Fire Emblem/YMMV

"I am not human. This heart and this body are constructs. Yes, as is this sorrow."
 * Alas, Poor Villain: There's several spread around the series, usually for Anti-Villain characters. The most recognizable to Western fans would be Limstella from the first export.


 * Alternate Character Interpretation: Given how many characters there are across the games, this is inevitable. Particularly obvious with shipping (especially when it comes to sexual orientation), since the games rarely define specific canon pairings, and the support system often gives one character multiple potential romances.
 * Americans Hate Tingle: While the games set in Marth's world are loved in Japan, with Mystery of the Emblem being heralded as the very best, the rest of the world sees them as some of the weakest parts in the series.
 * In general, the series is much more popular and acclaimed in Japan than in America, where it still is somewhat popular, but the games sometimes get mixed reviews.
 * Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Said rest of the world tend to prefer Holy War (mainly pre-export fans), Blazing Sword (being the first Fire Emblem game outside of Japan), or even The Sacred Stones (strategy fans "spoiled" by the genre's more popular offerings.
 * Anticlimax Boss: Quite a few. The Sacred Stones give you a bunch of weapons super effective against the final boss. A decent mage takes no damage from the Dragon (figurative, not literal) in Shadow Dragon, and you merely need a special spell to bypass his damage immunity; depending on how much you've used Marth, the final boss himself is either easy or stupidly easy -- the good Falchion can often take him out down in two hits. (If Marth's not doing so well, Tiki or Nagi, as well as someone using Parthia or Gradivus, will work wonders.) Then there's The Sword of Seals, where you have nine weapons that are super-effective against every enemy in the final two levels the titular weapon, which destroys all in its path.
 * Mention must be made of Veld in Thracia 776, who's well known as the easiest Final Boss in the series, wielding a heavy, long-range only Dark Tome alongside the more basic Yatsmungand as a back up weapon, and having rather mediocre stats. With no ability to defend himself up close and a laughable attack speed of 0 on the first turn he is out, he'll go down in one round if you throw anyone worth using at him. In fact, it's even possible to capture him without taking any damage!
 * And if you use Yuria and her Naga tome, like the game tells you to, Yurius in Genealogy becomes this. If she's dead, however, he's That One Boss... go figure.
 * For the US release, (not sure if it happens in others,) Ashnard in Path of Radiance doesn't revive with the power of Lehran's Medallion unless you fight him on hard mode. Not playing on hard also has your Requested Laguz Royal join at the beginning of the final stage (instead of appearing after Ashnard's resurrection,) making the final stage a cakewalk on Easy or Normal.
 * There are countless stories of people beating the Dragon in Blazing Sword by equipping Canas or Athos with Luna.
 * Anvilicious: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn's "racism is bad, mmkay?" Aesop can be pretty annoying, especially since nothing new is really done with it.
 * Big Lipped Alligator Moment: "Battle Preparations" in The Blazing Sword. You've just decided to assault the Very Definitely Final Dungeon, the fate of the world hangs in the balance, ... and then without warning, an unexpected lesson in economics and trade. "[...] as Marquess Ostia, he gave a scathing indictment of the peer system." -- What?
 * Broken Base: Shadow Dragon caused (and still causes) a lot of drama among the fans.
 * Character Tiers: Debates over this encompass a big part of the fandom.
 * Cliché Storm: The games go in and out of this - Fire Emblem Akaneia certainly seems this way after Jugdral, Blazing Sword, and the Tellius games, but consider they actually were made in the early 90s. The plots for six and eight are certainly Clichestorms (With six playing so many tropes used in the first almost identically!) yet Fire Emblem Jugdral, Blazing Sword, and Fire Emblem Tellius certainly are not.
 * Crowning Moment of Awesome: The critical hit animations. Especially for the swordsmaster and Lyn with the Sol Katti.
 * Cult Classic: While the series is well-known thanks to Super Smash Bros., the people who actually have bought a game and played it are reduced to a (very loyal) cult. Still to this day, people are still arguing over a tier list in FE9 and FE10. In Japan, though, it's very much mainstream.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Gheb especially, but Batta The Beast, Glass, and Denning also qualify.
 * From Fire Emblem Kakusei this female dark(?) mage is getting the most love from fans.
 * Epic Fail: In some games, such as 7 and 8, it is possible for a unit to kill themselves by attacking a wall or snag with the Devil Axe. Here is an infamous example.
 * Fan Dumb: Visit any forum for the series and you will see this everywhere, especially in tier threads.
 * Fanon Discontinuity: Shadow Dragon.
 * Game Breaker: Certain units can become this with the right development. Now has its own page.
 * Goddamned Bats: Enemy magic users with Sleep or Berserk staves. Especially in Genealogy of the Holy War, where enemy-exclusive Sleep staves had near-perfect accuracy and unlimited uses and in Thracia 776, where the staves had infinite range and the status effects never wore off on their own.
 * Goddamned Boss: Any static boss with decent power, doubly so if they're sitting on a throne which gives substantial bonuses to their defense and evasion.
 * Good Bad Bugs: Radiant Dawn's "fix" of the bonus XP system from Path of Radiance actually made the system more broken. While Path of Radiance was merely Save Scummable, Radiant Dawn guarantees 3 (though only 3) stat gains per level up, even if all the stats most likely to grow are maxed. Consequently, characters with unbalanced growths (weak but speedy Vika, slow but sturdy Aran, or powerful but fragile Soren, for example) can use BEXP once they cap their good stats to improve their bad ones.
 * The enemy control glitches, which have Game Breaker potential (but are not Game Breaking Bugs).
 * The pitfall traps in Chapter 3-11 of Radiant Dawn only activate if a non-flying unit moves onto the space, and one of the enemy bishops in that chapter has a Rescue staff. This can allow a unit to end up on one of the pitfall spaces without setting it off. (Yes, normally the enemies avoid those spaces, which makes it easy to see which spaces are and are not booby-trapped.) However, because the space is already occupied without the pitfall trap having been set off, a unit with Pass can move through that space without falling into a pit.
 * Ho Yay: Every game...every game.
 * In Radiant Dawn, Micaiah lampshades it: "general Ike: Leader of the Greil mercenaries, "Hero"" of the Crimean liberation, and father of Sothe's children..."
 * There is still some impressive rage over whether or not there could by Ho Yay between Ike and Soren or Ike and Ranulf.
 * Hype Backlash: Genealogy of the Holy War started to show signs of this. Blazing Sword, however, averts it despite being the FE game that most people have played.
 * A strange example of this combined with Seinfeld Is Unfunny hit with Shadow Dragon. If you ask most people outside of Japan what their first Fire Emblem game was, most of them will say "Blazing Sword". In between receiving Shadow Dragon, we also received Fire Emblem the Sacred Stones, and Fire Emblem Tellius... so a lot of people were expecting Marth's game to be like what we expected a Fire Emblem game to be. When Shadow Dragon was a "Back to basics" remake of the first game, a lot of people expressed disappointment because... well... we allowed ourselves to be a bit spoiled!
 * Memetic Mutation: Is Marth or Roy in this game?
 * MONEY IS REALLY IMPORTANT DAMNIT!!
 * This is a message from Lord Nergal. "I await you on the Dread Isle."
 * Moral Event Horizon: Torabant, it sure is brave of you to.
 * Scrappy Mechanic: The concept of promotion can prove quite uneven: the gap in promotable classes between FE 1 and FEDS 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:
 * "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, allowing them to outrun normally faster yet terribly burdened light units. 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 s/he could handle;
 * Healing staves can (and frustratingly do) miss in FE5, as it's based on a Skill calculation. While status staves in this game have a ridiculously high hit rate and can hit from practically anywhere on the map, a healer can miss while standing next to the unit he/she tries to heal. All the additions in FE5 counts.
 * Biorhythm from Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. Chances are, no matter whether your units are feeling good or not, you will either want to use a certain unit in a certain place, or that unit is the only one who is suited for the area. If you are feeling good and the enemies aren't, good for you. But, if you're feeling down and the enemies just so happen to be in good or even great condition, better hope your unit has enough health/defenses to weather their attacks. If you like using the Myrmidon or Pegasus Knight type of unit, then this will hit you hard.
 * Seinfeld Is Unfunny: Akaenia was the series that was the Trope Codifier for this series, as well as the entire genre (Along with Shining Force.) Most of the complaints for Shadow Dragon are pretty much this.
 * Shipping: With the concept of supports in the later games, excluding remakes, the many different endings that come with A level support between two characters and the stat bonuses characters receive if they have A level supports and are next to each other, the game is actually encouraging characters to be shipped!
 * Ship-to-Ship Combat: Every single game. Example: In The Blazing Sword, the Lyn x Hector vs Eliwood vs Kent vs Rath vs Florina + whatever else comes to mind. And please, for the love of peace on the internet, do not bring up Roy's heritage...
 * If she's supported with Sain, Serra lampshades this at Lyn's expense.
 * Tear Jerker: Just one too many...
 * They Changed It, Now It Sucks AND It's the Same, Now It Sucks: Shadow Dragon is not well liked by fans because it is very close to the original (which fans tend to acknowledge as lacking) with only some of the improvements made in latter titles (meaning that most of the features were "removed").
 * In New Mystery of the Emblem, a lot of fans were bothered by the announcement of the addition of a "Casual" mode option (removing the series' signature permanent death). Fans turned to "meh" after the actual release proved Lunatic is moonstruck hard enough to ease the fears it would be the first sign in dumbing down the series.
 * Tier-Induced Scrappy - Low to bottom Tier characters are treated as trash by the fanbase regardless of their backstory. High to God tier characters, however, are worshipped.
 * Tier-Induced Scrappy - Low to bottom Tier characters are treated as trash by the fanbase regardless of their backstory. High to God tier characters, however, are worshipped.