I'm not going to pretend I've played the Fire Emblem series forever.  As a matter of fact, this was my first game in the series.  Seriously.  The only time I've played a different FE title is when I pulled one up on vizzed and played it for a little while.  However, that doesn't mean I don't know anything about how to play Fire Emblem.  From my experience, it isn't too much of a grind heavy game at least in the easier difficulties, but is more of a "don't do stupid things with your characters" game.  Does this mean that you somehow have to use logic in the game????
   Graphics - 7.  I'll be completely honest, I like how this game is presented.  I like how fluid the cut scenes are and how the pictures look like actual pictures.  However, whenever you have a smaller top down view of the game, the graphics won't be as good.  Small sprites are never going to be perfect, and that's a flaw with many games, which is why few games have fantastic graphics.  However, if this game's graphics were graded solely based on how well the cinematic scenes played out, the game would receive stellar marks.  During my first couple plays of the game I would refuse to skip the cut scenes.  Overall, this game would benefit from slightly better graphics during actual game play, but the graphics elsewhere are nothing short of phenomenal.
   Sound - 7.  I'm all for great soundtracks.  I really like how the soundtrack for FE plays out.  First off, it isn't all in your face with the music.  It's quite nice sometimes when you're playing and just hear the music and get into it.  However, Sound doesn't solely encompass the soundtrack of the game.  It also encompasses the smaller sounds in the games.  A gripe I have with the sound is the voice acting, or really, lack thereof.  You rarely get to hear a full strung out sentence except in cinematic cut scenes, and I think it would've been cool to have full sentence acting in the entire game, rather than the grunt or "Hey", etc.  Another thing that got to me was the level up sound.  I heard that sound enough while playing the game to the point where I could hardly take it anymore.  Thinking about it now actually causes me to cringe a little bit, believe it or not.  Overall though, the soundtrack makes up for those small things and then some.
   Addictiveness - 10.  Recently, I've been playing this game a lot.  It's pulled me away from Smash Bros. for 3DS among other games, and that should really be a testament to how good this game is.  I enjoy beating this game multiple times through because it can be different when you play.  I can't really say anything bad about the addictiveness of this game unless you don't like a bunch of repetition, but I was able to overlook that in the game and still have fun.  Overall, I can't say anything bad from my perspective about the addictiveness.  I think this game perfects this category.
   Story - 10.  It's still the same every time you play, but you have CHOICES!!!!  Or, if you think about it realistically and play the game enough, you have A SINGLE CHOICE!!!!!  It's less appealing when I put it that way, but it's still really interesting and it tests your morals a little.  I won't spoil any of the big parts of the story, but you play as a tactician unit with the Shepherds, which are basically the "guardians" of Ylisse, the main protagonist government of the game.  I recommend experiencing the story for yourself a few times and pick different choices just to see what happens through the game.  I'm sure that it will be fairly enjoyable for most.
   Depth - 8.  It's the same base game every time.  There are only so many levels to play before it's over.  However, you can mix and match characters with the support system to get different in game results, download DLC and Spotpass updates to add more missions, and create little games for yourself to have tons of fun.  It definitely isn't the DEEPEST game there is out there, but you can sink many an hour into this game without being bored.
   Difficulty - 4.  I've played a bit on all of the difficulties I have and if it's played right it isn't that hard to go through the game.  I occasionally bump into trouble but overall you can have a fun time casually playing this game.  If you really want a challenge, go into lunatic mode with classic and see how long you can last without loading off of a game over.  Besides that, however, it isn't too hard to learn and is fairly easy to relax with.
   Overall - 8.4.  My score is an average of the first 5 aspects of the grading system.  This game is a blast to play and I would recommend this to those who either know the Fire Emblem games or want to try a new turn based strategy game.  If you pick this up without any knowledge of prior Fire Emblems like I did, I think you'll be able to have fun without having to deal with a huge learning curve.

I couldn't have said it any better, honestly. The graphics look pretty good, I love it's Super-Mario-World-esque music (all the tracks are pretty much a variation on one main theme), I played this game for about 5 days straight when I got it , The story is pretty good (or at least the dialogue is pretty funny/interesting),and I have fun pairing up units to create super soldier children. While I think, no matter what difficulty you are on (besides Lunatic/Lunatic+, which is probably ALWAYS hard, unless you are like a FE God), the beginning is the hardest part, because you don't have high level units (not counting Frederick) and you don't have a lot of units that always strike twice (and usually don't get hit because of their high speed stat). If you are new to Fire Emblem, I would highly recommend this as a start, because it does away with a lot of bad things from other FE games, has a Casual Mode (which doesn't have perma-death), has a fantastic story, and you start to really remember these characters (I have played other FE games, and besides the main lords, I really cannot care for anyone else), so much so that you start to love them..