Fire Emblem, as a long-running franchise that has changed over the years and experimented with certain mechanics, has its share of mechanics that are rather unpopular.
Games with their own pages:
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Multiple Games
- Permadeath. Other games like Final Fantasy Tactics have it too, but often they at least give you a chance to revive downed characters. In Fire Emblem, however, characters are gone forever the moment they hit 0HP. This one mechanic has probably caused more rage-resets than any other in gaming history. The idea is that players should take their units seriously and not simply toss unit after unit at the enemy like they're disposable ammo, but some fans point out that permadeath in practice turns into "restart the chapter if somebody dies" and that the only way to have a "true" experience with the trope is to only ever use saves to suspend gameplay. For those who don't like this, New Mystery of the Emblem onwards introduces Casual mode (with Fire Emblem: Awakening bringing it to the west), in which defeated units are only gone until the end of the chapter.
- Any game where enemy reinforcements spawn at the end of the Player Phase instead of the end of the Enemy Phase. This can very easily result in a unit getting killed because the game decided to spawn a group of enemies right on top of them without giving you a chance to react. While sometimes the reinforcements are marked by certain tiles such as castles or staircases, other times they come out of nowhere with no way of planning for them except playing the chapter over and over until you learn all the spawn points and/or getting lucky. It can also be hard to tell when the reinforcements will spawn, making it difficult to prepare for them. This had mostly been phased out of the series by the time it reached western audiences, but for some reason, it was back in the Hard modes (and above) of Shadow Dragon, New Mystery of the Emblem, and Awakening.
- Additionally, later on in some long maps, reinforcements appear right at the start of the map. Hope you didn't leave any weaker units behind at the start - they're sitting ducks for them. Also, while Blazing Sword's reinforcements at least politely wait a turn before moving, there's a mostly stationary unit that stands at the start of the map easily able to be torched if let unguarded against such reinforcements. (Thankfully, there's not much punishment to losing Merlinus.)
- Echoes: Shadows of Valentia gives us reinforcements on the world map. While enemies showing up on the world map is something that happened in Awakening, here they move and need to be engaged when encountered. If there happen to be other enemies on the spot the reinforcements appear, you engage them too and if the enemies move to your position they attack first. Even worse, Celica's side of Act 3 has two separate spawn points for the map reinforcements.
- Three Houses only includes this mechanic on Maddening mode. The Divine Pulse mechanic allows you to rewind time if you lose a unit to this, but the charges are finite, and an ambush you aren't prepared for can end up forcing you to waste some.
- The concept of promotion can prove quite uneven: the gap in promotable classes between Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light and its remake clearly expresses just one example.
- Weapon weight, which reduces a unit's attack speed, has proven a thorny issue to address throughout the series. There have been four different ways to deal with it, each with a logical reason behind it, and each one unbalanced in favor of certain classes and builds:
- "No Buffer" (AS decreases by full weight): Favors sword users and archers whose lighter weapons allow for better speed retention. Rationale: any weapon can weigh anyone down;
- "Build/Constitution" (Unit slows if weight exceeds build/con): Favors bulky units with at least decent speed, as well as the fastest units who can take the speed loss and still hit hard. Rationale: bulkier warriors can handle weight better;
- "Strength" (Same as above, only with strength): Favors fast units with the strength to keep all their speed. Rationale: the stronger a unit becomes, the more weight they could handle;
- "No Weight" (Weapons have no weight whatsoever): Favors all fast units, especially those with issues over the two prior methods. Rationale: a properly trained warrior should never be burdened with their weapon.
- Fog of War is widely hated. In theory it's supposed to add an extra layer of strategy to certain chapters, and encourage the use of high-vision classes like Thieves or Torch-carrying units as scouts. There's just one problem: enemies are COMPLETELY immune to it. They know exactly where you are and don't need any scouting to be able to attack you. If one of your units runs into an unseen enemy during movement, their turn immediately ends. The AI is, naturally, not bound by this. Altogether, it frequently adds up to losing characters to enemies you couldn't possibly have seen coming. Rather than a fun new mechanic, it's just a handicap to the player.
- In games with supports, the five-support limit tends to fall into this- you can only see five support conversations per character per playthrough, and each support chain has three supports. While meant for game balance, support bonuses are quite small, and it means you can't see most of the game's conversations without playing the game through ten times.
- Many of the older games with supports allow you to build support points by having units end their turn next to each other. The problem is that this can take dozens, if not hundreds, of turns. For example, this guide
reveals that it takes a total of 200 turns for Serra and Florina to get an A support. Engage rectifies it by allowing the player to build support points with two of their units outside of battle in the Somniel, but even then it still requires grinding. - Though it first appeared in Thracia 776, the unlock requirements system used for the sidequest chapters in a few games is very ill-received:
- In the Elibe games, while tame requirements exist,For Example... many players found most of them to be incredibly tedious to do and most of the time, neither game even bothered to tell you how to unlock them to begin with, forcing players to rely on guides. three of the most notable outliers of this include the requirement for chapter 14x of The Binding Bladenote , and in The Blazing Blade, that of chapter 19xx,note and of chapter 22xE/23xHnote . While all the requirements in The Binding Blade are at least just a simple "Clear chapter within [number] turns" and/or "Keep a certain character alive", The Blazing Blade adds more gimmicky requirements for some of them (i.e. obtaining a certain amount of EXP), which makes unlocking those chapters even more annoying. Granted, in The Sacred Stones, the requirements system was completely removed, and in return, only has one Gaiden chapter that doesn't have any.
- In Shadow Dragon, the Gaiden chapters only being accessible by having only 15 or less units alive upon completing certain chapters, or in the case of the final Gaiden chapter, only being accessible if the player both didn't get the Falchion and have Tiki dead. They were meant to be a Mercy Mode to help players that lost an extreme amount of their units, as they're also a significant stepdown in difficulty from the normal chapters while supplying the player with a new unit that's better than a replacement unit, and in the case of the final Gaiden chapter, they're given a downgraded Falchion and Nagi (who is essentially a replacement Tiki that's levelled up some), to help ensure the player doesn't end up completely unable to beat Medeus. However players generally try to keep everyone alive if possible, even units that they have no intention to ever use, and will often reset when they have units die instead of continuing on, especially if they lost units they were actively investing in. As such very few players actually saw these Gaiden chapters through their own normal play, and players took this mechanic as barring them content without intentionally killing off their units, made worse by the fact that the game has a large playable cast and gives you characters left and right. Needless to say, there was much rejoicing when New Mystery removed this.
- Several features relating to the Armored class lines have gotten criticism for resulting in the class line being a Low Tier Let Down.
- In many early games like Gaiden and Mystery of the Emblem, Armored classes never get any increase to their already terrible movement stat upon promotion even when other classes like Archer, Cleric and Myrmidon got increased move upon promotion, meaning Armored classes went from having one less movement than other infantry units in their base class, to being two or even three movement behind infantry units at their final tier when the class is supposed to get more powerful. The remakes of Shadow Dragon and Mystery of the Emblem fixed this, resulting in the classes being more helpful. However the Gaiden remake, Shadows of Valentia, kept this feature, which was criticized.
- Armored classes typically have strict restrictions on what kinds of terrain they can move on, similar to cavalry units. Unlike the high move cavalry units, though, Armored classes have the lowest movement in the game and frequently have no method of getting past terrain they can't cross, whilst cavalry units usually gain the ability to cross tough terrain after promotion or can dismount. For example, Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War's fourth chapter has mountains that the armored Arden cannot cross, meaning he cannot fight the boss. Chapter 14x of Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 has perhaps the worse case, as Dalshin literally cannot complete the escape map due to hills blocking off the way of the escape square, making the chapter unintentionallyUnwinnable if Dalshin is deployed.
- The low movement stat of the Armored classes in general is viewed as a frustrating mechanic as it makes difficult for them to keep up with the rest of the army and the class is never powerful enough to warrant such a low movement stat.
- The Biorhythm exclusive to the Tellius games wasn't well-received for fluctuating how well your units fight each turn. As it gets lower, accuracy and evasion rates are lowered (and vice versa for high Biorhythm).
- Treasure hunting on desert maps is a nasty mix of Luck-Based Mission and Guide Dang It!. Certain areas on the map have a chance to give treasure (although it's guaranteed for a Thief), but there's no way of knowing where those areas are unless you have a guide. To make matters worse, Thieves are slowed by the sand, unlike casters and fliers, so it's rather hard to get them all over the map to pick up the treasures, even if you know where the treasures are.
Genealogy of the Holy War
- Mounted units, or rather, the drawbacks of not being one - there is no other game that widens the gap more than this one does. Those with the misfortune of going on-foot are stuck eternally lagging behind in the biggest maps the series has ever had. Not only that, there's many things that make the imbalance even worse. Mounted units can also move after combat, so they're not only better at getting around, they're better in the fight as well. Tools that could have let units catch up easier, like the Warp staff, are nerfed so you can only warp to owned castles. Mounted units get +1 movement after promotion; foot units don't, assuming they remain on-foot.
- Unlike all the games before and after this one, units can't just trade items between each other. To "trade" the holder needs to sell their items to a pawnbroker, where the receiver then needs to fork up the money to buy it for themselves (something the game itself never tells you). This is paired with each unit having their own separate wallet, and money also can't be traded most of the time. The apparent purpose of this whole system was to make each unit's inventory much more rigid, helping to give them distinct identities based on what they acquire for themselves. But it ends up amounting to a lot of extra inventory management (plus arena grinding for money) if you don't want to handicap your units, and turns the simple act of receiving items/money into a tough choice, making for a pretty clear reason why it was never used again.
Thracia 776
- The Dismounting feature is the most prominent. Intended as a Nerf for mounted units as it made them fight on foot using swords during indoor levels. However, it only ended up hurting Lance Knights and Axe Knights, who were forced to illogically use swords when they dismounted rather than the weapons they trained their entire lives with. Worst of all, the player army was left with no indoor Lance users apart from their Generals: Xavier and a promoted Dalsin, though both have a starting E rank in lances, which means they're better off using other weapons anyway. Keep in mind the final chapter took place indoors, and Lances were pretty much Better Off Sold.
- Many players liked the Capturing System, claiming it added a new layer of depth to the series. It has one incredibly aggravating problem, though. Units who can't fight are automatically captured. Normally this makes sense; after all, it saves you viewing an Overly Long Fighting Animation when you know how the fight's going to turn out, but it also means your healers will be captured if an enemy so much as touches them. Sure, you can get them back by killing the captor, but they still will have swiped the healer's entire inventory. Long story short, an enemy so much as touches your healer, you lose all their staves. On the plus side, this does mean that enemy staff-users are very easy prey, and if you do lose a healer, it's generally trivial to capture the enemy right back and retake your possessions (some players even deliberately do this, sending a healer to the frontlines so the enemy will be forced to carry them around).
- Status effects. In this game, they last for the entire chapter unless cured (and status healing staves are in VERY short supply). Especially annoying since Dark Mages are very common enemies, and the standard dark spell inflicts poison. Worse still, when you later recruit a Dark Mage of your own, his magic DOESN'T inflict poison!! Oh, and sleeping characters can be one-touch captured as above. That said, the two above factors also mean that sleeping an opponent and then capturing them is one of the more foolproof methods of dealing with a boss.
- Healing staves, on characters with less than 10 Skill, have a chance to miss. In the early game, this can be pretty damnably frustrating.
- On that note, any attack can miss. Or hit. Unlike in every other game in the series, Hit chance has a floor of 1% and a ceiling of 99%, which means that no matter how outclassed your enemies are, you always have a chance to miss them and they always have a chance to hit you.
- The fatigue system, which makes a unit unusable for one chapter if the number of actions they take exceeds their max HP. This system forces the player to frequently rotate out their party and use more characters than they otherwise would. Opinions are split on whether this, by itself, is a good thing; however, it's also balanced in such a way that some units are punished far more and for no good reason. Characters with high HP can have a long run before fatigue hits them, while the weaker and lesser used ones that the system is encouraging you to pick up will ironically get much less time. But nobody is hit harder than staff users, as their HP is typically low and using high level staves is the only action that gives you multiple fatigue points.
Radiant Dawn
- The Support system earned a lot of ire. Despite allowing any character to support another, this came at the cost of reducing the normally rich and Character Development filled support conversations to a few generic lines per character. And then things went From Bad to Worse when Shadow Dragon removed the system entirely. (One of the few cases where the lack of a mechanic became a Scrappy Mechanic) Fortunately it was brought back for the subsequent games.
- In the Japanese version, Wrath and Resolve had chance-based activations on top of the HP thresholds they required previously (Wrath being Skill% and Resolve being Strength%), which many felt was an overkill Nerf and added needless amounts of luck to the game. The localizations removed these triggers.
- Biorhythm could be a pain in Path of Radiance, but Radiant Dawn took it one step further and had it change every turn, while broadening the potential boosts/penalties from it to potentially debilitating levels, and having it affect treasure pickup rate too.
- The Whisper's Mastery Skill Bane. Unlike most other Mastery Skills which are glorified Critical Hits and deal triple damage, Bane does an HP to One attack. Not too bad if it activates on the first attack and the Whisper can double the opponent to finish them off, but it's quite possible for it to activate when they're about to land a killing blow and instead Bane activates, leaving the enemy still alive. And just to add insult to injury, Volke has the Assassin class which not only boasts higher stats, but has the Mastery Skill Lethality which has the same activation rate as Bane, but is always a One-Hit KO should it activate.
- Elincia's Mercy skill is similarly disliked. While she has it equipped, she will leave any enemy she would otherwise kill with 1 HP. This wouldn't be so bad if obtained early, where it could set up kills for weaker units, but Elincia instead learns it in Part 4, a point where the player is expected to already have a strong army, and it's forced onto her. Fortunately it can be removed, but many wonder why it even exists. (Its only potential use is on New Game Plus, where Pelleas joins at a low-ish level at the same time)
- Shove and Canto were changed from innate abilities to unremovable Skills that took up Capacity, and the Mastery Skills earned by third-tier units on promotion are also unremovable, as a result, almost every unit has far less potential for Skill customization than their ostensible Capacity suggests; the only real exceptions are Laguz and units who join with a really good Skill already equipped (e.g. Nolan and Nihil, Nephenee and Wrath), because automatically held Skills don't take up capacity, but they'll stop being free if you remove them.
- The Laguz's transformation meters. In Path of Radiance, the idea was that you got access to a few characters who were absurdly powerful, if you were patient enough to get them around the map while the meter filled up. However, in Radiant Dawn, your human units are roughly as powerful as a transformed laguz or even moreso, and thus they're left as average units without anything to make it worth it to wait for the meter to fill. Even worse, Laguz transform meters now deplete every combat instead of every turn, leading to already weak types like Cats running through their meter in the blink of an eye. It's telling that Laguz mainly see use through the Royals, who can transform permanently, or the Wildheart skill (which does the same for non-Royals, but with slightly weakened stats).
- Hard/Maniac difficulty removing the ability to highlight enemy units' attack range and the weapon triangle. The former doesn't really make the game harder but instead just makes the game play slower, as the player has to spend each turn painfully counting spaces from each enemy to safely place their units, which can additionally get complicated when terrain and ledges are added in with different movement penalties for each class (that also can't just be looked up ingame). With the latter, the logic is it's a mechanic the player can more actively take advantage of than the AI, but in practice its removal serves to make the OP units like Haar and Ike (and OP weapon types like Axes) even better when they can just juggernaut through enemy units they would have had WT disadvantage against, while making weaker units (and weaker weapons like Thunder magic) worse when they can no longer take advantage of the WT to perform better.
- In the original Japanese version, units could only be promoted if they had Master Seals. This isn't uncommon for the series, but Radiant Dawn has such a huge cast and not enough Master Seals that it made using units really difficult when there didn't need to be such restrictions. While Ike, Sothe, and Micaiah did get promoted to tier three classes, the way chapters are handled meant you could potentially still have tier 1 units in later maps, which was a huge problem for the Dawn Brigade because several start off a tier 1 units. The western release saw this issue and made it where hitting max level would automatically promote the unit, making Master Seals instead a way to promote characters earlier.
Other individual games
- Weather in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade was very much a one-and-done mechanic, and with good reason. Essentially, what it amounted to was that every so often on certain maps, it would start raining or snowing, which reduces the movement of nearly all units. There's never a point where the player can really meaningfully exploit this, and it's most common on maps where the goal is to reach an objective, so most of the time, all it does is make maps more tedious.
- The localization of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade changed the effectiveness multiplier from 3x might to 2x might (minus a few weapons that always had a 2x multiplier). This was supposed to make the game easier, but in practice serves to make bow users like Will and Rebecca even worse than they were before, as they're now frequently unable to One-Hit Kill the flying units they're supposed to counter. Meanwhile, Pegasus Knights and other flying units become even more broken, as they're now far more durable against enemy Archers.
- The reclass system in Shadow Dragon created something of a Broken Base. Some think it adds an element of customization to your army, while others think it misses the point of every character being unique. Awakening fixed this by limiting every character to only 3 class paths (although reclassing is also a bit of a Game-Breaker, at least for the postgame...). Fates tried for the middle ground by offering reclass options, but maintaining the unit's level, preventing the abuse possible in Awakening.
- Shadows of Valentia
- The game gives really low Resistance growths to units (there is a 0 - 8% chance of getting a boost in Resistance depending on the unit). Therefore, classes that are strong against magic are likely to be the only ones with a Resistance stat in double figures and magic is just as dangerous as it normally is, especially late game (particularly Celica's route) where powerful magic users are increasingly prominent. Granted, the original Gaiden gave everybody 0% in the Resistance column, but it's still frustrating for newer fans to come in and have even their Mages and Pegasus Knights (classes known for their Resistance in other titles) have such low Res stats.
- As mentioned above, the Soldier/Armor class line never gains movement upon promotion, meaning they'll be slower than usual when they reach tier 3 and are competing with infantry units with a whopping 3 more movement, but the remake also removed the large movement increase from the Speed Ring and nerfed the range of Warp. This has been criticized for making the soldier class line, already not great in the original, even more unappealing.
- Supports in Fire Emblem: Three Houses face a few issues.
- The first is that you can't guarantee paired endings, since characters will pair up with whoever they have gained the most support points with among their A ranks. And in the case of ties, pairings are given priority in order of Black Eagles > Blue Lions > Golden Deer > Church/Non-Students. The game doesn't tell you any of this, of course, so it either takes trial and error to get the paired endings you want, or you simply have to not achieve A ranks but miss out on conversations.
- The second is the matter of the S ranks, which only Byleth can achieve. You can choose Byleth's S rank partner only before the final maps of each route, meaning that to max them out for completion's sake, you have to go through all of those final maps over and over and over. Making this worse is that Crimson Flower and Azure Moon both have two-part final chapters.
- Finally, some support levels cannot be raised past a certain point in the story, and the only way the game lets you know is telling you after the fact that you missed your chance. There may be understandable reasons why supports are unavailable, but you won't know why until you actually see those supports.
