All spoilers for Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

A scenario of love and courage.
^{See New Mystery of the Emblem's cover art}
Behind the Hero of Light, his shadow.

Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem is the third entry in the Fire Emblem series, released only in Japan on the Super Famicom in 1994. It comprises both a compressed remake of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light (Book 1) and a new sequel (Book 2), giving players the option to skip to the sequel if they're already familiar with the original game.

In the sequel, several years after the fall of Medeus, Marth is dispatched by the newly-crowned Emperor Hardin of Archanea to deal with an uprising in Grust but is appalled to find his "allies" are instead brutally oppressing the citizens. Marth gathers a liberation army to fight back against the now corrupt Archanean Empire. As he fights through his new enemies, Marth slowly learns more about Archanea's Fire Emblem and the lore behind it, hence the title "Mystery of the Emblem".

Just like how Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light received a remake for the Nintendo DS (Shadow Dragon), Mystery of the Emblem got its own remake — New Mystery of the Emblem, Heroes of Light and Shadow. Released in 2010, it only covers Book 2 of Mystery of the Emblem and, unlike Shadow Dragon, did not leave Japan. It is far less of a direct redo than its predecessor; it reincorporates characters left out of the original Mystery of the Emblem, introduces those from the Satellaview chapters and Shadow Dragon, alters the story slightly, implements a completely new subplot, and includes a player-created Avatar, which is a franchise-defining staple moving forward. It includes remakes of the four BS Fire Emblem chapters as bonus content, as well as all-new bonus chapters as downloadable content.

Mystery of the Emblem is followed by Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, which takes place on the continent of Jugdral many years before the events of Marth's stories.

New Mystery of the Emblem is followed by the Nintendo 3DS game Fire Emblem: Awakening, which takes place in Archanea 2,000 years in the future and was written by a different writing team, though Broad Strokes apply.

Mystery of the Emblem contains the following tropes:

• 11th-Hour Ranger: Lena, Maria, Elice, and Nyna can all be recruited in the very last chapter of the game, though doing so requires snapping them out of Gharnef's Mind Control by talking to them with specific characters. They're not fit for combat, but having a staff rank means that they can be used to spam staves such as Fortify and Physic while other units do the fighting.
• Adapted Out:
  • The playable characters, Wrys, Darros, Roger, Jake, and Beck are removed from Book 1. As such they missed out on appearing in Book 2 as well. The same applies to bosses like Bentheon and Mannu.
  • Five chapters from Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light were cut^note using the chapter numbers in Shadow Dragon: Chapter 4 (Battle in the Lea), Chapter 8 (The Pyrathi Dragon), Chapter 13 (The Wooden Cavalry), Chapter 18 (The Sable Order), and Chapter 21 (Clash in Macedon). Most characters who were recruited in the removed chapters were moved to other chapters.
• The Anime of the Game: Fire Emblem, a two-episode OVA based on the Book 1 of this game was released in 1996 and was licensed by ADV Films in 1997. Word of God put out that it was supposed to last longer, but did not due to a lack of funds. Marth was voiced by Hikaru Midorikawa, who went on to voice him in future game appearances starting with Super Smash Bros. Melee; his dub voice was Spike Spencer, who as of yet hasn't reprised the role as the gig of Marth's main English voice years down the line went to Yuri Lowenthal instead. The OVA was also the second anime adaptation of a Nintendo title (the first one being The Great Mission to Save Princess Peach!, based on Super Mario Bros.), just a year before the Pokémon animated adaptation appeared in Japan.
• Anti-Air: Aside from bows, Arrowspate ballistae, and Excalibur, the game also introduces the Shaver tome (later localized as "Cutting Gale" in Three Houses), which are weaker versions of Excalibur accessible to any Mage or Bishop in the game.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Unit inventory is expanded into four slots for weapons and another four for items.
  • Droppable weapons are considered as a duplicate item stored as items instead as weapons, which can be beneficial for boss abuse strategies^note weaken the boss by breaking their weapons, and then have playable units fight them while still rewarding the weapon to the player.
  • Item trading is completely simplified; two units can exchange items with each other until they're done trading, and Marth now functions as a convoy instead of having to store and retrieve excess items at a specific building.
  • Exclusive to the SFC version, "Knorda Market" has a narrow path that cuts through the mountain so that the titular town can be reached sooner. Chapter 19 of Book 2, taking place at the exact same location, reuses this feature.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Dragon's breath in Mystery of the Emblem ignores a non dragon unit's defense when attacking. This trait is removed in the remake.
• Art Shift: During Book 2's introduction, Camus, Hardin, and Nyna are realistically drawn compared to its 90s anime aesthetic.
• Avenging the Villain: Jiol calls for his only heir Sheena to avenge him as he is slain by Marth. This didn't end up happening, as by the time of the War of Heroes, both Gra and Altea find themselves tired of Archanea's manipulations and eventually reconciled for the first time since before Jiol's betrayal.
• Bag of Spilling:
  • With the exception of some late-joiners and turncoats, units who can potentially class change in Book 1 reverted back to their base class and lower levels in Book 2. Overall, the two campaigns are treated as two games in one, meaning that nothing from the previous book carries over to the next.
  • With the threat posed by dragons seemingly gone, Marth did not bring his ultimate weapon Falchion for the uprising in Grust, causing it to be stolen by Gharnef again when Altea is invaded during his absence.
• Bait-and-Switch: After knowing about Hardin's Face–Heel Turn, Marth is worried that Merric, who was in charge of Khadein at the time, will betray him as well when its sorcerers gathered arms against Altea. Turns out the hostility was due to a takeover from a pro-Archanean faction led by Arlen.
• Balance Buff:
  • Hammerne uses are reduced from 12 to 5, but it can now be used to repair powerful weapons that actually need it, such as the regalia and signature tomes.
  • Clerics can now gain experience by using staves. Tomes and staves have their calculations reworked so that they scale better to the lategame.
• Benevolent Dictator: As the game goes on, Prince Marth of Altea usurps the thrones of Dolhr and Pyrathi, run by evil dragon kings Medeus and Mannu. He is betrothed to the sole heir of Talys, Caeda, and at the end of the game is given the crowns of the remaining kingdoms by Nyna, Minerva, Sheena, and the heirless King of Aurelis, turning the entire continent of Archanea into a single kingdom. At the same time, Marth is a paragon of kindness, having compassion for both friends and enemies, and is seen as the second coming of the hero Anri.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: The "Berserker" in Chapter 11 is a renamed Hero-class enemy that wields the Master Sword, a powerful weapon with a high crit rate. New Mystery changed his class into Swordmaster, and proves to be just as lethal.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Hardin becomes corrupted thanks to the negative influence of Gharnef's Darksphere, which twists him into becoming evil.
• Cowardly Mooks: Often there would be Thieves that are planning to escape from the maps with their loot. The player is strongly encouraged to go after these enemies, as they carry valuable items such as promotional items and the MacGuffins required to get the Golden Ending.
• Creepy Cave: A few of Book 2 chapters have caves that are home to the local bandit gang, and in one case it even houses a feral dragon. Regardless, there's loot to be found by visiting said cave entrances.
• Crossing the Desert: The first destination in Anri's Way is crossing Mamorthod, the Desert of Death, which is where the city of Thabes is. Crossing it isn't easy with the vast desert crawling with desert raiders and their wyvern pets.
• Darker and Edgier: Mystery of the Emblem has more political intrigue, character deaths, and darker lighting than Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. Things have gotten much worse for Archanea in general after the Time Skip due to the influence of its corrupted emperor.
• Death Mountain: The final destination in Anri's Way is the top of a mountainous peak, where Gotoh awaits Marth in the Ice Dragon Shrine. Marth and his companions must deal with a barbarian tribe and their Ice Dragon pets, both outside and within the Shrine, to reach Gotoh and claim the Lightsphere.
• Degraded Boss:
  • In Book 1, Medeus is an Earth Dragon that reduces damage inflicted to him by half (Falchion deals effective damage, but still gets halved), and is the final challenge of that part of the story. Chapter 20 of Book 2 has a singular Earth Dragon that shows up as a regular enemy. While Falchion isn't available yet, Tiki's Divinestone can now deal effective damage, though she cannot perform a follow-up attack. In the final chapter, multiple Earth Dragons show up to accompany Medeus, who evolves into the much stronger Shadow Dragon instead. The Binding Shield (necessary to reach this chapter) should automatically purge them on player phase though.
  • Mage Dragons in Book 1 are only present as bosses (Morzas and Xemcel), until this game's version of "Chosen by Fate" (Book 1 Chapter 20), which has Mage Dragons appear as reinforcements instead of human classes.
• Desert People: Marth's first major obstacle in Anri's Way is a desert barbarian tribe and their wyvern pets residing in the Mamorthod Desert.
• Discard and Draw: In this game and both DS remakes, Pegasus Knights have a decent base Resistance stat of 7 (where most classes would barely able to grow theirs) that they will lose on should they advance into the Dracoknight in exchange for higher Strength and Defense.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • The Iote's Shield, a typically late-game item that negates the flyer's weakness to bows, is found as early as Chapter 3 of Book 2. Though hidden, finding it will completely remove any urgency of your main flyers. The remake moves the shield to Chapter 13x instead.
  • Catria and especially Palla became this in Book 2, as they are recruited early on with good base stats and high levels in the early part of the game. Unlike Sirius and Minerva, they also join unpromoted, giving them even more room to grow.
  • Sirius himself is monstrously powerful for a character who joins in Chapter 4, and has rather high growth rates as well. He's only held back by his class being hindered by indoor maps.
  • Linde joins in the same chapter as Palla does and comes with two of the best tomes in the game (Aura and Nosferatu) when most of the available tomes are weak.
• Dismantled MacGuffin:
  • After being used to create the Starlight spell, the Starsphere has shattered into twelve shards. It is the heroes' task to find them all to restore it to its original state. The Starsphere itself is actually one of the five spheres that needs to be assembled with the Fire Emblem to restore it to its true form, the Binding Shield.
  • The Fire Emblem itself is actually the dismantled form of the Binding Shield, the result of the thief, Adrah, breaking it apart and selling its spheres for money.
• Doorstopper: Mystery of the Emblem has two full campaigns (a remake of the first Fire Emblem and a completely new story), making it a very long game by the standards of the time of its release and the SNES.
• Dub-Induced Plotline Change: The Legacy of Archanea english book drastically altered Naga's background in Mystery of the Emblem most notably making Naga's giant form a separate character that works for Naga, despite the English localization of Heroes going with the original context of the giant being a form of Naga.
• Dual Mode Unit: Mystery of the Emblem introduces the dismount mechanic, which allows mounted units to switch between on mount or on foot. Lance-using mounted units are forced to switch from lance to swords when they dismount, while Horseman still retain their bows. Units are forced to dismount in indoor maps. This was removed in the remake (likely because reclassing would have made it redundant).
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The icons for magic tomes depict them as open books with the tome's effect on top of it. Later games just depict them as closed books instead.
• Easter Egg: As recorded in this video, Julian and (untransformed) Tiki have unique animations for dodging attacks twice (Julian does a backflip, while Tiki is bawling on her knees), which is a really rare occurrence since if a unit is fast enough to avoid two hits in a row, they wouldn't get doubled in the first place.
• Elemental Rock–Paper–Scissors: In Mystery of the Emblem, Fire-based attacks, like Bolganone and Fire Breath, deal effective damage against Ice Dragons, and Ice-based attacks, like Blizzard and Ice Breath, deal effective damage against Fire Dragons. However, this bonus is removed in New Mystery of the Emblem.
• Embedded Precursor: Book 1 is an abridged remake of Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, the first Fire Emblem game.
• Evolving Title Screen: When booting up the game, you will see the Fire Emblem on-screen, embedded with five colorful orbs. After clearing Book 1, the orbs will disappear from the Emblem. Once Marth learns it's the Binding Shield and starts collecting the orbs, they fill in the sockets on the Fire Emblem one by one.
• Experience Booster: All three Archanean Regalia (Mercurius, Gradivus, Parthia) double the experience gain for their users.
• Extra Turn:
  • The Dancer class made its debut in this installment. Their purpose is to refresh adjacent allies to allow them to move again.
  • The Anew staff has the same function as Dancers, but it affects all allies on the map. With its low durability and high Weapon Level requirement (20, which is the Weapon Level cap), it's best to save it for the final chapters.
• Eye Beams: The Dulam spell summons two giant eyeballs that fire laser beams to the target. It reduces the target's HP to One.
• Face–Heel Turn: Formerly the helpless fallen kingdom that Marth must help saving, Archanea as a whole turns into The Empire after its emperor got influenced by the Darksphere.
• Game-Favored Gender: Female units get access to the Lady Sword, a surprisingly powerful weapon by itself, and Nosferatu, a magic tome that drains health from the enemy hit and recover the user's HP equally.
• Gladiator Games: Makes a return from Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, but it is distinct in that this is the only time the player gets to fight dragons in the arena.
• Guide Dang It!: The hidden treasures appearing in Book 2's maps. Later games usually restrict them to desert chapters, but the game also hides them in random chapters in the least expected places.
• Heinousness Retcon: While Archanea's Face–Heel Turn may caught Marth by surprise, the story eventually reveals that it is not a one-time thing for the kingdom. Archanea was founded by a thief who stole holy artifacts from the Fane of Raman and sold some of them to fund his war effort. Side materials also justified Grust and Macedon siding with Dolhr in the War of Shadows as due to the unseen Archanea nobles being so standoffish towards other nations that siding with human-hating dragons is more preferable.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Exaggerated in Book 2, where axes are relegated to being Unusable Enemy Equipment, and cavalry units are forced to dismount in indoor chapters, thereby switching to swords. With Armor Knights being the only melee units that can equip lances in indoor chapters, it's not unlikely to have a large chunk of the player's army equip swords at a given time.
• Interface Spoiler: Units that are not recruitable have their Luck and Weapon Level displayed as blank (the former is treated as 0, the latter as infinite). This becomes apparent in Book 2 where some of the playable characters from the previous part become Marth's enemies.
• Just a Kid: Samson, Michalis, and Hardin all dismiss Marth as a boy/Princeling, depending on translation, at some point.
• Kryptonite-Proof Suit: The Iote's Shield is an item that negates weapon effectiveness against its wielder. Later incarnations of this item would restrict its effects to fliers.
• The Law of Conservation of Detail: In the Book 1 chapter "Star and Savior", an alley circling the perimeter of Castle Altea is added that wasn't in the original game. There's nothing important going on over there at first, but when the castle is revisited in Book 2, a Thief holding the Geosphere will be running towards an escape point at the end of the hallway, necessitating taking him down before he gets there.
• Lethal Lava Land: The Flame Barrel, the graveyard of Fire Dragons, is a treacherous cave filled with barbarians and their dragon pets. Though unlike later games, the lava is purely atmospheric.
• Life Drain: The Nosferatu tome restores the user's HP equal to the damage dealt to its targets. It is exclusive to female Mages and Bishops.
• Love Triangle: Hardin and Camus loved Nyna, with Nyna favoring the latter more. This caused a political turmoil when Hardin married her and finding out that she never loved him caused his depression, which allow Gharnef to corrupt him. And then there's Sirius, whom Nyna recognize as Camus, who rejects Nyna because his past life as Camus died in the previous war, and then there's Tatiana...
• Mercy Rewarded: In Chapter 10, a Thief holding a Silver Card (reduces the prices of items at armories and vendors to half) will only show up as a reinforcement if no clerics were harmed before 10 turns have passed.
• Nerf: Many of the more broken things in Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light were tweaked.
  • In Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, there was pretty much no reason to ever not be a mounted unit. Here, the dismount mechanic reduces a character's stats and takes away their mounted benefits, making them weaker than foot infantry like mercenaries. Also, many maps in Book 2 involve the kind of very rough terrain that forces them to either dismount or move like snails (though fliers don't mind this as much).
  • All knight-type units (armor knights, pegasus knights, cavaliers, and their promotions) could use swords and lances at all times. In Mystery of the Emblem, these classes are lance-locked, unless they dismount (armor knights being obviously exempt), in which case they become sword-locked.
  • Falchion no longer makes Marth invulnerable to non-dragon melee attacks.
  • Promotion has been altered—where once it raised a character's stats up to benchmarks, it now provides flat statboosts, meaning that characters with good growths gain significantly more from promoting. Promotion items themselves are also much easier to obtain. This has the side effect of making prepromoted units less powerful.
  • Xane receives a subtle one in that he keeps his low maximum HP when transformed, which makes him unsuitable for frontline combat. Quite a number of tomes and staves in Book 2 are locked to a specific character as well, while long-range ballista are stationary enemy-only units, further limiting his usefulness. The DS remakes allow him to copy his target's maximum HP again.
  • Javelins had their weight increased to 20, meaning it is impossible to do a double attack with one.
  • Several prepromotes, most notably Boah and Wendell, have had their stats reduced.
  • Many statboosting items have been reduced in potency, though they're still stronger than in most later games.
  • Warp is obtained much later in Book 2.
• Nostalgia Level: A number of levels from Book 2 are ripped from the first game, Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. (This also served to save room.)
  • Chapter 8 takes place on the Chiasmir bridge where Marth's army fought the Sable Knights (this level was not present in Mystery of the Emblem Book 1).
  • Chapter 9 takes place in the Khadein desert where Gharnef first appeared.
  • Chapters 15 and 16 involve Marth liberating Altea again.
  • Chapter 17 takes place at the Gra Bastion where Marth faced Jiol.
  • Chapter 19 takes place in the pass of Archanea outside of the palace.
  • Chapter 20 takes place inside the palace of Archanea, where Midia is held as a hostage again.
• Official Couple: Marth and Caeda, the first of several instances of the main Lord having a canon partner. They are engaged at the end of Shadow Dragon, and it's because of this war that they have to hold off their wedding—not that Caeda minds, especially since she joins the front lines with him again anyway. There are also a bunch of others: Julian and Lena, Samson and Sheena, Merric and Elice, Abel and Est, and ultimately Camus and Tatiana, as he ultimately decides to return to Valentia instead of staying with Nyna. Abel and Est's marriage also ends badly on several levels: not only is Palla still pining for him, but Est is so riddled with guilt over being repeatedly kidnapped that she abandons both her husband and possibly Archanea altogether, with Abel also throwing away everything to try and find her.
• Overrated and Underleveled: The Wolfguard/Coyote's Men are established as the final obstacle between Marth and the royal palace of Archanea. While Astram and Abel have stats appropriate with their high levels, these four end up barely any different from their appearance in Book 1 despite being higher leveled, and can fall easily to the player's trained units.
• The Power of Love: All four of Medeus' sacrifices must be spoken to with someone they love to snap them out of their Mind Control. Familial love works for Maria, but not for the others; Elice and Lena can only be saved by their Love Interests, not their brothers.
• Power-Up Letdown: All the powerful effects granted by each sphere? They're completely gone after being placed on the Fire Emblem. While it makes sense for the Darksphere to be nullified by the Lightsphere, the other spheres aren't safe either, leaving nothing behind for Marth to use but a cutscene field power in the final chapter.
• Pretext for War: Hardin sets up Marth's Grustian expedition under the supervision of Lang, knowing that the young prince would go against a scummy nobleman's orders to subdue a former ally and innocent children, so that Archanea has an excuse to invade Altea and deprive them of their allies. Jagen notices that such a large-scale invasion happened too fast, as if they had already prepared for it long beforehand and are just waiting for Altea to show any sign of insubordination.
• Promoted to Playable:
  • Princess Nyna, albeit only in the very last chapter as one of Medeus' sacrifices. She is also playable in two of the Stellaview chapters.
  • General Camus is playable in the final Stellaview chapter, and in the main game under the identity of Sirius.
• Put on a Bus: Several characters who appear in Book 1 fail to appear in Book 2 with no story reasons; namely Barst, Bord, Cord, Caesar, Radd, Dolph, Macellan, and Tomas.
• Redemption Equals Death: Having been nursed back to health by his sister and not quite killed by the other after apparently dying in Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light/Mystery of the Emblem Book 1/Shadow Dragon, Michalis (formerly someone evil enough to kill his own father) dies stealing Starlight from Gharnef to give to Marth's group in Mystery of the Emblem Book 2/New Mystery of the Emblem.
• Red Herring: Chapter 4 features a peninsula on the top left corner of the map, which is usually an indication of a hidden item or the like. As it turns out, there is nothing there.
• The Remnant: The Macedonian Dragoons are at a loss after their king's apparent demise and subsequent coup attempt failed. They find themselves employed by Archanea in the later chapters as the Whitewings continue to support Altea.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: In Chapter 10, once Arlen is recruited, every other enemy on the map will try to leave the building and are programmed to not initiate attacks. Amusingly, the map doesn't have escape tiles, so they're just stuck at the end of their destination.
• Shifting Sand Land: The first point in Anri's Way is Mamorthod, or the Desert of Death. Marth and his companions must deal with the local tribe and their tamed wyverns to survive the ordeal. This desert begins the tradition of finding hidden treasures within the sands.
• Shoot the Dog: If you don't have the characters necessary to save them, you will be forced to kill the sacrifices surrounding Medeus, as they prevent you from engaging in melee range. Even if you don't kill all of them, Medeus eats them to restore his health if you reduce him to 0 HP, so you're incentivized to do so regardless.
• Shop Fodder: In Book 2, you can obtain three Silver Axes over the course of the whole campaign; however, there are NO units that can actually equip them ^note Darros is completely Adapted Out, while Barst, Bord and Cord are Book 1-exclusives, thus rendering them little more than free gold.
• Small Town Rivalry: The feuding villages make a return when Marth goes back to Altea, this time rewarding either a Power Ring/Energy Drop or a Dracoshield depending on which village is visited. Marth, tired of their antics, urges them to stop fighting each other.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome:
  • Lorenz dies at the end of Chapter 1, which is his only appearance in the whole game.
  • Boah is strongly implied to have died in his brief appearance in Chapter 19.
  • Hardin as the major villain of this game has to be put down by Marth's army.
• Three-Act Structure: An ideal run of the War of Heroes has 24 mandatory story chapters that can be split into three roughly equal parts, indicated by the change to the map themes.
  • Act 1 is mostly centered around Grust, one of the major enemies from the previous war. For the first few chapters, Marth is tasked to carry out orders from the Archanean general Lang, who exploits the now defenseless Grust and its citizens for deplorable reasons. As the orders become more unreasonable, Marth has to scrounge for the few remaining allies he has to even have a chance of fighting back. At the same time, he finds out that "the Good Kingdom" Archanea had invaded Altea and manipulated other allies to be hostile. Despite this, Marth stayed behind to tie the loose ends at Grust by killing Lang, but it isn't enough as Archanea's greatest, including the now invincible Emperor Hardin, have already gathered at the Chiasmir Bridge to hunt Marth down. In the meantime, Marth's cleric allies are abducted by an enigmatic faction, but it isn't known what they were needed for yet.
  • Act 2 is the Expedition. Having no way to fight off the Darksphere protecting Hardin, Marth's forces has to flee to Khadein to seek Gotoh's advice. The wise sage then tells Marth to venture into the same path that his ancestor walked long ago to retrieve the Lightsphere, the one thing that can combat the Darksphere. The main story takes a backseat as Jagen and Xane give exposition on the continent's history. If all Starshards are acquired, Gotoh will restore the shards into the Starsphere again and allows Tiki to wake up from her deep slumber, giving access to a powerful asset that can tip the scales to Marth's favor.
  • Act 3 is the Liberation. Having obtained the Lightsphere, the Altean army is warped back to civilization, starting their liberation efforts by reclaiming Altea again, rekindle their ties with Gra, and face the horsemen of Aurelis guarding the path to Archanea. The arc culminates with the showdown at the royal palace of Archanea in Chapter 20 to stop Emperor Hardin once and for all. If all the spheres are obtained, the story continues to the Dénouement which covers four chapters from Chapter 21 to the Endgame, with Marth finally having the ability to reseal the awakened Earth Dragons, settle the score with the Greater-Scope Villains, and save the clerics from their clutches.
• Time Skip: The events of the game happen two years after Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light.
• Unique Enemy: In Chapter 11, there is a Berserker who wields the Master Sword and is the only unit that possess that class. He is actually a recolored Hero, and, unlike Berserkers in later games, it is not an axe-wielding class associated with barbarians and brigands. Since Berserkers appear in New Mystery of the Emblem as an axe-wielding class, the "Berserker" changes his class to a Swordmaster.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment:
  • The Swarm, Meteor and Dulam tomes are exclusively used by Gharnef's followers and other enemies of Marth.
  • In Book 2, all axe weapons can only be used by enemies as the only three characters capable of using axes, didn't make it into the second book.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The fates of Wolf, Sedgar, and Vyland are left ambiguous after King Aurelis ordered them to retreat, despite Marth's lines imply that he killed them. Averted in New Mystery where they joined forces with Archanea out of their loyalty to Hardin.
• Won the War, Lost the Peace: While the Archanean League in Book 1 managed to turn the tides against the mighty Dolhr Alliance, it didn't end up as well as expected. After successfully restoring Archanea, its newly-crowned emperor suddenly turns corrupt, changing a benevolent empire into a tyrannical one. Macedon's generals perform a coup against their new ruler, clearly wanting the old one back. For how scummy Grust and Gra were in the previous war, the few good people that are left end up suffering in ruins following the loss of their military leaders and the invasion by Archanea. Marth's own kingdom Altea, for all their efforts leading the league, is still Archanea's vassal kingdom. As such they were reduced to do the dirty work for Archanea and when they protest this, they were instantly invaded in return, forcing Marth and most of his forces to flee.
• You Monster!: Played for Laughs with minor boss Dahl, who calls Marth a monster for stealing the stolen goods from his gang of thieves.

The remake New Mystery of the Emblem, Heroes of Light and Shadow contains examples of the following:

• 11th-Hour Ranger: In addition to Medeus' four sacrifices, Nagi now joins just before the final dungeon, as does Michalis if you save him.
• Adaptation Expansion: The remakes includes a number of new chapters, incorporates characters introduced in Shadow Dragon, expanding some already existing plot points and characters, and includes a new subplot about an assassination attempt against Marth.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Statboosts given by equipping dragonstones are actually visible to the player just like the other games since Genealogy of the Holy War.
  • When skipping the enemy phase, the game also shows if any of your units die during it, a feature that only occurs with Marth (as his death indicates a Game Over) in Shadow Dragon.
  • Chapters 1 and 5, infamous for their nigh-unwalkable mountain and forest terrains, were adjusted so that they're easier for Marth and other units to traverse through.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Replacing the Dulam tome is Glower, which is a tome that ignores the Resistance of its targets like Luna in the other games, but has much higher might. Enemy Sorcerers equipped with the tome would often have their ranges overlap with Meteor users or physical hard hitters such as Berserkers to make them more challenging to approach.
• Ascended Extra: The new Altean recruits Luke, Roderick, Cecil, and Ryan didn't get any lines in the original. While they are still irrelevant in the main story in the remake, they are heavily featured in the Prologue chapters as Kris and Katarina's platoon mates similar to the Lyndis Legion and the Dawn Brigade.
• Call-Back:
  • A number of Support conversations involving the Avatar allude to major events that took place in Shadow Dragon and BS Fire Emblem.
  • In their first support, Est showed Minerva a replica of the Angel Ring, an item exclusive to Fire Emblem Gaiden and mentioned how she and her sisters traveled beyond the sea prior to the War of Heroes. The Whitewings appeared in that game where Palla and Catria had to rescue Est from Valentian pirates and got involved with the war there.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Several minor bosses who share their appearances with minor bosses in Shadow Dragon were redesigned to have unique appearances.
• Character Customization: The new main character is actually a creation of the player, built from a selection of designs and attributes. They can get new options as they progress through the story, such as a haircut by Wrys or a replica of Tiki's tiara from Xane to name a few.
• Continuity Snarl: Accessing sidequests in Shadow Dragon requires purposefully killing off your characters, but everyone returns alive and well for New Mystery of the Emblem. Despite this, Marth recognizes most of the sidequest-only characters outside of Nagi (as that requires Tiki's death among other things).
• Crazy-Prepared: On Maniac and Lunatic, the fort reinforcements in Chapter 15 are so well equipped that they would be able to deal effective damage to almost every class available^note Armorslayers for Generals, Silver Bows for fliers, Ridersbanes for cavalry, Swordslayers for Heroes and Swordmasters, Bolganone for low Resistance units, and they hit hard, ensuring that the only class that can withstand their attacks are Berserkers and Nosferatu-wielding Sages.
• Cutting Off the Branches: At the end of the tutorial of Shadow Dragon, the player is forced to choose one of their units to sacrifice themself so that Marth can escape Altea, with the choices being Jagen, Frey, Cain, Abel or Gordin. New Mystery of the Emblem not only confirms that Frey was the canon choice but also reveals that he survived.
• Developer's Foresight: In Chapter 3x, Clarisse is programmed to retreat when your characters get too close to her position. If you somehow manage to get in there and attack her, her battle quote indicates surprise at how quickly you managed to get the drop on her. ^note This was once legitmately possible due to an Again staff being sold early in the Wi-Fi shop, allowing either an early promoted Kris or Arran as a Dracoknight to attack Clarisse as early as turn 2. However, this is no longer the case after the shutdown of Nintendo Wi-Fi services.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The "Levin Sage" build requires you to completely reclass a magic unit to a sword-wielding class, which inflicts negative magic modifiers to them by reducing their magic stat a lot. However, should you get around this with a few lucky levels and statboosters, this results in a highly effective magical combat unit who is no longer held back by the low base Speed of the magic classes.
• Discard and Draw: The functionality of the Starshards and the Starsphere was changed: instead of raising the holder's growths in specific stats, they grant an stat boost of 2 points total (e.g. the Leo shard now boosts Strength by +2 instead of the Strength growth by +50%). This gives them more immediate utility in crossing stat benchmarks at the cost of long-term unit growth, though the latter is somewhat compensated by the overall buffed growth rates of player units in New Mystery.
• Embedded Precursor: The game contains a remake of the four BS Fire Emblem maps as unlockable content.
• End-Game Results Screen: The last game to feature this since its absence in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, with Speed depending on how many turns the player took upon clearing the game, Tactics which is determined how many villages you visit and how many characters you recruit and depending on which ending you got, and Survival, which obviously states how many of your units survived the entire game.
• Evil Versus Evil: The Assassins DLC Chapter is focused on the assassin group from the main campaign (Katarina, Clarisse, and Legion) driving out the Soothsires (the bandit group from the previous game) in order to "rescue"^*presumably to convert into Child Soldiers the children kidnapped by said bandit group.
• First-Episode Twist: At the very end of the prologue, Katarina, who was introduced as a companion Altean recruit, reveals her true self as an assassin aiming to kill Marth. This is how we are introduced to the assassination sub-plot added in the remake.
• Foreshadowing: Added by the remake's prologue. Luke laments the absence of cute female clerics in the party, which in this series is often established as joining in early. While it serves as a setup for a joke at first, the main story later reveals that heretical priests have been kidnapping clerics left and right to be used as Medeus' sacrifices.
• Game-Favored Gender:
  • The game has class sets restrictions based on gender: There are more classes that are male-only, but they are split into two different class sets, while females have a single class set. However, if a game has been completed on the Golden Ending on at least Hard difficulty or higher, the option to pick class from both sets for male units are unlocked, giving more versatility to males, due to being able to access new classes that they couldn't otherwise.
  • Just like in Shadow Dragon, Excalibur and Aura, which were formerly Merric and Linde only, were turned into into B-rank tomes for males and females, although Merric can use Excalibur and Linde can use Aura regardless of their magic rank.
• Gameplay Protagonist, Story Protagonist: Downplayed. Kris gets the most base conversations and a focus side-story, but unlike the other avatars he is not depicted as the tactician. Rather, Marth is is still the in-universe one giving the orders.
• Glass Weapon: There are glass staves, swords, lances, axes, and bows that break after three uses. They're as strong as Silver weapons, but don't require the high weapon rank to use them that Silver weapons do.
• Guide Dang It!: Recruiting Michalis in Chapter 21 becomes more complicated than necessary. Instead of visiting the village with Minerva (impossible since only Marth could do that), she must stand on the village's entrance before Turn 15, where it triggers a conversation between her and Michalis. Marth must visit him on the next turn to obtain Starlight. Only after the end of the chapter then he will survive and could be recruited. Without all that, Michalis will die like in the original Mystery.
• Harder Than Hard: Lunatic makes Hard 5 in Shadow Dragon look like a joke, with Lunatic Reverse jacking up the difficulty to ridiculous levels as enemies always attack first unless they're unable to counterattack in the first place.
• Hard Mode Perks: If you play on Hard or above, you start off with a free Vulnerary to keep you alive. On Lunatic Reverse, you get two.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The Longbow is useful for being able to deal damage to enemies without retaliation, and it's only obtainable by doing Chapter 20x. Still, it is the player's only option for long-ranged damage as ballistae and siege tomes are enemy-exclusive.
• Interface Spoiler: The character guide will draw a line between Sirius and Camus. It doesn't say what the relationship is, but seeing their portraits side-by-side makes it even more obvious Sirius is a Paper-Thin Disguise.
• Joke Item: You can obtain items like frying pans and use them as weapons.
• Later-Installment Weirdness: New Mystery features both the hidden, specific support system used in the original game^*as well as Thracia 776 and Shadow Dragon and the support conversations introduced by The Binding Blade, but the two systems are unrelated here. Most conversations involve the Avatar, while a lot of characters that could interact with each other aren't able to. Completing a conversation chain also rewards a Bond item that functions like tonics.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In Nagi's support with the Avatar, she reveals she has some sort of divination ability and notes that they are "an enigma" "guided by a mysterious fate", while the Avatar notes they have felt someone's guidance.
• Mayfly–December Friendship: The long-living manaketes Gotoh, Xane, Bantu, and Tiki all befriend Marth. They all outlive him. In a conversation with Xane, he mentions this as a reason why he has trouble connecting with humans.
• Mercy Rewarded: Sparing the helpless Clerics in Chapter 10 (Two Sorcerers) rewards the player with a Silver Card at the end of the chapter. This reward is removed in Lunatic, and replaced with the much more common Vulnerary.
• Mood Whiplash: Xane's third Support conversation with the Avatar starts with him pretending to be Jagen and declaring his love for them, but then discussing how he no longer fits in with humans or dragons, and how cynical he's become due to living so long.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: For the prologue chapters, the player can get three specific units out of six depending on their dialogue choices: Gordin/Athena, Draug/Ogma, and Cain/Est.
• Nerf:
  • The Starsphere no longer preserves weapon durability.
  • Javelins went from a respectable 7 Might in Shadow Dragon to a less impressive 3. Hand Axes were similarly brought down from 8 Might to 4.
  • Wolf and Sedgar's stat growth rates are lower than in Shadow Dragon.
  • Astram and Abel. In Mystery of the Emblem Book 2, they start out as enemies, so their base stats are in the teens in a game where the stat cap is 20. Here, their stats are not updated with the increased stat caps and difficulty levels, making them Overrated and Underleveled.
  • While Tiki can still wield multiple Dragonstones like in the original Mystery of the Emblem, and they're just as potent as they are in that game, she no longer takes on a dragon form when using them. In Mystery, the transformation lasts several turns, grants Tiki flight (if using Divine or Wyvernstones), doubles her health, and gives unlimited "breath" attacks during her transformation, prolonging the stones' uses in combat. The stones in New Mystery, on the other hand, function like they do in The Binding Blade and in The Sacred Stones, in which she transforms for a single attack and depletes one of its uses. Her base HP now stays low despite being transformed, which is an issue in modes like Lunatic Reverse. In addition, due to the Lunatic difficulty removing the Warp staff, the Secret Shop that sells those dragonstones is unaccessable and Tiki is forced to rely on her own Divinestone and the one Firestone that is potentially missable.
  • The Lady Sword got noticably nerfed by losing its effectiveness against thieves, pirates and barbarians, and having its base Crit chance reduced from 10% to 0%.
  • Hammerne staff usage is reduced from 12 (Shadow Dragon)/5 (Mystery of the Emblem) to 3, and the second copy is unobtainable in Lunatic due to the removal of Warp.
• Not Quite Dead: The sacrifice that was Left for Dead in Shadow Dragon's prologue (revealed to canonically be Frey when he shows up in the tutorial) actually got out alive.
• Ominous Pipe Organ: The final chapter has an accompanying organ piece titled "Forbidden Sanctuary" that the original didn't have. The first few nots of the track is a remix of the Fire Emblem theme.
• One Stat to Rule Them All: Even more so than Shadow Dragon, the three stats of HP, Speed, and Defense matter more here. With the removal of weapon weight, only Speed is required to do a follow-up attack, and speedier classes such as Swordmasters and Snipers are needed in order to match the much faster enemies such as other Swordmasters and Feral Dragons. As hit rates are as generous as they were in Shadow Dragon, every point in HP and Defense matters to ensure survivability, which gives reclassed Generals utility to shield the rest of your troops.
• Play Every Day: Everyone's Conditions/How's Everyone is one of the features accessible from the preparations menu that rewards random bonuses, with the number increasing the more time passes after using the feature, capping at 4-5 bonuses and 24 hours. Said bonuses may include free items, statboosts that last for the entire chapter, experience, and support points.
• Promoted to Playable:
  • Michalis becomes playable due to being Spared by the Adaptation (provided you can figure out how to save him). He is also playable in the first DLC chapter.
  • Eremiah's assassins are playable in the second DLC chapter, including Eremiah herself and even Gharnef, complete with the Imhullu tome!
• Redemption Earns Life: It is possible to keep Michalis alive in New Mystery by sending Minerva over to the village he's staying at. If you do so, he fights alongside Marth for the rest of the war and leaves to become a king on another continent in his ending.
• Ret-Canon:
  • The game properly introduces a lot of bits that were originally just Word of God backgrounds to the story proper. For example, a conversation between the Avatar and Ogma brings up Ogma's fighting style being based on gladiatorial fighting.
  • The third DLC Chapter "By The Sword" focuses on Ogma and Navarre's rivalry and their relationship with Caeda, which was established in the 2nd episode of the Fire Emblem OVA.
• Sad Battle Music: Exclusive to this version, we get Endless Battle, a melancholic map theme which plays when you're forced to fight Katarina and her assassin friends.
• Send in the Clones: Legion endlessly sends out clones until the real one is defeated.
• Series Fauxnale: The game brings back characters from Shadow Dragon who never appeared in the original Mystery of the Emblem, including the SD-exclusive characters and even characters who only appeared in the Archanea Saga episodes. A number of characters that do appear in the original in Book 2 as NPCs are made playable as well. The final chapter also has its map theme changed into an ominous remix of the Fire Emblem theme, and all playable characters are given two lines each (once individually, another as a group) after defeating the final boss, giving the impression that the series is going out with a bang. However, Fire Emblem gets another chance to prove itself with Awakening (which is another case of Series Fauxnale itself), and that game's success kept the series going from there on.
• Stealth Pun: With the "Berserker"'s class being changed, the Master Sword is now being wielded by a Swordmaster.
• Shop Fodder: Because axe-users are now present in the remake, the Guide Dang It! instance of the three Silver Axes being sold off strictly for free money no longer applies. Gold bullion items now take up this role.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The remake allows you to avoid a number of character deaths from the original, such as Michalis and the Wolfguard.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable:
  • A badly designed Kris can find the very first prologue Chapter, "Meeting", unwinnable:
    • Archer Kris needs to invest in their bulk or Strength in order to survive on Lunatic and Lunatic Reverse, or hope that the Soldier and/or Jagen low-roll Strength. If they don't, "Meeting" is effectively unwinnable outside of a very lucky critical hit.
    • On Lunatic, Mage Kris needs the Orphan fortune and for Jagen to get 27 HP instead of 28, or else Kris will be unable to three-shot him and be forced to take an extra Javelin strike that they can't survive, making the map mathematically impossible to win. Even then, if both Jagen and the Soldier high-roll Strength and Kris doesn't have Kind or Strong, they'll be overrun anyway. Alternately, they can take Clergy's Child or a combination of Farmer's Child and Kind and hope Jagen spawns with 11 Strength, and then simply tank him. Of course, this means that 28 HP 12 Strength Jagen, which occurs roughly once every eight attempts, is legitimately unwinnable.
  • The Lightsphere is required in order to complete the game - even on a bad ending, as it is required in order to be able to damage Hardin, the boss of Chapter 20. However, in New Mystery, if you give the Lightsphere to Sheena or Samson, then trigger their Face–Heel Turn, the Lightsphere will remain in their inventory but they will become enemy units. However, even if you kill them after their Face–Heel Turn, they do not drop the Lightsphere you gave them, meaning you will not be able to recover it unless you load an earlier save. Without a means of clearing chapter 20, the game cannot be cleared.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment:
  • The game adds Tomahawks and Spears to the list of enemy-only weapons, possibly because the nerfing of Hand Axes and Javelins would make enemies less threatening by the lategame.
  • Ballisticians are no longer recruitable, so all ballistician equipment is now this.
  • The Glower tome is only used by Gharnef's followers and cannot be obtained by the player.
  • Swarm is now completely unobtainable by the player, as is the stronger variant, Meteor. Averted in the Assassins DLC chapter, where Eremiah is Promoted to Playable with her Meteor tome in tow.
  • Gharnef's Imhullu tome is once again unobtainable. Averted in the Assassins DLC chapter, where he is Promoted to Playable with the Imhullu tome in tow.
• Villain Episode: The Assassins DLC focuses on the assassins from the new subplot added in the remake and the player is given control of Katarina, Clarisse, several Legion as well as Eremiya and even Gharnef.