History YMMV / FireEmblemHeroes

** Following the previous "Life & Death" Tempest Trial bosses, all of which were very hard fights thanks to including foes like Rearmed Líf and Ascended Eir, the final boss of "Life & Death 5", Ganglöt, is a huge step down in difficulty compared to the other bosses. She isn't outright a cakewalk since she is still a potentially tough foe on account of her Arcane Downfall making her tough to tackle head on, but her axe typing means she's very easy to beat with a decently tanky red sword unit, or with ranged units. In particular, the reward unit, Ninja Haar, can easily counter her with a mild amount of investment on account of his weapon giving him a huge boost to his defenses, and she's very weak to units with Vantage, so a unit with Vantage and a special ready can take her out on one hit.

** Following the previous "Life & Death" Tempest Trial bosses, all of which were very hard fights thanks to including foes like Arcane Líf and Ascended Eir, the final boss of "Life & Death 5", Ganglöt, is a huge step down in difficulty compared to the other bosses. She isn't outright a cakewalk since she is still a potentially tough foe on account of her Arcane Downfall making her tough to tackle head on, but her axe typing means she's very easy to beat with a decently tanky red sword unit, or with ranged units. In particular, the reward unit, Ninja Haar, can easily counter her with a mild amount of investment on account of his weapon giving him a huge boost to his defenses, and she's very weak to units with Vantage, so a unit with Vantage and a special ready can take her out on one hit.

** Some of the 3-4 star units from the summoning pool, notably Regular Hana, Peri, Clair, Regular Shigure, Hawkeye, Regular Fae, Kaze, Leon, Legault, and Brady have two text boxes of summoning dialogue instead of just one. There's no option to fast forward or skip the summoning dialogue, which can make summoning those units feel more like a chore to get through than other units who have only one text box of dialogue.

** When auto battling game modes like Tempest Trials+ or Forging Bonds, most players will pick Hard difficulty. This is because enemies on Lunatic will always have their personal weapons, while enemies on Hard don't until the later maps of Tempest Trials+. Enemies with their perfs have the power to single handedly wipe out a player's team, especially due to the ArtificialStupidity from auto battle, while enemies without their perfs are much easier for a team on auto pilot to handle. Tellingly, Heroes' Journey does not have a Lunatic difficulty for grinding purposes, only Normal and Hard.

* EvilIsSexy:
** Prince Bruno of Embla who, despite wearing a mask, has damaged art that reveals he's very muscular for a mage.
** Loki, Laevatein, and Laegjarn are all villains who were fully introduced in Book II, and they're quite attractive.
** Líf and Thrasir, both introduced in Book III are both Generals of Hel and are easy on the eyes, despite being partially skeletal, though some may like that anyways.
** Some may even find [[TheGrimReaper Hel]] herself attractive, due to her very long hair, NavelDeepNeckline, {{Sideboob}}, and appearance as a StatuesqueStunner. Ganglöt also qualifies; with her black leathery heels, a cleaner appearance outfit and straighter hair, she's almost like a sexier version of Hel, despite how the Hel characters are meant to invoke FanDisservice with their exposed skeletons via transparent flesh.
** Plumeria, introduced in Book IV. Comes with being titled 'Lewd Dream', but she still wears a SexyBacklessOutfit which bares her thighs and has {{Sideboob}}. Her New Year's alt has an even more revealing outfit which shows her cleavage and has increased LegFocus.
** Triandra can also qualify, due to her bangs, CleavageWindow, and baring her legs.
** Freyja, the BigBad of Book IV, was also well received for her appearance when she was introduced. This especially applies to her Summer alt, where she's showing much more skin and her breasts are emphasized.
** [[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/238457383628701697/416243888114761728/IMG_20180222_094425.jpg Fallen Robin]]'s artwork shows him as quite the pretty boy. Even if he's being possessed by a demonic EldritchAbomination. This also applies to his female counterpart.
** Book V has King Fáfnir, a {{Raven Hair Ivory Skin}}ned young man wearing skin-tight black clothing.
** Book VI has Letizia, an Emblian woman with black lipstick, ExcessiveEvilEyeshadow, and a nice figure.
** Also from Book VI is Embla, who upon first sight aroused many fans with her EyepatchOfPower, slim figure, and black lipstick. It helps that her base form has [[LittleBitBeastly minor animal features]].
** Gullveig, the BigBad of Book VII was an overnight hit with the fans. She has a ''generous'' hourglass figure that puts ''Freyja'' to shame, and her color palette consists of GoldAndWhiteAreDivine and SnakesAreSexy. She looks like a Sin Eater in [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV Shadowbringers]], yet she has that contralto and seductive charm! She actually managed to win ''first place'' in the seventh "Choose Your Legends" Women's Divison, largely because of her sex appeal.[[note]]Granted, there were also some people who voted Gullveig purely for the memes.[[/note]]
** Fomortiis, ''Sacred Stones's'' BigBad, has attracted players because of his incredible artwork by Daisuke Izuka. There were plenty of comments basically boiling down to "hear me out."

** Gullveig herself qualifies. The one we see in the main story is [[spoiler: a Seiðr who is so completely irreparably lost in despair that she no longer acknowledges her existence as Seiðr beyond a necessary form for her to become Gullveig and actively aiding in the cycle of her own torment to perpetuate in her creation.]] Her Choose Your Legends 7 Brave variant however is [[spoiler:somewhere in-between, where she still hasn't completely fallen to despair, yet is still very far down there.]] She has gone through the cycle of her birth, rebirth, and subsequent destruction of the world that she is, in her own words "nearly worn through". Her Forging Bonds story makes it clear that she feels completely hopeless yet is at least willing to give some new event in the cycle that she's never seen some chance to break it, and her dialogue in her level 40 conversation even suggests that the one thing she wants more than anything else [[spoiler:is [[DeathSeeker to finally die.]]]] And if her present day self in chapter 10 is any indication, [[spoiler:she may even have [[DrivenToSuicide tried to do it herself too!]]]] With Brave Gullveig, [[spoiler:Seiðr is slowly losing herself.]] Story Gullveig makes it quite clear that by that point after many more loop cycles,[[spoiler:[[ThatManIsDead Seiðr is long gone.]]]] For one final added point, every single one of Brave Gullveig's arts all show her with slight bags under her eyes, showing she is at the end of everything, just completely tired, worn out, and done.

** The trailer for the banner "Attuned: Peony & Triandra", which introduced the then-new hero type of the same name. While the reception for the trailers that introduced previous hero variants were more or less warm, the major reason this one have largely negative reception from the community is not just the banner only having one new character added (Mycen), with Marla and Hestia being released as freebies, but the introduction of Attuned heroes in general. Many felt that the concept, in which these heroes possess an additional skill slot containing a slightly weaker version of an existing skill that can be inherited to other heroes only once, was both redundant and unnecessary, as rearmed heroes already have a similar function albeit with weapons, and that the x slot skills can only be given to units that don't have personal skills already,[[note]]For example, one can inherit the x slot to Dancer Duo Sigurd + Deirdre, but it can't be inherited on Legendary Sigurd due to having Crusader's Ward and Holy Knight Aura as personal skills[[/note]] rendering them pointless.

** Gullveig herself qualifies. The one we see in the main story is [[spoiler: a Seiðr who is so completely irreparably lost in despair that she no longer acknowledges her existence as Seiðr beyond a necessary form for her to become Gullveig and actively aiding in the cycle of her own torment to perpetuate in her creation.]] Her Choose Your Legends 7 Brave variant however is [[[[spoiler:somewhere in-between, where she still hasn't completely fallen to despair, yet is still very far down there.]] She has gone through the cycle of her birth, rebirth, and subsequent destruction of the world that she is, in her own words "nearly worn through". Her Forging Bonds story makes it clear that she feels completely hopeless yet is at least willing to give some new event in the cycle that she's never seen some chance to break it, and her dialogue in her level 40 conversation even suggests that the one thing she wants more than anything else [[spoiler:is [[DeathSeeker to finally die.]]]] And if her present day self in chapter 10 is any indication, [[spoiler:she may even have [[DrivenToSuicide tried to do it herself too!]]]] With Brave Gullveig, [[spoiler:Seiðr is slowly losing herself.]] Story Gullveig makes it quite clear that by that point after many more loop cycles,[[spoiler:[[ThatManIsDead Seiðr is long gone.]]]] For one final added point, every single one of Brave Gullveig's arts all show her with slight bags under her eyes, showing she is at the end of everything, just completely tired, worn out, and done.

* TheScrappy: Ótr. He’s inconsistently written throughout Book V, ranging from seeming like an AxCrazy HateSink who hates Reginn, to a TragicVillain who [[IJustWantToBeLoved just wants loved ones]], and then flips between these portrayals so often it makes it seem like the writers don’t know what to do with him. Beyond that, his shallow motivation of not wanting to “lose” Fáfnir, his willingness to kill Reginn out of sheer jealousy, and his manipulation of Nótt via fake feelings of love, didn’t help depict him as a likable character. This might've been fine, if the game didn’t frame him as a tragic villain, rather than being a HateSink like it seems to be trying at first to paint him as. Combined with his gameplay value being mediocre, and he’s widely seen as the worst ''Heroes'' OriginalGeneration character in the game's history, to the point that his first appearance in Choose Your Legends resulted in the single lowest rated ''Heroes'' OC during their first CYL appearance period. To drive this even further, his banner was estimated to be the [[https://www.reddit.com/r/FireEmblemHeroes/comments/q4bbg4/according_to_sensortower_rankings_the_mythic_otr/ single worst selling banner in the game's history at the time of its release]], and unlike later banners that sold even worse, he doesn't have the excuse of just bad timing from a sales angle.

** Seasonal themes that keep using the same type of roster. Halloween banners (from 2020 onwards) and New Year banners (from 2019 onwards) were noted to star only dragon/dragon adjacent units and ''Heroes'' originals and beasts, respectively, while patterns established in other seasonal banners had been subverted or broken before.

** Fans have expressed displeasure from the fact that every Book in the game [[StrictlyFormula are almost exactly the same]], [[SameStoryDifferentNames just with a new coat of paint]] [[StatusQuoIsGod with no real changes to the game's status quo]]: Each Book starts with the Askr trio being invaded by the new realm that has just been introduced, and the Order of Heroes are aided by an ArcHeroine who also happens to be a princess, or is the retainer to a king. The villain is also completely invincible until the Heroes find a magic MacGuffin that is needed to defeat them. On top of that, [[spoiler:every male OC and all but one pair of siblings will die as well as the villain themselves]]. The {{Arc Hero}}ine then moves to Askr, rarely, if ever to be seen in the story from then on. Rinse and repeat.

* CharacterPerceptionEvolution: Veronica was easily the most popular OriginalCharacter during the first year of the game, due to her compelling writing, character development, and relationship with Bruno. It lead to her being the second place winner of the first Choose Your Legends event. Seemingly in response, the writers began making Veronica an important part of each Books story in some way while giving her more alts compared to the Askr trio, causing Veronica to gradually become more polarizing as she began to become a SpotlightStealingSquad compared to the Askr trio. This eventually reached its peak during Book VI, where Veronica became the main focus of the story, and overshadowed all of the other characters in terms of focus, to the point where she was chosen as the ''Heroes'' rep for ''VideoGame/FireEmblemEngage'', and it being based around her appearance in said chapter. After Book VI ended, Veronica now is significantly more polarizing compared to before, going from a BreakoutVillain in the eyes of fans, to being something of a CreatorsPet by the writers at the expense of the rest of the cast, with some players disliking her now because of how much focus she gets compared to other characters.

** Fans have expressed displeasure from the fact that every Book in the game [[StrictlyFormula are almost exactly the same]], [[SameStoryDifferentNames just with a new coat of paint]] [[StatusQuoIsGod with no real changes to the game's status quo]]: Each Book starts with the Askr being invaded by the new realm that has just been introduced, and the Order of Heroes are aided by an ArcHeroine who also happens to be a princess, or is the retainer to a king. The villain is also completely invincible until the Heroes find a magic MacGuffin that is needed to defeat them. On top of that, [[spoiler:every male OC and all but one pair of siblings will die as well as the villain themselves]]. The {{Arc Hero}}ine then moves to Askr, rarely, if ever to be seen in the story from then on. Rinse and repeat.

* JunkRare: This applies to 5-star exclusive rare units that are are [[CantCatchUp a pain to bring up to usable scratch]] and lack any useful skills available for inheritance. Most of these units are old units with lower Base Stat Totals (BST) that comes with outdated, useless default skills. Pulling these units negates a player's pity percentage accumulated from summoning lower rank units, ruining the already low chance to draw a wanted unit, though thankfully if you get a pity breaker with some summons left, you can still roll on it to get something good since the pity breaker only takes effect after that summoning session. Notable examples include Luke: Rowdy Squire, Olwen: Blue Mage Knight, Mist: Helpful Sister, and Xander: Spring Prince.

** Fans have expressed displeasure from the fact that every Book in the game [[StrictlyFormula are almost exactly the same]], [[SameStoryDifferentNames just with a new coat of paint]] [[StatusQuoIsGod with no real changes to the game's status quo]]: Each Book starts with the Askr being invaded by the new realm that has just been introduced, and the Order of Heroes are aided by an ArcHeroine who also happens to be a princess, or is the retainer to a king. The villain is also completely invincible until the Heroes find a magic MacGuffin that is needed to defeat them. On top of that, [[spoiler:every male OC and all but one pair of siblings will die as well as the villain themselves]]. The ArcHeroine then moves to Askr, rarely, if ever to be seen in the story from then on. Rinse and repeat.

* SeasonalRot:
** Some players feel Book VI is the lowest point in the game's story, due to wasting a large amount of the returning and new characters, focusing on too many plot points that could ever have been resolved in the story (Veronica's past, Embla and Askr's history, Letizia and Veronica's history, Bruno's search for a cure, resolving the conflict between Askr and Embla as countries, etc), none of which felt like they were resolved effectively. Even though the Askr trio are still important to the story, it felt like the developers [[SpotlightStealingSquad focused way too much on Veronica]] at the cost of everyone else. Ash and Elm are cited as a good example of this, as Ash received [[OutOfFocus little focus from the writers]] as the story went on (if at all), while Elm had [[FlatCharacter absolutely no character whatsoever]], compared to Veronica who appeared constantly.
** Other players find that Book VI was a breath of fresh air...especially compared to Book VII, whose most-cited complaint is that the fanservice—a fairly standard part of these stories—has been turned up to the point of absurdity, between Seiðr's infamous "Would you have a child with me?", a stable of characters whose most memorable features appear to be their [[MostCommonSuperpower comically large breasts]] and vacuum-sealed clothing, and [[spoiler:Heiðr's monster form having tacky breasts]]. The association with Gullveig, whom many players were ''not'' happy to see winning [=CYL7=] for what appeared to be purely memetic and fanservice reasons, doesn't help its reputation in the slightest.

** Other players find that Book VI was a breath of fresh air...especially compared to Book VII, whose most-cited complaint is that the fanservice—a fairly standard part of these stories—has been turned up to the point of absurdity, between Seiðr's infamous "Would you have a child with me?" and a stable of characters whose most memorable features appear to be their [[MostCommonSuperpower comically large breasts]] and vacuum-sealed clothing. The association with Gullveig, whom many players were ''not'' happy to see winning [=CYL7=] for what appeared to be purely memetic and fanservice reasons, doesn't help its reputation in the slightest.

* SeasonalRot: Some players feel Book VI is the lowest point in the game's story, due to wasting a large amount of the returning and new characters, focusing on too many plot points that could ever have been resolved in the story (Veronica's past, Embla and Askr's history, Letizia and Veronica's history, Bruno's search for a cure, resolving the conflict between Askr and Embla as countries, etc), none of which felt like they were resolved effectively. Even though the Askr trio are still important to the story, it felt like the developers [[SpotlightStealingSquad focused way too much on Veronica]] at the cost of everyone else. Ash and Elm are cited as a good example of this, as Ash received [[OutOfFocus little focus from the writers]] as the story went on (if at all), while Elm had [[FlatCharacter absolutely no character whatsoever]], compared to Veronica who appeared constantly.

** Other players find that Book VI was a breath of fresh air...especially compared to Book VII, whose most-cited complaint is that the fanservice—a fairly standard part of these stories—has been turned UpToEleven to the point of absurdity, between Seiðr's infamous "Would you have a child with me?" and a stable of characters whose most memorable features appear to be their [[MostCommonSuperpower comically large breasts]] and vacuum-sealed clothing. The association with Gullveig, whom many players were ''not'' happy to see winning CYL7 for what appeared to be purely memetic and fanservice reasons, doesn't help its reputation in the slightest.

* SeasonalRot: Some players feel Book VI is the lowest point in the game's story, due to wasting a large amount of the returning and new characters, focusing on too many plot points that could ever have been resolved in the story (Veronica's past, Embla and Askr's history, Leitzia and Veronica's history, Bruno's search for a cure, resolving the conflict between Askr and Embla as countries, etc), none of which felt like they were resolved effectively. Even though the Askr trio are still important to the story, it felt like the developers [[SpotlightStealingSquad focused way too much on Veronica]], at the cost of everyone else. Ash and Elm are cited as a good example of this, as Ash received [[OutOfFocus little focus from the writers]] as the story went on (if at all), while Elm had [[FlatCharacter absolutely no character whatsoever]], compared to Veronica who appeared constantly.

** A few months after his debut in Book VII, almost everyone people predicted that [[spoiler:Njörðr was EvilAllAlong. This was proven correct in Book VII, Chapter 9, when Njörðr reveals his true colors, and says he is the one who wants to turn Seiðr into Gullveig]].

** A few months after his debut in Book VII, almost everyone people predicted that [[spoiler:Njörðr was the true villain. This was proven correct in Book VII, Chapter 9, when Njörðr reveals his true colors, and says he is the one who wants to turn Seiðr into Gullveig]].

** The character of Kyza from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn'' was somewhat infamous in their original incarnation for being an unflattering CampGay stereotype with a resulting AmbiguousGenderIdentity. When Kyza returned for this game, they were exclusively given gender-neutral pronouns (the first ''Fire Emblem'' character who isn't a deity or artifical creation to hold that honor) and most of the UnfortunateImplications were ironed out without removing their flamboyancy, including by making the LoveTriangle between them, Ranulf and Lyre not only more explicit, but also by heavily implying that Ranulf reciprocated their feelings in the past. The response to this version of Kyza has been much more positive this time as a result.

*** And it doesn't get any better for Gullveig herself either. The one we see in the main story is [[spoiler:the one who is so completely irreparably lost in despair that she no longer acknowledges her existence as Seiðr beyond a necessary form for her to become Gullveig and actively aiding in the cycle of her own torment to perpetuate in her creation.]] Her Choose Your Legends 7 Brave variant however is [[[[spoiler:somewhere in-between, where she still hasn't completely fallen to despair, yet is still very far down there.]] She has gone through the cycle of her birth, rebirth, and subsequent destruction of the world that she is, in her own words "nearly worn through". Her Forging Bonds story makes it clear that she feels completely hopeless yet is at least willing to give some new event in the cycle that she's never seen some chance to break it, and her dialogue in her level 40 conversation even suggests that the one thing she wants more than anything else [[spoiler:is [[DeathSeeker to finally die.]]]] And if her present day self in chapter 10 is any indication, [[spoiler:she may even have [[DrivenToSuicide tried to do it herself too!]]]] With Brave Gullveig, [[spoiler:Seiðr is slowly losing herself.]] Story Gullveig makes it quite clear that by that point after many more loop cycles,[[spoiler:[[ThatManIsDead Seiðr is long gone.]]]] For one final added point, every single one of Brave Gullveig's arts all show her with slight bags under her eyes, showing she is at the end of everything, just completely tired, worn out, and done.

** This game is considered to be where Creator/{{Nintendo}} has finally found its footing in the mobile games department. ''VideoGame/{{Miitomo}}'' was criticized for being little more than a barebones messaging app. ''VideoGame/PokemonGO'' (though that one was more of a Niantic production than in-house) had a lot of buzz at first, but was criticized for its lack of gameplay variety and it rapidly declined in popularity outside a small group of dedicated fans. ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRun'' was fairly well-received, but was criticized for having too little content for an up-front price as well as incorporating unnecessary Free-To-Play elements in a non-Free-To-Play game. Come ''Fire Emblem Heroes'', the game has been praised for its large amount of content, gameplay that strikes a balance between simplicity and depth, and its regular update schedule. As such, it has become the first consistently popular mobile game released by Nintendo, has contributed greatly to the rapidly-growing popularity of the ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' franchise, and later Nintendo mobile games such as ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing: Pocket Camp'' have met similarly positive reception.