A service to the veterans of the series, and a warm welcome to newcomers. (Spoiler free)
Over the years, FE has changed and tweaked it's game-play a little, but never strayed to far from the formula. While the formula remains, Awakening has not tweaked, but perfected it. A veteran would notice instantly just how different things play this time around. 1.) The most drastic change, is the addition of pair-ups. Which allow any two members to join each-other in a battle, and perform combos, making a more intimidating enemy a little easier to confront. Also, the stats of the pair will boost depending on how high their stats are, and what rank their support is. But don't mistake this as an easy way out, the pair still only acts as one unit, with the only difference being a few stat raises and some chance combo attacks. 2.) There are different angles to view a battle, from first person, an automated angle view, or a set angle view with no changes. The first person view isn't all that much, since part of the fun is watching you're character in motion. Before, FE games required you to sit through battles, and the only alternative was switching the battle cam off altogether. Awakening solves this problem. Not only can you skip a battle completely, but you can fast forward, and pause mid-battle too. This won't seem like much to a newbie, but to a long-time player it really makes a difference. 3.) Players now have the option to switch between an English, and Japanese voice track. Although I myself don't care for this feature much, there are no doubt many people who do.
There are many notable features that have made a comeback from previous entries, and they have been much improved. Like the map, last seen in sacred stones, which allows you to move about a number of paths from the places you've conquered. Here, there are blacksmiths, vendors, and wandering monsters. But the most notable is the inclusion of side-quests, which if done right, award you with characters and treasure. On the world map, you can even purchase DLC, and win characters from previous games in the series. Although the characters don't have anything to do with the story, and are basically another unit, they are fun to have. The DLC is nothing special, and isn't worth the 3-5 dollars for a single mission that will only last you 15 minutes or so. You do get characters out of it, but even then it's still not worth it. You can access a new feature called the "barracks," where you're group can interact, and find new items, but that's about it. There is support conversations, every character has them, but not every character can support each-other. Any character of opposite sex a female, or male has on their support list, they can marry. And have children, which will join you're team through side-quests.
Before you start the game, you will be creating you're own character. But it's not as great as it sounds, there are few options to choose from, which makes it feel half-ass'ed, but at least the option is there anyway. You're character plays a prominent role in the story, and is the only character who can support with everyone.
The game clocks in at around 30 hours no matter how you go about it, and if you take you're time and enjoy the ride, you might even double that. The game, unlike past FE games, lets you select a difficulty level before you start the game. Anywhere from beginner, which lets you keep you're units even if they fall in a fight, to lunatic. Although throwing you're units out there with no consequences kind of defeats the purpose of strategy, it's still there for people that can;t quite grasp the concept just yet. Either way you go about it, there's no question it's a great ride. And with a lot of average games on the handheld, why the hell wouldn't you pick this up?