A melting pot of mechanics and ideas that start sweet and end sour. Chapters 25, 26, and 26x present some of the worst problems of the game up close, with shitty gimmicks (weather, anyone?) and awful, awful map design. The storytelling is repetitive beyond belief, with almost every map in the first half being predicated on the same few lines of dialogue:
"We gotta get to Lord Dumbass' house! He'll help us!"
"Okay Eliwood, let's go!"
Then the lord they go to fucking dies, and 13 bandits spawn in from different directions. Queue action. The second half is no better, as searching for a MacGuffin becomes the primary task. Go here! Okay, we're here! Whoops, Black Fang spawned in/were here when we arrived! There's just no soul, reading the plot is a bore. So what about the characters?
Well, they're pretty endearing, and there's a support system to flesh them out. But hold on! The support system is a moot point, because it's based on sitting around and doing nothing! This wouldn't be a problem if most of the maps WEREN'T about running from the bottom end to the top, stopping thieves from ransacking castles or recruiting randos who've had next to no buildup whatsoever. It's a goddamn rat race, and the support system is just not reasonable for the player. And be honest: how are you supposed to know how to recruit most of these people without looking up a guide? I used Eliwood for everyone who looked unique, and I barely grabbed half of them. So yeah, the characters are two steps forward one step back.

The presentation is good, I'll say that. Crit animations, good music, awesome sound effects, it's pretty great for a GBA title. The weapon triangle is a solid system and easy to understand. It's just that on the whole, FE7 is not steady, and that's a deal breaker for me.