A difficult FE entry to rank to be honest.

For starters i don't like open map FE because it completely takes away the careful planning and managerial aspect of this series. On the other hand it has a much better story than other GBA titles, albeit very short. Minor characters are more present in the story than other entries and there's also unexpected reveals and hidden dialogues for them too that really enhances the narration. Cool classes are unique to this FE too, like the Summoner that can almost break the game by creating expendable pawns that can move onto ANY tile. The music is also very good, which is probably the only thing that is common to all the FE games.

Other aspects are not fleshed out however. The pacing gets really fast towards the end and the quality of the story depends on which route you pick. Ephraims is much harder but has a worse narrative experience in my opinion than Erikas, Cormag for example has a more satisfying personal story in Erika's route but is barely useless because he joins very late. The trainee units are just bad in general to use except Ross, who is the only one to join at the start of the game and has a reliable distance weapon.

Training them is more of a pain in the ass than a fulfilling objective, but then again, in open map FE you can just ignore all of this and train everyone to your heart's content (in the boring ass dungeons). So you either destroy the pacing by making everyone super strong or play normally and suffer.

All in all it's not a bad game by all means, but it depends on what you prioritize for an FE experience, personally i liked it despite the open map system, to me the story more than made up for it.

P.S. Probably the greatest crime of this game is that Amelia doesn't have unique sprites.

Regarded as the best Wii U game that implements the pad i always wanted to play this, but after having done that i understand why some say this game does not live up to its fame. Story is really, really bare bones and the pad just distracts from the actual action instead of giving the so called "gameplay enhancements". The game loves to just kill your character with unexpected traps or ambushes that you can't do nothing about just to force the player into this switching-bodies mechanic, that in the end doesn't change shit and you just lose stuff and weapon abilities. In the end is just a slightly harder FPS with worse controls and uninteresting story, i'd say is worth it just to "experience" yourself the Wii U gamepad usefulness.

The PS Vita multiplayer is still up and running with PS4 crossplatform which is nice, but the controls will make you want to reconsider your life choices. Many essential actions like reloading are touch only with no button remapping. As for the game itself, i didn't like the shared camera and the friendly fire, it makes the game an absolute pain to play. I get that friendly fire is a staple of this series, but in a 2D plane of shooting it's almost impossible to not hit other teammates. It's probably best played with friends and NOT on the PS Vita.

Excellent horde shooter that keeps things hard and unforgiving. Completely outclassed by its successor due to a severe lack of content variety but not in terms of atmosphere, which is still unique in that aspect. The game also has memory load issues since its launch and occasionally crashes (mind that i have a high end pc), but Valve will probably never fix it. Coordination is essential to not get blocked by special infects but unfortunately the L4D community has severely abandoned this game. Players are scarce and those who are still present are mostly trolls, i advise to avoid it altogether and play with friends if you can. Since its campaigns are few, you'll soon switch to L4D2 and never touch this again probably.

Not an easy one to digest. An uneasy atmosphere achieved through music, art and one of the most puzzling stories ever known to man. A really creative game where the focus is the story, because the gameplay is horribly unbalanced and not funny in general. It is also not clear if that's the point, and even if it is, it's just too much of a slog to get through sometimes. Best experienced in small doses.
OFF gives an eerie, uneasy, and generally "off" vibe to the world and characters, the story is narrated through gameplay and is very much up to the player to interpret the meanings, which i quite liked. Too bad that the gameplay doesn't live up to the quality of the artistic side.

TL;DR: An unforgettable experience that has no match in style, really worth it if you're into artistic games, be warned of the gameplay though. It's free on PC.

Very good top-down hack 'n' slash with a deep atmosphere and enthralling music and visuals. The pixel art is very good, although i found it to be too messy in boss fights to understand every blow. Gameplay is a bit on the hard side but weapons are crazy funny and strong. They can compensate pretty easily any lack of skill you might have against bosses or certain enemies. The only issue i have is that the dash is too restrictive in its timing to concatenate multiple ones reliably, especially in boss fights. The story is one of the most poignant pieces of silent media ever, masterfully crafted in both image composition and music.

Best version is the Switch one. Extra weapon, dungeon and boss are really worth it.

Played the arcade version inside Tekken 5.

It really shows its age with immensely outdated graphics and gameplay. You can't sidestep, so it's technically still a 2D fighting game, mix-ups are natural combos and the roster (especially King) is terribly unbalanced. All considered, it still is the birth of the most legendary fighting game series ever. It has that old school 3D pioneering charm that is really hard to find anywhere else, with a good sense of humour and, dare i say, original approach to a story.

Also Kazuya smile at the cliff.