The pair up and class systems from Awakening were part of what ruined the game, we can only hope they'll get rid of it from now on. But it's only hope...

"Oh, a new battle. I guess I will just pair up my avatar with the story's hero and put them on the middle of the map. They have no weakness and only ultimate skills thanks to the 20 reclassing they went through anyway, so I guess all the enemies with a dumb as **** AI will jump on them to commit suicide nicely. Here, battle won!"

"SRPG"....

I agree with what has been said: Radiant Dawn is what a Fire Emblem game should be. That's it.

I mean, if you've leveled up enough times to get through multiple reclasses, then chances are your character is going to be stupidly overpowered regardless of whether they're paired up or not. That sounds like a complaint more at being able to grind than the pair up mechanic. And, well, if you don't want broken characters, then...maybe just don't grind.

Anyway, I'd be against pulling pair up entirely. It was seriously improved in Fates and added another layer of complexity to the strategy (choosing whether to push for more offensive or defensive options). If they ironed out the last few wrinkles for FE 16, I'd be genuinely excited for the possibilities.

The problem is getting to the Cantors, and they can be pretty tough on their own. But yeah I know it's a remake, and I guess I can understand them wanting to stay faithful, especially if this is indeed a one of thing. I do like how different it is yet still being a good game in it's own right, I'd just rather this not become the standard for the series is all.

I don't see how not being able to reclass means there's more strategys, only the opposite. For example, on my Lunatic Conquest run, I wanted to fully take advantage of Laslow's personal skill, combining it with Rally Skill which he naturally gets on promotion, and Rally Speed n Amaterasu from his waifu Azura, essentially making him a rally-heal bot. Without reclassing options this strat (among so, so many) wouldn't be possible. Getting him to that point also affects my strategy during chapters since I have to make sure he and Azura are fighting together enough. Also magic in Echoes is still pretty OP I'd say, HP cost is negligible and it ignores terrain bonuses. It's definitely OP in Awakening aswell, so if what you say about older games is true then Fates is the only time magic was actually balanced funnily enough.

Haven't played the older games, but I'm guessing my feeling on them wouldn't be too much different from Echoes. Conquest is my ideal Fire Emblem, story aside of course!

I do! Not for that reason of course, but for gameplay. Having a unit that you can choose their stats and class is great.

I've put 2 complaints in one comment, but you can win the whole game without ever thinking if you just put your 2 best characters in a pair, without even grinding.  And grind or no grind, the multi-class system makes it too easy to erase the weaknesses of the characters. In older games, even when your characters where overpowered, they kept their weaknesses and didn't become that broken.

Only the Lunatic mode asked me to grind a bit, because I wanted to try different characters, but you don't even need to grind to get broken characters. The gameplay itself is broken anyway...

@OP: You should try Radiant Dawn or even its prequel Path of Radiance. You might change your mind on what is the best FE. If you like strategy and challenge... 

Linear Class: I actually preferred how Echoes did this. Part of the appeal of Fire Emblem is how unique the characters feel, which applies to stat growths, skills, and classes as well, so this is something I don't necessarily want too many options with. Shadow Dragon was probably the weakest entry in the franchise for me...and part of that was because the completely open reclass system threw away a lot of character individuality, and you were basically left with generic faces you could assign to any class you want.

That being said...I'm okay with branching promotions, though I'd personally prefer multiple tiers like Echoes incorporated.

Pair-Ups: I'm okay with this provided its either nerfed or the enemies make use of it, like in Fates. The system was broken as all hell in Awakening. I prefer the system in Echoes, but this does provide a nice way to grind supports, which was pretty awful in older games.

Grinding/Cantors: Agreed with you here. Grinding is almost never fun for me, and while I loved Echoes, this was something that really could have used some refinement.

Lack of Weapon Triangle: Agreed, though I can't see this being an issue moving forward anyway, as you said.

Maps/AI: I agree Conquest was superior here, the more variety the better.

Bulky Units: Probably agree...never thought much about this one but units did feel a lot tankier. Not a huge deal for me I guess.

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Outside of what you said, some things I'd like to see return or change in FE 2018:

• Nice compelling story with a conflict that actually makes sense. Awakening felt too generic, and Fates was convoluted and filled with plot holes. Echoes was probably the first time I cared about the conflict in a Fire Emblem since Radiant Dawn. For a game series with war as the focus...this is kind of a problem!
• My Unit/Tactician as an observer character, not a key story character. Robin was pushing this a bit already, but Corrin had no idea what he/she wanted to be. Having an avatar in a game like Fire Emblem is unnecessary (I'd rather take an established MC any day)...but having an avatar with an established backstory doesn't even make sense, and contradicts the point of having an avatar in the first place. It was like Fates was going after two rabbits and catching neither. Blazing Sword had the best inclusion of an avatar so far...i.e...basically just watching from the sidelines and almost never showing up.
• No more children! I like the romance options, but the additions of kids just makes me cringe, especially when their implementation is as contrived as it was in Fates. If they are brought back, find some good story reason for it, and not just create a random other dimension to fast-bake them into adults. Gosh what sad pointless lives those kids in Fates led. /rant
• Depth of Supports vs. Breadth. I get why Awakening and Fates went with a wider variety of support conversations...but to me, the GBA titles had the best and most compelling supports in the series so far. Hector/Lyndis and Eliwood/Ninian were fantastic, and even changed the outcome of the story in Blazing Sword. It was a disappointment to go from such compelling support conversations to "Oh I'm shy I want to be more outgoing....oops it's hard to not be shy...I guess it's okay to be shy...let's get married." I'd much rather have a few well written pairings than a million trivial ones.
• Ability to auto-promote at level 21. Enough said...I just prefer this over having to wait for Master seals to show up.
• Weapon durability to return. I know this is annoying, but I prefer it over the stat debuff mechanic in Fates. Inventory management adds a certain managerial charm to the game that I enjoyed.

I could probably think of some more things...but this is what's important enough to come to mind right now. For the record, I do enjoy Awakening and Fates...but they both brought about mechanics I really didn't like...and well...I'm very critical of this franchise I love so much. Overall, I'd say Path of Radiance is the gold standard I hold for the franchise, but that's not to say there aren't mechanics out there that could improve it.

I agree with everything you said here. I hope they give us map designs on par with radiant dawn. hopefully enemy turns don't take as long with some of the longer maps but I'd prefer this. You have casual mode making it accessible along with everything you stated and RD difficulty and we have the perfect FE.

I don't recall it being that broken without abusing tonics, but regardless, I think that's an issue with balancing rather than the idea itself being unredeemably bad. I think Fates showed just how much potential pairing up/reclassing has when most of the balancing issues from Awakening were accounted for, and given how well it worked out there I think it'd be premature to remove it just because there were admittedly crinks that needed ironing out after Awakening.

Not being able to reclass means your character is specialized, rather than being well rounded with reclassing. Therefore, you need to pick your team better and positioning becomes more important. Which character attacks who and in what order is important. Of course, this only really matters on the final few stages or on Lunatic.

Magic has always been really powerful in basically all the FE games, but like I said, having preset accuracy means you can't always hit even on terrain that has no bonuses. Terrain bonuses are a bit too powerful in this game, though :p

I want FE 2018 to have good graphics, good characters, good music, and Full Voice Acting like FE Echoes

Same here. I would buy it day one.