It's very clear this game was meant to be an anniversary title for the 30th anniversary of the series but was held up likely because IntSys wanted to put focus on Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes. Be that as it may, I was so glad this game got delayed as this is one of the best polished Fire Emblem games to date! Great animation, smooth and consistent frame rate(sadly drops when too many things or enemies are on screen), and a nice art style that was odd at first glance but isn't as bad as I thought originally. The mechanic of Emblem Rings is one that I was skeptical of at first but over time I found it to be wholeheartedly a blast to use and just create these monsters on the field with ridiculous potential. The story at first seems like it was heading in a more silly direction which I was fine with at first since it's a nice contrast from traditional Fire Emblem dark and grim stories, unfortunately after chapter 10 they try to play into the dark elements at a really weird time as it feels like part way through the writers wanted to write a darker story instead and that just doesn't work for this game. It also doesn't help that there are too many instances of characters just not doing anything when they should've done something and too many stupid story details like characters stealing an item from another character while they were "distracted", it's pretty stupid. Not to mention the end of the game where we just have a bunch of different story ideas thrown in that it feels like nothing is coherently put together. The story is easily the worst part of the game and hurts it quite a bit in my opinion. The characters are actually quite nice however, minus Alear being another weird pseudo avatar for the player to put themselves into. Ivy, Diamant, Lapis, Alcryst, Celine, and so many more with great supports to boot! Of course the characters themselves only go so far as the game isn't quite as deep as other Fire Emblem games to the point where if you play it and do most of the supports, you'll have seen about everything with very little layers of depth. Overall I was really happy that this game went back to more traditional means of gameplay, I only just wish the story felt more impactful like other games.