A timeless classic that's well worth finding. Few other Fire Emblem games can compare.
As a series, Fire Emblem seems to have a few things in common with Final Fantasy; both have a ridiculously large number of installments, follow a rather similar story structure, recycle character archetypes in a way that would make any environmentalist proud, and for both, the seventh installment seems to be were they peaked. Yes, more games followed, some of them quite good, but none really seemed to recapture the magic of the lucky seventh installment. However, as far as most people are aware, this is the first Fire Emblem game simply because it was the first installment that the Japanese didn't keep all to themselves. It follows the adventures of Roy's generic daddy, Eliwood, and his rather generic quest to prevent a war from brewing that would tear apart his homeland and consequently the rest of the world, somehow. If it sounds like I don't really have a firm grasp of the plot, it's because I really don't; yes, I've gone through the game without skipping the dialogue once or twice, but I've played through it so much more often by simply skipping all the pre and post chapter plot details to get into the highly addictive and engaging gameplay that I so love. Everything I do remember about the plot seems rather token and generic, especially for a fantasy themed turn based strategy game; it has a few interesting twists, and some hidden content that makes the story a lot more tragic, but I found the whole story to be far less interesting than the characters involved.
The gameplay is easily approachable and sufficiently deep, hitting that good old sweet spot of being easy to learn and difficult to master. At the most basic level, Fire Emblem is a simple turn based strategy game. You control one group, the enemy AI controls another, and you each take turns moving the characters around on the board and ordering them to kill each other until you either complete the chapter objective or fail for some odd reason and rage quit before trying again a few minutes later. The first ten or so chapters provide you with a tutorial, teaching you all the basics as you move along, while allowing you to review them at any time should you forget, which you won't because they are rather simple. But, just because the mechanics are simple to learn and understand does not make the game easy. For example, the weapons have a rock-paper-scissors like quality to them, somewhat like Pokemon types. Using the weapon that has an edge over the enemy's provides your unit with an advantage in battle, but that one enemy often has mates that use different weapons that can tear you apart. Knowing what to use, when, and how is key, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Fire Emblem's most endearing aspect stems from the support system. As characters fight next to each other on the battlefield, they will eventually talk to each other and become friends or more. Friends who stick together on the field provide bonuses for each other that give them another edge in each encounter. The conversations themselves are usually quite telling; some are hilarious, some are tragic, and practically all of them provide some insight into the characters who speak to each other. These relationships feel a lot more substantial than those formed in Awakening, probably due to the small number of conversations each character is allowed. During each playthrough, each character is only allowed to have five conversations, allowing them to build up one really substantial relationship at most, and five budding relationships at least, providing some measure of replay value.
However, neither of those are the aspects of this that Fire Emblem Awakening failed to grasp. What makes this installment far more engaging and entertaining is it's more linear approach to gameplay. There's no map screen for you to wander around in between chapters. which keeps both the plot and gameplay flowing. The lack of pauses between each chapter ensures that any bad decisions you make will have far reaching consequences. For example, if I were to only use Fredrick to get through the first four chapters of Awakening, the overall difficulty of the game doesn't change because I can just stop and grind through endless waves of monsters in between chapters to let all of the other characters catch up. By having each chapter immediately move into the next without pause, Fire Emblem becomes increasingly more difficult if I funnel all of the experience points into one character, since most chapters cannot be conquered by one person alone. The seventh installment here pulls that off by having various chapter objectives, which range from only killing the boss, to killing all of the enemies and their cats, to capturing a certain space, to defending a certain space. Each objective requires a different approach, ensuring that no two chapters can be beaten with the exact same tactics. This linear approach also makes the weapon deterioration far more pressing, especially since there isn't an abundance of shops to purchase new items from. This creates the dilemma of blowing all your money now to stockpile on weapons, or saving the cash to buy better weapons later, hoping that the gear you're stuck with now won't break before then.
Each chapter also provides a certain level of difficulty through rather abstract means. Nearly every single chapter either has villages to visit or chests full of treasures to claim. The rewards are well worth the effort, and become increasingly more difficult to complete as the game progresses. Near the beginning, your units will start off each chapter closer to these items than the enemies who can destroy them, but later chapters actually put them on the far side of the map, requiring more advanced tactics to safely procure each treasure. Recruiting new characters to your army also requires more thought than in Awakening, and getting everyone is often well worth the challenge, even if you won't be using them long term.
The last gripe I forgot to bring up in my Awakening review was the graphics. I honestly don't care all that much about graphical quality, and absolutely hate mentioning graphics in general since pretty much everything looks good these days, but Awakening's deserves special mention here because, despite being graphically superior to Fire Emblem seven, it's aesthetic appeal is rather weak. The character and class designs are well put together and all that, but they seem to lack a sense of individuality; most of the animations involved in Awakening are determined by the weapon that's being used, not the class that's using it. This really makes the battle scenes boring to watch since there's almost no perceptible difference between two different classes using the same weapon. Number Seven, on the other hand, has unique sprites for each class as well as unique animations for each one, making your army feel a bit larger and more varied than the crew in Awakening. Oh, and there's almost no way to see any bit of this Fire Emblem in 3D, which is a huge plus as far as I'm concerned.
All in all, Mr. Fire Emblem seven here is quite easily the peak of the series, being easy to pick up, appropriately difficult, and charming with a good sense of flow. If you can actually find a copy for sale in this day and age, along with something that can actually play it, then I strongly encourage you to pick it up and go to town.