YMMV / Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Camus' "The Reason You Suck" Speech towards Nyna at the end of the first Archanea Chronicles chapter. Given the state Grust was in, was it a hypocritical gloating that Camus could get away with just because his side won the war at the time? If it is to guide Archanea to be ruled by a virtuous ruler, was it out of genuine concern from him or lies fed by the Dolhr officers so he would comply with their orders more? Medeus eventually demands Nyna to be kept as a permanent hostage in his palace, which is what kickstarts the fourth chapter's escape plot. It doesn't help there's not much to be known about the previous Archanean king; whether he is really as bad as people say or not.
• Americans Hate Tingle:
  • While the games in this timeline are loved in Japan with Mystery of the Emblem being heralded as possibly the very best of the franchise, the rest of the world couldn't really appreciate it like it was intended. This is more or less because by the time they were released overseas, they had been spoiled by later, more mechanically refined entries in the series and significantly more advanced turn-based strategy games, ignoring the game on principle because the one perceived superior among the Archanea duology is not released overseas and that the remakes didn't do all that much to bring it up to speed with modern offerings. Most of the side materials that fleshed out the characters and story either never left Japan or certain parts of it were ignored in the remake, making curious overseas fans miss out a lot. The fact that this is the part of the series that gets "nostalgia baited" for their sake in modern games like Fire Emblem Heroes and Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE does it no favors. It also doesn't help that most of the crossover material like Fire Emblem: Awakening, Fire Emblem Warriors, and most notably, the Super Smash Bros. series, focuses almost exclusively on Marth, leaving overseas fans uninvested in Archanea outside of that character.
  • The original Mystery of the Emblem has a particularly problematic time of it because it lacks the First Installment Wins factor of the original. It leads to a sensation of "you want to see where it all began, play that; you want a more advanced one, play the DS remakes", leaving Mystery of the Emblem stuck in the middle for completionists, despite being generally regarded as one of the best ways to experience it.
  • Many those who played the fan-translated version of New Mystery of the Emblem disdain Elice for apparently insulting her own brother in front of Kris despite Marth's best efforts, further exacerbating the argument that Marth is "dumbed down" from his Shadow Dragon self to shill the new protagonist. Elice's original lines is actually her showing concern for someone as young as Marth carrying a heavy burden all by himself, but it was mistranslated.
• Base-Breaking Character: "My Unit/Kris" is a huge point of contention for the fans of the game. Those who like Kris often do so for similar reasons than they like Robin in Awakening: an amazing unit a with a lot of support conversations who provide more development to the rest of the cast (and some of them get a bit hilarious when they're forced to play the OnlySaneMan/Woman role). Outside that, they have a ridiculous fashion sense to the point of hilarity (they can wear any outfits or accessories or hairstyles provided by the cast to the point even Marth is sometimes shocked at seeing Kris in a weird accessory and Kris just takes them all non-chalantly). Detractors points out to the original script of the game that the plot is often rewritten to their advantage, making them steal the spotlight from the army as a whole, their seriously overpowered nature makes them come across as even more of a power fantasy, find Kris's character in supports to be very flat, which makes the fact that Kris is the only character who supports with everyone even more of a drag, and that, being a player avatar in a remake of a game that didn't feature one, they don't mesh well with the plot, unlike the other avatars of the series (and for those who dislike My Unit as a concept in general, let alone among people who didn't care for its expanded importance in Awakening or Fates, this is the Franchise Original Sin). There's also a third camp that considers Kris nothing spectacular or overly amazing, but doesn't really detract the quality of the story or existing characters. This camp is helped by the fact that, though they get a few lines supporting characters originally had in the main story, outside of the gaiden chapters, where it's justifiable given their personal connection to Katarina, Kris really is only a minor character and keeps a backseat to Marth where it counts, rather than being the even worse screentime-hoggers that Robin and Corrin were chiefly because of the story being written to accommodate them. However, detractors argue that screentime hogging is worse with Kris as they're overtaking an already existing story, to the point of having Marth's achievements "credited" to him by Kris. Despite seemingly being a minor character, Kris overtaking established achievements and handing them off to Marth and Marth turning to Kris when he didn't turn to anyone in the original doesn't sit well with players as it undercuts Marth's competence, especially when he stood up for himself just fine in the original game. As a result, other avatars fit better in the detractor's eyes because the story accommodates them instead of hijacking an existing story and discrediting characters that have been beloved for years. Kris remains a very controversial character to this day.
• Breather Boss: Legion is ridiculously easy to beat in Normal Mode, and even in the harder difficulties he's still not particularly hard to kill.
• Catharsis Factor: This is more or less the purpose of the first three chapters of the game, where Marth is forced to follow Lang's orders. At every turn, Lang displays his nature as cruel, craven, and unlikable, and on top of that, the situations he forces you into are seemingly designed to be annoying to play (particularly the infamous third chapter). When Jagen realizes the truth and hands Lang a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, and Lang flees like the coward he is, you're immediately aware: this guy has screwed you over, and now it's your job to hunt him down. The next few chapters are much more open and hand you some very powerful characters, freeing you up for a satisfying-as-hell asswhooping.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Given the fact that no less than four units have to be saved by one specific character apeace (who has to run right up to the final boss to grab them, to boot!) in the final chapter of the game, failing to do so only makes the final boss that much harder, and that the units who recruit them are fairly decent anyway, there's really no reason in either version not to make usage of Merric, Julian, Minerva and Sirius, to the detriment of any otherwise perfectly good character who could potentially fill their niche.
• Complete Monster: Besides the return of Gharnef, Duke Lang of Adria betrayed his nation to the Dragon Empire of Dolhr so he could rob from his own people. When Dolhr started losing, Lang defected back to Archanea. Taking advantage of the now Emperor Hardin's Despair Event Horizon, Lang gets himself appointed as Overseer of Grust, a defeated nation that in the previous war allied with Dolhr. The sadistic Lang commits various atrocities on Grust, including killing men that could oppose him; capturing young girls to rape and pimp; ordering the massacre of family members of those who participated in the rebellion; and executing the preteen heirs of Grust. When confronted over his actions, Lang tries to put the blame for his action on the Emperor so he could trick his foes into letting their guard down. Selfish, loyal to no one and willing to do anything to satisfy his own greed and sadism, Lang is among the worst Archanea has to offer.
• Continuity Lockout: New Mystery of the Emblem is unique in that it is the only post-Kaga installment that didn't get released outside of Japan. With regards to the game's treatment in crossover content, while the additions to Book 1 are known due to Shadow Dragon enforcing Ret-Canon, Book 2's events are for the most part unmentioned. For example, Marth's crossover appearances almost always seem to derive from Shadow Dragon/Book 1 and is generally not depicted with the Binding Shield, but there are exceptions such as his "King Marth" summonable iteration in Awakening. Those without knowledge of Mystery won't realize he's he's not just king of Altea, but all Archanea.
• Demonic Spiders: Wyverns (or Flying Dragons) in Mystery and its remake, but especially in Lunatic Mode of the latter. All dragons are pretty bad, having defence-ignoring breath, but Wyverns stand out due to their massive movement range and flight. They have a very annoying tendency to circumvent your meat-shields and pick off vulnerable characters in the rear, not helped by the first time you face them being a desert chapter where your movement is already heavily restricted.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Catria's incarnation here is incredibly popular, particularly in Japan, owing to her being a powerful and satisfying-to-use unit who managed to boast just a hint of personality even in the SNES days ^note Mainly the invisible one-sided support bonus between Catria and Marth that benefits her but not him. The manga adaptation and New Mystery were even less subtle about this relationship. For a long time, Caeda was something of a Die for Our Ship target because people went rather gaga for Catria's unrequited love for Marth, and she's proven something of a Fountain of Expies.
  • Samuel is popular for his Joke Character and Costume Copycat status, as well as for his backstory and dedication to Ogma making both much more sympathetic.
  • Legion is a very popular character for his wild personality and fun gimmick. He's often inserted into hacks thanks to it. The fact that he's a surprisingly good unit in Fire Emblem Heroes definitely helps.
• Even Better Sequel:
  • Mystery of the Emblem to the original Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. While the latter was a good game that helped establish a genre, it was plagued with a terrible inventory system, staves didn't give EXP, the graphics were rather bland, and the story barely existed. Then the former comes and fixes most of the gameplay flaws as well as adding much-needed character and story development, and wraps it up with a more streamlined version of NES Shadow Dragon. This gets to the point that, in Japan at least, MotE is considered one of the absolute pinnacles of the franchise and the first FE to really develop the fanbase.
  • Many fans, again in Japan especially, consider New Mystery to be this to (DS) 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. Aside from that, it also brought back characters that were omitted during the transition from NES to SNES (e.g., Wrys). Overseas fans tend not to appreciate it as much due to the game not getting exported despite being the "better" one and then getting heavily overshadowed by Awakening, not to mention the very strong animosity towards Kris.
• Fanon Discontinuity: People seem to be treating Michalis's optional survival in New Mystery as this, due to many preferring the storyline in Mystery of the Emblem where he succumbs to his wounds. From continuing to badmouth others after his survival to undermining the entire point of his arc, there's no shortage of reasons to prefer him dying. His ending isn't helping matters either, since it essentially results in him happily getting his job as a psychotic tyrant back.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • For a time in the Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem fandom, people greatly preferred Marth with Catria instead of his canon girlfriend and eventual wife Caeda/Shiida, whom they preferred to pair with Ogma. In an aversion of Die for Our Ship, they get along with Marth/Caeda fans, though.
  • Palla's a bit of an oddball:
    • For a while, the Fan-Preferred Couple for her was to get her with Abel, due to her unrequited crush and the common view that Abel was better off with her than with her sister Est, his official love interest - especially since the two along with several other characters inexplicably vanish into Uncertain Doom in the epilogue (supposedly a Sequel Hook for a never-made third game).
    • With the release of the remakes and Fire Emblem Heroes, though, Palla/Minerva has taken off and distinctly surpassed it, due in part to distaste for All Love Is Unrequited and in part their rather strong supports in New Mystery that all but state that Palla was Minerva's closest partner among the Whitewings. It certainly doesn't hurt the pairing's popularity that Minerva doesn't have any male partners, remaining single throughout the games.
• Franchise Original Sin: The FE games of The New '10s are often accused of ratcheting up the "fanservice" element of Fire Emblem to try and get by on sex appeal. Many of these accusers tend to forget (or not even know), meanwhile, that MotE had Linde looking like this◊ all the way back in 1994. And then there's the Whitewings and their distinct pantlessness (and yes, that was present even in 1994 art). While there definitely has been some escalation over the years, the seeds of it were definitely in the ground even this far back.
• Friendly Fandoms: Archanea fans get along with Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade fans due to both being largely overlooked and rather difficult games with a focus on straightforward strategy and large casts. It certainly doesn't hurt that Binding Blade is generally seen as a pseudo-remake of Archanea.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Regardless of how New Mystery's Avatar is as a character, they always tend to have insane stat growths, regardless of which class you choose. He/she will nearly always be a Lightning Bruiser, even if they're in an armored class.
  • Catria, and to a slightly (but only very slightly) lesser or bigger extent Palla, in Mystery and its remake. Catria joins in chapter 2, with decent bases, amazing growths and excellent mobility (being a flyer and all), alongside the ability to use Silver Lances right off the bat in Mystery. Palla joins one chapter later with even better bases, comparable growths, and the ability to use Silver Lances right off the bat in both games. Sure, she has a bad Speed growth, but her speed base is so high it really doesn't matter; it's even worse in Mystery where she has 16 speed in a game where 20 is the speed cap. Is it any wonder that most Lunatic playthroughs rely on them both extensively?
  • In the original the starshards gave growth boosts, and the starsphere gave all the growth boosts of them all combined. This pretty much makes any unit viable due to the crazy benefits they gain from either.
  • The Again Staff in Mystery is incredibly overpowered, due to it giving a Dancer-style refresh to the entire army. Even in New Mystery, where it only affects one unit (though it still has infinite range), it's still pretty busted.
  • While Warp doesn't show up as early in Mystery, the Rescue Staff is available in Chapter 4, giving a gargantuan mobility boost at a very early stage. It's slightly more balanced in Mystery due to being locked to Yuliya, but in New Mystery, it's an E-rank staff, meaning that literally any character reclassed into a staff class can use it.
• High-Tier Scrappy: Kris is already a pretty controversial character in the fandom due to their Canon Foreigner status and accusations of being a Spotlight-Stealing Squad or a Creator's Pet, but one thing that really doesn't help the debates is that Kris is incredibly powerful. Not only can they start in eight different classes with parameters that are at least above average in just about every category, but they also have a pretty lengthy prologue and tutorial where they'll pretty much always be your best character and where most of the units you use won't be playable again for a good while. This means, invariably, the best way to play New Mystery is to have Kris solo the tutorial, and then join up with Marth's gang as a level 10 or so Disc-One Nuke that can proceed to turn even Lunatic into a joke.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In Malicia’s support with MU, she speaks on how Marth came a proposed to her on a white horse. MU says Marth doesn’t even ride a white horse. Then Marth became a groom.
• I Knew It!: Many, many fans assumed Frey was the canonical sacrifice in Shadow Dragon. New Mystery proved them right.
• Les Yay: In New Mystery, Katarina and the Female Avatar come in for a lot of this. The story very heavily pushes Katarina as the Implied Love Interest, which results in a lot of their interactions having some level of romantic tension that doesn't really go away if you swap Kris's gender. Katarina is only the most standout example, though—there's a lot of Ship Tease between Kris and the female cast, a lot of which is only barely rewritten for female Kris. For instance, the support with Matthis has him say he's okay with Kris dating his sister, and if Kris is female, she points this out, only for him to shrug and say he's not bothered.
• Low-Tier Letdown: Hoo boy... New Mystery of the Emblem takes the previous game's already-dubious balance and lights it on fire before tap-dancing on the ashes. It's as a result one of the worst offenders in the series in terms of lopsided unit balance. This even more of a surprise when Mystery of the Emblem (a game with dismounting, the growth-boosting Star Shards, powerful statboosters, low stat caps, and weaker enemies) is probably one of the most "use whoever" games in the series.
  • In contrast to the game's lopsided and downright-baffling character balance, the class balance for the most part is actually surprisingly good - even commonly low-tier classes like Armor Knights and Archers have a place in Lunatic Mode due to the former's survivability in that difficulty's Early Game Hell and the latter being especially useful for attacking from afar without fear of retaliation, especially in Lunatic Reverse. However, there's one class that is notably worse than any others, much to the disappointment of its fans: Warrior. The reason why is simple; it's overshadowed by more specialized classes. Its caps are blown out of the water completely by Berserker caps, its role as an archer is done better by Snipers having a better Speed cap, bow rank, and access to the Longbow, and much of what it offers only comes for its T1 form, Fighters, which is universally regarded as one of the best options for the Game-Breaker Avatar Kris to use aside from the Armor Knight.
  • Even to any fans of Magikarp Power units throughout the series, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone to defend Jubelo, who is arguably the worst Mage/Sage in the series. Which is a shame, as he was already of dubious but nonetheless-passable use in the original game, but only became exponentially worse in the remake. Jubelo is unique among other units in this sub-section by you getting him very early on, so on paper that should mean he alongside other units can at least snowball despite bad bases, but good luck getting him to do anything. Having a bafflingly low -2 base Magic in his starting class, this gives him a 1 Magic stat, when the rest of his bases are already below average even by Level 1 unit standards. To compound this, his growths aren't even especially inflated compared to other high-growth units, meaning they don't do nearly good of a job at getting him out of his abysmal start. This renders him barely usable on Normal, and practically unviable on any difficulty higher, especially Lunatic. When the game gives you plenty of viable mages such as Merric, Linde and Arlen, and when even milquetoast units like his own sister Yuliya can serve as healbots, there is no meaningful reward to training him and going through the pain of using him just to end up with a unit who will be outclassed by every other magic-using character in the game.
  • As a wholesale, every single unit that joins after Chapter 12 save some very few exceptions is hit with this hard. The game outright inverts a lot of the trends in the series of pre-promotes being good or outright Game Breakers, with many of the latter half of units in the remake having barely adjusted base stats from the SNES days, which leaves them barely passable on Normal and gets them utterly demolished on higher difficulties. These units, known as Free Silvers, are seen with disappointment for having such awful stats and only having high growths and good weapons ranks to make up for it (and good luck training them with those stats unless you use any of the possible Game-Breaker options home to this version). There's literally no reason to use any of the units to join after the Sable Knights, with the possible exceptions of Katarina, Xane, Nagi, and Michalis.
  • Even by Free Silver standards, the Wolfguard/Coyote's Men that join in Chapter 19 are pathetic, which is made all the worse by the fact that they're some of the hardest units to recruit in the game (requiring you to go far out of your way, and then recruit each one in succession from the enemy side, while dodging swarms of incredibly powerful dracoknights). Once they're in your army, their stats are on par with units from Chapter 4, their growths are not nearly enough to save them, and they don't have anything worth noting—something made all the worse by their extremely late join time. On the highest difficulty, the only thing they can see use for is suicide attacks, and even then, they're frequently not that great at it.
  • Every single unit on this list is dwarfed by one in particular though: Bantu. While all the other units are notoriously bad enough to qualify as a Low-Tier Letdown (by virtue of having no Magikarp Power to speak of whatsoever), they could at least theoretically keep up with extreme favoritism. Bantu absolutely can't—he can't reclass, his growths are awful, his bases are awful, his class is utterly gimped for the game it's in, he has only 6 move that he can't reclass out of, and he's seen as strictly inferior in every conceivable way to Tiki, a unit who in this game is not seen as worth it in the slightest. Even when capped out in every stat, something impossible without hacking, rigging, or pouring literally all the game's stat-boosting items into him, he's still mediocre at best.
• Memetic Mutation: Shares a section with the previous game here.
• Misblamed: Many people blamed Shadow Dragon's lukewarm reception as the reason this game wasn't released outside of Japan. Shadow Dragon actually sold fairly well compared to Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. The real reason was more likely due to the Nintendo 3DS's pending release by the time the game would have come out and Values Dissonance. (Japan's not as quick to "Move on" compared to the rest of the world. While Pokémon still got new games around same time, it's the only franchise that could get away with that.)
• Narm:
  • 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.
  • In the original, upon defeating Hardin, his portrait suddenly changes to his Book 1 portrait, turban and all. The sudden change can be kinda hard to take it seriously. Much like Lorenz's deal though, this was fixed in the remake.
  • Defeating a boss causes the melodramatic "dead playable character" track to play, which is hilariously unfitting for the generic unrecruitable bosses. This was also changed in the remake.
• Older Than They Think: As of Awakening, the Avatar creation system has also fallen into this, to the point where many Western reviews (and Nintendo of America themselves!) claim Awakening invented the system.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: A common view of New Mystery, especially among hardcore players, is that the story is more or less a rehash of the original whose major changes (the presence of Kris, the assassination subplot, the survival of characters the original killed off) serve to worsen it rather than fix its flaws, though giving the Archanea cast supports for the first time was well-liked. However, the gameplay is often considered some of the best in the series, with generally excellent map design, a simple but surprisingly deep combat engine, the more unbalanced elements of Shadow Dragon ironed out, class balance being surprisingly good, and a fairly smooth difficulty curve, with many comparing it favorably to Conquest.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Katarina was originally dismissed as random Fanservice when first announced, but when she reveals herself as an assassin, it's actually quite unexpected.
  • Arran goes from a random Paladin who feeds you a couple of lances in Shadow Dragon to a useful Crutch Character who helps carry you until Sirius joins you 3-4 chapters later.
  • Archers went from somewhat being a Master of None compared to the Hunter and Horseman classes to being downright mandatory to use, since flying enemies become a persistent threat throughout the game. New Mystery made them even more valuable, since in Lunatic Reverse, avoiding retaliatory attacks is recommended, and Archers are capable of wielding bows, which in this game is one of the more powerful physical ranged weapons, and their lack of close-range doesn't matter if the attack from the enemy is capable of killing units in one hit. As a final boon, the removal of playable Ballisticians and Swarm tomes makes a Sniper with a Longbow the only playable unit with 3 range.
  • Swords, especially sword-wielding classes, found much better use in New Mystery after a good amount of them being spent notorious for having overkill accuracy in exchange for pitiful damage and lack of 1-2 range aside from the occasional magic sword which was impractical to use, an issue constantly plaguing the series since The Blazing Blade. This game indirectly made them better in comparison through the nerfing of 1-2 ranged weapons such as Javelins and Hand Axes while restricting the better ones to enemies only, and having enemies have more variety in weapons along with the sword-wielding classes being mandatory to double enemies more easily in the higher difficulties. Marth in particular, thanks to the Binding Shield, can avoid being doubled by Medeus in Lunatic.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike:
  • To show how much more difficult Book 2 is from Book 1, Dracoknights pop up as early as Chapter 2. Another spike is added later on with the introduction of feral dragon enemies, which became common enemy types from the middle to late game.
  • New Mystery of the Emblem, compared to Shadow Dragon. The enemies have a much more aggressive power curve and are much more balanced in lineup, neutering the tools that could be used to coast through Shadow Dragon.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Both the original and the remake to Shadow Dragon's original and remake. It has more locales (desert, volcano, snowland, etc), more enemy variety, and better paced side objectives. The remake also has better paced hard modes and the ever so fun, Lunatic Reverse.
• That One Boss: Chapter 20's boss, Emperor Hardin. He has constant reinforcements up the wazoo and some rather strong bodyguards. His Gradivus will ensure that whoever fights him will be feeling a lot of pain; coincidentally, he's much like Camus in that both of them wield the Gradivus. In addition, he can only be damaged by a unit holding the Lightsphere, meaning only one member of the army at a time can even touch him.
• That One Level:
  • Prologue 8 of New Mystery, "Assassination of the Hero-King", is often considered the hardest chapter of the game on higher difficulties. This is mostly because it's still in the prologue, so most of the tools that can ease things up—forging, reclassing, your Crutch Character Arran, bonus items like the Rainbow Potion or the statbooster shop—are not available, but the game is no longer putting you on training wheels. All you have is a motley gang of unpromoted units with some iron and steel weapons and whatever levels they've picked up. It's a Rout chapter, so you have to kill everything on the map, and the enemies are comprised of Thieves (very fast), Barbarians (very strong), and Hunters and Mages (have ranged access); one-rounding them is very difficult. Due to the cramped corridor and the way the enemies are placed, rushing to meet the enemy results in them picking off isolated units with focus fire, and trying to turtle will get you overwhelmed, requiring a methodical advance where you're constantly keeping an eye on enemy ranges. On top of that, the boss of the chapter is Katarina, who's hitting for 24 Attack with her tome on Lunatic when barely any of your units have any Resistance; she can actually one-shot some of them.
  • Chapter 2, "Rebellion at Macedon", is often considered the toughest chapter in the SNES game if you're trying to get everything. You're well within Early Game Hell, and haven't picked up a lot of the stronger units or items that would be helpful, but more importantly, the map gives you just enough trouble that the resources you do have will be stretched to their limits. Much of it is covered in trees, and you only have access to one flying unit (Catria) to get across them while most of your other units are cavalry that need to take the long way around or dismount to not be slowed to a crawl. While Catria is really strong, the trees are also crowded with Hunters, meaning she needs to get off her mount to not die instantly in the face of them. There's also a Thief with the highly valuable Lady Sword, and a recruitable Hunter in Warren, so Catria, the only character who can reach them in short order, needs to be able to reach the group and kill two Hunters and a Thief (said thief has 7 Move to her 6) and recruit Warren while taking dismount penalties. And that's not even mentioning the Dracoknights, which are incredibly sturdy and tough at this stage in the game and will need the somewhat sluggish Gordin to take down with any kind of speed, and the boss, who not only moves and has a huge attack range, but shows up with a Horseslayer, when again, most of your army is cavalry! That said, New Mystery makes this notably easier; Arran can go Dracoknight to back Catria up (he actually one-shots the aforementioned Thief with his lance and a Rainbow Potion), and you have additional units in the form of Kris and Cord to work with.
  • Chapter 3, "Abducted Princess", is by far the most disliked map in the game, due to a single factor: the northeastern village, which (due to lacking Warp or Rescue at this point) requires the player to walk Marth practically in a lap around the entire map for him to reach it, a route that also features almost no enemies and very little of interest. The village is where the player recruits Julian, who is required for the good ending, and also to recruit Matthis, meaning it can't be skipped if the player wants the good ending or full recruitment. This chapter also boasts a significant dracoknight presence, and they tend to bumrush your units in groups (one group even charges you on the first turn most of the time), resulting in a chapter that alternates between lethal and boring. What's particularly galling is that you're given access to a shortcut... that takes you right into Matthis's attack range, meaning taking the shortcut will almost definitely lead to him dying! Palla's presence does at least take the edge off the combat parts, though.
  • Chapter 11, "Anri's Way" is regarded very negatively. The chapter is a desert map, meaning reduced movement for those who aren't a Mage or Flier, meanwhile there are enemy Wyverns that completely ignore the movement penalty and retain their high movement. Even if the player could manage to hold off against the Wyverns, the presence of hidden treasures around the map makes it an even more tedious slog if the player wants to get all the treasures.
• Underused Game Mechanic: The Watch staff is intended to reveal the interiors of rooms obscured by opaque rooftops. Outside of one segment of Endgame 1/Chapter 22, there's little reason to use it as most of the time these rooms would be revealed in a few turns.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The dialogue portraits for the DS remakes, which have dull colors and an unsettling median between anime-inspired and realistic. While the full character artwork for some characters tried to avert this, the artstyle remains the same for dialogue portraits to be consistent with Shadow Dragon. Poor reception to the style likely brought the succeeding games back to an anime-inspired style like the GBA and Tellius games.
• Vindicated by History: Between No Export for You, the fandom still grumbling about Shadow Dragon, and Awakening overshadowing it, New Mystery was one of the least recognized games in the franchise for a long time. However, in the late '10s, the rise of streaming has caused it to gain significantly more acclaim. It's developed into a consistent favorite of hardcore players and Challenge Gamers, owing to its excellent quality-of-life features, crushing (but still entirely manageable) level of difficulty, brisk pace, high customizability and replay value, and being remarkably low on luck-dependency by the standards of famously hard Fire Emblem games.
• The Woobie:
  • The entirety of the Wolfguard. They all started out their lives in slavery until they were saved by Hardin, and are later forced to choose between their hero/best friend and the right thing. Wolf in particular never gets over Hardin's death, making him even more of one, though the others haven't had a very bright time either.
  • Hardin has it rough come this game, despite him getting to settle down alongside Nyna who he had previously shown feelings for, Nyna still hasn't moved past Camus, leading to a loveless marriage, not soon after Gharnef returns to prey on his weakened state and turn him into a rampaging tyrant seeking to burn the entire continent. His parting words are a solemn apology to Marth and all he can say afterwards is to protect Nyna despite what came to pass.

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