Don't you think the games are balanced around that, though? Like I'm hearing that Echoes is easier than Awakening/Fates, and there are mechanics in this game that aren't present in those. In other words, you couldn't just drop the weapon triangle, children, etc in this game and still have a balanced game. And the inverst, you could take those elements out of Awakening/Fates and have a balanced game play experience. Echoes isn't just Awakening/Fates with no babies - is more complicated than that.
I don't know about peoples reactions to the characters in this game, just their disdain for the ones in Awakening/Fates.
I can actually answer that with some authority. I went through my first playthrough of Awakening without aquiring a single child character. It was a concious decision of mine. Not because I wanted to test it. But because my OCD prevented me from pairing up characters without thoroughly thinking things through and balancing story vs gameplay benefits. It caused me to take a year long pause from the game. And then one day I just decided to move on to the end without doing that, but on a separate save file. I came back to my old save file later when I had decided who should marry who.
I played on Hard mode and Classic mode, which is the combination of the two most difficult settings available at the start. And I found that starting from as early as Chapter 5 (there are about 27 main Chapters, not counting side missions), the game started becoming way too easy. To the point where I deliberately avoided grinding my characters exp up as much as possible. Here's a video I made from Chapter 8, where I only use two of my units to solo the entire Chapter 8 map.
The video is sped up, but you don't have to watch the whole thing. You can check a moment here or there to get an idea of what's going on. But I just want you to know it's there.
What's significant about it is that the only two units I use, Chrome and Sumia, I actually tryto get them killed in every possible way outside of ending the turn and not attacking. I do attack, but that's about it. Sumia has the weakest possible weapons equipped. I rush them out alone carelessly into the enemy fray, even exposing my Pegasus Rider Sumia to archers, which are super effective against Pegasus Riders, and they just wipe the map by themselves.
They barely even get touched. If at all. And pretty much one shot everything. This simply came from an early game Class Promotion. As the game would go on, I found that my characters would only grow even stronger than my opponents at a disproportional rate on the highest available game difficulty. Even when I deliberetaly avoided leveling my characters up on optional missions to try to keep some sense of challenge intact. For the other characters in the video, I deliberetely chose "End Turn" all the time. The only time they ever did something was when some enemy fodder teleported behind them and attacked them.
I have another video where I don't even attack with Chrome and Sumia, but simply chose "End Turn" with them as well while moving out carelessly towards the enemy. And the end result was the same, only it took a few turns longer.
And this wasn't because Chapter 8 was particularly easy. This is how the game continued for me as soon as I started class promoting some of my units. I almost always used the weakest weapons in the game, throughout the whole game. Because they were the cheapest, and got the job done.
However, what I want you to know is that a single well crafted child character runs circles around the two units in the video in terms of how OP they are. They can have way better stas and skills than their parents. It even gets ridiculous. To the point where you can solo the most difficult DLC map, featuring over 30 Fire Emblem heroes from other games as opponents, with a child character, and it can be impossible to die even if you do your best to try to make that happen. So for me, the only problem with the balance of the game was how I would be able to use the child characters and still have fun with them.
So while there may be a certain balance built around them, I don't think it's what you suspect. I don't think the game was balanced in any way that it would put you at a deliberate disadvantage if you didn't aquire one of the optional children. You get one of them automatically through the story, as I mentioned in the previous post, and that unit alone is pretty much all you need for any situation.
I mean, I did think the game would be harder without children, so in a way it's not what I expect, but more in that I didn't expect the children to be as OP as you suggest they are. That's really informative, though. Thank you. You always come in with a wealth of knowledge!
