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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 Bros. 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.
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 sequel. While this was explained in the case of the scarifice in the prologue, the real problem is that Marth recognizes 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 recognize Nagi) and that was the one with the least harsh requirements. Exactly how the others could of occurred with everyone surviving just boggles the mind. Or maybe the sidequest requirements in the first game are just Canon Dis Continuity.
Ensemble Darkhorse: The Archanea 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.
Oguma is considered a great unit overall and even started an archetype that fits this trope.
Like Oguma, Navarre 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.
Rolo. 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.
Some fans think Catria's a better match for Marth than Caeda. Miraculously, they're more often than not pretty civil to Caeda herself.
Palla/Abel, at poor Est's expense.
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?
Dear God, just read Oguma's second MU support in New Mystery!
Jerkass Woobie: Clarisse and Eremiya, after the first is given a very sad death scene where she asks the adoptive sister she always snubbed to be with her in her last moments and the second is revealed to have had an horrible past and to have been Brainwashed and Crazy all along... and one only finds out when Medeus de-brainwashes her as she dies!
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 aka Reese 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.
Matthis is one of Fire Emblem's most iconic scrappies. Gameplay-wise, you need his squishy healer sister to recruit him and he can easily kill her if you're not careful, and his stats are lacking compared to the other cavaliers you get in the game. Character-wise, fans find him to be a pathetic whiny loser and not attractive enough to bother with.
Est suffers quite a bit of flack for coming in so late and so weak, despite being well-known for her Magikarp Power status.
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. His only saving grace is that in the very first game, Dragonstones have infinite uses.
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), but he wasn't given a new portrait to reflect his retirement from the field.
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.