If you haven't played a lot of games then you'll want to play only the greatest games. Eventually though you'll reach a point where you've seen the same formula for great games over and over, and while they're still great, you'll crave something different. That's when you play this game.

Is Eternal Sonata a great game? Probably not. It is unique, and most importantly, it's good enough. A lot of weird and experimental games are a pain to play but you'll never struggle to get through this game. The gameplay is perfectly serviceable so that you can see the truly one of a kind story. If playing something new and different is your primary goal then play this game.

For most of 14's existence it has not been a great game. We all know about the troubles of 1.0, but even after that problems persisted for years. ARR and Heavensward did not have cross-server party maker, it was only added in patch 3.5. Doing raids back then were laborious just because your pool of teammates were limited to just your one server, not to mention the poor quality of life like cooldowns not resetting on wipes, which was only fixed in 2016 towards the end of HW.

Even when Stormblood had these fixed it then had its own problem. The Return to Ivalice alliance raid series was needlessly difficult, and your relic weapon was tied to the grindy FF11 styled Eureka area, which meant actually getting the gear for raids was now the problem.

Then comes Shadowbringers and we finally have a great expansion. It's easily manageable to get the gear and team together for savage raids, the jobs are better balanced, and the fights are fun and memorable. Even the story is more consistent, now without the fakeout deaths of HW or the split focus of SB. There's few things I can say were wrong with this expansion, it's a 10/10.

So what's wrong with Endwalker? Nothing really, on paper it's just as good as Shadowbringers. However, you have to look at the larger context. 14 expansion are very formulaic. Each expansion there's six new overworld areas, three alliance raids, 12 savage raids, etc. These even come out in the same consistent patch order. This fact didn't bother me going into Shadowbringers because that was the first expansion that actually made me want to do all types of content. Now, even though Endwalker is good, the monotony of knowing what to expect from a 14 expansion has bored me. If they don't have any ideas left on how to improve the formula then they need to change it.

I loved this game at first but the more I played it the less I liked it. You choose one of three houses at the very start of the game. No matter which route you pick the maps and plot will be the same, the only difference being your students. You can easily recruit students from other houses though aside from one or two people which are locked to a certain house. On my second playthrough I recruited every recruit-able person before even halfway through the game. So what house you pick doesn't really matter at first.
After the halfway point the three routes split to be completely different. The Black Eagles route feels unfinished. Not only is is significantly shorter than the other routes, but the story also doesn't have a true conclusion. We know there's still more people to fight, but we don't get to do it.
The Black Eagles route has a route split right at the halfway point for you to instead join with the church. This route is pointless as it has the same maps and cutscenes as the Golden Deer route aside from the final map. Don't bother with it. However, you might accidentally end up doing it because it's easier to get forced into this route than to do the actual Black Eagles route.
The Blue Lions route is the most unique and finished route in the game, but the story mainly hinges on a misunderstanding, which is especially annoying if this route isn't your first. As the player I clearly know the answer and could solve the conflict in a single sentence, but I don't get to and instead I just watch the world burn.
Also this game has one of the worst maps in all of Fire Emblem: Hunting By Daybreak. As I mentioned it's very easy to recruit other units, so in my second playthrough I used units from different houses. However, this is the only map that makes you use only units from the house you chose at the start, regardless of if you've leveled them or not.
Anyway, it's a good game. If you play the game only one time on normal difficultly and you pick Golden Eagles or Blue Lions then you'll probably have a lot of fun. If you play the game like I did, playing each of the three main routes on Maddening, you'll probably like the game less and less as you go on.

The game has some problems but most important to me is that the game was always fun. It's easier than the prior entries, but this is because the developers removed mechanics that were frustrating, annoying, boring, or didn't matter.

Having your Pikmin attack or carry things just by walking near them was frustrating, so their AI is fixed and they only follow your commands. Having to divide your squad before fights because if your Purple or White Pikmin die it's very time consuming to get more was annoying, so now you can just rewind the game if these special Pikmin die. Waiting for the Pikmin to carry a ship part or treasure across the entire map was boring, so now you can move your base closer. Having a limit to the amount of days you can beat the game sounds cool on paper, but the time limit in Pikmin 1 and 3 was so generous that I've never know anyone to lose to it, so this game doesn't have a similar limit.

The only aspect I think is outright bad is the dialogue. There's a lot of it and it's mostly pointless so feel free to skip it. Otherwise I feel like this game does an amazing job of having a ton of different puzzle mechanics and switching them up constantly. It reminds me of a 3D Mario game. No level gimmick is particularity deep, but they change so often that I'm always engaged. It definitely my favorite of the series, and I recommend it even if you don't normally play real time strategy games.

There's a specific sweet spot in order to enjoy this game. If you just want to rush through the main story then you'll be disappointed. The game has fantastic world design, but you won't see most of it from just following the main story and instead you'll need to do some side quests. Some of the side quests are great, mainly the blade quests, but you have to go far out of your way to get these, as not only do you need the RNG to get a unique blade but you also need to level up each of them. first Likewise, the combat is great, but you're not required to explore it in depth, as even though there are technically limitless blades/party members, you could just beat the game with the ones that are given to you automatically.

Conversely, if you want to do everything in this game then you'll also be upset. In Xenoblade 1 and 3 you can get 100% in less than 100 hours, while here you'll need well over 200 hours. Some of the mechanics, like the Merc Missions or maxing Affinity Charts, require tons of time and just aren't fun. You'll probably spend hours just grinding the core crystals to have a chance at summoning your last few unique blades. Even though the world design is great, when you have to consistently backtrack because you didn't have the right Field Skill then you'll start to hate it.

It's an amazing game only if you're the very specific kind of video game player who wants to do most of a game's content. Not some, not all, but specifically just most.

When compared to the GBA versions three things stand out:
1: If you are emulating this instead of playing on a DS then the menus will take significantly longer to navigate. Also if you emulate then you don't get the feeling of yelling at MegaMan to get a buff.
2: The voice acting is annoying. Not to say that the voice actors are bad, it's just that there's only a few lines of voiced dialogue and they play way too often.
3: This version is much easier. In Liberation Missions you can edit your folder, and on the regular net you can other Navi's to assist you. I normally like my games to be tough but I like this change as it mainly made the regular encounters easier while the boss battles were about just as tough.
Overall, if you're emulating, or if you get annoyed by repetitive dialogue, or if you want the more challenging experience, then play the GBA version, ideally Team Colonel as well.