I've had a lot more fun with Advance Wars than with any Fire Emblem game.  Fire Emblem games can be fun, (my favorite one was on the Gamecube), but even the best isn't nearly as fun as Advance Wars.  I personally don't like worrying about permadeath, meanwhile in Advance Wars you can choose whatever troops you want on most of the maps and it doesn't really matter if they die.  Advance Wars is more of a resource management game.  

Now, I do like games where you gradually gather a fantasy army and then level them up.  Final Fantasy Tactics is the best game like that.  If you haven't played that, then I'd go there first.  After that I'd recommend the Shining Force games on the Genesis before Fire Emblem.  If you're still itching for a tactical RPG after playing all of that, then that is the time I'd start digging into the Fire Emblem games.  (And even then, both Valkyria Chronicles and Heroes of Might and Magic 2/3 are close enough to this genre that they are worth looking into even before Fire Emblem.)

Interesting. Well if nobody else has any say, then your points are compelling. Maybe I’ll just follow your lead: FFTactics or Advanced Wars it is. Saving myself the $80USD… perhaps I could use that money on OoT Remake (or student loans better yet lol) instead.

I played Brotato. It was fun, but I feel it is considerably less rewarding in the "shoot'em up roguelikes" category, at least compared to Vampire Survivor or Megabonk. Both VS and Megabonk allow you a much better control of items and boosters, even if you are defeated you still can get better by unlocking/blocking items. Brotato does not do that, thus you are much vulnerable to the random item generator.

I finished X-Men Origins Wolverine The game. We all know the movie is dogshit. The game however, is not. Developed by Raven Software who were great with Marvel games. X-Men Legends 1 and 2. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 1 and this. It's a good action game. Thankfully you don't have to play as wife beater and jeans Wolverine. A code to unlock classic outfit and challenges to unlock others.The games main downside is repeating a few things. Performance. Screen tearing and some framerate problems sometimes when a lot is going on. One thing this game does that the upcoming Sony one does not seem to do.Visceral combat. Executions not being limited to glory kills. So the Sony one seems to think really bloody kills should be reserved for glory kills. This one from 2009 is more like NInja Gaiden. Nah you are just dismembering fuckers left and right. He does have metal claws and metal meeting flesh. The game loosely follows the movies plot but adds in stuff. Also pretty much all the enemies (minus a couple boss fights) are for the game only. Not in the film. There is a boss that tbh I think Insomniac took ideas from in their Spider-Man games. Overall this is a good game and what Wolverine should be. Bloody,violent and fast.

Sadly the game is expensive now. So emulate it. Better performance anyway. I will play the Sony one eventually but what they have shown, eh, makes me wish Activision didn't suck donkey nuts and send Raven to the shadow CoD Realm. They could still be making great Marvel games. Not fish slapped with FPS mediocrity.

Shin Megami Tensei Digital Devil Saga 2. Most of what I said about 1 applies. I put another 40 in DDS2. Started on Sunday. Finished yesterday. The story has a lot of depth to it. Where mainline SMT you may have a choice in your ending. This game and I am calling DDS1-2 as one game because it's one big game broken up. Like a Shenmue or something. Anyway, it has one ending. As with the first it's bittersweet but hopeful. But if you play it. Play the undub version so the bad English VA does not ruin it.

Last two games I beat were Might Morphin Power Rangers on PS+. I thought it was decent, I liked the beat em up levels, but didn't like the other levels as much.
The other game I beat recently was Mario and Luigi Brothership. Got a good deal on it, so picked it up. I really enjoyed it, I never had a Nintendo handheld before the Switch so the only Mario and Luigi game I've played was Superstar Sage on the Switch online. The ending had some extra padding it didn't need to include, but the combat was really good. Probably the best Mario rpg I've played since Thousand Year Door on the Gamecube.

Swords of Destiny is a solid action game with some issues. It's main idea is it wants a lot of aerial combat. Just targeting enemies can be a little wonky along with the dash. Mostly managable tho. Just it gets esp tricky with bosses as the game also only lets you do real damage to bosses when the target circle is red. Just the window for it is tighter than a nuns asshole. Sometimes it can be cheesed and others it's just a waiting game. It never released in the US for some reason. From the same devs as Blinx apparently. This is better than that game. I put it in the C plus range of PS2 action games. Not quite B range like a Bujingai. Solid.

Well I'm currently playing Paper Mario And The Origami King on the Nintendo Switch. Keep in mind the only other Paper Mario game I have played is the original on N64. So keep this in mind when I say I'm having a good time with it. I think the combat can be fun but also at times challenging plus the aesthetic and dialogue is very charming. Plus there's something satisfying finding a hidden Toad. So yeah I'm gonna try finishing it.

Fire Emblem has multiple eras that I personally find to be very different experiences... despite the games looking quite similar on the surface.

Earlier ones were much more strategy based and balanced for strategy, are not hand-holdy, were much faster paced (well... by your 3rd or 4th replay, I'll explain below), and had significantly more tension.

Newer games are much more RPG based, are very hand-holdy with their "QoL" features, have a lot of grinding and romance stuff, and are significantly more relaxed. The newer games also tend to have much higher production values and larger amounts of side-content and features.

Also, while the option for traditional play is there, it's not a real option as the games are not balanced around losing characters... you lose the wrong character, and you might not know it, but you've fucked yourself for later in the game (I learned this the hard way with Awakening, and again with Fates). Even if you ignore the importance of key strategic characters, in Awakening, you might think you've only lost 4 characters, but it's really 8... I mean, Awakening does have a lot of interesting things in it (I really liked the 3D graphics on the 3DS, how the characters appeared to peal off the screen like a popup book) but it was ultimately a piss-off to classic Fire Emblem fans as in the devs were telling us to "make do or piss off!" :D

One of the big differences is that the older games are much more replayable. It's kind of like traditional Castlevania vs Metroidvania.

Honestly though, I'd recommend most people the newer games, the traditional Fire Emblem is for a very niche type of strategy fan (like if you prefer games like Dwarf Fortress, not necessarily the genre specifically, but all the problem solving and such) then I'd recommend the earlier Fire Emblem games. But for RPG fans, definitely the later ones. The later ones hold your hand, and basically calculate all the hits and crit chances before you even attack... For classic fans, they provided the stats, but we'd have to calculate the probable outcomes in our heads... which sounds annoying, but somehow added tremendously to the tension.

Oh yeah! To explain why early playthroughs of the classic games may take longer, it's because you'll be considering your moves a lot more carefully (as mentioned, doing all the math). But once you have an idea of how to move through the game, your preferred formations and character roles, it all speeds up significantly. But, losing characters can drastically change up how your strategy will unfold... this is all stuff that won't happen in the new games.

Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks. It's still pretty good. It has some PS2 era dated stuff. Granted my hands are older these days than in the 90s or 2000s when this was common. Just with the test your might switches in the level. I need to use the pen trick. Some of the boss gimmicks can be annoying and Shao Khan is as shitty as ever lol. Still I had fun and a pretty good beat em up. They should remaster it. Make a couple QOL changes for modern gamers. I don't think kids know the pen trick. Not something modern games ask from people anymore.