You're making an error in assuming that the Tellius games are the norm for the series. There's a good case to be made that each Fire Emblem game has a specific area it focuses especially on, and the only ones that have serious emphasis on the characters are Genealogy of the Holy War (FE4) and FE9.

Fire Emblem is an RPG that is very light on text. The simplest way to introduce characters without a lot of text, is to introduce them with a stereotype. The series has even introduced its own archetypes that later games follow.

You draw a lot of conclusions about what a "proper" Fire Emblem game is like,  but most your complains have already existed in previous games. Stereotype characters have been the vast majority in every game, with something of an exception of the Tellius games.

 The "hard to get" pair-up mechanic shares its low percentage game-altering mechanics with the tier 3 skills from Radiant Dawn, as well as the low percentage hit rates from all the first 5 Fire Emblem games (due to the hit rates being the actual hit rates, as opposed to 6-13 in which the hit rates are false due to the 2 rolls average system).

The randomness is part of what makes the game interesting. With very few exceptions (the only ones I know of being Lunatic + in awakening, parts of Radiant Dawn Hard and parts of Thracia 776), you can always make a strategy that will work regardless of chance. But you can also run different strategies that are only possible because of the randomness.

I have to say that I'm also very confused by your claim that the characters from previous games look realistic. The only games in the series this is even remotely true for are the Tellius games, and even that is stretching "realistic" quite a bit.

Overall, your complaints are nearly all misinformed. You think that your complaint is that Awakening is different from all previous Fire Emblem games, but it's really a complaint that Awakening is different from the Tellius games.  Most the differences have plenty of precedence in the Fire Emblem series.

I'm assuming that since the Tellius games are the newest in the franchise, than they should at least try to match their quality.  I'm so sick of nintendo's 2 steps forward 3 steps back approach to their sequels.   Also the characters in ALL 3 of the GBA games are deeper in story and characters, and they don't rely on basic mainstream anime character archetypes to make them like awakening.  I'm sick of how emphasis on the waifus and how you're pretty much forced to read the poor writing.   And I know that some of the older games were weak in plot and story, and most of that was due to hardware limitations  and trying to make the text all work well in a handheld.  

The Tellius games are the newest, so like I said they should do this thing called "progress" were they keep everything that work well, and add more. In awakening's case they changed the gameplay for the better but the plot and characters suffered hard because of the new direction.

Notice Tharja's face.  Look at how large her head is, her overly amplified facially expression, the lack of realistic shading, her hair has the typcial anime shine effect, her eyes are big regradly of how she's snooping them.  No details in any of her clothing. 

At the end of the day I think it is to appeal to a larger crowd. The gameplay is (as you mentioned) improving, and the story I feel is at least of equal quality. I have no problem with them going with an anime style younger crowds connect with.

Notice Tharja's face.  Look at how large her head is, her overly amplified facially expression, the lack of realistic shading, her hair has the typcial anime shine effect, her eyes are big regradly of how she's snooping them.  No details in any of her clothing. 

Yeah, it's the same in some other games where you get to name the main character like Persona 3 & 4 and the Suikoden series. The creators don't give them an official name in the game. Probably because they don't want us to be influenced by it and stop percieving it as a "my unit". But once the Persona 3 & 4 anime and the fighting games, and officially published manga for Suikoden came out, those characters were given specific names simply because the other characters need a name to adress them by.
The difference between them and Link I guess isn't very big other than that Zelda games are less story driven, and I guess people more often see him as Link rather than "me" due to how the games are designed.

That reminds me, I used to know Bowser as Koopa back in Super Mario 3 or Super Mario World. Not sure if he was named that in the games back then even in the west, or if it was just due to lack of information at the time. (No internet.)

I fail to see how what you said actually matches anything in the picture.  Her head isn't that large at all, just follow the lines along her face and you realize that a lot of the volume there is the hair itself.  There's nothing over-the-top with her facial expression.  There are a million better examples on showing that.  Realistic shading?  Define realistic shading, because I'm pretty sure that a lot of things do not fit under "realistic shading."  It's realistic enough to know all you need to know about the picture.  If the shading was completely unrealistic, everyone would be able to tell since our brains are very good at picking up on those things.  The other examples you have shown also have a good bit of that "hair shine" and the examples you gave the characters have much bigger eyes than Tharja.  And I do not see the lack in detail you are referring to in the clothing, unless you meant the style.  In that case, I have no idea how it contributes to your argument.

Unless all of what you said was a joke, you were pretty much wrong on all accounts.

Agreed with the gameplay part, and that's really what matters most at the end of the day, but I disagree, this is one of the weakest stories in the series by a large portion.  Time travel? Change fate?  Did they just google "generic fantasy story" and reworded the first 2 results and called it the story.  

Still wish the art wasn't so simple and anime-ish.

You're making an error in assuming that the Tellius games are the norm for the series. There's a good case to be made that each Fire Emblem game has a specific area it focuses especially on, and the only ones that have serious emphasis on the characters are Genealogy of the Holy War (FE4) and FE9.

Fire Emblem is an RPG that is very light on text. The simplest way to introduce characters without a lot of text, is to introduce them with a stereotype. The series has even introduced its own archetypes that later games follow.

You draw a lot of conclusions about what a "proper" Fire Emblem game is like,  but most your complains have already existed in previous games. Stereotype characters have been the vast majority in every game, with something of an exception of the Tellius games.

 The "hard to get" pair-up mechanic shares its low percentage game-altering mechanics with the tier 3 skills from Radiant Dawn, as well as the low percentage hit rates from all the first 5 Fire Emblem games (due to the hit rates being the actual hit rates, as opposed to 6-13 in which the hit rates are false due to the 2 rolls average system).

The randomness is part of what makes the game interesting. With very few exceptions (the only ones I know of being Lunatic + in awakening, parts of Radiant Dawn Hard and parts of Thracia 776), you can always make a strategy that will work regardless of chance. But you can also run different strategies that are only possible because of the randomness.

I have to say that I'm also very confused by your claim that the characters from previous games look realistic. The only games in the series this is even remotely true for are the Tellius games, and even that is stretching "realistic" quite a bit.

Overall, your complaints are nearly all misinformed. You think that your complaint is that Awakening is different from all previous Fire Emblem games, but it's really a complaint that Awakening is different from the Tellius games.  Most the differences have plenty of precedence in the Fire Emblem series.

Compare her head size to the size of the other pictures I posted.  Look at her arms, they have one solid shading color on them on one side.  That is simplitic and just lazy on the artists part, look at how on the other art they use a gradual progression of shades to make it look more real.   Her face is a bit exangerated, considering this is her  "default" face animation.  Her hair has a single streak across her hair in the middle, now compare that to Erika's hair,  where there is inconstant shading and lighting on her hair to show that it is in motion.  The artist of awakening was just plain lazy.