Fire Emblem Archanea/YMMV

• Alternative Character Interpretation: This is canon for marth. He's always been noble and brave to a degree but in the earlier games he was decidedly naive and a bit of a bleeding-heart, apparently so much that the OAV adaptation pretty much removed the brave and noble part and upped the softness. In Super Smash Brothers Melee, he was something of a show-off. Finally, Shadow Dragon introduced a bolder, more serious version of the character.
• And the Fandom Rejoiced: The fandom cheered for any indication that New Mystery of the Emblem was more than a straight remake with minimal new content like Shadow Dragon was, and the fact that you don't have to kill off units to access the Gaiden chapters this time.
• Adaptation Displacement: Outside of Japan, Marth's much more well known for appearing in Super Smash Bros than his own games; the release of Shadow Dragon didn't actually do all too much to dispel it, as it was a fairly quiet release.
• Americans Aren't Quite As Fond Of Akaneia: While the games in this timeline are loved in Japan with Mystery of the Emblem being heralded as the very best of the franchise, the rest of the world sees them as some of the weakest parts in the series. This is more or less due to the fact that by the time they were released overseas, they had been spoiled by better Fire Emblems and significantly more advanced turn-based strategy games, and that the remakes didn't do all that much to bring it up to speed with modern offerings (though in fairness, there would always be people who would've complained if they had, so they were damned either way).
• Alas, Poor Villain: Camus in Shadow Dragon, Rudolf in Gaiden, Hardin in Mystery of the Emblem.
  • Possibly Kleine in New Mystery. Given how much of an extreme Jerkass she was before, few saw that death scene coming.
• Big Lipped Alligator Moment: The Pyrathi chapter. Not because of anything that happens in it, which is all in the bounds of the game itself - but because Pyrathi is literally never even so much as mentioned again afterward, in any of the games. Hell, as soon as you clear the chapter, the ending cutscene doesn't mention anything that just happened, instead segueing directly into Catria arriving to deliver a message from Minerva.
  • Word of God says it's Ogma's hometown. Strangely this detail is never even brought up in the games proper.
• Breather Boss: Roro is ridiculously easy to beat in Normal Mode, but even in the harder difficulties, he's still not particularly hard to kill. In fairness, there is a ridiculous number of him.
• Continuity Snarl: The sidequest requirements in Shadow Dragon cause some pretty serious Mind Screw in New Mystery. Basically, everyone from Shadow Dragon returns alive and well in the sequal. While this was explained in the case of the scarifice in the prologue, the real problem is that Marth recognises all the sidequest-only characters, despite meeting them all in Shadow Dragon requiring practically all the other characters to be dead. Only one Shadow Dragon sidequest is explicitly stated to be non-canon: 24x (as Marth doesn't recognise Nagi) and that was the one with the least harsh requirements. Exactly how the others could of occured with everyone surviving just boggles the mind. Or maybe the sidequest requirements in the first game are just Canon Dis Continuity.
• Die for Our Ship: You wouldn't believe the shit Caeda gets just for existing among the Marth/Roy fans (who more often than not have absolutely no knowledge of Fire Emblem beyond what they know from SSB)...
  • Elice is loathed by Merric/Linde fans.
• Evil Is Sexy: Eremiya, Kleine.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: The Akaneia canon as a whole is easily the most popular and famous in Japan, in contrast to the rest of the world's view of them; Mystery of the Emblem, in particular, is beloved and heralded as the best.
  • Ogma is considered a great unit overall and even started an archetype that fits this trope.
  • Like Ogma, Nabarl started an archetype and is said to have inspired the Myrmidon class he would later be reclassed as in the remakes.
  • After Shadow Dragon, Wolf's good growths, Bishonen looks, and sympathetic background made him very popular.
  • Catria is one of the more popular characters from the Akaneia games.
  • Roro. Well, sort of. Among the FE Game Mod community, he's a very popular character to insert into hacks.
  • A particularly odd instance: Vyland, among the Japanese fandom. Despite his dubious usefulness and utter genericness in a game with both far more developed characters and a billion better Cavaliers, he has a bizarre borderline-memetic following in the Japanese fandom.
  • Ditto for Wrys, seemingly due to his baldness. To the point where he can convince your MU to shave their head in New Mystery. It appears his recruitment quote ("I can't fight, but I can heal others with my staff") have reached borderline memetic status among the Japanese fandom, given how he repeats it word-for-word in New Mystery.
• Fan Dumb: Super Smash Bros fangirls who hate on Caeda despite never even playing the game, even knowing the story. Just look at these comments.
  • There's also the GameFAQs forum for the recently announced Mystery of the Emblem remake, which for a while was filled with threads bashing both the new remake and Shadow Dragon. Apparently Shadow Dragon was a complete failure, and this means the new remake will also fail. Or maybe they're just joking, I'm never sure.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Linde with Merric. Poor Elice.
  • Some fans think Catria's a better match for Marth than Sheeda. Miraculously, they're more often than not pretty civil to Sheeda herself.
• Fanon Discontinuity: People seem to be treating Michalis's optional survival in New Mystery as this. His ending isn't helping matters either.
• Fridge Logic: In Shadow Dragon's ending, it's stated that Jake and Anna dreamed about visiting far-away continents. Although we don't see Jake per-se, Anna ends up appearing in different continuities in the series as the in-game tutorial person.
  • Wait, so did she use some sort of transdimensional magic to do so?
• Game Breaker: Say what you will about My Unit as a character, but they will always tend to have insane stat growths, regardless of what class you choose. He/She will nearly always be a Lightning Bruiser, even if they're in an armored class.
• Ho Yay: Rickard has a pretty blatant crush on Julian, he even ends his dialogue with hearts when talking to him.
• Iron Woobie: Marth, especially in Shadow Dragon.
  • Dear God, just read Ogma's second MU support in New Mystery!
• Memetic Mutation: In Dark Dragon, Marth's not wearing pants!
• Narm: In Mystery of the Emblem, Lorenz bites it in the first chapter. How is this represented? His sprite explodes. Clouds of fire, sound effects, the works. This was changed in the remake.
  • This piece of artwork for Shadow Dragon would be all well and good... except everyone's expressions (especially Ogma's) are really Off-Model, undermining any attempt to seriously appreciate it. Thanks for that, Shirow Masamune.
• Older Than They Think: Some fans who started with one of the non-Japan only games might be surprised that the series goes as far back as 1990. It's also quite surprising how many features that are considered a series staple were already in the first game.
• Rescued From the Scrappy Heap: Katarina was originally dismissed as random fan-service when first announced, but when she reveals herself as an assassin it's actually quite unexpected.
  • While originally seen as a benchwarmer prepromote, Wolf's improved growths in Shadow Dragon made him really popular.
  • Like Wolf, Sedgar got a massive popularity boost after Shadow Dragon improved his growths.
  • Arran's Character Development in New Mystery did this.
• The Scrappy: Jagen, the iconically reviled Fire Emblem Crutch Character. On the other hand, there are plenty who like him when it comes to matters outside gameplay.
  • Matthis is one of Fire Emblem's most iconic scrappies. Gameplay-wise, he's incredibly hard to recruit; you need to get his defensively weak sister to talk to him, and he will KILL her on his turn! The effort to recruit is also worthless, with his growths being some of the worst in the game. Appearance wise, he's unattractive but not enough to look cool, funny, or interesting. His personality isn't better either; he sided with the The Empire out of fear, yet somehow has the gall to hate Julian for being an ex-thief. In the sequel, he's sided with the badguys for the exact same reasons. That this loser survives and makes it on to the next game while better characters meet their end or disappear is quite annoying.
  • Est suffers quite a bit of flack for coming in so late and so weak, despite being well-known for her Magikarp Power status.
    • Die for Our Ship: And for being "in the way" of Palla/Abel.
• Scrappy Mechanic: In Shadow Dragon, having to kill off people to get the sidequest chapters. Also the reclass system, to some.
• Seinfeld Is Unfunny: Most of the criticisms towards Shadow Dragon can be attributed to this, being that it pretty much left the 18-year-old core Dark Dragon game alone and made only a few tweaks beyond the obvious presentation facelift.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Mystery of the Emblem to the original Dark Dragon. While the latter was a good game that helped establish an entire genre, it was plagued with a terrible inventory system, staves didn't give EXP, the graphics were rather bland, and the story was rather bland. Then the former comes and fixes most of the gameplay flaws as well as much-needed character and story development, and wraps it up with a more streamlined version of Dark Dragon.
  • Many fans consider New Mystery to be this to Shadow Dragon too. It takes the Adaptation Expansion route rather than being a straight remake, adds a support system for much needed character development, and you no longer need to kill off your own characters to get the sidequests.
• Tier-Induced Scrappy: Only six classes could promote in FE1, automatically writing off most units who could not. FE3 slightly improves this by connecting four existing classes into lines, and the DS remakes feature lines introduced later, even going so far as changing certain mercenaries into myrmidons!
  • Jagen is probably the most affected by this. In the game's universe, he's considered a Cool Old Guy, veteran knight, and tactician. In real life, he started an archetype of EXP THIEVES!
  • Wrys is surpassed by Lena in both growths and base stats, so he is not considered very useful despite appearing in the very first chapter.
  • Unlike the rest of the members of the Wolfguard, Vyland's never been good.
  • In both games and the remakes, Bantu starts out with pathetic stats and has possibly the worst growths in the game.
  • Boah is pretty much hated for having the worst growths in the game and being the weakest of the potential mages.
  • Rickard is usually considered inferior to Julian in terms of growths.
• That One Boss: Camus in the first game (especially in the original version), Hardin in the second.
• They Just Didn't Care: Michalis spends most of the time searching for Maria in Mystery of the Emblem. However, he can't talk to her or wake her up in the last chapter if he survives near the end of New Mystery.
  • Jagen's portrait in New Mystery. He's a tactician and advisor, is out of shape, and accordingly does not fight (prologue aside), so why is his portrait exactly the same as in Shadow Dragon and he's still dressed in full battle armour? This was the case in the original Mystery, but it may be justified by limited space for superflous portraits given that Jagen was properly playable in Book 1; New Mystery has no similar excuse, his role as a Prologue boss aside, and even that duty could've been passed over to any other character or he could simply have had multiple portraits like Hardin, who has three. Perhaps Jagen wouldn't seem like himself without his Spikes of Heroism?
• Uncanny Valley: The art for the DS remakes.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Marth was a pretty common subject of this among western Super Smash Bros fans, as his design in those games seems to lend itself to making that mistake. In pretty much everything other than SSB, though, it's hard to make such a mistake.
  • Rickard
  • Many have mistook Xane for a girl.
• The Woobie: Wolf started out his life in slavery, is forced to choose between his hero/best friend and the right thing, and he never gets over Hardin's death.
  • Roshea.
    • Katarina.