Guide Dang It / Fire Emblem

• While it's taken for granted now, nothing in the games themselves has ever explained how a unit's stats increase when they level up, except for the occasional vague comment about "differing potential". The fact that stat gains are only generally biased by character and completely at the mercy of the Random Number God is never stated, let alone specific growth rates. Later games also have a unit's current class affect their growth rates in various ways, which is also never proper explained. If you didn't look this up and were used to other RPGs with their more consistent progression, it would be a complete mystery why the same unit can be a war god one playthrough, and a liability the next.
• Path of Radiance
  • To convince a certain character (Shinon, Chapter 18) to rejoin your crew late in the game, you have to have one inconsequential character (Rolf, a character whose lone prior interaction was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo near the beginning of the game) talk to him, then have the Ike defeat him (and it must be Ike), especially because the series is noted for the fact that character death is permanent the vast, vast majority of the time.
  • Another good example is Ilyana. A lonely little thunder mage in the top left corner of the map, with no indicator, prior battle conversation, base conversation, or anything to hint at her arrival. You have to talk to her with Ike.
  • The only way to get one of the best units in the game (Stefan, Chapter 15) is to send one of two very powerful characters (Lethe or Mordecai) to a specific space in the corner of a field way out of the way. The only hint to this is an Info conversation that hints to 'vague figures walking in the dunes to the north-east'. How many people discovered that one without a guide?
  • A Motive Rant for the Big Bad is hidden in a similar way. Said rant is obtained by letting him attack Reyson, a unit who can not harm him, (only 6 characters can harm him, only 3 of whom you can have at once) and will die quickly and permanently (as he can't take hits from normal foes...). Best part? If you know about this, you will have already have seen the dialog, meaning there is no reason for you to do it.
  • There is also a Knight Ring that allows the user to use leftover movement after an action (like Cavaliers and Paladins for instance) that can be obtained from Naesala on Chapter 19. You have to talk to him with either Janaff or Ulki, then let Naesala talk to Reyson. Simple enough: unless you plan to fight Naesala, you will do this. If you want the Knight Ring, though, you can't kill any of the Ravens scattered across the stage that could possibly attack.
  • The Bands in general (Fighter, Soldier, Sword, etc.) that can be obtained in the second playthrough. They influence equipped characters' growths very slightly depending on which one. For instance, the Fighter Band gives you +5% to HP and Strength. However, anyone who doesn't know this will sell each and every one for the 2000 gold they're worth. Similarly, there's the Knight Ward, which can only be equipped by "knight"-type classes and raises Defence and Resistance slightly. What the game doesn't tell you is that it also raises the holder's Speed growth by 30%, a bigger effect than any of the Bands.
  • Rexaura, the best light magic tome in the game is held by a Bishop on the final chapter. Get him to at least half health by the end of the turn, he'll use an elixir, unequip his weapon, and you can steal it off him. Again, who figured this out? Indeed, since you cannot sell equipment after this chapter, the only reason you'd want to use Rexaura is if you trained Rhys (the only character who can use light magic)... and the priest with Rexaura is right next to the final boss, whom Rhys can't damage.
  • Fixed Growth Mode as a whole is one. After beating the game once, you can choose between "fixed" and "random" growth modes when starting a new file. The game doesn't indicate that "random" is the default mode, while "fixed" uses a complex stat-points system similar to Effort Values in the Pokémon games. Killing certain enemy classes and even equipping certain weapons will make you more inclined towards gaining points in certain stats. Nothing in the game hints at how this works. Fixed Growth Mode isn't in any other game in the series, so good luck finding documentation on it.
• Unlocking the super-secret, spoileriffic ending sequences for Radiant Dawn involves a convoluted series of events throughout the course of the story (And a New Game Plus) that nobody would ever do without actually knowing what would come from it. This even includes bringing in a maxed out Support Bond, transferred from the previous game.
  • Related to the above are the secret characters. First you have to be on a second run for either of them, and while one is super easy to pick up (there's a new option that appears on a 2nd run in a key scene related to that character; picking it makes the character join later), the other is this trope to a T. (You have to use a blatantly OP character in the short window you have with said character, okay fine. Then you have to have Ike fight a round with THE BLACK FREAKING KNIGHT HIMSELF in a stage where it's way too early to even consider such a thing. That's not all: BOTH Ike and BK have to survive that fight. If you hammered BK and he actually died there? Other secret character is unobtainable. After all of that, if you did it right, you'll get the other character... on the LAST STAGE OF THE GAME.) Did we mention that both of these secret characters are your only dark magic users in the entire game?
  • Played for Laughs with Oliver. There are absolutely no hints that he's recruitable, he's the only boss in the entire duology that you can recruit on the battlefield, and players of Path of Radiance will likely already have a major chip on their shoulder for having to slog through four levels of swamp to "kill" him in that game and assume he just needs to be killed for good this time. His join condition is consistent with his characterization, though the game makes no suggestions to try it: Move Rafiel into his range, and Oliver will go over and talk to him automatically. His Heel–Face Turn is so inexplicable that Ike snarks about it, and he goes on to become The Friend Nobody Likes. Even the endgame bosses express extreme confusion at him being in your army.
• The desert chapters present in Mystery of the Emblem, its remake, and all of the GBA games and both Tellius games (that are already annoying because you are fighting on sand, lowering your units' movements) have hidden items that can only be obtained by having units wait on a range of squares. The chances of doing so vary from game to game- in Mystery and its remake, it is 100% for everybody. In 6-9, only thieves have a 100% chance, and other units must rely on Skill or Luck (depending on the game). In Radiant Dawn, not only do thieves lose their guarantee, but hidden items discovery is also influenced by biorhythms — and hidden items are everywhere (and some are really valuable, like Beastfoe, the Brave Bow, and the Rescue staff). New Mystery also has hidden items outside of the desert, but all tiles are marked (though the spaces are accessible only by certain classes and also indicate reinforcements will appear, so the fact they all hide valuable items is its own Guide Dang It).
  • The desert chapter in 6 also has one item that can only be found by one specific character. While you won't be in danger of not fielding that character since she joins that very chapter, she's also got some of the worst base stats in any game, and the chapter is more than halfway through.
• Genealogy of the Holy War has the Hero Axe. You get it by sending Lex, equipped with an Iron Axe (When the much better Steel Axe is also available) to a certain off-path square. How the hell does anyone guess any of this?!
  • There's also the Pursuit Ring, that grants anyone without Pursuit the ability to double. How to get it? Move [[Mighty Glacier/Arden]] all the way to the end of a small peninsula that's out of the way as well!
  • In order to get the very powerful Forseti Tome, you have to have Lewyn enter Silesia Castle after it's been seized.
• Thracia 776 has a hearty collection of tough-to-recruit characters. Xavier is probably the worst (rescue the 8 civilians and have each of them talk to a specific enemy that they're paired with to turn them into an allied NPC, then talk to Xavier — note that while those 8 enemies won't attack the civilians, other enemies will, and enemies who have turned into allies will battle those who have yet to do so, potentially killing them before they can be turned), but Misha isn't much better (talk to her with a specific unit, then use a Sleep staff on her to force her to dismount, allowing you to "capture" her, and hold on to her for the rest of the chapter). Or Ilios, who can only be recruited if a unit wasn't recruited some five chapters earlier. Or Salem, who also needs to be captured and held onto.
  • Chapter 12x. Specifically, there are a bunch of Dancers on the map, and if the player lets them escape and doesn't kill any of them, another will show up on turn 25 with a Knight Proof. The players only have about three turns to steal it from her before she makes her escape. And then five turns after that, if that Dancer did not die, yet another one will appear, this one with a Warp staff. It's completely arbitrary and there is no way of knowing how this will happen. It doesn't help that the map has darkness that makes it impossible to see them if the characters not close enough.
  • The chapter itself can be trivialized by warping over one of a few characters to talk to the boss, who then joins the party, causing all the other enemies to leave. Incidentally, this brings up another Guide Dang It; Lara, a Thief obtained on in the game, has a hidden class change that can only be obtained by having her talk to the boss. While it's obvious that she can talk to him (if she's brought for the mission), the class change bit is only vaguely hinted at. This class change is also the only way one can get a Dancer unit in this game. Most other Fire Emblem games have a character of that class automatically join the party.
• Binding Blade has something along the lines of this for the recruitment of a certain Paladin, who is considered to be one of the best pre-promoted characters. You have to drop one of your defenseless characters (Either a bard or a dancer, both incapable of attacking) next to a swarming mob of enemies. (6 to 8 cavaliers around the paladin you're trying to recruit) While the storylines of the characters hint the bard can accomplish this (the paladin being an Etrurian general, and the bard is the supposedly dead prince of Etruria, who had merely faked his death) you can only have either the bard or the dancer in your party, and the only connection between the general and the dancer is a cutscene where it's revealed that she's the adopted daughter — not of him, but of a different Etrurian general.
  • Binding Blade also had the path to Ilia vs. the path to Sacae, which is based on the levels of certain non-essential characters, as well as the slightly non-intuitive methods used to enter the Gaiden Chapters in which the legendary weapons are found. These range from the easy (Chapter 8x has no turn requirement, only that Lilina survives the chapter) to the arcane (Chapter 20x, the last chapter of the Ilia/Sacae split requires you to complete chapter 20 in 25 turns while recruiting the unit that can be obtained there and all earlier characters related to that character must also still be alive and recruited) to the absolutely infuriating (Chapter 16x requires an enemy unit that can't be recruited during the chapter to survive Chapter 16; said enemy will automatically join you at the start of 16x and must be used in said Gaiden Chapter.) And you must have all eight legendary weapons, unbroken - minus the Holy Maiden staff, which you're allowed to break - plus keep a certain unit alive, in order for the game to continue past Chapter 22. And then, if said character dies after Chapter 22 and/or someone besides Roy (equipped specifically with the Binding Blade) defeats the final boss, you'll miss one small scene in the final ending. Granted, the latter is easy to do since the Binding Blade is near-guaranteed to kill the boss in two rounds tops, but the former can still be annoying.
• Getting some of the bonus chapters in Blazing Sword can be incredibly frustrating.
  • How to get the special double-Gaiden chapter 19xx in Blazing Sword? Simple. First you must play through Lyn mode and get the bard Nils up to Level 7, a feat that is guaranteed impossible to happen if you aren't specifically planning for it. Then advance to Hector mode, unlock chapter 19x, and kill Kishuna, an enemy unit who does not attack back in any way. Doesn't sound too hard. Except when you realize that you only have one turn to take him down, he has 50HP (higher than anyone else you are likely to have encountered), and can dodge nearly every attack you throw at him. It's incredibly difficult to take him down without RNG abuse. Of course, most would agree that the story revealed in 19xx is completely and utterly worth it.
  • The Gaiden chapter "Genesis" (22x in Eliwood mode, 23x in Hector mode) has the requirement of needing to obtain 700 points of experience in the regular chapter, "Living Legend", as well as having had recruited the character Hawkeye. Many players are already using very high level units, probably promoted as the two chapters allowing arena abuse in 16x or 17x "The Port of Badon" and 20 or 21, "A New Resolve" are played through previously, making this obscure requirement that's key to unlocking the full story of Nergal and Kishuna quite difficult. The presence of Pent, who cannot be recruited during the chapter doesn't help, as he will absolutely tear through the entirety of the enemy force himself unless rescued by a flying unit, which is quite risky because there are archers everywhere and flying units are weak to bows.
• There's also incredibly convoluted conditions for recruiting either Harken or Karel in Pale Flower of Darkness. First of all, there are two different maps with different conditions. How are the maps determined? Unlike Four-Fanged Offense that simply uses the three main lords' total level, Pale Flower of Darkness relies on two groups of four side characters^note Lucius, Serra, Priscilla and Erk vs. Dorcas, Guy, Bartre and Raven and which of the total levels is more than the other. But Wait, There's More! The map doesn't determine which character is recruited like Four-Fanged Offense does. In Kenneth's map^note when Lucius, Serra, Priscilla and Erk's combined levels are higher, Harken appears only if you haven't opened more than three doors by turn 9, otherwise it's Karel. On Jerme's map^note when Dorcas, Guy, Bartre and Raven's levels are higher, you can only defeat ONE promoted magic enemy to get Harken on turn 9 and Karel needs you to beat at least two by turn 9. Again, who figured this out?!
• While the Support system in Blazing Sword is generally simple, there are a few notable cases of this trope. Pent and Louise already start out with a A support, but they still have "support conversations", so-to-speak, that are considered part of the support library. To get these, you have to move them next to each other and select the "talk" option during specific chapters. Miss one of these? You can't get the later ones. This first occurs in Chapter 27 and the second in the penultimate chapter. It's the last one that most players miss though: you have to have them talk during the Final Chapter... but only during the second half. Most players would assume that if they didn't have a conversation in the first half of the chapter, they wouldn't have one at all. Nope. The other case also involves the second half of the final chapter: it's actually counted as a separate chapter for support purposes, and this is the only reason A Supports with Renault are even possible. So you're going to need to know this if you want to complete his support log.
• Sacred Stones has secret shops, which otherwise sell rare promotion and stat-boosting items, in Chapter 16, "Ruled by Madness", and Chapter 14A/14B, "Queen of White Dunes"/"Father and Son" (only one of which is available, depending on the route chosen). They're unmarked on the battlefield or world map, no hint is given that they even exist, and they can't be accessed again until you've beaten the game. To make matters worse, the Member Card, which is needed to access them, is only held by Rennac. It's easy for him to escape without joining the party on the one mission where he can be recruited.
  • Speaking of Rennac, then there's the matter of recruiting him with your main lord vs. recruiting him with L'Arachel. Having Ephraim or Eirika speak to him will cost you a whopping 9,980 gold, while L'Arachel can recruit him for free. (While there is a chest full of gold in the level, the game doesn't warn you that Rennac demands a fee from your lord until after you speak to him, and since there's a Secret Shop in the level... most players would want to spend their gold on that, instead.)
  • Cormag, the only character able to promote into Wyvern Lord, can be a huge pain in the butt to recruit at times. In Eirika's route, if the cast defeats the enemy units too quickly, the player will simply never get to see him arrive and be recruited by Eirika. On Ephraim's path, he is on the map right away in the chapter he can be recruited in on Ephraim's path, but he can't be recruited by Ephraim. He must be talked to with either his mentor Duessel (who must be recruited first) or his potential girlfriend Tana who begins the stage at the other side of the map and can be targeted by boats that double as ballistas.
• Fire Emblem: Awakening:
  • Prince Chrom must be married to either of his prospect girlfriends (Sumia, Sully, Maribelle, the Female Avatar, Olivia, or even a NPC Villager woman) by the end of the first arc. Many people have found themselves getting him hitched to a Female Avatar by complete accident. Or marrying him to said Female Avatar through their supports, which some decry for their polemic writing and OOC behavior. Or have him "steal" a girl they were planning on marrying themselves. Or missing out on hitching him to Olivia, who joins the cast at the very last stage of said first arc. While it does make sense in-story (Emmeryn has just died a couple chapters prior, which makes her younger brother and heir Chrom next in line to the throne, plus the current arc's clearly coming to a close), Chrom is still the only forced and timed marriage in the game, so 1) it can very easily catch players off-guard on their first run, and 2) the players pretty much have to plan ahead for it with any of his prospective wives.
  • Even more basic, a little ways into the game, the players first get an item that allows them to change a character's class. It doesn't give you any hints about why anyone would want to do this, which (if any) stats and abilities carry over from the original class to the new one, etc. These items are single-use-only and very limited, so experimentation is not encouraged. (They can be freely bought later, but only at the shops on very specific levels, and not for quite a while after the first one is obtained.)
  • Oh boy. The Paralogue to recruit Gangrel, the villain from the first arc of the game. Chrom has to talk to him three times in order to recruit him! He will also move and attack so the players might accidentally kill him before even getting the chance to talk to him once! Some of the other Spotpass Paralogue characters fall into this too. Walhart will only join if the player had Chrom fight him at least once during the chapter. And one actually has to defeat him in battle to recruit him, something that most players would avoid for a recruitable character. Yen'fay is the only recruitable character in the entire game who can't be recruited with Chrom: the players have to talk to him with his sister Say'ri. So the player forgot to deploy her or had her die on Classic mode? He's lost.
• Fates has some examples:
  • In Birthright, Kaze will, by default, die at the end of Chapter 15, and they must have an "A" support with the Avatar to prevent this. There is a small Interface Spoiler giving you a hint, but a player can easily miss this, especially if this is their first playthrough.^* Said Interface Spoiler is the fact that, if Kaze is "S" supported to anyone (even the Avatar), Midori's paralogue will not have unlocked when other "S"-supported characters had theirs unlocked. There is also no indication that one absolutely needs this particular character to be at an "A" support by this particular point, and while it would make sense, this only makes sense once it's done and in hindsight.
  • In Revelation, recruiting Benny and Charlotte can be confusing. They will only join if spoken to by Elise. While she does make a comment at the beginning of the chapter implying this, most other recruits are either done by Corrin or still give you the option of having them join at the end of the map as long as they survived. Not so here, where Benny and Charlotte won't join even if they lived if you missed having Elise speak to them. What makes it extra annoying is that they're on opposite sides of the map, so Elise has a lot of running back and forth to do.
  • The optional characters recruited through upgrading "My Castle" fall into this. These characters require the players to a) be at a particular point in the story on a path where they survive, and b) have a specific structure upgraded to level three. There is pretty much no indication that one needs these particular structures upgraded to level three.
  • And even then, there's still a couple of oddities with the My Castle recruits. For instance, some characters join after different chapters between routes, even if the players had their respective equipment upgraded earlier; Yukimura won't join in Revelation even if the item that caused him to join in Birthright is upgraded; and, finally, one structure in particular belongs to a character that will not join in Revelation (Izana, who falls victim to a Plotline Death), so the players may not think to upgrade it... only, it now causes another character to join instead (Hayato's adoptive father Fuga, who doesn't join at all on either of the other two routes), even if some players may think to ignore it on this route.
  • Nina's paralogue has a win objective being "Rout the enemy before she escapes". Most would expect this to be to kill all enemies on-stage except for her. The problem comes from the fact that she is an enemy — and the stage doesn't end even if she's boxed her into a corner so she can't possibly move. The players actually have to beat her in battle, and the game drops a strong hint that she became lost.
  • Chapter 21 of Birthright features a stage gimmick that isn't explained. The players have to use dragon veins to either open up a shortcut or flood the area full of lava. The problem is that the method to tell which will do which isn't explained, and the player has to take a look at where the veins are to tell which will do which (underneath a glowing orb on the nearby statue). Furthermore, the game doesn't say that one can can try again after a few turns, and since reusable dragon veins are rare, a first-time player can easily think they've made the map unwinnable (without fliers).
  • Benny and Ryoma's sons, Ignatius and Shiro, are also somewhat confusing as well — only due to the fact that the end of their paralogues still play as normal even if they died during the stage. Fortunately a player can figure this out by themselves though simple logic (He dies during the chapter, and doesn't join? Oh, that must be why he's not in there), but this does not exactly explain why they didn't join under those circumstances. Shiro is particularly vexing, since he's an aggressive green unit that starts in the middle of a sand-filled map; he will die before the second turn unless you're quick with a rescue staff.
• In both Fire Emblem Gaiden and its remake, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, nothing in the game tells the players which characters learn which spells, which can be a problem when deciding which class to promote Villagers to. Out of the starting Villagers, Kliff is the best fit for the Mage class due to getting the most spells, and Faye from Echoes learns a unique White Magic spell called Anew that acts as the game's only equivalent of the Dancer class. (Though some consider it Awesome, but Impractical, as each Anew cast takes away a hefty chunk of the girl's HP.) If Faye's promoted to anything other than Cleric, the player will need to use a rare (and DLC-exclusive) Pitchfork to remedy this. In Kliff's case, the only hints at his natural aptitude for magic come from an easily missed comment by Alm^note (checking the wall of Mycen's house has Alm notice a burn mark that was caused by Kliff practicing magic) and his epilogue^note which states that his son becomes a talented mage, and there's no hints to Faye's unique spell at all. Additionally, some Mercenaries get unique spells if the players loop them back to Villager and then into Mage, like Saber being the only male to get the Seraphim spell.
  • The fact that Mercenaries can eventually loop back into Villagers is a mild case. While the game does tell you this, it's only after you manage to get a Dread Fighter (the Mercenary line's final promotion) up to level 10, and it's the only class line in the game that can do this.
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses:
  • Spell lists return from Gaiden/Echoes. While a unit's aptitude for Faith and Reason at least hint at who has more or fewer spells, who gets what is far from straightforward, and some of the most desirable spells are hard to come by. For instance, the ever-useful Bolting can only be learned by three characters: one is available on every route but heavily slanted toward Faith magic, the second can't be recruited by every house and isn't naturally inclined toward magic at all, and the third, while proficient in reason magic, is DLC.
  • Similar to Kaze in Birthright, though admittedly not as bad here, the Blue Lions path can also potentially kill off a playable character if the player does not meet certain requirements. In this case, Dedue will be killed off post-timeskip if his paralogue was not played. Granted, unlike some other paralogues (see below), Dedue’s paralogue does not have any unlock requirements, and most players likely played it anyway, even without knowing that playing it is required to keep him alive, but even if the player does meet the requirements, Dimitri will still say that he was killed off at the end of Chapter 13, and Dedue will still be unavailable for a bit, leading players to believe that they did something wrong until he shows up alive and well in the middle of Chapter 16.
  • Certain paralogues can be a nightmare to unlock. In particular, any that activate after the Time Skip but involve students from two different houses, as the "outsider" student has to be poached before said Time Skip, otherwise the game progresses without a hint the paralogue even exists. By far the worst is Caspar and Mercedes's, which not only runs into the timeskip problem, but is completely unavailable to the Black Eagles even if you meet all the other conditions. If you come at it from the Blue Lions, Caspar's significance to the chapter isn't revealed until it starts. And what makes this one particularly vexing is it contains vital information for a character arc, specifically, the Death Knight's identity and Mercedes's childhood.
  • Gardening in the Greenhouse is far more complex than most players would generally think. Yields can be increased by improving your method of cultivation but it can also be increased or decreased by the altering the number of seeds or by mixing different combination of seeds. That seems straightforward enough but there are some mixed seed combinations that grant a yield of 3 for seeds that can't reach it by themselves i.e. some combinations give better yields than using just the same type. Also, each seed has three predicted yield levels (the higher the yield level, the better quality of items) that happen to be split into two halves in which the lower half increases the chance of receiving "lower quality" items such as Weeds or Dried Vegetables while the upper half increases increases the chance of receiving "higher quality" items like flowers or fruits and vegetables used in dishes. Meanwhile, observant players will probably have noticed that planting certain seeds gives the chance of yielding certain items. For example, planting Red Flower Seeds can give you Roses while planting Green Flower Seeds can you give Pitcher Plants. These can actually be soft-reset should you get an undesirable yield. However, stat booster items like Fruit of Life, Speed Carrots, etc. cannot be soft-reset once you have planted the seeds. These are also tied to growing certain seeds. The game pretty much tells you none of this.
  • There are some C-Supports that can only be seen pre-timeskip. If you try to unlock the support during Part 2, you'll get a message saying, "It's too late to deepen this bond." This locks out an entire chain of supports in that file so the only way you'll see those supports is in a new game. In addition to this, many supports only occur past certain points in the story, mainly after the timeskip, and trying to access the support will give the message, "This bond needs more time to develop", which some players may interpret as just needing more support points. Some of the delayed supports make logical sense depending on the context of said support (for example, Leonie being upset over Jeralt's death), but you won't really know that until you get there.
  • Some of the supports are only available on specific routes or under specific circumstances, to the point where browsing the support library in the game's main menu before playing the game will likely lead to less spoilers and more confusion. For example, Gilbert is formally associated with the Church of Seiros, but unlike the rest of the knights he is only available on the Blue Lions route (not even recruiting his daughter Annette will get him to join another house, which frustratingly leaves Annette's Hero Relic unobtainable on other routes). Ingrid and Seteth can support on any route, but their A+ rank can only be obtained on Blue Lions and won't even show up on the menu if you're leading another house. Rhea's entire support chain is only available pre-timeskip (in contrast to all other supports, which have their A — and sometimes even B — ranks locked off until Part II); to make matters worse, her C and B ranks become unavailable after certain plot events, and her S rank can only be unlocked on the Silver Snow route.
• Even the ROM hacks have moments like this. Case in point, The Last Promise (a Blazing Sword hack with a totally original plot and cast of characters) has finding the Emblem Lance, which requires Corben to visit a small house in chapter 2. This is a curveball because anyone who's played a FE game on the Gameboy Advance would expect only bigger houses and villages to give items. What's worse is that unlike any other small house, you can only visit it once before it's locked out for the other characters, and the item is different for each person! If Siegfried, Shon or Tamiko visit the house, you have lost the lance. And getting all the Emblem weapons will unlock a sidequest near the end of the game, but fortunately none of them are as hard to find as the lance.
  • Then in Chapter 5, there is a sidequest unlocked by finding a Talisman. You'd think the Talisman would be in a chest or in some enemy's inventory, but instead, it's hidden from view...in a locked room that, other than one mook, is totally empty. Players would probably just ignore it if they didn't know there was a hidden item there.