and Selkie are able to pass through forest tiles without any reduced movement if they're in their Kitsune/Nine Tails class. In Heroes, however, they are unable to even enter forest tiles thanks to them being classified as Cavalry units.
  • In Three Houses, Catherine's sword, Thunderbrand, was treated as a Brave weapon, allowing her to attack up to four times in battle. Heroes drops the Brave weapon classification, and instead lets her immediately follow up.
  • Lethality across the series history has always been treated as an One-Hit Kill skill. An actual One-Hit Kill in Heroes, let alone an inheritable one, would rather obviously be too good, so it instead is a Special that treats as the opponent's Def/Res are reduced by 75% during and disables non-Special skills that "reduce damage by X%".
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • The Book movies usually feature scenes that introduce the primary characters, but rarely reflect the actual occurrences in the story itself:
    • The Book II opening movie shows the Order of Heroes in a all-out brawl against Múspell's elites. Notably, the Summoner is going toe-to-toe with Veronica, and Fjorm and Surtr are locked in a big power battle, with Surtr launching a gigantic fireball and Fjorm countering with giant ice lances and lasers. None of this happens in the game proper, and the Summoner wouldn't even be a playable unit for another three years.
    • The Book III opening movie uses this to preserve a Plot Twist by clipping together scenes of Alfonse and Sharena to mislead the viewer into thinking Sharena is going to die. Alfonse and Sharena do explore Hel, but the Sharena who dies is actually an Alternate Self, whose brother became Líf.
    • Subverted with in the Book III ending movie, which was released after the chapter it was adapting released. In the story, Sharena is never endangered by Hel, but the movie opens with Eir saving Sharena from Hel.
    • The Book IV opening movie shows Alfonse and Sharena waking up in the Dream World, greeted by Peony who brings them to meet Freyr, only to be cornered by a spectre of Freyja and for Plumeria and Triandra to ambush them. The fight ends with Alfonse getting enveloped by a nightmare, with Peony reaching out to him, before Alfonse wakes up the exact same way as the start of the movie, suggesting he was simply dreaming the entire movie. None of this is brought up in the story, and the shot of Alfonse sleeping on the ground is actually edited for the reveal that the apparition of the Summoner in the story is Alfonse.
• Next Tier Power-Up:
  • Before the release of Choose Your Legends 2, all A, B, and C skills with tiers had up to 3 tiers. However, since then, that limit has been broken by increasing skills to a 4th tier value increases, and sometimes even giving them an additional effect, and sometimes with additional restrictions. For example, the Hone and Fortify skills, which give +4 to a single stat to adjacent allies at the start of the user's turn, have two variants, both which are stronger than the Hone 3 versions: the Hone and Fortify 4 skills, which give +7 to a single stat instead of +4, and the Joint Hone skills, which give adjacent allies and the user +5 to a single stat if they're adjacent to an ally at the start of their turn, and the Stance skills, which give stats if the foe initiates combat, are stat increases with the addition of inflicting -1 special buildup on the foe, with +8 for the single stat version and +6 to two stats with the dual stat version, with the additional restriction that Healers cannot inherit the 4th Tier version, such as Warding Stance 4 giving +8 Res and inflicting -1 special buildup per attack on the foe during combat if the foe initiates combat, instead of +6 Res during combat if the foe initiates combat with Warding Stance 3, and Sturdy Stance 3 giving +6 Atk/Def and inflicting -1 special buildup per attack on the foe during combat if the foe initiates combat, compared to +4 Atk/Def during combat if the foe initiates combat with Sturdy Stance 2.
  • Legendary and Mythic Heroes released early on also receive next tiers to their Secret Art through Legendary & Mythic Hero Remixes with version updates. For example, Legendary Lucina's Future Vision, which acts like Swap with the addition of granting her an Extra Turn after movement, has Future Vision II, which functions the same as Future Vision with the addition of inflicting -7 Atk/Def to the nearest foes of her and her target ally after movement, and Regular Eir's Sparkling Boost, which recovers 10 to the most damaged ally at the start of her turn, has Sparkling Boost+, which recovers 20 HP instead and gives allies who are at 50% HP or above at the start of combat +5 Res during combat.
• Ninja: While Saizo, Kagero, and Kaze from Fates are actual ninjas that players can summon in Heroes, there are banners that feature people dressing up as one, most of them like the Hoshidan ninjas:
  • The In The Moment banner in November 2020 features Laevatein, Navarre, Zihark, Hana, Lyn & Florina wearing ninja garb, with it not being the first time for Hana to have a chance to wear that kind of outfit.
  • The Ninja Training banner in November 2021 features Igrene, Shinon, Shamir, Male Corrin, Female Corrin & Elise also wearing ninja garb, with it also not being the first time for both Corrins and Elise to have a chance to wear that kind of outfit.
  • The Wyvern Ninja banner in November 2022 features Camilla, Cherche, Heath, Haar, Laegjarn & Fjorm also wearing ninja garb, with it also not being the first time for Camilla to have a chance to wear that kind of outfit.
  • The Our Path Ahead banner in November 2023 features Zelgius, Heather, Reina, Saizo, Sanaki & Micaiah also wearing ninja garb, where while Saizo is already a Ninja, it also not the first time for Reina to have a chance to wear that kind of outfit.
• Ninja Maid: While not actual ninjas, besides the actual maids Felicia and Flora, the August 2023 Special Hero banner "Invitation to Tea" features this as well as Battle Butlers, where Lysithea, Tailtiu, and Ayra & Mercedes are dressed as maids to serve tea to guests, with the latter two paired up as a Harmonized Hero, and not being the first time that both Lysithea and Mercedes wear maid outfits.
• Nintendo Hard: Lunatic and Infernal difficulty maps can be this even by regular Fire Emblem standards. While Permadeath isn't enforced in Heroes, the game makes up for it with many of the higher-difficulty enemies having higher stats - often higher than their playable incarnations can reach - that you must overcome with your 4-man team and only those four men. Even in the maps that don't require a No Casualties Run, losing a certain unit can snowball into a sudden defeat, forcing you to put a lot of thought into their actions and skillsets.
• Non-Combat EXP:
  • Shards and crystals of five different colors are used to level up characters outside of battle, similar to the Bonus EXP mechanic from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. Shards are used to level up characters below level 20, while crystals are used to level up characters that are level 20 and higher. While normally characters can only use shards or crystals that match their color, the yellow Universal Shards and Crystals can be used by anyone.
  • Healer characters get EXP for healing other units in addition to attacking enemies with their staves.
  • Averted with the dancers when they use the Dance/Sing/Play command, and any healer with the Rescue(+), Return(+) and Nudge(+) support command, even though they can get EXP when doing that in the main games for the former.
• Non-Indicative Name:
  • Units that you can get from Grand Hero Battles are very rarely "heroes" and are instead non-playable antagonists. And even those who were originally playable usually start out as enemies or are working for the antagonists before you can recruit them.
  • A Gùn is a staff, but the weapon known as the "Wo Gùn" is an axe.
  • Although called a Duo Hero, the hero Young Duo Palla & Catria & Est are actually a trio of sisters.
• Non-Standard Character Design: While most characters at least adhere to anime-styled designs, there are a couple notable exceptions:
  • Arthur from Fire Emblem Fates is drawn in a comic book style like Code Name: S.T.E.A.M to go with his American superhero theme.
  • Characters drawn by Soeda Ippei (Arden, Dorcas, Walhart, Garon, Travant, Darros, Gonzales, Hans and Fargus) are rendered in a considerably more realistic style than the norm.
  • Downplayed with the characters drawn by artists such as Yamada Akihiro (Jagen, Ogma, Regular Zephiel, Gunter, Bantu, and Mila), Akira Egawa (Legendary Seliph, Regular Male Shez, and Resplendent of Regular Innes), and Suzuhito Yasuda (Regular and Summer Nifl). While most characters' special attack portraits are edited versions of their normal attack portraits, these characters possess unique artwork for their special attacks.
  • Another downplayed example is characters drawn by Kozaki Yusuke, the artist for the Original Generation characters, starting from Brave Veronica. Unlike nearly every other character whose special art is derived from their normal attack art, Brave Veronica's pose for her special art is similar to her damaged art. Similarly, the characters he drew post-Brave Veronica (most notably characters from Books III, V and VI) have near-identical attack and damaged artwork, while they all have unique special artwork.
• No Self-Buffs:
  • Staff users cannot use their staves to heal themselves; there are some abilities that enable some degree of self-healing, but for those to work, their users need to heal one of their allies. Also, skills like the Hone, Fortify and Orders skills will buff allies adjacent to the character, but does nothing for the character themselves. The Opening skills raise the stats of an ally with the highest corresponding stat, the Joyous Lantern raises the Def and Res of an ally with the highest Atk at the start of their turn, and the Rapport Wand raises the Atk and Def of an ally with the highest Spd at the start of their turn, but does not include the user.
  • Laslow's Blade allows him to give the target ally as well as any allies within 2 space of the target ally +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res if a positioning assist skill was either used by him or on him, but the +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res do not apply on Laslow himself.
  • Averted with several skills and weapons. The Wave skills, Link skills, Legendary Tiki's With Everyone!(II), Legendary Roy's Human Virtue(II), Regular Fae's Eternal Breath, Armor March, the Joint Hone and Joint Drive skills, and the weapons Ardent Service and Fresh Bouquet all can boost the stats of the user and their allies.
• No-Sell:
  • The Dull Skills allows the user to ignore any field stat boosts on enemies during combat, with Dull Close ignoring boosts from enemies equipped with melee weapons, while Dull Ranged ignoring boosts from enemies with ranged weapons. Certain weapons and skills, such as Divine Naga, Mulagir, the inheritable 2018 Valentine weapons and Wily Fighter also has this effect, with different limitations, such as the 2018 Valentine weapons having the same conditions as Dull Ranged, the unrefined Mulagir being limited to Tome users only (the refined Mulagir having Dull Ranged), Wily Fighter only if the user is at 25% HP or above at the start of combat and the foe initiates combat, and Divine Naga and the [Dull] status effect having no weapon limitations. Because of this, they can ignore the Atk boost of weapons that get stronger the more bonuses the user has, such as the -blade tomes and Laevatein.
  • The Lull Skills allow the user to ignore any field stat boosts on enemies during combat, but only to two stats. However, it also inflicts a -3 stat debuff on those two stats on the foe during combat. They also work against any weapon type unlike with the Dull skills, but they're also only available on Infantry and Cavalry units. Some weapons also do this, such as Altena's Earthly Gáe Bolg also has this effect, except it inflicts -5 Atk/Def instead and excludes both effects on flying foes, and the Pirate's Pride and Unbound weapons and Blackfire Breath+ also has this effect, except it inflicts -5 to two of the foe's stats instead and only activates if the user is not adjacent to an ally.
  • Hardy Bearing, as well as Yukata Micaiah's Dawn Suzu, the Festival in Hoshido daggers, Dragonslasher and Caltrop Dagger, and Legendary Lilina's Studied Forblaze negates any skills that both the user and foe has that changes attack priority, such as Vantage and Desperation, with only Studied Forblaze needing the user to be at 25% HP or more at the start of combat.
  • Null Follow-Up allows the user to negate skills that deny any of the user's follow-up attacks, and negates any skills that guarantees any of the enemy's follow-up attacks. Meanwhile, Null C-Disrupt allows the user to counterattack, regardless of the enemy's skills that prevent the character from doing so. Some characters have them built into their weapons, such as both Regular Byleths' Creator Sword, Legendary Celica's Soul of Zofia, and Spring Fir's Bun-Bun Baton.
  • Mystic Boost and Splashy Bucket allows the user to ignore any enemy weapons and skills that target the user's lower defensive stats, and the Wrathful Staff effect from enemies. Close Ward, the exclusive refine on Naga, any refine on Divine Naga, Legendary and Fallen Julia's Light and Dark, and Guinivere's Aureola, only has the former effect, and in the latter's case, only if either the user initiates combat or there is an ally within 2 spaces of the user.
  • The Erosion Captain Skill from update 6.5.0 onwards now allows the Captain to negate [Savior] from activating on foes before the start of combat.
  • The [Null Panic] status effect allows the unit be unable to be affected by the reversing field stat bonus by the [Panic] status effect during combat.
  • The [En Garde] status effect allows the user to be unaffected by skills and effects outside of AOE specials that damages the user outside of combat, such as Poison Strike, the Bolt Tower Structure and Halloween Duo Hector & Lilina's Duo Skill, and even self inflicted ones such as Fury and the Push skills.
  • Skills like Lethality and Special Spiral 4 allows the user to ignore Damage Reduction effect such as Close Call and the Stout weapons whenever the user's special is triggered. Legendary Nanna's Lands Sword also does this, except she doesn't need to trigger her specials to do so.
  • Lucia's Queensblade takes this to the extreme, as she negates effects on her and foes that triggers Special that trigger before or during combat (excluding Røkkr AOE specials), defensive terrain effects, support effects, guarantee and prevents follow-up attacks, prevents counterattacks, change attack priorities and other allies or foe's skills during combat.
• Not Completely Useless:
  • Røkkr Sieges actually allows you to put some normally useless or underused skills to actually decent use, such as:
    • Obstruct, considered a joke of a skill in any other mode, can actually help keep the Røkkr from moving too far away, which is especially helpful if the Røkkr is a cavalry unit.
    • Breath of Life, while normally impractical and unreliable, is actually helpful in keeping your team topped off and healthy if your units are set up properly. One viable tactic is by having one unit deal most of the damage with a Brave weapon and three refreshers adjacent to them, with Breath of Life helping keep the refreshers healthy.
    • Guard isn't actually a bad skill, but has limited uses due to the strict HP requirement, but it's monumental in Røkkr Sieges to prevent the Røkkr from using their Special which would damage the unit's team and have the Røkkr swap places. As long as the unit with Guard (usually the main damage dealer) stays healthy and topped off themselves with the help of their allies or their own skills, you can keep the Røkkr from ever activating their Umbra Specials.
    • Sol and Noontime have good use in Aether Raids and endurance type maps, but here, they can be crucial in helping your units survive the match. Since the healing is scaled off of how much damage you do, and your damage is multiplied by massive amounts, a single use basically amounts to a full heal.
    • Astra boosts your damage by 150%, and while it's normally Awesome, but Impractical due to its high charge, units that can pull it off with enough Special acceleration will tear through the Røkkr, since the damage will scale incredibly high due to the damage multiplier.
• Not the Intended Use:
  • The Falchion, the legendary weapon used by Marth, Lucina, Chrom, and Alm, is a 16 might weapon that is effective against dragons and has a built-in Renewal 2. Naturally, it functions as a check against dragon units such as Tiki and Fae, but with the advent of Skill Inheritance, players discovered that the Falchion's Renewal 2 stacks with an inherited Renewal 3, allowing for an average of 8.33 HP healed per turn. Coupled with Reciprocal Aid, Falchion users can now be turned into medic-type units with, until update 2.0.0, more potent healing than the game's actual healers. With the release of refinements for the Falchions, their innate Renewal can be upgraded to level 3, which will raise the healing average to 10 HP per turn if paired with the B-skill Renewal 3, and up to an average of 15 per turn with the Renewal 3 Sacred Seal.
  • Rival Domains maps are surprisingly useful for completing quests that require you to KO units of a certain type or with certain weapons. They have no stamina cost, the maps are larger and feature more units, the mode cycles through your brigade, and the 10 turns is always played out (provided neither your fortress or the enemy's is destroyed), so you can increase your counts quickly using them.
  • While certain Special Training maps are meant for specific unit types, their enemy composition means they can be useful for powerleveling other unit types. For example, Special Training: Bows can be useful for leveling melee units.
  • The Pegasus Flight and Wyvern Flight skills are intended for units with high Spd and Res and are riding pegasi or kinshi for the former and units with high Def and are riding wyverns for the latter to give them an edge during combat, with what their names imply. However, due to the restrictions only allowing flying units wielding a Sword, Lance, or Axe to inherit these skills, it doesn't prevent wyvern riders to get Pegasus Flight as well, the most who can make use of that being Fallen Female Morgan and Ninja Laevatein, or pegasi or kinshi riders to get Wyvern Flight as well, the most who can make use of that being Subaki and New Year's Hríd, or even those not riding a mount at all for both of them, like Regular Altina or Mirabilis. Ironically, many other units riding pegasi and kinshi have low to average Res, meaning that only a select few can even use the Pegasus Flight skill to its maximum potential, while Wyvern Flight has many users who can use it well due to many melee fliers having above average Def, where the hero with the lowest base Def and rides a wyvern is Regular Camilla, who, ironically, is one of the best wyvern riders to use Pegasus Flight.
• Numerical Hard:
  • Zig-zagged. Between Normal, Hard, and Lunatic, the biggest differences are increased stats and levels and better skills for enemy units. Infernal and Abyssal, on the other hand, often change the enemy layout, and in some cases skill sets and added Sacred Seals, to quash strategies that work on lower difficulties.
  • The enemy heroes in Relay Defense. Expect to see absurd levels of stats on enemies on the 5th map and higher.
  • The enemy heroes in Mjölnir's Strike, the successor to Relay Defense. The higher you tier and power of your heroes are, the higher the stats enemies will be.
  • The enemies in Resonant Battle. The higher your Interval, the larger the stats of enemies will become, sometimes reaching absurd levels, where you could see enemies having multiple stats go above 50 and Atk values go above 80 on Advanced. This was later brought down to more reasonable stats in update 4.10.0, where only very few heroes have multiple non-HP and Atk stats go above 50 and have their Atk reach the 70s on Advanced.

O

• Obvious Rule Patch:
  • Lunge, Drag Back, Hit and Run, Knock Back, Close Call, and Repel are restricted to melee units only, since ranged units using it in Heroes would create problems with unit and map design, such as a flying ranged unit with Lunge making some maps Unintentionally Unwinnable if they get an enemy unit stuck in terrain, blocking the unit from moving, or Knock Back moving units diagonally, moving them 2 spaces instead of the intended 1, which would make that skill overpowered against melee armored units.
  • Dancers cannot chain Dance, Sing, or Play onto each other if both are equipped with either, likely to prevent infinite movement between the two units, either to escape enemy attacks, or reach themselves or another unit to attack an enemy across the map.
  • Flier units are unable to inherit Bowbreaker, likely due to being able to stop any follow-up attacks on their constant weakness if they were able to negate it as well as being able to take bow wielders out easier. Other -breaker skills also have other units unable to equip them, such as Lancebreaker and B Tomebreaker unable to be equipped for Red units, including Sword user, also likely as a way to prevent units being able to minimize damage taken from units that have Triangle Advantage over them and guarantee their follow-up attacks against them despite their disadvantage.
  • The Triangle Adept/-raven tome combination was a problem for colorless units, since the triangle advantage against colorless provided by -raven tomes would be enhanced by Triangle Adept, making colorless units virtually helpless against units with this combination. To counter this, the Cancel Affinity skill was added to prevent Triangle Adept/-raven tomes from completely dominating colorless heroes, and was released on a common summonable hero to boot (though staff users cannot inherit this skill). While colorless units are still at a disadvantage against units who only have -raven tomes, the Triangle Adept problem now only affects those without Cancel Affinity.
  • Heavy Blade, which gives the user +1 special buildup for each of the user' attacks if they're stronger than their foe during combat, is inheritable to all movement type, with the only restriction is that Staff users are unable to inherit it. However, Heavy Blade was commonly seen being inherited on Cavalry and Flying units thanks to their mobility, and as a result, allowed them to activate specials sooner such as Galeforce and Ignis, and units in that movement types have high Atk while still having good access of ways to get a guaranteed follow-up attack. When Flashing Blade was released later, which compares Spd instead of Atk, it had the restriction of only being limited to only Infantry and Armored units, likely as a result of what Heavy Blade did in the Meta Game.
  • Certain effects on weapons and skills cannot stack with other identical effects to prevent certain builds from being overpowered, such as Heavy/Flashing Blade unable to stack with other +1 special buildup skills such as Bold Fighter to get +3 special buildup per user's attack, Guard weapons unable to stack with other -1 special buildup skills such as Guard and Crafty Fighter to inflict -2 special buildup on the foe per attack, and the double attack from Brave and Brave-like weapons unable to stack with Brave Celica's Double Lion and the [Triangle Attack]/[Dual Strike] status to get a quad attack from one round of combat.
  • Brave, Gem, Firesweep, -raven, and -blade weapons, as well as the Poison Dagger+ and Kitty Paddle+, were popular for players to inherit onto heroes to exploit their niche in the Meta Game early in the game's life. Upon the release of version 2.0.0 in December 2017, those weapons were the only ones which did not receive any refinements, even though unique weapons with the same effects as those skills released later on in updates, such as Regular Titania's Draconic Axe having the same effect as Emerald Axe+ and Roderick's Steady Lance having the same effect as Firesweep Lance+, did get refinements later on. The In The Moment^note Ninja Katana, Ninja Yari and Ninja Masakari, Ninja Training^note Ninja Yumi, Ninja Naginata and Shuriken Cleaver, Wyvern Ninja^note Wyvern Katana and Wyvern Yumi and Our Path Ahead^note Kumo Naginata and Kumo Yumi weapons, which are tweaked versions of the Brave weapons released in November 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, respectively, received the same treatment due to fears of having them be refined to be just stronger versions of the Brave weapons.
  • "Duel" skills are Arena-centric passives that treat a unit's BST (Base Stat Total) as 170 (in addition to a +5 HP bonus) for the Tier 3 versions and 175 for Legendary and Mythic Heroes and 180 for all other heroes (in addition to the +5 HP and +2 Atk/Spd/Def/Res bonus) for the Tier 4 versions before factoring in skills or merges. This allows low-BST units to function in Arena modes without tanking Arena Score, giving them more options than running full teams of Armors all the time.^note For reference, BST bins are done in counts of 5. Gen 2-3 melee Armor units, Gen 4 melee Infantry, and Gen 5 ranged Infantry and melee Flying units reach the 170 bin, while some Gen 2-3 melee Armor units, Gen 4 Armor, and Gen 5 melee Infantry can reach the 175 bin (especially with superassets and no superflaws for the former and Gen 4 ranged Armor), and only specific Gen 2-4 Armor, most Gen 5 Armor units, and some Gen 5 melee Infantry units can reach the 180 bin, with only a few naturally and the rest needing superassets and no superflaws.
  • The Røkkr's Umbra Burst and Umbra specials were attempts at countering trapping Røkkr units with player units. The Umbra Burst weapons will at least deal 1 damage per attack and have Distant/Close Counter built into them, and the Umbra specials allow them to deal damage to all enemies within 2 spaces of them after combat and switch places with their target after combat, giving them an escape mechanism should they be trapped. However, there are specific builds that allow players to still be able to trap them since the switch is Special-based.
  • The Guardian Seals enemy heroes have and item Seals that the Thieves have in Resonant Battles have effects that activate when the unit is defeated, with them restoring 10 HP and +1 special cooldown to the unit that defeated them after combat, intended to halt Galeforce, AOE specials, Wings of Mercy, and Escape Route builds that players can use to easily cheese the map, as well as the Guardian Seal acting as Obstruct for ranged foes as well. However, like the Røkkr above, there are a few heroes and strategies that still can ignore the Seal's intended effects.
  • Close Ward grants +5 Atk/Res to the user during combat if the foe uses a tome, staff, or is a dragon, and allows the user to counterattack against dragons. Dragons usually hit the lower of Def or Res against ranged units however, so Close Ward also disables that adaptive damage effect to ensure that it can actually work as intended.
  • Some heroes that gain an Extra Turn after performing a certain action will also inflict certain status effects on the user and any Paired Up allies as well such as [Isolation]^note unit cannot use or be the target of assist skills or [Gravity]^note unit can only move 1 space on themselves to prevent them from possibly getting more Extra Turns if they do so immediately or still have their large mobility without outside assistance, especially if they are paired up with another ally as well, where for example Legendary Chrom and Valentine Duo Chrom & Male Robin's To Change Fate! granting an Extra Turn and +6 Atk and inflicts [Isolation] after using it, and Legendary Leif and Scion Harmonized Leif & Seliph's Njörun's Zeal granting an Extra Turn and inflicting [Gravity] after triggering it.
  • Canto skills with the remainder amount of movement used when Canto activates will have that number be reduced to 0 if the user warps to a space before performing their action, likely to prevent the user being able to move a large amount of spaces after performing their actions, such as Flying units with the Near Trace skills being able to move 3 spaces after performing their action if they warped a good distance beforehand.
  • Related to Canto skills, due to the abundance of Canto on units, developers included the [Canto Control] effect, currently inflicted by the unique refine for Adrift Mikoto's Doting Staff to all foes within 4 spaces of the user, allows the user to limit how far the inflicted unit can move when their [Canto] triggers, where if the unit is melee they can only move 1 space, while ranged units just end their movement there, where while being very limited, allows player to have a defense against Canto units common in the Meta Game.
  • Some skills have certain effects that will not trigger if the user activates [Savior]^note unit temporarily occupies the space and takes place of an ally within range of the user from the foe's attacks before the start of combat while also being treated as being adjacent to that ally, and will not trigger if there is another ally that has the same [Savior] trigger within range of that ally or the ally is on an intraversable space for the user, such as Water and Mountains tiles to prevent the skill from becoming powerful alongside the [Savior] skill, where for example Spd Preempt 3, while inflicting -4 Spd on the foe during combat, will have the counterattack before the foe's first attack if the user has more Spd during combat and the foe wields a ranged weapon not work with [Savior], and the Captain Skill Might of Myriads granting the user +6 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat and counterattacking regardless of foe's range not activating with [Savior].
  • Due to how Staff units are mechanically unusual, there is bound to be some clauses whenever something that was once barred from them are introduced to them in updates and banners:
    • The Staff Assist skills Rescue, Return and Nudge have the same effect as Draw Back, Reposition and Shove, respectively, with the addition of healing the target ally, with the downside of using these skills does not give Exp, SP and Special charges when used, as a way to prevent Staff units to use these skills to build up Special charges, even if the target is already at maximum HP, unlike the other movement Assist skills they share the same effect, where those Staff assist skills would Power Creep those skills if it did otherwise.
    • The Offensive Staff specials have a clause that make them not build up charges if the user uses an Assist skill to prevent Staff units from building up their specials outside of combat like the other Offensive specials.
    • Staff weapons that gives -1 maximum special cooldown have a clause that prevent reducing the maximum special cooldown of Specials from going below 1 to prevent Staff specials that have 1 maximum special cooldown such as Imbue or Windfire Balm+ from triggering instantly from using Staff Assist skills.
  • The inheritance of Arcane weapons from Rearmed Heroes and Attuned skills from Attuned Heroes have some clauses that prevents it from being exploited:
    • Rearmed and Attuned Heroes that have their skills and/or Arcane weapons for the former and Attuned skills for the latter inherited to other units, as well as units that inherit it, can no longer be turned into Combat Manuals to prevent players from essentially inheriting skills from the same Rearmed or Attuned Hero twice.
    • Units that inherit an Arcane weapon and/or an Attuned skill cannot equip any of those and their exclusive skill at the same time (excluding weapons with Attuned skills and Dance/Sing/Play with dancers), excluding ones from other Rearmed or Attuned Heroes, where for example Legendary Ike cannot equip Arcane Devourer from Rearmed Chrom and/or Atk Oath Echo from Attuned Peony alongside his Radiant Aether (II), as a way to prevent units with exclusive skills being better options over ones that don't have exclusive skills.
• Once a Season: Several seasonal banners have so far always followed a few patterns in terms of what unit types they feature, and consistently appear at their appropriate times, like Summer banners always appearing in June and July.
  • New Year's banners feature every type of unit except armoured units, and starting from the second NY banner and onward, they have featured units who are original to Heroes itself. From 2020 and onward, they also feature Beast units.
  • Valentine's banners feature at least two armoured units and two cavalry units, and usually follow the theme of familial love.
  • Spring banners feature at least one flying unit, and from 2018 onward, features either one of the Whitewings or one of the royals of Macedon from Archanaea.
  • Summer banners feature any kind of unit ^note For five years, they featured every unit type except armoured units, until Harmonized Summer Edelgard and Altina broke that streak in the first Summer banner of 2022, and they pop up twice a year, with the second always following the first. From 2021 onward, the second of these Summer banners features more Heroes original characters.
  • Dancer banners featured dancers, with every unit that's featured having refreshing abilities. They usually follow up the summer banners, although they were discontinued from 2021 onward. In its place however, appearing around the same time, are festival banners that celebrate a specific theme, culture or history (such as the Crusaders of Jugdral, or the various Tribes in Fates).
  • Halloween banners feature at least one armoured unit, and from 2020 to 2022, only featured Dragon units. 2023's Halloween banner finally broke that trend and returned to (mostly) humans playing dress up again.
  • Ninja banners appear in November, and feature any kind of unit ^note Armours were an exception up until 2023 when Zelgius showed up, with every unit wielding a weapon that strikes twice. They always feature a Duo unit whose Duo skill gives them a self-refresh, letting them take another action as long as they've entered combat at least once during that turn.
  • Winter banners usually feature at least two armoured units, and the free unit is always an armoured unit.
• One-Gender Race: Dragon units used to be all female—including the generic Manakete enemies—until the arrival of the Fallen Heroes banner, which included Male Robin as a green armored dragon, and many more male Manaketes have been released since then.^note Male Corrin is also a dragon in his home game, but in Heroes, is treated as a sword or (in his New Year's variant) bow user and thus isn't affected by dragon-related buffs or anti-dragon weapons.
• One Stat to Rule Them All: Generally speaking, you're doomed if the other guy has more Spd than you. Spd-based damage reduction is so prevalent that your theoretical Fragile Speedster units can end up way tougher to actually kill than your Mighty Glacier units.
• One-Steve Limit:
  • The Choose Your Legends events and the game itself usually do not change the names of some Japanese-only Fire Emblem characters. Therefore, there's both Arthur of Nohr and Arthur son of Tailtiu and the game does not bat an eye on this. The same can also be said of Hilda Valentine Goneril and Hilda of Friege, General Selena of Grado and Camilla's retainer Selena, and even Lorenz of Grust and Lorenz Hellman Gloucester (the Lost Lore in Archanea featured the former Lorenz, and his name is written exactly like the latter). When you say their names in context of Heroes, you may want to be careful to not refer to the wrong person.
  • Fáfnir is both the name given to the generic flying dragon enemies, and the character who is the King of Niðavellir from Book V.
• Only Six Faces: Some artists often use the same faces on their character arts, but are usually varied enough that they look different side-by-side. Fujiwara Ryo (character artist of Regular Male Robin, Seth, Halloween Jakob and Regular Joshua), however, has a bit of a reputation for suffering from Same Face Syndrome. While the individual pieces are quite well-drawn, looking at them side-by-side shows that the characters' faces only really differ by the color and scaling of their eyes.
• Orphaned Etymology: At the end of "Winter Dreamland", Manuela grumbles that she sounds like a broken record regarding her troubles with men. The phonograph record was invented in the late 1800s and would be very unlikely to be present in a medieval fantasy setting.
• Optional Boss: The Grand Hero Battles. They're normally only around for a week, and often have very powerful enemies to face, usually with very inflated stats on higher difficulties and just the right skills to destroy the player. These maps must be cleared without a single ally falling, otherwise it's game over. Clear these maps however, and you get a unit that is unobtainable anywhere else.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The Manaketes use their Dragonstones to transform between human and draconic forms here, just like in their respective games. While many have forms that resemble traditional western dragons, Fae's is covered with feathers while Corrin's vaguely resembles a qilin.
• Out of Character: Invoked by Winter Tharja, who tries to act more "normally" in an attempt to win Robin over. It naturally fails, and even Robin himself wonders what's going on with her.
• Out-of-Character Alert: Discussed in Brave Soren's Forging Bonds S-rank conversation. He is bothered by Ranulf's outgoing mannerisms and tells him that if Soren, the resident Deadpan Snarker in the Tellius games, were to address anyone as "buddy", that is a good reason to panic.
• Out of Focus: Masked Marth was introduced as a major recurring character regarding the Tempest Trials, but after appearing in every Trial in 2017 and roughly half in 2018, she became increasingly margainalized. She made appearances in three Trials in 2019, two in 2020, and three in 2021, with May 2021's "Engagement" being her most recent storyline appearance at time of writing.

P

• Palette Swap:
  • A lot of weapons are functionally identical to another weapon in Mt and effect, with the only difference being appearance, lore, and wielder. For instance, swords like Raijinto, Siegfried, Ragnell, and Alondite all have the Distant Counter effect, just like the lances Gradivus and Leiptr, or the axe Stout Tomahawk, until refinements to all those weapons made them unique to each other.
  • The Sanctuary of the Mages Tap Battle has generic Red Mages and Troubadours instead of Sword Fighters and Lance Cavaliers, but they play the same way as their physical brethren.
  • There are specials that have the same effects, such as Mayhem Aether, the unique special skill of Fallen Ike, which is mechanically identical to the Radiant Aether skill used by Legendary and Valentine Ike.
• Parent-Child Team: First generation characters from Genealogy, Awakening, and Fates can team up with their children. Then there's also characters from The Blazing Blade who can team up with their children from The Binding Blade, as well as parent characters like Rudolf, Greil, Mikoto, and Garon who can team up with their children. Hector and Lilina even team up in Paralogue 18, while Eliwood and Roy band together for Tempest Trials: Breath of Destiny.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling:
  • Certain events are intended to introduce new mechanics such as the Defense Tiles in the Defensive Battles map, or to pit players against the character designer of Awakening and Fates, Yusuke Kozaki, in the Yusuke Kozaki Trials. However, because these event maps always pay out 4.6 Hero Merit per battle (the maximum for most maps in the game) and cost merely 5 stamina, players used these challenges to quickly accumulate Hero Merit.
  • The Chain Challenge also became a Hero Merit farm. Even the easiest maps will give a large amount of Hero Merit per character for only 30 stamina. Also, some players intentionally leave a 10-map Normal challenge uncleared because it is the easiest way to level up characters of level 30 or more, since clearing the challenge will reduce the experience and SP given on further attempts, and the reward for clearing the challenge is minimal. Clearing even just one map in the challenge will still allow you to keep the rewards from that map.
  • The Fire Emblem Warriors maps had numerous reinforcements or many more enemies than usual, and they were much weaker than even the typical fodder unit. This made them the best way to grind experience and SP while they were available. This was so beneficial to the player, that the devs eventually created the Special Training maps specifically for that purpose, as the Warriors maps were only available for a limited time.
  • Special Training maps contain many reinforcements and are tuned specifically to help train certain units, e.g. Special Training: Bows contains mostly flyers and bow units. As such, they are an effective way to powerlevel your units.
  • Since they were updated to cost zero stamina, Grand Hero Battle and Bound Hero Battle maps are the most efficient way to grind Hero Merit, stamina-wise.
• The Perils of Being the Best: Chill Skills allow the user to debuff foes at the start of their turn with the highest stats on their team, with up to -7 to the foe with that highest stat with the single stat version, and -5 to two of the stats to the foe with the highest total sum with those two stats on their team with the tier 3 dual stat version, and -6 to two of the stats on the highest sum and foe within 2 spaces of that target with the tier 4 dual stat version, such as Chill Def inflicting -7 Def on the foes with the highest Def, Chill Atk/Spd 2 inflicting -5 Atk/Spd to the foe with the highest total sum of their Atk and Spd, and Chill Def/Res 3 inflicting -6 Def/Res to the foe with the highest total sum of their Def and Res and any foes within 2 spaces of that foe. The Bright Shrine and Dark Shrine structures in Aether Raids have the same effects as the dual stat version, except they inflicts up to -11 to two of the stats depending on its level, with the Bright Shrine targeting Atk/Spd, and the Dark Shrine targeting Def/Res. Plegian Harmonized Dorothea & Lene's Fell Candelabra has the same effect as the single stat version, functioning as if they have Chill Atk, Chill Spd, Chill Def, and Chill Res, only applying -6 to each of those stats at the start of the user's turn.
• Permadeath
  • Averted, unlike other Fire Emblem games; characters who are defeated return at the end of the battle. Instead, the penalty is the loss of any experience and SP they accrued for that battle (which was removed in update 2.5.0, where the punishment is now no Hero Merit gained). Losing units is also discouraged in Arena Duels, where your score for winning drops with each fallen hero. In-game, it's noted that a defeated character is simply re-summoned should they fall, although their death is, of course, painful.
  • The Tempest Trials and Chain Challenges don't feature true Permadeath, but any units that are defeated will be unusable for the rest of the maps.
• Permanently Missable Content: Forging Bonds events have been, thus far, one-time-only limited time events. Want to read some of the best writing the game has to offer? Too bad, go find it on the internet, unless the specific one you missed was voted for a rerun at a later date.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: The spring variants of Alfonse and Sharena have light blue and pink accents, respectively. This also applies to their New Year's kimonos: Alfonse's is blue, while Sharena's is pink.
• Pirate:
  • The Pirate's Pride banner in August 2020 has heroes Dressed to Plunder; Tibarn, Brigid, Geese, and Darros used to be actual pirates in their home games, while Harmonized Pirate Veronica & Xander are only just dressing up as pirates, with it also not being the first time for Xander (as long as you're Japanese).
  • The Perilous Seas banner in August 2021 has heroes also Dressed to Plunder; Naesala and Lifis used to be actual pirates in their home games, while Surtr, Vika, Hinoka & Camilla are only just dressing up as pirates.
• Plague Episode: The Forging Bonds event "The Fire Within", featuring the arrivals Midori, Lilith, Rinkah, and Forrest, has the newcomers arrive shortly after an ailment gets a hold on the Order of Heroes. Forrest and Lilith succumb to the illness, and as soon as the last ingredient is gathered, Midori falls ill, leaving Rinkah to make the medicine with instructions Midori wrote down in advance. It turns out to be a foodborne illness from a bad potato batch, to which Rinkah has grown resistant due to her cooking habits.
• Play Every Day: Each day different special maps, the Training Tower's rewards, and some quest sets rotate. You can also get certain items depending on which day you log in.
• Playboy Bunny: Many of the Spring female units are dressed in provocative rabbit costumes.
• Player-Exclusive Mechanic: There are a few systems that the computer can't use that can give you an edge in battle.
  • Ally and Summoner supports give your units a stat bonus depending on the rank of the support, as well as trigger specific effects of skills for the former.
  • The +10 HP and +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res stat boosts for bonus units on Tempest Trials and Arena, which does not apply to defense teams.
  • The bonuses for certain areas and units in Grand Conquest applies to the player units, but not for the enemy.
  • After update 2.5.0, player units in Rival Domains and Grand Conquests can perform actions after they warp to camps and their own fort, but not the computer. However, on the highest Infernal difficulty in Grand Conquests, enemies will perform actions.
  • Only the player can use a Duo Hero's Duo Skill and Harmonized Hero's Harmonized Skill.
  • Legendary Leif's Meisterbogen prevents the foe from making a follow-up attack if he initiates combat, but this only works if a player is using him.
  • After update 5.5.0, player units in Pawns of Loki will have skills with [Savior] activate, but not the enemy units.
• Plot Archaeology: Book I ends with the Order of Heroes learning that a dark god has cursed the Emblian royals, and is the reason for Bruno and Veronica's bloodlust, in addition to Loki finding the Naglfar tome for her master to use. After the conclusion of Book II sees the beginning of a period of détente between Embla and Askr, the plot thread is only sporadically mentioned for the next three books. Thankfully, Book VI picks up where Book II left off and brings the story arc to a proper conclusion.
• Popularity Power: Popularity is the main deciding factor in the Voting Gauntlet, since a team with more players has more chances to score points.
• Power at a Price:
  • Life and Death grants its user up to +5 Atk/Spd for the 3rd tier and +7 Atk/Spd on the 4th tier, but also inflicts up to -5 Def/Res with the 3rd and 4th tier versions.
  • Still Water grant its user up to +5 Atk/Res for the 3rd tier and +7 Atk/Res on the 4th tier, but also inflicts -5 Def with the 3rd and 4th tier versions. Solid Ground has a similar effect, except the Def and Res are switched from Still Water. Alfred's Self-Improver is a stronger version of Solid Ground, where it grants the user +10 Atk, +5 Spd and +20 Def, and inflicts -1 special buildup per attack during combat if the user is at 25% HP or above at the start of combat, at the cost of -5 Res.
  • On the opposite end, Fortress Def and Fortress Res grant +5 Def and +5 Res, respectively, while Fortress Def/Res 2 grants +4 Def/Res, but also inflict -3 Atk. Fortress Def/Res 3 grants +6 Def/Res, but inflicts only -2 Atk instead.
  • Fury 3 grants the user up to +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res, but makes them take up to 6 damage after combat. Fury 4 has it go to +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res, and take 8 damage after combat.
  • Firesweep weapons, Roderick's Steady Lance and Soleil's eponymous Shine prevents the enemy from counterattacking, but the user cannot counterattack either.
  • Windsweep and Watersweep can prevent the enemy from counterattacking, but only if the user's Spd is higher and they initiate against specific weapon users, depending on what -sweep the user has equipped. They also prevent the user from doubling if the user initiates combat without the assistance of other skills, and will not protect the user from being doubled.
  • Lightning Breath(+) and Regular Nowi's Purifying Breath allows the user to counterattack even when attacked at a distance, but its Might is lower than other Breath attacks, and increases the maximum special cooldown by 1.
  • -blade tomes increase damage based on the amount of Status Buffs that the user has, but they also slow special charge by 1.
  • Weapons such as the Brave weapons, Dire Thunder, and Vafþrúðnir allow the user to attack twice regardless of Spd before the opponent can counterattack. On top of that, if the user has enough Spd to double, this leads to them attacking up to four times in a single round. However, the user also suffers either -2 or -5 Spd depending on the weapon, making it difficult to reach that quadruple attack threshold while also leaving the user more likely to get doubled themselves. The In The Moment weapons, as well as Duo Ninja Lyn & Florina's Tailwind Shuriken, Finn's Loyalty Spear and Ninja Igrene's Nabata Kunai instead gives the user +4 Spd and allows the user to attack twice if they initiate combat (and regardless of phase for Loyalty Spear), making it easier to quadruple their attacks, but also inflicts -4 Def/Res on the user, making them more vulnerable enemy attacks as well. The Ninja Training weapons, as well as Ninja Duo Female Corrin & Elise's Ninjutsu Scrolls allows the user to deal true damage equal to the part of the difference in Spd the user has over the foe's Spd, with it being 50% of the difference for the Ninja Training weapons, up to +4 true damage, while the Ninjutsu Scrolls has 70% of the difference, up to +7 true damage, while also granting +4 Spd to the user like the previous weapons, as well as allowing the user to attack twice if the user initiates combat, but also inflicts -4 Def/Res on the user. Lex's Goddess Axe allows the user to have +5 Def and attack twice, regardless of phase, but inflicts -5 Spd/Res, making the user more physically bulky, but still vulnerable to magic attacks. The Wyvern Ninja weapons, as well as Ninja Camilla's Flowery Scrolls, Ninja Cherche's Wyvern Ono and Ninja Duo Laegjarn & Fjorm's Flamefrost Bow allows the user to have +5 Def/Res and attack twice, but get hit with a bigger Spd penalty at -8. These weapons don't have the highest of Might, either.
  • Triangle Adept and the equivalent gem-based weapons (the Ruby Sword, Sapphire Lance, and Emerald Axe) amplify the Weapon Triangle's effect on both ends. This means when the user has the advantage, they will do 40% more damage to their opponents and take 40% less damage from them, but when they have the disadvantage, they will do 40% less damage to their opponents and take 40% more damage from them, as opposed to 20% in all cases.
  • The exclusive weapon refinement shared by the Basilikos and Solitary Blade gives "Life and Death 3" to the user, giving them more power at the cost of less durability. Combining this with "Life and Death 3/4" in their A Skill and Sacred Seal slot would make them a Glass Cannon, but it's Awesome, but Impractical for a reason.
  • Julius' Loptous tome gives him +3 Res and inflicts -6 Atk on an enemy that fights him without an anti-dragon weapon, but also makes him weak to anti-dragon weapons.
  • Fallen Berkut's Kriemhild allows him to deny any follow-up attacks as well as counterattack any ranged opponents that initiates on him if an ally is within 2 spaces of him, but instead of him receiving anything, the closest ally receives 20 damage after combat.
  • The Spendthrift Bow+ allows the user to gain +7 Atk and inflict -7 Atk on the foe during combat, but if the user has attacked, they get inflicted +2 special cooldown after combat.
• Power Creep:
  • The Slayer weapons became the first items added that objectively outclass their older counterparts. They're identical to Killer weapons but with higher Mt. Later on, the game also added stronger versions of the Anti-Armor weapons and the -wolf tomes. Thankfully, the same update allows units to upgrade their weaker weapons into the stronger versions without Skill Inheritance.
  • The increase of BST on many units released later in the game's life did not do wonders for some heroes, especially "Gen 1" heroes, but some heroes released earlier do standout from the competition, due to access to either exclusive skills or weapons that later heroes do not have.
    • Some heroes are just straight up weaker than later ones released, such as Canas pre-refine, who was overshadowed by later released heroes such as Ewan and Miranda, and some at the same time are easier to summon than others on top of being statistically stronger, such as Kliff being stronger and more available to the seasonal-only Spring Lucina, Regular Hilda, Gerik, Pirate Darros and Summer Caspar being stronger and more available to the seasonal-only 5* Spring Chrom, and Sedgar being stronger than Sue, Rath, and Summer Wolt, while being also more available than the 4* special Sue and seasonal-only 5* Summer Wolt.
    • Some are Downplayed examples, as while they have access to stronger stats, they do not have access to exclusive weapons, such as units like Summer Ylgr, Echidna, Summer Caspar and Pirate Lifis being statistically stronger than Raven pre-Resplendent, but he still has access to his exclusive weapon Basilikos and its refines over them.
    • Other Downplayed examples are heroes who are stronger in their niche, but have at least one or two of their stats be lower than their competition, such as Regular Conrad being a better Res tank Lance Cavalier than Regular Berkut, Jagen and Mathilda before all three received their personal weapons and their refines, but he misses a few HP and Atk for Regular Berkut, a few Spd for Jagen, and a lot of Spd for Mathilda, which are sometimes vital for surviving against certain enemies.
    • There are Zigzagged examples, however, as they still have a niche due to their exclusive weapons even after all the heroes released later don't have access to, such as Jeorge and Masked Marth, as while Jeorge is statistically weaker than heroes such as Legendary Alm, Dancing Nephenee, Regular Norne and Shinon, and in the case of Nephenee, access to Dance over him, he still has access to Parthia and its refines, and while Masked Marth is weaker than Astram statistically and skill inheritance wise, they still have access to Falchion, its refines, and refine evolution into the Sealed Falchion.
    • Even Dancers, who normally have less stats than their non-dancer Gen equivalents, are a Zigzagged example, as they still have access to Dance/Sing compared to later released heroes, and as such still stand out as support characters instead, such as Performing Arts Inigo being weaker than Thrasir, but he still has access to dance, and therefore can use the Dance-buffing and Cantrip skills.
  • At first, personal weapons typically had a secondary skill that was only as strong as a second tier skill. Later Special Weapons will usually have two skills that are on par with third tier skills or better. However, the older ones have a chance to catch up if an update allows them to be refined.
    • Dancer Berkut's Verðandi is a straight upgrade of Performing Arts Azura's Urðr and Ylissean Travelers Olivia's Skuld, giving +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res to the target instead of Azura's and Olivia's +3.
    • Lloyd's Regal Blade, which gave +2 Atk/Spd during combat if the foe is at full HP at the start of combat, was powercreeped by both Sacred Memories Eirika's unrefined Glepnir and Regular L'Arachel's unrefined Ivaldi with +3 Atk/Spd with the same conditions and additional stat boosts, but was later able to be refined to get up to par with them, with the refined Regal Blade now giving +3 Atk/Spd. When Sacred Memories Eirika's Glepnir and Regular L'Arachel's Ivaldi later on got refines in later updates, it powercreeped Regal Blade again by increasing it to +4 Atk/Spd if the foe is at full HP for the former, and gives +3 Atk/Spd/Res if the foe is at 75% HP or above at the start of combat. However, the former two were powercreeped by weapons such as Perceval's Prized Lance and Young Minerva's Dragoon Axe, which gave +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res in addition to inflicting -1 special buildup on the enemy per attack if the enemy is at full HP at the start of combat, Larcei's Edge from Regular Larcei, which gives +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res and ignore foe's field stat buffs during combat if the foe is at full HP or if the user is faster than the foe at the start of combat, and Shannan's Balmung, which gives +5 Atk/Spd/Def/Res and allows the user to ignore penalties inflicted on them during combat if the foe is at full HP or if the foe initiates combat.
  • Some of the Tier 3 skills released at launch that are inheritable to everyone were later powercrept by later released skills usually exclusive to certain units, but the tier 4 versions of those skills would later differentiate them from the once-superior options. For example, Quick Riposte 3, which allows the user to have a guaranteed follow-up up attack if the foe initiates combat the user is at 70% or above at the start of combat, was later powercrept by skills such as Vengeful Fighter 3, exclusive to Armor units, which grants the user a guaranteed follow-up attack and +1 special buildup per user's attack if the foe initiates combat and the user is at 50% HP or above at the start of combat, and Dragon's Ire 3, exclusive to Dragon units, which allows the user to ignore any skills that deny any of the user's follow-up attack and have a guaranteed follow-up attack if the foe initiates combat and the user is at 50% or above at the start of combat.
  • Some of the early exclusive weapons and their refines are undertuned compared to other exclusive weapons released later on, especially if the latter weapons also gain refines as well. For example, Regular Merric's refined Excalibur grants the user -1 maximum special cooldown, deals effective damage against flying units, and the exclusive refine allow the user to gain +5 Atk/Spd during combat if the user is within 2 spaces of a Tome or Staff wielding ally, compared to Asbel's Grafcalibur, which grants the user -1 maximum special cooldown, deals effective damage against flying units, and gives the user +5 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat if the user either initiates combat or if the user is within 2 spaces of an ally, regardless of what weapons they wield.
  • The Brazen skills are far more effective than the Defiant skills. While Defiant skills boost one stat by 7 and only activate if the unit starts its turn with 50% HP or less, Brazen skills boost two stats by 7 and activate if the unit enters battle with 80% HP or less, even if it's the middle of the enemy's turn. Additionally, Brazen skills can stack with other stat boosts, aren't affected by Panic since the boost only applies in battle, and are unaffected by skills that ignore stat boosts since they only affect visible stat boosts. The only advantage Defiant skills have is that they trigger Blade tome, and the refined Regular Eirika's Sieglinde and Regular Kaden's Kitsune Fang boosts, as well as give an edge with skills that compare the user's specific stat with the foe's one before the start of combat.
  • The Color Duel Movement 3 skills are direct upgrades to HP+5; they give the same effect in addition to treating the unit as if they have 170 Base Stat Total for the purposes of Arena scoring. The Color Duel Movement 4 skills are also direct upgrades to HP+5 and the dual stat 2 skills as well, where they give +5 HP and +2 Atk/Spd/Def/Res as well as calculate their BST as if they have 175 on Legendary and Mythic Heroes, and 180 BST for all other heroes in the competitive modes.
  • Speaking of the stat skills, the Squad Ace Sacred Seals received from the 71st Squad Assault onwards are superior to the single stat 3 and dual stat 2 skills and the previous Squad Ace Sacred Seal, such as Squad Ace BS 3 granting +5 HP and +3 Atk/Spd, compared to HP/Atk 2 and Squad Ace AE granting +4 HP and +2 Atk.
  • Repel and Close Call, although exclusive to Infantry Sword, Lance or Axe units, are direct upgrades over Knock Back and Hit and Run, respectively, as they have those effect alongside Damage Reduction if the user is faster than their foe during combat (and -4 Spd/Def on the foe during combat and +7 Spd when comparing Spd for the tier 4 versions).
  • Inheritable weapons released later are often more powerful than earlier ones. For example, the Pledged Blade+ and Huge Fan+ from the 2020 Bridal banner are more powerful versions of Sandfort Spade+ and Shoreline Rake+ from the Summer Returns banner in 2019, where while both give +4 Atk/Def during combat if there is a [Bonus] on the user, the former two also give +1 special buildup per foe's attack with the same activation requirements, and the Bridal Blade+ from the 2023 Bridal banner is more powerful than the Cake Cutter+ from the 2019 Bridal banner and the Heart's Blade+ from the 2019 Valentine banner, where Bridal Blade+ grants +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res and effectively reverses the foe's field stat buffs during combat if the user either initiates combat or is within 2 spaces of an ally, as opposed to just +4 Atk/Spd during combat if the user initiates combat with Cake Cutter+ and +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat if the user is adjacent to an ally with Heart's Blade+.
  • The Ideal skills are more effective versions of the Push skills at Tier 1~3, where the Ideal skills gives up to +5 to two of the user's stats during combat if the user is either at full HP at the start of combat or has a [Bonus] applied to them, while the Push skills just need the user to be at full HP at the start of combat, but deals 1 damage to the user after combat. Averted with the Tier 4 versions, where they have different activation requirements while also being a big boon for certain heroes, with the Ideal 4 skills giving +7 to two of the user's stats during combat if the user is either at full HP at the start of combat or has a [Bonus] applied to them, and an additional +2 to those stats if both requirements are met, which is great for units that want to be healthy and rely on buffs, while the Push 4 skills give +7 to two of the user's stats if the user is at 25% HP or above at the start of combat, but deals 5 damage to the user after combat, which is great for units that want to be damaged to activate other skills and weapons.
  • Surge Sparrow (exclusive to Melee units), Remote Sparrow (exclusive to Ranged units), Flash Sparrow (exclusive to Infantry and Armor units) and Flared Sparrow (exclusive to Flying and Cavalry units), are direct upgrades to Swift Sparrow 3, where not only all four give +7 Atk/Spd during combat if the user initiates combat, as opposed to +6 Atk and +7 Spd with Swift Sparrow 3, but:
    • Surge Sparrow also allows the user to recover HP equal to X% of the user's maximum HP when the user triggers a damage special during combat, where X = 20 x the maximum special cooldown the user has equipped, + 10, up to 100%.
    • Remote Sparrow also reduces damage taken from the foe's first attack by 30%.
    • Flash Sparrow also grants +1 special buildup per attack performed if the user has no less than 5 Spd lower than the foe during combat.
    • Flared Sparrow also inflicts 7 damage to the foe at the start of combat and places [Divine Veil (Flame)] tiles in a 5 space long area centered on the foe after combat.
  • The Kumo Naginata+ and Kumo Yumi+ are stronger versions of the Brave Lance+ and Brave Bow+, where not only Kumo Naginata+ has 1 might higher than the Brave Lance+, but Kumo Naginata+ and Kumo Yumi+ do not have the -5 Spd penalty, allows the user to warp to an adjacent space of an ally within 2 spaces of the user, and grants +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat if the foe is at 75% HP or above at the start of combat.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: Due to the nature of Heroes being a Crossover of many Fire Emblem games, this was going to be inevitable. With the range of characters such as common villagers, knights, mercenaries, royalty, dragons, and gods among the heroes who can be summoned, you can expect a few matchups where some characters do poorly against another character, or have an equal matchup against those who have a weaker power level in their home games where they should have the clear advantage, and things gets worst when seasonal variants of units are involved. As such, you can expect matchups ranging from a tiger from Gallia going toe-to-toe against a knight and retainer of a princess of Nohr, to a guardian of Arcadia losing to a teenage son of a warrior of Renais, to a divine dragon who is worshiped as a god and created divine weapons in 6 of the main games and their remakes losing to... women wielding paper fans and water buckets.
• Power Echoes: The mirages from Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE speak with a prominent echo in their voices.
• Power Equals Rarity: You are less likely to obtain higher-star units when summoning, but they are generally more powerful than lower-star units.
• Power Floats: Legendary and Halloween Fallen Female Robin, Yune, Naga, Brave and Bridal Micaiah, Altina, Lilith, and Halloween Duo Sothis & Male Byleth are seen as units floating without using wings, which makes them fliers without a mount, much like units like Regular Myrrh and Summer Young Tiki.
• Power Glows:
  • The most powerful units, five-star units, have a faint golden glow around them, visible in combat, but most evident on the unit status screen. Characters with refined weapons also glow, the color depending on what type of upgrade they're using.
  • Some units have weapons that are based on older weapons but with glowing blades or spearheads, to help emphasize and show how powerful these new weapons are. Such examples include Legendary Sigurd's Hallowed Tyrfing, Brave Eirika's Binding Reginleif, and Brave Marth's Genesis Falchion.
• The Power of Friendship:
  • Legendary Heroes with the Battle Blessing and the last hero in your team in Allegiance Battles can pair up with other allies, which gives both the Legendary Hero and ally stat boosts, and the player can change between them at will, even if their turn is finished.
  • The -owl tomes, Regular Innes' Nidhogg, Regular Katarina's Reese's Tome, and the unique refine for Regular Soren's Wind's Brand, Raigh's Hermit's Tome, gives +2 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat for each ally adjacent to them.
  • The Bond skills boost two of the user's stats by 5 during combat if they have an ally adjacent to them, while the Bond 4 skills increases them by +7 to two of the user's stats, as well as negating any penalties to those stats during combat. The exclusive refinement for Regular Chrom's, Regular Lucina's, and Masked Marth's Falchion has a similar effect, except it grants the user +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat. The -bloom weapons, Loyal Wreath, Faithful Axe and Heart's Blade grant the user +3 Atk/Spd/Def/Res under the same conditions. Adrift Camilla's Book of Dreams and Adrift Azura's Book of Shadows have the same activation conditions, except they inflicts -4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res to the foe during combat.
  • The Unity skills are a stronger versions of the Bond 3 skills, as while the +5 to two of the user's stats during combat are the same, the activation range is increased to 2 spaces, and any penalties on those stats are essentially reversed. For example, with Atk/Def Unity, if the user has -5 Atk and -7 Def, the user gains +10 Atk and +14 Def, essentially giving +5 Atk and +7 Def during combat, on top of the +5 Atk/Def from the base effect.
  • There are skills and weapons that give stat boosts to two of the user's during combat if the user have certain allies within 2 spaces of them, most of them being unique refines for personal weapons. For example, Hinoka's Spear for Regular Hinoka grants the user +4 Atk/Spd during combat if there is a Flying or Infantry ally within 2 spaces of the user, the unique refine for Regular Sanaki's Cymbeline grants her +5 Atk/Res during combat if there is a Flying ally within 2 spaces of the user, and the unique refine for both Regular Tikis' Breath of Fog grants them +5 Atk/Def during combat if there is a Sword or Dragon ally within 2 spaces of the user.
  • There are also skills and weapons that activate if the user either initiates combat or is within 2 spaces of an ally. For example, Brave Claude's Wind Parthia allows him to gain +5 Atk/Spd/Def/Res and recover 50% of his max HP whenever he activates a damage special during combat, Legendary Lyn's Laws of Sacae II allows her to gain +6 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat and prevent the foe from counterattacking if they wield a melee weapon and she has 5 Spd or more higher than her foe, and the unique refine for Regular and Legendary Ryoma's Rajinto allows him to gain +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat and ignore skills that deny any of his follow-up attacks and skills that guarantee the foe's follow-up attacks, all which activates if the user either initiates combat or is within 2 spaces of an ally.
  • There are also weapons that give boosts if the user has a support partner. For example, Regular Velouria's Wolfpup Fang grants her and any of her support partner -2 special cooldown at the start of turn 1, Lilith's Astral Breath allows her to gain +5 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat if she is within 3 spaces of her support partner, as well as being able to warp to an adjacent space of her support partner, and the unique refine for Regular Male Corrin's Yato grants his support partner +4 Atk/Spd/Def/Res during combat if they are within 2 spaces of him.
  • The Form skills give the user +2 to two of the user's stats for every ally within 2 spaces of the user, with +1 to those stats if there is at least 1 ally within that range, capping out at +7. Bridal Sanaki's unrefined Nifl Frostflowers, Bridal Tharja's unrefined Múspell Fireposy, Regular Nailah's Wolf Queen Fang, Cain's Bull Blade, Abel's Panther Lance, Glittering Breath+, and Goodie Boot+ has a similar effect, except that it increases 2 of the user's stats by 2 for each ally within 2 spaces of the user during combat, but caps out at +6 instead.
  • The Joint Hone skills grants the stats of the user and any adjacent ally by +5 at the start of the user's turn, but the user must have at least one adjacent ally for the buff to activate. Fresh Bouquet, Ardent Service, and Legendary Tiki and Halloween Harmonized Young Tiki & Ninian's With Everyone! have the same activation conditions, but instead increases by +4 Spd for Fresh Bouquet, +4 Atk for Ardent Service, and +5 Def/Res for With Everyone!. Legendary Roy's Human Virtue has the same effect, but gives +6 Atk/Spd to the user and adjacent non-Dragon and Beast allies at the start of his turn if he's adjacent to an ally and they're not a Beast or Dragon unit. Regular Fae's Eternal Breath has a similar effect, with the user granting +5 Atk/Spd/Def/Res to the user and any allies within 2 space of the user at the start of the user's turn if there is an ally within 2 spaces of the user.
  • The Joint Drive Skills grants the user and any allies within 2 spaces of the user +4 to a single stat during combat if there is an ally within 2 spaces of the user. Ranulf's Covert Cat Fang has a similar effect, except it gives +3 Atk/Def during combat. The unique refine for Regular Female Morgan's Father's Tactics has the same effect, except it gives +3 Atk/Spd during combat. Seteth's Spear of Assal has the same effect, except it grants the +4 Atk/Spd as well as ignoring field stat buffs on the foe's Atk and Spd during combat, as well as grant allies within 2 spaces +4 Atk/Spd during combat. The 2021 Bridal weapons, Wings of Fate Hinoka's refined Warrior Princess and the unique refine for Scattered Fangs Nino's Giga Excalibur and Summer Tana's Fruit of Iðunn has a very similar effect with Seteth's Spear of Assal, only excluding the ignoring field stat buffs on the foe during combat on the Spear of Assal. The unique refine for Oscar's Loyal Greatlance and Gunter's Inveterate Axe has a similar effect, except they grants all Infantry and Cavalry allies within 2 spaces of them stat boosts during combat, as well as granting themselves stat boosts during combat if they're within 2 spaces of an Infantry or Cavalry ally, with +3 Atk/Spd for the former, and +4 Atk/Def for the latter.
• Power Up Letdown:
  • Some Weapon Refines can be saddled with this issue, on account of either being released earlier into the mechanic's lifespan and thus being very tame due to that, or being at odds with how the character is usually used. This is especially the case for units who lacked a unique weapon, where they are more likely to have a weapon that doesn't work for them due to the base effect. For example: Regular Seth's Weapon Refine, giving him the Silverbrand, is a higher damage Triangle Adept sword, with the unique refine giving it a Spd Tactics 3 effect, making it generally a bad choice to learn and spend the resources on because of the weak effects.
  • Sometimes a Tier 4 version of a skill for what is supposed to have all upsides over the Tier 3 versions often has a less desirable effect for a specific playstyle. For example, the Tier 4 versions of the Far Trace skills, besides the increased debuffs and 7 damage boost before and during combat, also changes the [Canto (Rem.)] to [Canto (Rem.; Min 1)] with the Tier 3 versions, where that effect is undesirable for units that gain extra actions such as all the Ninja Duo units, where Canto would not trigger if they exhaust all their movement after performing an action with [Canto (Rem.)], but will trigger with [Canto (Rem.; Min 1)] as they would at least move 1 space after performing an action, where they would want Canto to trigger after their extra action in order to retreat from enemy threats, especially in Aether Raids.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Like the 3DS Fire Emblem games onward, characters shout one of four lines when activating an offensive skill. Originally played with for healers prior to the release of their first offensive special, Holy Pressure, in 2023; while they did shout lines, their skills did't trigger unless they're healing someone, and their offensive skill lines were only heard in the Catalog of Heroes and during Tap Battles.
• Princeling Rivalry: A variation between branches of a family rather than siblings. It's initially alluded to in Book I with Prince Bruno's family situation where his mother was framed for treason (spying for Askr) and executed, with he himself fleeing to Askr in order to seek revenge on the empire. In Book VI, it's revealed that this is a common occurrence: the previous Emperor, Veronica's father, framed Letizia's family for treason in order to seize the throne, demoting Letizia's place in the line of succession and stripping her family of their land and royal titles.
• Promoted to Playable:
  • Many characters that had previously been unplayable antagonists and supporting characters in their home games can be recruited in Heroes as playable units. ^{These characters are:} Naga, Medeus, Duma, Rudolf, Mila, the Brigand Boss, Berkut, Rinea, Hestia, Marla, Annand, Díthorba, Ullr, Hilda, Arion, Reinhardt, Kempf, Veld, August, Idunn, Elimine, Leila, Bramimond, Sonia, Limstella, Mark, Fargus, Fomortiis, Vigarde, Greil, Yune, Altina, Jorge, Ludveck, Dheginsea, Ashera, Mustafa, Phila, Cervantes, Validar, Iago, Garon, Mikoto, Lilith, Arete, Hans, Anankos, Sothis, Kronya, the Death Knight, Rhea/Seiros, Nemesis, Solon, the Gatekeeper, "Cornelia"/Cleobulus, Lumera, and Zephia.
  • Most NPC antagonists eventually join the playable roster one way or another. Veronica gained a playable alternate version from the Arrival of the Brave banner, Laevatein, Laegjarn, and Helbindi became playable from the Generals of Múspell banner, Loki became playable from the Brave Redux banner, Surtr (along with Ylgr) became playable from the Fire and Ice banner, Bruno gained a playable alternate version from the Regal Rabbits seasonal banner, Letizia became playable with the Book 6 Midpoint banner, and Thrasir, Líf, Hel, Plumeria, Triandra, Freyja, Ótr, Eitri, Thórr, and Embla all became playable from their respective Legendary and Mythic Hero banners.
• Protection Mission:
  • Rival Domains and Relay Defense has the player defend their fortress from being attacked 3 times by enemies, with the former also have the player attempt to destroy the enemy fortress to end the map. However, the battle ends when 10 turns have passed for the former, and 8 turns for the latter, and that players need to reach a certain score to actually win.
  • Subverted with Grand Conquest, where while the gameplay functions exactly like Rival Domains, the player does not need to defend the fortress from foes to prevent the player from losing, as it being destroyed ends the map instead and still gives score to the player.
  • Mjölnir's Strike, Relay Defense's successor, has the player defend two gateways from waves of enemies for 7 turns, with players having access structures in order to give them an edge.
• Pun: The "New Year: ω Special Heroes" banner features the New Year variants of álfar units, and "ω" is the lowercase of Omega, or Ω. In other words, the Alpha and Omega.
• Purple Is Powerful: A select number of Special weapons can be upgraded in the Weapon Refinery, with each having the selection of a unique refinement. If that unique refinement is equipped, the character with that weapon will gain a purple glow.
• Purposely Overpowered: Some Heroes are a cut above others in the weapon and movement type they belong to, or perform a certain role better, but many Brave, Ascended, Rearmed, Attuned, Legendary, Mythic, Duo, and Harmonized Heroes are this on purpose due to their exclusive weapons, skills, and/or their optimized statline, such as Legendary Hector being better than some Axe Armored heroes at the time of his release, including Regular Hector. In the event they fall behind, they usually get a weapon refine that will make each of them jump back into being overpowered.
• Put on a Bus: On the side of the seasonal Paralogues, every single one after "Renewed Spirit" has no mention of the Order of Heroes at all in the narrative, instead focusing more on the featured characters themselves as opposed to the shenanigans of Anna, Sharena, and Alfonse.
• Puzzle Boss: Tactics Drills give you specific units and a small number of turns to clear a level, usually by taking advantage of the limited skill set they have. One example is Grandmaster 26: Absolute Strength, where you need to set up your characters, normally weak on their own, to defeat the Boss in Mook's Clothing who has 99 HP/Atk/Spd and 50 Def/Res that initially spawns on that map on the last turn.

Q

• A Quest Giver Is You: The Lost Lore events have you sending units to locations in other worlds to collect story information about particular events that happened in that world. After a period of time, they return with lines and other items like badges and crystals. Upon completing the first four acts, a final act opens up where your dispatched team has to defeat an enemy related to that world. Finish that, and your reward is a summary of an important event that happened in one of the world's games.

R

• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Even by Fire Emblem standards, the Order of Heroes is weird. It consists of, among others, an ordinary individual from an industrialized world, royalty, commoners, kind people, Ax-Crazy psychopaths, an omnicidal artificial dragon, two Voodoo Zombies, and a Japanese entertainment group.
• Rare Candy:
  • The Dragonflowers introduced in update 3.2.0 give allies +1 to a single stat for each charge, up to 10 times for infantry introduced prior to 3.2.0, and 5 times for all other units. Later yearly updates increase the cap by +5, with it currently +20 for infantry units pre-3.2.0, +15 for all other units pre-3.2.0 and infantry post-3.2.0, +10 for all other units pre-4.9.0 and infantry units pre-5.8.0, and +5 for all units post-5.8.0.
  • The Trait Fruit allows players to change the combination of Assets and Flaws of a unit, called Trait, with 100 being used for every change, with even a choice to Normalize it.
  • The Ascendant Florets allows heroes to gain only one Ascended Asset on top of their existing one, and can even be used to neutralize Flaws, but cannot stack with their existing Asset. Ascended Heroes can do this without using Ascendant Florets, but Trait Fruits are needed to change a unit's Ascended Asset (while also changing the unit's base Asset and possible Flaw) after selecting one for an Ascended Hero and using an Ascendant Floret on a non-Ascended Hero.
• Rattling Off Legal: One of Anna: Secret Seller's tap quotes has her offering the Summoner a special discount, along with a string of disclaimers.
  "One-time offer. Restrictions may apply. Offer may change without prior notice and probably at time of checkout. You break it, you buy it."
• Recurring Boss: All of the Story Mode bosses are fought several times throughout the Book before they're given a Plotline Death.
• Recurring Element:
  • Since the Darker and Edgier Book II, there has been a banner featuring Fallen Heroes (which usually comes with a Grand Hero Battle as well). These heroes are supposedly based off possessed or cursed versions from the games they come from. They usually feature at least one new unit and the rest of them are alts. For Book II, there's Hardin, Male Robin (as Grima), Celica and Takumi. In Book III, there's Mareeta (who got a normal version of herself later), Berkut, Corrin (Female), Tiki (Young) and Delthea. For Book IV, we have Ike, Corrin (Male), Lyon, Julia, and Ashnard. For Book V there's Morgan (Male and Female), Dimitri, Edelgard, and Orson. For Book VI we have Lilith, Ninian, Gustav, Rhea, and Muarim. For Book VII we have Female Byleth, Maria, Anankos, Chrom, and Linus.
  • From Book III Onwards, when one of the supporting antagonists die (Thrasir, Plumeria and Ótr in particular), it's always timed around the September Mythic Hero Banner that ends up featuring them and making them Promoted to Playable almost right then and there (all three of them have been released on September 30).
  • In terms of the series staple "archetypes":
    • Gunnthrá and Gustav are the Cornelius archetype: mentor/parental characters who die early on in their introductory Books to motivate the established Lord character.
    • The Summoner serves as the tactician character, and they are directly said to resemble other tacticians like Mark and Robin.
    • Laegjarn of Book II fulfils the Camus archetype, as a Noble Top Enforcer loyal to her country despite holding no particular animosity towards the protagonists, who recognizes her father and country's cruelty but ultimately will not defect.
  • While not codified archetypes, the circumstances surrounding Alfonse, Sharena, and Zacharias/Bruno echo those of Eirika, Ephraim, and Lyon and Rowan, Lianna, and Darios: a Brother–Sister Team faced with inheriting the throne, who are childhood friends with another prince of their neighboring country, until war breaks out and the neighboring country falls under the influence of a dragon-god and possesses said prince, who demands a Mercy Kill from the sibling royals. Unlike Lyon and Darios, however, "Zacharias"'s status as Emblian royalty is a secret, and Bruno is already savvy to his curse and takes precautions for it. Alfonse is much more of a level-headed Smart Guy than either Rowan or Ephraim, and does not reject the crown, only insisting he can help more by serving in the Order of Heroes. Meanwhile, Sharena is more Book Dumb and less diplomatic than Eirika or Lianna, but conversely starts the game as a Warrior Princess who's already accustomed to the battlefield.
  • Many characters in this game receive variants that usually have similar capabilities to the base version of the unit, which then sometimes get carried over or even upgraded in future variations of the unit. For instance, every variant of Micaiah has a tome that has dual effectiveness against armour and cavalry units, have high Atk and Res, and usually some form of guaranteed follow up attack. Most versions of Ike have some form of Distant Counter (either having it as an A skill or built into his weapon), and all of them have Aether in some manner, some even having a unique version of Aether.
• Regional Bonus:
  • The English versions of the Brave Heroes have a unique quote that can only be heard when the player starts a map.
  • On New Years 2020, a video depicting the Askran siblings discussing Japanese New Years customs with Peony was released exclusively in English.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: While the universe that the Original Generation takes place in is based entirely around Norse Mythology, of which more details are under the characters tab, there are some weapons wielded by other characters that originated in this game that also have their names come from Norse Mythology:
  • Geirskögul, Thögn, Þrima, Sanngriðr, Randgríðr, Geirdriful, Hrist and Göndul, weapons for Lucina's Brave, Legendary and Rearmed variants, Camilla's Brave variant, Chrom's Legendary and Brave variants, Bernadetta's Winter variant and Nino's Attuned variant, respectively, come from the names of Valkyries.
  • Urðr, Skuld, and Verðandi, exclusive weapons for Performance Azura, Ylissean Travelers Olivia, and Dancing Berkut, respectively, are names of the Norns, the goddesses of fate.
  • Huginn's Egg and Muninn's Egg, exclusive weapons for Spring Cartia and Spring Sharena, respectively, are named after the two ravens that flies all over the world and brings information to Odin.
  • Veðrfölnir's Egg and Eagle's Egg, exclusive weapons for Spring Veronica and Spring Est, respectively, are named after the two birds that sit on top of Yggdrasill, with Veðrfölnir being a hawk that sits between the eyes of an unnamed giant eagle.
  • Fruit of Iðunn, Summer Tana's exclusive weapon (and by extension Idunn's name), is named after the goddess associated to apples and youth, specifically, the apples that give the gods youth.
  • Picnic Flora's weapon Sæhrímnir is named after the beast that is slaughtered and later revives every day by the chef Andhrímnir to feed the Aesir and Einherjar, and Picnic Felicia's weapon Eldhrímnir is named after the cauldron that Andhrímnir uses to cook the beast every day.
  • Dancing Ishtar's Mögþrasir and Dancing Reinhardt's Vafþrúðnir are named after two Jötun from Vafþrúðnismál, the third poem of Poetic Edda, whom the latter compete in a deadly contest of wits against Odin while mentioning the former once, and lost against Odin.
  • Duo Winter Marth & Elice have Tanngrisnir, which is named after one of two goats that pulled the chariot of Thor, and whom Thor cooked and later revived in order to feed the gods.
  • Gullinkambi Egg, Spring Severa's exclusive weapon (and by extension the horn Gullinkambi from Book IV), is named after the rooster that lives in Valhalla, and one of three rooster that its crowing is the signal of Ragnarök about to begin.
• Reluctant Fanservice Girl:
  • Unlike the other Brides, Lyndis is aghast towards the bride dress that she's forced to wear, insisting that there has to be an important reason why she's wearing that dress and it's totally not her idea.
  • Spring Catria does not appreciate having to wear a bunny outfit for the Spring Festival and mentions as much a lot.
    Spring Catria: My desire to protect you is no laughing matter! Unlike this outfit...
• Relationship Values:
  • A unit can form an Ally Support with one other unit, which boosts their stats depending on their Support Rank and proximity on the battlefield.
  • You can form a Summoner Support with one unit, or up to three with Feh Pass, which boosts the unit's stats depending on the Bond Rank.
  • Forging Bonds events have you building friendship with featured units, unlocking special conversations in the process.
  • Heroes Journey allows players to field 2 heroes, including the Summoner, to get Memento Points and spending 100 of them to view a Memento Event in order to gain 3~5 Rapport, where 6 Rapport allows the pair to fight a Boss and 20 Rapport to fight a Final Boss, with each giving rewards for players. Since the foes are at around level 38 if both heroes are at level 40 on Hard difficulty, the game mode can also help build up Support Ranks between the two if they are support partners with each other as well.
• Remember the New Guy?:
  • Occurs with entire countries in Books II and V, where it's suddenly mentioned that one neighboring country or the is at war with a country that isn't Embla or Askr, but which never comes up before their introductory chapter. For instance, Muspell's destructive war in Book II never encroaches on Niðavellir or Jötunheimr, despite threatening Askr.
  • In Book VI, Director Letizia, an Emblian royal is introduced as a woman who sees Veronica as a little sister and whom Veronica respects and cares deeply for, despite not seeing each other for years. While it's justified that no one in Askr knows who she is, Veronica herself has never spoken of any family besides Bruno, and "Thrasir" doesn't lament Letizia's presumable death in her Bad Future either.
• Required Party Member: Some quests and game modes force the use of specific types of heroes, heroes from specific games, or specific Heroes (usually the Askr trio).
• Restored My Faith in Humanity: During his special conversation, Zephiel starts to second-guess his belief that humanity is a waste due to witnessing the actions of the Summoner and the other Heroes.
• Retcon:
  • When the game first launched, Virion was the first hero you summoned during the Preface map "The Legend". After the 2.5.0 update, Regular Takumi is summoned instead. Virion still joins, but now he does so at the end of the map, along with Raigh and Matthew.
  • Anna and Sharena's castle lines refer to Alfonse being distant to Heroes because he befriended one who eventually had to leave and it upset him enough to decide he would Never Be Hurt Again. However, this is never expanded upon, and Book I eventually reveals that the person who left him was Zacharias, Alfonse and Sharena's childhood friend. While it's entirely possible Alfonse lost two people, it's either this trope or a What Happened to the Mouse? situation.
• Retraux:
  • Some of the music, such as for Paralogue 10's maps, are clearly synthesized and sounds like they were directly ripped from a Game Boy Advance or Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
  • The boss music for certain Bound Hero Battles, such as Hawkeye & Ninian or Seliph & Julia, as well as the battle music in Heroic Ordeals, are direct rips of the player phase battle themes from the respective games the featured characters originate from.
  • The Tap Battles "Farewells" and "Heir of Light" use music from the games they're based on as boss music.
  • The 8-bit accessories, as well as the 2020 April Fools video and the map associated with it, all mimic the artstyle used in the NES games.
• Rewarding Vandalism:
  • In Aether Raids, breaking Aether Fountains and Amphorae recovers Aether, the amount recovered depending on your lift tier, but only if you rout all the enemies within the time limit. Considering that you spend Aether on every attack raid, it's encouraged to go after them if you can.
  • The AR-O A Skills gives the unit if they're on the attacking raid team in Aether Raids stat boosts to 2 of their stats during combat, depending on how many defense structures are remaining on the enemy team, where with the tier 3 versions, with 2 or less giving a substantial +10, 3 giving +7, 4 giving +4, and 5 or more just +1, so players are encouraged to destroy enemy structures to gain the maximum benefits of these skills.
• Rock Beats Laser: The characters from Niðavellir fight in Mini-Mecha called Gullinbursti armed with machine guns and missiles, yet your sword-wielding characters can go toe-to-toe with them just fine.
• Rocket-Tag Gameplay: The competitive modes such as Arena, Aether Raids and Summoner Duels all but requires one-round kills, especially if you want to win without casualties. If you can't one-shot an enemy hero, prepare to be one-shotted by them, especially if enemy dancers come into play.
• Rotating Arcs: During the relative lull in the Book updates in July for the Summer seasonal banners since 2021, the Books 3 installments earlier gain focus again with the release of the corresponding Tempest Trials+ Series and videos on the official Nintendo Channel.
• Royalty Superpower: The Askran and Emblian royal families possess the ability to manipulate portals to other worlds, but only Askr can open them and Embla can close them.

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