My very first Fire Emblem game. A good normal game that could have been wayyy better wasnt for the broken, punishing and unfair difficulty that very soon in the playthrough starts making the gameplay feel very tedius. I literally (thanks to a software counter) reset the game a total of 1568 times which is ridiculous.
Visulas: Animations, CGI and character desing are polished and pleasant to look at.
Sound: Good music, not great, not bad, it feels repetetive after a while, sounds effects are good and Voice acting does its job fine but it sometimes, during narrations, tends to be under the normal volume making it hard to listen to.
Difficulty: HARD painfully unforgivenly hard a total let down to a point that it takes enjoyment out of the game
Story: Interesting plot and good storytelling, continuity of characters from Path of Radiance to here is very welcome, all of them have their story, you can get attached to them by using them grooming them and caring for them.
Gameplay: Broken difficulty, unfair battles that usually need you to exploit dumb AI decisions. 95% of the time HealthPoints (HP) means absolutely nothing (being 10max hp or 80mx hp), it doesnt matter the type of unit, 2 consecutive hits means death to ANY character and 90% of the time it only applies to your units. Scarce money and expensive items. Difficult inventory and management menu scrolling/micromanagement. Midbattle save is an option but it overwrites everytime so if you made a mistake and saved mid battle you are most likely screwed and will have to restart the battle from the beginning.
Support option, "rock-paper scissor" battles, soldier classes, status and different types of weapons allow for different strategies to play with, you will most likely play defensive style and exploit broken AI when needed though.
Units die for real, they actually get killed, thats not quite the problem, but how often it happens and how punishing it is, IS the actual problem/flaw
Options: In-Batlle options that let you turn on/of the battle animations so the pace because twice as fast (good and bad, since it points out that the battles become looong and tedius because of the broken difficulty). Tutorial menu well explained. There are extras like portraits and music and retakes of scenes.NO load saved game unless you die (which is REALLY annoying and a flaw) and no quick exit battles to main menu, so its either reset the game or wait to die on purpouse.
Replay Value: Can be replayed with extras, I personally wouldnt do it.
Overall: Again, a normal/good game smashed for its punishing difficulty and broken mechanics that go in detriment of its enjoyment factor becoming tedius, but it manages to keep ones interest in the game, story and even gameplay. It could've been a great game wasnt for those flaws. This game is reccommended for Fire Emblem hardocre fans or SRPGs Harcore fans, if not one of those you will most likely drop it soon if you decide to play it, if not a harcore, you can skip it, you wont miss much. I personally enjoyed it but got frustrated a lot of times and wouldnt play it again.