I decided to return the game. After playing for a few hours, gotta admit that I'm glad they changed the series

What's wrong with it, Layton?  I'm very wait and see right now so this thread is quite helpful.

Well, I've gotten through the 1st Act so far, and I gotta say I'm really loving this one. It's quite different from other FE games, but I like that about it. There's more to the gameplay than just battles followed by stories. Exploring dungeons, finding treasures, fighting small groups or enemies, talking to villagers and examining areas are all things I find rather enjoying. Starting the game, I felt like I was playing the investigation sections of an Ace Attorney game, which was pretty funny. Managing various items I've found to be interesting too. Weapons and other gear also have special skills to learn the more you use it, making for some new, interesting abilities. The characters are overall fun to learn about, which is made even better with rather great voice acting (minus Faye, who is just... a terrible human being, despite having a cute design).

I feel I can go on about all these tweaks to the game that just make it feel so fresh, especially for me, who's played all the western released FE games and Roy's game (except the Shadow Dragon remake. It looked terrible to me). If you like Fire Emblem, I would definitely recommend trying this one. Not only is it fun, but quite a nice new feel to it.

Ugh, it only made me see even more how awful she is. Unless the A rank changes anything, Faye will go down as one of the worst characters in the series. She could be removed and nothing would change. Things may have been better even.

I wouldn't recommend it as your first entry.

Why not?

The biggest reason this looks better is because it is fully voice acted and doesn't have the dating sim elements. Also, I hear the story is better than the last two games, which wouldn't surprise me if the focus is different.

In other words, the biggest reason I'm interested in this is because it's not like the other 3DS games, but still is modern.

I'm not sure what you mean...

I'd say I actually with outlaw, but only if you're interested in trying other FE games, as this one throws out all the natural conventions of a usual game in the series, so playing another one after this one would need some relearning of some mechanics. The game on its own though is pretty great, so if you don't mind it being largely different, I'd say go for it.

Yeah, I mean I feel like that's not much different than playing any old game first. Like I wouldn't tell someone not to play Pokemon Red as their first Pokemon just because newer games have newer mechanics. I feel like I'd be relearning as much later as I will here, so that doesn't bother me.

To be honest, I never got the "dating sim" complaint to begin with. Romance and pairings has been part of the franchise for a while, the only change was the addition of an avatar and ability to have children. Considering the avatar is essentially his own character rather than a literal avatar, and the romance/children aspect was completely optional to begin with, I can't understand why the aspect is such a turn-off. Might as well avoid the games due to the ability to play on Casual mode while we're at it.

/rant

So far, my impression is that, while the story is a huge improvement over the last two entries, the gameplay is very clearly a slight revamp of an NES game. So far I can deal with it, and definitely enjoy certain parts of it, but the strategy gameplay alone feels like a step back from Fates/Awakening. I still haven't reached a point where the grinding has bothered me at least.

Oh, and because I don't think it gets brought up enough...the dubbing in this is fantastic. And this is coming from someone who usually loathes English dubs.

When I say modern, I mean isn't 8 Bit.

Hardcore oldschool FE fans I've talked with love it compared to the newer games, considering it the best of the 3DS era, so I'll take my chances. As for the dating sim elements, I'm mostly talking about the marriage thing. Not my thing.