Top 10 Most Busted Mechanics in Fire Emblem # 4 - Time Rewind Mechanics

 

# 4 - Time Rewind Mechanics

The next major busted mechanic on this list are "time rewind mechanics". Like bonus experience in Path of Radiance, time rewind mechanics like Mila's Turnwheel are supposed to be there to act as a safety net for the player. We've all had stories where the enemy had a super low chance to land a critical hit, or a super low chance to hit our character, and for some reason the RNG gives us a middle finger and the next thing we know, our character dies. Insert Mila's Turnwheel, a convenient way for the player to go back in time and redo the level without having to completely start from the beginning.

It's easy to see the appeal of a mechanic like this: It makes restarting less painful and time-consuming. If you're like me, you probably use this mechanic for this purpose. However, like bonus experience in Path of Radiance, there is a way for a more experienced player to use this in a way that completely breaks the game. 

Scylla pointed out the problem with time rewind mechanics like these: "this is also ridiculous for a similar reason to Rescue; you can take crazy risks and get away with it, because you can just undo undesirable outcomes. The three games that have had this mechanic have been undeniably shaped by them, not as a tool to provide a safety to beginners but instead a 'probability enhancer' to the more experienced." 

So yeah. This game essentially lets you fish for critical hits, and makes it easy to accomplish. Another issue is that Maddening mode of Three Houses seemed explicitly designed with this mechanic in mind. This led to the game implementing same turn ambush spawns, which is bad design. The next point about time rewinding is that it makes games easier, since resetting is less punitive and that so far the games where it's implemented have been really generous with how many charges the player gets. The obvious solution would be to give the player fewer rewinds on higher difficulties, but so far that hasn't happened.

Just to recap, the problems with this mechanic are:

a) Players can rush forward without any consequences.

b) This mechanic works as a way to force the probability to do what the player wants it to do.  

c) It can be used to justify bad map design. 

This is a mechanic so powerful that it will inevitably shape how the game plays, which is why it deserves to be so high up on this list.