Japanese opinions on Fire Emblem games

FE1 Pros:
>Helped establish the SRPG genre as a whole by copying Famicom Wars's gameplay style while making characters into individuals and having equipment, shops, chests, etc.
>Its kind of war story was completely unprecedented, with humans being your main adversaries and subjects like invasion, alliance, betrayal across 10 different countries
>Character permadeath is a famous element and can result in the player being punished many chapters later for a death early on
>Formulas are easy to understand but your chance of hitting is still usually random, so you have to keep in mind the risk of death
>Character stat growth is randomly determined upon level up
>High degree of freedom - use your favorite characters or the strongest, visit villages and get items or clear the map as quickly as possible

FE1 Cons:
>Base difficulty is high, and if a unit dies you can get really messed up later
>Enemy crit rates can't be reduced, so there's always an element of luck
>You can't move items around on the preparation screen
>You can't figure out a weapon's power, hit rate, or weight ingame
>Attack power and attack speed aren't shown ingame
>Handling of individual characters is a bit poor - some characters share face sprites entirely, some don't say much at all in the story, many don't match their artwork
>Level up growths are pretty harsh due to RNG
>When the enemy moves, your cursor gets moved and it slows down the game a bit
>Enemies seem to have higher growth rates than your allies, based on their stats at each level
>There are a number of both good and bad bugs
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FE2 Pros:
>Because enemies and weapons are infinite, you can train to your heart's content
>Game has a good difficulty balance, depends entirely on how much you train
>Magic became easier to use and summoning magic was made available
>Numerous new classes were introduced for both players and enemies, expanding tactical possibilities
>All units receive some amount of EXP when the map is cleared
>Map structure requires more strategy
>Story takes advantage of two armies advancing along different routes with different goals simultaneously
>Graphics and sound are enormously improved
>Auto-battle has been added
>The retreat command has been added
>Healers are easier to level because they get offensive magic and extra EXP
>Class changing can be done without items, but you need to backtrack to a Mila's Servant to do it

FE2 Cons:
>Alm's story has a bit more variety in enemies than Celica's
>RNG only seems to have about 10 patterns for level ups
>The chance of an enemy dropping an item is outrageously low
>Tempo is worsened by hit rates being lower and some battle animations taking a while
>Some magic is outright better than others
>You also aren't told who learns what spells, so you might use a mage only to find they're terrible later
>Villager promotion is tricky - mages other than Kliff are useless, a knight in Celica's path is not a good idea
>You have to choose between Dean or Sonya, but Sonya is given preferential treatment
>Resistance is determined solely by class
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FE3 Pros:
>Large volume - remake of FE1 is included and isn't bad for an introduction to the series
>Game has been rebalanced and calculations have been revised
>Class changes tweaked, armor knights can now promote for instance
>Support system implemented in earnest
>Monks and sisters have better means of gaining EXP
>Stats for allies and enemies are displayed before battles now
>Manaketes now transform for a number of turns at a time
>Mounting and dismounting is added
>Convoy system is added
>Can now surrender in the arena
>Graphics are improved, characters given unique face sprites
>Battle animations are improved significantly, but can be turned off anyways
>Book 2 has a much deeper and heavier story than FE1
>Starsphere allows weaker characters to be usable

FE3 Cons:
>Forced dismounting indoors can make cavalry much harder to use
>Book 2 has a steep difficulty curve, designed to be played by veterans of the FC version
>Some characters and chapters from FE1 don't appear in Book 1, or aren't recruitable for some reason
>Level up growths are pretty harsh due to RNG
>If a stat reaches 20 while mounted, it becomes 18 while on foot; if it reaches 20 while on foot, it stays 20 forever
>When battle animations are turned off, you are given much less information
>There are a number of bugs, some good and some bad
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FE4 Pros:
>Game is divided into two generations, with few playable characters returning for the second
>Initially appears to have a typical story, but as it goes on, it becomes what many call the darkest, deepest, and greatest story in the series
>Maps are enormous and chapters are long
>Weapon triangle introduced
>Skill system introduced
>Post-game evaluation introduced
>Marriage system is intricate and significantly affects the second generation
>Graphics are improved over Mystery of the Emblem, sound is fantastic

FE4 Cons:
>There are many broken weapons and characters to where difficulty has significantly declined
>Trading of items between characters is troublesome
>Game encourages dodging over defense, with enemies not attacking if they can't deal damage due to defense
>The ability to save every turn further reduces the difficulty, but is necessary since the maps are so large
>The weapon triangle is unbalanced, with swords and wind and light magic favored and axes and fire magic looked down on
>Mounted units are heavily favored due to the size of the maps
>Armor units are completely useless because the enemy won't attack them much and they move so slow
>The last boss isn't exciting, as you're given a weapon to trivialize him and he's beatable even without it
>Substitute characters are generally weaker than their proper counterparts, but for Sylvia and Coirpre, the difference is negligible
>Holy blood inheritance is a bit odd and not explained
>Skill inheritance is also left unexplained
>Bugs are very conspicuous and new bugs are always being found
>Every time you clear the game, the demo gets new scenes, but considering the time it takes to clear the game, it can be very tedious to clear it 16 times over, and important plot info is shown in these scenes
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FE5 Pros:
>Difficult, even as far as Fire Emblem games go
>"Aesthetics of Perdition" give the game a unique feel
>As a result of the above, capturing enemy units plays a big role
>Constitution stat is added in and adds another layer of depth
>Fatigue makes it so strong units can't monopolize the entire game
>New victory conditions aside from seizing exist
>Weapon ranks can now be increased with use
>Fog of war maps are added
>Gaiden maps are added
>Command level reworked
>The highest rates are 99% and the lowest rates are 1%
>Items exist to compensate for poor growth rates
>Interface is good, easy to use
>Long-range magic and dark magic are usable for the first time
>New lances and axes ease the bias in favor of swords
>Graphics and music are very high quality, fitting for the last SFC game

FE5 Cons:
>Very difficult to acquire money early on, beginners might not entirely grasp how capturing works
>Enemy units come in enormous quantities, and often can attack on the same turn they appear, and they often carry strong weapons, and sometimes can use staves from across the entire map
>Armor units are ineffective, due to large amounts of enemies with hammers and armor killers
>Skills are very unbalanced
>Sometimes you have to re-recruit allies
>Final boss is the weakest in the entire series
>Xavier is considered the hardest character to recruit in the entire series and isn't worth it at all
>Weapon balance is unstable - axes and light magic have no reason to reach rank A as there are no A rank weapons for them, magic is hard to level and hard to come by
>Indoors, most mounted units dismount and have to fight with weapons you aren't accustomed to at all
>It's difficult to change the starting arrangement of characters for each map
>The "pursuit critical coefficient" is a thing that makes strong characters stronger and weak characters weaker
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FE6 Pros:
>Equipped with autosave
>Roy starts out as a minor prince, overcomes the world's strongest army, learns the truth behind the human-dragon war, and fights for coexistence - the classic hero storyline is perfected
>Difficulty isn't too easy or artificially hard (yes they really say that)
>Replay value in the trial maps, communication mode, hard mode, enemies can be unlocked for the trial maps
>Added support system and conversations
>Wind, fire, and thunder magic are brought under one category
>In-depth but optional tutorial
>Detailed UI with R trigger explanations
>Conversations are more animated with sprite animations and more than three people at times
>Some units will never attack other units

FE6 Cons:
>Reinforcements can show up and act immediately, potentially killing allies
>Gaiden maps need to be done to see the real ending
>Recruitment can be cryptic
>Hard mode boost affects only some allies, making it less about using favorites
>Communication mode ends up being severely imbalanced
>Enemies and allies have AI that can be bad or weird at times
>Light and dark magic are handled poorly
>Roy promotes very late - he has good stats and growths but is still just dead weight on hard mode
>Fae can only attack 30 times, and Hammerne won't restore her stone
>Some advanced weapons can't be obtained
>Final boss is very weak
>Merlinus is hard to use
>Autosave makes resetting more severe
>Tutorial is great, but hidden in Extras
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FE7 Pros:
>Game has three chapters with three protagonists
>Story is less about war between nations and more like a standard RPG
>Some classes have been rebalanced
>Enemies have been generally weakened and give more EXP
>Light magic was fixed with the addition of an early monk
>Merlinus is easier to use
>Enemies and chests are better arranged and give more use to thieves
>Weapon hit rates were raised, attacks miss less often
>Final boss is dramatically stronger
>Tome weight is generally increased, making mages less OP
>Your side can use ballistae
>Victory conditions vary
>Support system is expanded
>Autosave and R button hints are retained
>Can use items at preparation screens
>Gaiden stages aren't mandatory
>Special art is used in some scenes
>There's a secret ending
>Face and fighting graphics are improved
>Evaluation system is more strict
>Light Brand has new mechanics
>Some unavailable weapons and items from FE6 are usable now
>Dynamic maps (knocking down trees, weather)

FE7 Cons:
>Only one weapon rank can be brought to S per character
>S rank in staves is harmful because of the above, no S rank staves at all
>Durandal and Sol Katti are useless
>Some of the best weapons are too heavy
>Dark magic is extremely powerful - Luna in particular is called a gamebreaker
>Support system allows units to become enormously strong
>New element is the tactician character, but they have no importance
>The Lyn tutorial is mandatory, although it can be skipped with FE6 data, but then that leaves the player ignorant of her chapter's events
>Trial maps are gone
>A certain character is mysteriously resurrected at the end
>Support conversations have really unnatural scenarios (writing letters, making decorations, trying to kill allies)
>Many chapters use the same premise again and again
>Many typos and bugs are present
>Some items and unlockables can only be obtained by special events
>Some events can't be skipped at all
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FE8 Pros:
>A story with many sights - despite being short, you see a lot of Renais and Grado
>Game's balance is good, none of the "this unit is totally useless" that other games had
>There aren't many units, but support conversations are as deep as ever, making them more memorable
>Creature Campaign adds something to do after the main story is finished
>Class change branches add an element of decision-making
>Skills are brought back, albeit somewhat incompletely
>The convoy returns to how it worked before the GBA games
>Music is some of the best in the series

FE8 Cons:
>Ephraim acts outrageously unrealistic and manages to trounce huge armies with only four men
>Difficulty dropped drastically, overseas version improved it a bit
>Storyline is very short at fewer than 20 chapters
>AI makes decisions that make it seem like the AI is broken
>Final boss is extremely weak
>Many graphics and stats are reused from the previous two works
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FE9 Pros:
>A new subspecies "Laguz" is introduced
>Automatic class changes after level 20
>Between-chapter base system, support conversations happen there instead of on the battlefield
>Weapon triangle rebalanced, axes are good now
>Weapon weight rebalanced
>Magic rebalanced
>Overall difficulty is significantly increased, but the game is balanced enough to not notice much
>Difficulty options ranging from normal to maniac
>Offers a significant amount of freedom as to how you play
>Is accessible for newcomers, and has the best tutorial system in the series
>Trial maps finally return
>Story is highly revered
>Final boss is dramatically stronger, especially on harder difficulties

FE9 Cons:
>Paladin is way too strong
>Swordmasters and berserkers are weakened
>Not all weapon types have S rank weapons
>Special weapons (anti-flight, anti-horse) are made much weaker to where they're basically useless
>Battle animations are plain and take up too much time
>Occasional freezes
>Imbalance in skills, some are totally useless
>BGM isn't very memorable for the most part
>Story has very slow pacing
>The story barely takes you around Tellius at all
>Secret shops and dark magic are gone
>It's possible to glitch a weapon into having a 255 crit rate
>Support effect between earth affinities is too strong
>HP tends to be low and defense tends to be high, making the defensive game much more practical, but maybe too strong
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FE10 Pros:
>Story is divided into four parts and each feels distinct gameplay-wise
>The development of the story is reflected well via maps and units (laguz royals who are strong in-universe are actually strong, proper allied armies appear)
>Graphics and animations are significantly improved
>CG cutscenes and music are significantly improved
>Almost every loose end from the first game is wrapped up within a satsifying story
>Weapon triangle is rebalanced
>Rich variety in clear conditions
>Despite being on a disk, load-times are short and the game moves at a good pace because it lets you skip many animations
>Motion controls aren't forced in like with many Wii games

FE10 Cons:
>Micaiah starts out as the main character but Ike steals the role after the third chapter
>Micaiah's motivations are difficult to understand - sometimes she's a pacifist, sometimes she's a pragmatist
>Sothe is supposed to be important but ends up completely useless in short order
>Support conversations are eliminated, character development is thin as a result
>Balance is completely ruined by you being given too many strong units - even if you never touch Ike, he can defeat the final boss with no issues
>Third-tier jobs are much too strong
>Enemies tend to be fairly weak and overcome you just with sheer numbers
>There are weapons that are strong with only negligible disadvantages
>Bonus EXP is easy to exploit
>Command system returns for the first time since Thracia, but is easy to exploit
>Maniac mode has been adjusted to just delete or weaken existing systems, giving you less EXP or making you check enemy ranges one-by-one
>Normal mode simplifies the story dramatically
>You can't get everything in your first playthrough
>Most maps have hidden items on them
>Neutral/Ally phases take long
>Freezes and bugs are common in initial release
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FE11 Pros:
>Is a fusion of FE1 with many of FE3's designs and modern FE gameplay
>Weapon variety significantly increased from FE1/3
>Horses can be used indoors again
>Communication matches are improved and available for online
>Forging system has been imported
>You can change a characters class as much as you want
>Some characters can be made useful just by changing their class as the situation demands
>Sidequest chapters unlocked by having less than 15 members in your army have been added
>Save points have been added
>Wi-Fi online shop allowed for unique or rare items to be bought
>Interface makes full use of the dual screens
>Game has been sped up - can now display all enemy ranges with a button press and skip enemy actions
>Tutorial is optional and difficulty is flexible, making the game accessible regardless of skill
>New BGM has been added
>Game has been brought up to date with attack ranges shown, battle forecasts, armories before battles

FE11 Cons:
>Artstyle is more realistic and less anime-based - the quality is good, but pales in comparison to FE3
>Story and character expansions aren't especially good
>Characters who were confusing to recruit haven't been made any easier
>Marth's personality has been changed to be more fearless compared to FE1/3
>Character classes used to reflect their personality - interchangeable classes made them seem a bit thinner, but this system can be ignored
>The weapon triangle was introduced but enemies haven't been shuffled around for most of the game, where most enemies use lances
>Hit and avoid formula was totally redone to where dodging isn't as reliable as in other games
>Staves heal much less
>The levin sword no longer deals fixed damage but is dependent on the user's magical power
>Dragonstones consume one use per battle regardless of attacks or counterattacks
>Base stats and growths for the majority of characters have been adjusted
>Some items are more finite than before and make it harder to use worse characters
>Game goes against the entire premise of Fire Emblem by forcing you to lose characters to get to the gaiden chapters - this angers both old and new fans and hardly works as a remedy like intended
>Animations have worsened since the GBA games
>Some unique graphics have been stripped out - Marth has fewer animations than in FE1, characters who had unique sprites now lack them
>Medeus's design has been made more generic
>Despite skill caps being raised, it matters little because characters appear just as far into the game as before
>Ballisticians have been made too strong
>Forging is much stronger in this game than in the Tellius games
>Manaketes are tougher to understand now - different stones give different stat boosts that scale based on difficulty, and this isn't shown to you
>Harder difficulties just seem to give enemies better weapons and stats, serving as just a numerical buff
>It's actually better not to get Falchion, the symbol of the entire series - the spheres are better and Medeus is a pushover
>The game crashes or suffers severe game-breaking bugs if you use Xane too much
>Wi-Fi being discontinued makes many items unobtainable, even in the VC version you have to wait for them to appear
>Cheaters run rampant in Wi-Fi battles, people who just played normally without optimizing can't hope to win anyways
>Level ups and deaths are also skipped with the enemy's turn
>Sometimes, seemingly due to some instability, characters with very high growth rates will often get a single stat increase per level up or none at all, resulting in significantly lower stats
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FE12 Pros:
>My Unit and Casual Mode are introduced, helping improve accessibility
>Gaiden chapter conditions were entirely changed to requirements more like Binding Blade or Blazing Sword
>Gaiden chapters themselves are much richer, with their own maps, stories, characters, and BGM
>Face graphics that received criticism in the prior game have been redone here (Marth, Caeda, Tiki, etc)
>Marth's ideas and ideals are expanded through new events and conversations that tell us more about his personality, to where even if Kris is seen as the MC, Marth is a stronger character
>Satellaview content has been included as the New Archanea War Chronicles
>Almost all friendly units from the Archanea continent are included, numbering 75 in total
>Preparations screen has been enhanced with new options such as "talk"
>Difficulty levels are standardized as Normal, Hard, Maniac, and Lunatic, instead of just levels 1-5, and they make more meaningful changes
>Enemies throughout the game are rearranged to make better use of the weapon triangle
>Riding units don't dismount like in FE3
>Stat changes due to dragonstones and Starsphere (shards) are now shown properly
>Some items that were only available via Wi-Fi in the prior game are available here in the base game
>Free DLC was offered via Wi-Fi Connection
>Units can be trained using gold
>Game difficulty is higher, but characters have been generally strengthened to compensate
>Classes have been rebalanced; swordmasters, snipers, falcon knights, and manaketes saw big improvements
>Some staves are stored in a separate "special staves" menu to make them harder to accidentally use
>Post-game evaluation returns
>In the sound room, audio will still play through earphones if the DS is in sleep mode

FE12 Cons:
>There is more new content in this remake than old content, with some FE3 plot content being stripped out
>Only the second book of FE3 is included
>The function of the Starsphere and its shards was changed entirely from FE3
>Tutorial cannot be skipped on higher difficulties
>Wi-Fi battles return with all of the same problems
>Although there are more units than ever before, many are just unusable on higher difficulties
>In Lunatic, even with bad growths or many units killed you're supposed to be able to ultimately win, but if your My Unit started as a mage, you can't
>Arena and training ground battles are forced to end after a number of turns
>General graphics and sound haven't really changed - neither improved nor worsened
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FE13 Pros:
>Culmination of elements from the entire series; the world map of FE2/8, marriage and skills from FE4, and supports from FE6
>Pairing and double system is added in
>World is shared with past works, namely FE1-3, with a reference to FE9 too
>Interface has been enhanced
>Imported elements are improved on; the world map has more functionality, more supports than ever before
>You can connect to other players wirelessly and buy and sell things
>Animation and sound are top notch
>You can recruit various characters from past games without paying actual money
>Game allows a significant amount of variety in how you play, how you develop your characters, etc.
>You can save on maps if playing on Casual

FE13 Cons:
>Weapon durability is fairly negligible, you can always buy more and skills exist to prevent wear
>Axes and spears end up being better than swords because they have easier access to indirect attacks
>Skills make some characters much better than others - Galeforce makes females much better than males
>With use of second seals, your internal level can get high enough to only get 8 exp per kill on higher difficulties
>Characters adhere to stereotypes, and even through supports, only superficial extra details are given - however, Tharja exemplifies this, and she's popular in the polls, so...
>Children aside from Lucina only have story relevance in the DLC
>My Unit completely takes over the role of main character from Chrom
>Nintendo incorporates paid DLC for the first time in Fire Emblem - overseas players get preferential treatment in regards to pricing
>Maps are monotonous and barren and frequently have the same "rout" objective, although gaiden maps are much better so it seems to only affect the main path
>Game balance discourages strategy and instead just tanking with a very strong unit that's paired
>Pairing gets more broken as the game goes on, potentially making you invincible while attacking twice in every battle
>Lunatic+ randomly assigns skills to enemy units, potentially making the game easy or insanely hard, encourages resetting for more favorable enemy skills
>SpotPass and DLC characters can't support, so they'll end up becoming obsolete
>Story is a bit short, moves too fast, and has a lot of abrupt twists, so it isn't highly regarded
>The world and setting aren't very well explored
>Connections with old works aren't taken full advantage of
>SpotPass lets you recruit characters who should be dead to your side, where they have fewer supports than other characters and do goofy things with your army like going to hot springs
>Chrom doesn't have very many options for marriage, and only two (Sumia and My Unit) seem properly set up
>Sumia also doesn't have many options, and it's believed this is because she and Chrom were originally fixed to be together
>Support conversations between fathers and children share scripts
>3D models lack feet and it looks very unnatural
>A lot of sets of armor look weird, like for knights and generals
>Passing messages make you type with kanji and you can't convert hiragana to kanji, having to pick from a list instead
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FE14 Pros:
>My Unit takes a central role for the first time
>Three full Awakening-length routes each with their own gameplay styles
>Story handled by Shin Kobayashi, a manga storywriter
>Normal, Hard and Lunatic are available from the start, as well as Casual, Classic, and a new Phoenix mode
>Difficulty level and available characters vary by route, with even Birthright being harder than Awakening and Conquest being harder than FE5, FE7 (Hector Hard Mode), or FE12
>Weapon durability is eliminated and balanced by restrictions and disadvantages on various weapons
>Hidden weapons are their own weapon type, focused on debuffs
>Long-range weapons (magic-bows-hidden weapons) are now part of the weapon triangle
>Pairing and doubling from Awakening has been rebalanced to be less reliant on luck, and now enemies can use them
>Buffs and debuffs are introduced in earnest
>Clothing damage can happen if enough damage is taken, and some weapons have it as an effect
>Game uses different RNG depending on what the hit rate% is, making lower hit rates more likely to hit
>Heart seals are added and let you get skills more quickly
>Partner and friendship seals allow for even more reclassing options
>Most enemy units can be captured and made to join your army
>New skills are added that have use beyond just dealing more damage, and can be used as part of a strategy like the "__ Blow" skills
>Infinite level ups from Awakening are gone, and you have to use rare and expensive items to raise your level cap since heart seals don't return you to level 1
>Offspring seal allows for children characters to be usable right after recruitment
>Dragon veins allow certain allies and enemies to cause various things to happen on maps
>The experience obtained from an enemy decreases each time they're attacked, preventing exploitation
>My Castle is very customizable and allows for interaction with your army and other players
>Hoshido characters are all in a Japanese style, which is a first for the series, and Nohr characters tend to have bleaker or darker stories behind them, giving them very unique feels
>Designs and CG cutscenes are just as good as in Awakening
>BGM is fantastic
>Gender differences have been eased, now either gender can be most classes

FE14 Cons:
>Despite the story being written by a manga storywriter, it was revised heavily by the developers and plot holes were introduced
>Birthright has the best story of the three, but Kaze and Elise's deaths seem forced for drama
>Conquest and Revelations have very poor plots, with characters acting irregularly
>For Conquest, My Unit acts too naively, Ryoma behaves dishonorably regarding Elise's medicine then waits 25 turns to attack in the end, and even though Hoshido was accepting of My Unit, they planned to execute Azura
>For Revelation, Azura wants to make Hoshido and Nohr stop fighting by attacking both, Izana dies for no reason,  excuse of "I have a reason but can't say it" gets repetitive, Garon shows up and dies instead of being a proper boss, Gunter is only shown to be a traitor by his own stupidity
>The latter half of Revelations is light on story, but what story there is moves at an extremely fast pace
>Have to buy all three paths to get the full story
>Even then, DLC is needed to get answers to certain questions
>Setting is very poorly fleshed out, with little sense of history, geography, culture, climate, politics, living conditions for any country
>Level up RNG is decided ahead of time and requires you to restart the battle or chapter for different results
>Through support conversations, we learn My Unit isn't related to Hoshido's royals at all - seems forced just for the sake of marriage, and makes Ryoma seem dishonest for calling you family
>Children are present, but unlike in FE4 and Awakening, there's no reason for them to exist at all
>If My Unit marries a first generation character, you can't get all of the children
>Characters join at the same level regardless of route, causing problems such as with Nyx
>My Castle can't be fully upgraded on the Revelations route
>To forge a weapon to the highest level, you need 128 of that weapon
>Characters have stronger personalities than before, but the difference between serious and non-serious characters is stark
>Love confessions really come out of nowhere this time
>In My Room, you can invite characters over and stroke their face to raise affection - many think this is ill-fitting for Fire Emblem and character reactions seem blatantly sexual, which is why overseas editions replaced it with talking
>Many maps have bizarre or puzzle-like gimmicks, or as in Revelations, gimmicks that just waste your time
>Strong weapons have too severe of penalties to where many will just forgo them
>Combat has become much more complicated with the additions of buffs, debuffs, the defense stance gauge, etc.
>Capture can't be used on proper characters from another route, beast characters, Vallite soldiers, or monsters, so it's restrictive and useless in Birthright and Revelations
>Grinding DLCs are given enemies that can really slow you down or even kill you - it makes it so it's not too easy, but they're still cumbersome
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FE15 Pros:
>Is made paying respect to the original, preserving its feeling by not forcing in the weapon triangle, My Unit, marriage, etc.
>Despite this, UI improvements like showing enemy ranges and skipping enemy turns have been brought over
>Villagers can now choose which class they promote into instead of it being random
>Hidari is in charge of character design to universal acclaim, to where even minor enemy generals have fans
>The game is almost fully voiced and the voice acting is of high quality - a new enemy character, Berkut, has become immensely popular thanks to his voice acting
>Story has been significantly expanded, many questions such as "why is there another Falchion" or "who are Mila and Duma" are answered, and there are hints of FE1, FE3, and FE13
>You can now save in the final chapter
>BGM consists of masterful arrangements of classic tunes with variants of each, as well as great new tracks
>Pitchforks have been given out for free and allow any character aside from Alm or Celica to become villagers
>Many of the fun loopholes in the original are now proper features (Dread Fighter-Villager loop, Nosferatu hurting Duma)
>Alm and Celica's armies get new characters, Faye and Conrad
>Characters like Clive and Saber are much more important and every character is fleshed out via supports and misc. conversations
>Support system is added
>Weapon forging returns, now done with special coins, allows for weapons to be changed into stronger weapons entirely
>Fatigue is introduced for dungeons, requiring use of provisions
>Dungeons are in full 3D and more dynamic, with enemies and props to interact with
>Skills are added and obtained by using equipment enough times
>Mila's Turnwheel allows you to rewind a number of turns per battle and replaces the saving on Casual found in FE13/14
>Black magic has been rebalanced, white magic lets the user gain EXP
>Bonus EXP amounts are now shown to you
>Attack strength is now a stat, unifying strength and magic power from before
>Growth rates have been revised
>Many classes have their own unique skills, often reflecting their traits from the original
>No longer have to rely on random drops from enemies to get certain items
>The retreat command now appears after three turns of battle, instead of randomly

FE15 Cons:
>It's a faithful remake that preserves even the less popular aspects of Gaiden in regards to map designs, enemy AI, and calculations
>Moreover, most of the problems with the game stem from being a remake of Gaiden
>Clive has been made more important to the story and given more of a character, but he's still not good to use
>Sonya seems to have been given preferential treatment over Deen, with Deen not even being shown on the official site, and with her additional spells and much increased growths, there's not much reason to pick Deen over her - unless you want to take advantage of his Dread Fighter loop for the postgame (and it should be noted Deen has been given a unique design and much more personality)
>Faye appeared in Heroes before this game as an archer, but she can't be an archer here, and it seems odd
>As characters have been expanded on, some have been changed fairly significantly (Delthea is tomboyish, Tatiana is more demure, Leon is gay for Valbar)
>Some of the changed growth rates are a bit unusual
>Many elements, like the sacred bow and triangle attack, have been nerfed for the sake of game balance
>You still have to seek out a Mila's Servant to change your class, with no options to do so in towns
>Class balance is still lackluster
>Skills introduce a new level of imbalance
>Alcohol is abundant but can't be consumed, existing solely for selling or offerings, but it seems like it was intended to be implemented that only adults could drink it
>Supports offer more insight into characters, but they are missing for certain pairs who should have them and some characters are left lacking
>There are only two difficulty settings, Normal and Hard
>With voices muted, you still get voices in cutscenes, but no voices for reactions to food in dungeons, information which is otherwise unavailable
>The grinding DLC ends up not being very useful in the early game
>Overclasses make characters stronger to the point of steamrolling anything
>Cipher characters have special, powerful weapons, but aren't anything extraordinary otherwise
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FE16 Pros:
>Depicts a magnificent story where three nations are intertwined
>With two distinct eras, the game has its own unique style
>World and characters are significantly fleshed out - most characters have full names, ages, heights, histories, characters develop and grow, even NPCs have character
>The "Fire Emblem" is significant to the story again
>High-profile voice actors
>Fleshed-out support conversations, they even change depending on whether they occur in part 1 or 2
>Training is more flexible than ever - characters can easily be trained for different classes, some of which may be better than their defaults
>Chapter narration is back and further fleshes out the world
>Graphics are detailed and BGM is fantastic

FE16 Cons:
>Some plot irregularities - the CF and AM routes don't resolve the TWSITD plotline at all, it makes no sense for the Kingdom and Alliance to fight each other at Grondor Field (and unfortunately it's the only instance of three-way fighting in the game)
>There are many things to do in the monastery, but it can be overwhelming and can't be skipped without crippling yourself
>It's possible to set up multiple A(+) supports for a character, at which point you need to consult an astrologer to lock in an ending, but that has an obscenely high renown cost
>Dark magic isn't powerful enough for how hard the seals are to get and how restricted the class certifications are
>Class system has some irregularities - a male is locked out of the best white/black magic class, a female can't become a war master, it becomes difficult to determine an ultimate goal
>Fliers are simply way too good compared to cavalry
>Friendly NPCs in some missions are a hindrance
>Battle animations can be wonky at times
>Load times are very long
>Displaying danger range doesn't reflect techniques with changed ranges, i.e. snipers, meaning you can get sniped without knowing you were at risk
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FE17 Pros:
>Game balance is basically perfect - even with powerful new systems like Engage, strong units can still be taken down if you're careless
>Free to customize and train your units however you please, no limits on classes with few exceptions
>Story is simpler and lighter in tone than Three Houses but done well, no glaring issues
>Support conversations and ally notebooks help flesh out characters where the story doesn't, and you can become partners with any character regardless of gender
>The DLC is more difficult than the main game, requiring some real strategy like Awakening and Three House's DLC
>A wide selection of characters from all previous games appear with 3D models and voices, but don't take over the story like in other crossovers
>3D models are high quality, battle animations are speedy, sharp, and exhilarating
>Music is high quality as well, with the opening song and Kingdom of Solm music being standouts, as well as arranged songs from other works
>Unlike in Three Houses, you aren't required to walk around the hub between maps to progress the story at all

FE17 Cons:
>During your first playthrough on Lunatic, growth rates are fixed
>Game systems are more complex than ever, even things that appear to be flavor text can be essential, newcomers may be overwhelmed at first
>Weapon proficiency system has been tweaked such that higher ranked weapons are harder to make use of, though this may add some sense of individuality to characters
>Stat limits can fluctuate wildly between characters, with characters like Diamant having a Dex cap of merely 22, or Ivy's Lindwurm class having an even lower Luck cap
>Support conversations and your paired end are intrinsically linked - you can only reach S rank support with a single character
>Characters aren't very complex, more akin to Awakening or Fates, if not even more basic and often seeming out-of-place
>Story is simpler and lighter than Three Houses, with feelings of 'there's no sense of tension', 'the worldbuilding is lacking', 'the dialogue is poorly written', 'the setting is too similar to previous games like Awakening and Fates'
>Encounter battles are the best way to earn experience, but they can be difficult to even clear, let alone earn EXP in
>Gathering items and playing minigames during the intermission segmments are tedious, but can yield valuable rewards so ignoring them can be disadvantageous
>Not all Emblems are treated equally, i.e. Ephraim has no lines at all while Eirika does; also there are far too many swords and barely any spears or daggers
>No system data means that clear data can't be transferred and you can't view events, supports, or sounds from the main menu
>Can't change outfits of characters, characters will wear generic outfits instead of their personal outfits if classes are changed
>DLC clear status is managed independently for each save, characters join at the same level regardless of where you are in the story, and the DLC class change items cost exorbitant amounts
>Support effects change depending on units and support levels, but some characters are of the type where they only get hit rate +10 no matter what support level they're at
>Base gameplay is lacking, cooking duty is done worse than in Three Houses or Fates, the same items can't be purchased multiple times in the shop
>Other UI issues - Engage sometimes replacing 'Attack', unable to Engage after doing trades, inability to see weapon stats on their own or a character's internal level, items don't stack in the inventory list, no distinction between Sync/Engage/Inherited skills
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The source for all of these is https://www26.atwiki.jp/gcmatome/pages/333.html
It's a fairly popular wiki where Japanese fans try to objectively list the features, good points, and bad points of a work - it doesn't represent every Japanese person obviously, but it's the best resource we have for getting an idea of what they think of these games.
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TMS Pros:
>Battle system is dynamic and exciting
>Default difficulty is higher than typical Atlus works
>Story is overall lighthearted, avoids a lot of the dark aspects of the entertainment industry, Fire Emblem elements become more prevalent in the latter half
>Characters have a good amount of depth and likability, and are fleshed out more via side quests - none of the playable characters are thinly characterized, and while there is a level of "gag humor" present, it doesn't go too far
>Wii U Gamepad is utilized well
>Good amount of replayability with arenas, many carnage forms to master, and trophies to obtain
>Large amount of costumes you can buy and wear in and out of battle, some change battle dialogue
>In many of the scenes where characters give live performances, they aren't prerendered, but rather use special detailed models
>Voice actors are high quality and actually sing their songs, and well; characters from FE Awakening have their original voice actors
>Vocal songs are very well-regarded
>Tokyo has been reproduced faithfully, albeit in a smaller scale
>Many small references to SMT and FE are sprinkled throughout, like references to Persona's Igor or FE7's Aion
>Bugs are very uncommon, reflecting the game's lengthy debugging time
>One of the few RPGs on the Wii U

TMS Cons:
>Story is much lighter than typical SMT or FE stories, being more akin to Persona 4 or Fire Emblem Awakening, and the story isn't very long for an RPG
>FE's inclusion focuses on Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light and Awakening, other games barely feature at all
>FE characters who appear sometimes differ quite a bit in backstory or even weapons from their original appearances
>No characters from Atlus works appear, outside of small references
>Considering the above, this is more like a Fire Emblem spinoff made by Atlus than a proper crossover title
>Sessions are invoked automatically when conditions are met, they continue even if they overkill, and they can't be skipped like ad libs, and it slows the gameplay down
>Itsuki is required to be in your party
>The disc version has longer loading times than the DL version, and the proposed "load reduction data pack" was never released
>Some events hint at content that was cut or otherwise never included
>Some movies can't be played in gallery mode
>Ayaha Oribe, Tsubasa's older sister, isn't handled very well story-wise

FEW Pros:
>The ability to give orders makes the game really feel like FE and is done well.
>With the weapon triangle, special effects on weapons, and commander switching, it's hard to get bored
>Characters all have new, high-quality, detailed 3D models
>All of the Warriors versions of FE songs are good, and the original pieces are good too - special mention to the last boss BGM
>Game is fully voiced with no gaps
>Can change system voice to a character you like
>Battlefields recreate locales from Awakening and Fates very well
>Support conversations take advantage of the crossover nature of the game, characters are treated with reverence by the OCs
>Robin and Corrin can be used as both male and female
>History maps exist for each work, and even use the original sound effects from their source games
>Various improvements from Hyrule Warriors - you can see A/S rank requirements, you can sort and lock weapons

FEW Cons:
>Roster is saturated with clones, and some like Celica aren't done gracefully - the clones are very noticeable when it comes to your lance and bow characters, with DLC needed just to have a lance who isn't vulnerable to bows
>Weapon type bias leans heavily in favor of swords, and the DLC only widens the gap
>Many skills are reliant on the Luck stat instead of Skill as in FE, and so Luck ends up being the most important stat
>Characters are unbalanced - Ryoma is extremely strong while Corrin is extremely weak
>Paired up special attacks are just way too strong
>In the DLC history maps, some characters end up appearing in conversations again and again (Lissa, Navarre, Niles), probably because their voice actors were on hand
>Armor break was added after release but isn't a good feature - it permanently halves your defenses if it happens to you and some characters become more clothed after they're stripped
>Less than half of all Fire Emblem games have any representation at all
>Among the three major works, bias in favor of Awakening and Fates is extreme and Shadow Dragon is neglected
>Of the nine DLC characters, 4 have unique movesets, 4 are NPCs from the story mode made playable