For reference, I have played through each route of this game at least once and have completed it on Maddening difficulty.
This is a game that I loved on release but began to sour on over time. Is it a good game? I would say so. But I believe there are so many little things that add up for me that end up diminishing the experience.
Narratively, this is probably the some of the most ambitious story-telling that has been attempted in any Fire Emblem game. The game has an immense amount of world-building to setup the eventual political struggles that take place. While I enjoyed the amount of world-building in this game, I do think that it could become overwhelming to some players that aren't prepared for the scope of it all. I also think that some of the routes, namely Crimson Flower, fails in certain aspects that ultimately drag it down for me. Some of these issues are resolved in the spin-off, Three Hopes, but I do wish that a spin-off wasn't needed to resolve those issues.
The cast itself is quite enjoyable overall, and there are numerous different sides to each character that you might only glimpse in certain support chains, which I felt pushed me to complete as many for each character as possible across all of my playthroughs.
The gameplay is the biggest issue I have with this particular Fire Emblem entry. I believe the difficulty settings of the game are poorly balanced overall, with Normal and Hard both being very easy (Normal almost mind-numbingly so), and Maddening feeling excessively difficult. While I can appreciate Normal for being a good difficulty option for those primarily interested in the narrative, I believe Hard isn't much more difficult than Normal. Maddening is such a leap in difficulty compared to Hard to the point where I would argue it is unfair at times, namely for some of the Monster bosses players will have to fight on some maps.
The map design was enjoyable for my first playthrough, but it quickly became dull as I realized all of the routes shared multiple maps with each other, and I found that my differing unit selection did not do much to change how I approached them. In an interview with the developers, they stated that while they recognized this was an issue, they thought it was fine as they believed most players would only do a single playthrough of the game and learn about the rest of the routes online. While that certainly happened to a degree, I also feel that its rather lazy to have such similar map selections for each route.
The game is also incredibly easy to break thanks to the added Battalion mechanic. While I appreciate the addition of the Battalion mechanic to make the battles truly feel like larger scale conflicts, many of the abilities they provide are hilariously broken, to a point where several maps' mechanics can be ignored entirely.
There is more I could have touched on in each individual route, but this sums up many of the feelings I have about the game overall.
I think for many it could serve as a good entry point into the Fire Emblem series, but I would also note that compared to many other entries in the series, it is a bit of anomaly with scope of its narrative and world-building. While I enjoyed my time with this game, I believe it will be a long time before I would even think of attempting another playthrough.
This is a game that I loved on release but began to sour on over time. Is it a good game? I would say so. But I believe there are so many little things that add up for me that end up diminishing the experience.
Narratively, this is probably the some of the most ambitious story-telling that has been attempted in any Fire Emblem game. The game has an immense amount of world-building to setup the eventual political struggles that take place. While I enjoyed the amount of world-building in this game, I do think that it could become overwhelming to some players that aren't prepared for the scope of it all. I also think that some of the routes, namely Crimson Flower, fails in certain aspects that ultimately drag it down for me. Some of these issues are resolved in the spin-off, Three Hopes, but I do wish that a spin-off wasn't needed to resolve those issues.
The cast itself is quite enjoyable overall, and there are numerous different sides to each character that you might only glimpse in certain support chains, which I felt pushed me to complete as many for each character as possible across all of my playthroughs.
The gameplay is the biggest issue I have with this particular Fire Emblem entry. I believe the difficulty settings of the game are poorly balanced overall, with Normal and Hard both being very easy (Normal almost mind-numbingly so), and Maddening feeling excessively difficult. While I can appreciate Normal for being a good difficulty option for those primarily interested in the narrative, I believe Hard isn't much more difficult than Normal. Maddening is such a leap in difficulty compared to Hard to the point where I would argue it is unfair at times, namely for some of the Monster bosses players will have to fight on some maps.
The map design was enjoyable for my first playthrough, but it quickly became dull as I realized all of the routes shared multiple maps with each other, and I found that my differing unit selection did not do much to change how I approached them. In an interview with the developers, they stated that while they recognized this was an issue, they thought it was fine as they believed most players would only do a single playthrough of the game and learn about the rest of the routes online. While that certainly happened to a degree, I also feel that its rather lazy to have such similar map selections for each route.
The game is also incredibly easy to break thanks to the added Battalion mechanic. While I appreciate the addition of the Battalion mechanic to make the battles truly feel like larger scale conflicts, many of the abilities they provide are hilariously broken, to a point where several maps' mechanics can be ignored entirely.
There is more I could have touched on in each individual route, but this sums up many of the feelings I have about the game overall.
I think for many it could serve as a good entry point into the Fire Emblem series, but I would also note that compared to many other entries in the series, it is a bit of anomaly with scope of its narrative and world-building. While I enjoyed my time with this game, I believe it will be a long time before I would even think of attempting another playthrough.