I really plowed through this one, compared to other Fire Emblem games I've beaten, but I really enjoyed the hell out of this one. I went through on Hard, Hardcore mode (the permadeath one, I only remember it's the non-casual mode), and went through the usual malarkey of getting through FE with no one dying. The pair up system really adds A LOT to the game, but it really feels like they expect you to use it the way I sorta went with.
Like, I imagine if you're on casual mode or normal difficulty, there might be more incentive to pair up characters whose personalities you think fit best together, in a sort of Sims-esque way, but it just came down to damn practicality for me. Finding male-female pairs of big attacking guys to pair with fliers to get a combo of very mobile DPS-tanks took up a big majority of my micromanagement, but damn if it didn't pay off. Chrom & Cynthia, and Lon'qu & Cordelia were my pairs of MVP's in the late game. Just dodging every attack that came their way with all of the crazy speed, and being like invulnerable to attacks they do get hit with with the crazy paired up resistance and defense. I was basically just using that 4-man team near the end and bum-rushing bosses.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun, since it seemed like you really had a lot of agency over which characters lived or died with the pairing system, where in previous games it seemed like you were completely at the mercy of their level-up qualities on whether or not a character would just be totally useless. A strong recommendation to even people who didn't like FE previously, just because of how forgiving the casual mode is, and how well implemented the pairing up system is.
Like, I imagine if you're on casual mode or normal difficulty, there might be more incentive to pair up characters whose personalities you think fit best together, in a sort of Sims-esque way, but it just came down to damn practicality for me. Finding male-female pairs of big attacking guys to pair with fliers to get a combo of very mobile DPS-tanks took up a big majority of my micromanagement, but damn if it didn't pay off. Chrom & Cynthia, and Lon'qu & Cordelia were my pairs of MVP's in the late game. Just dodging every attack that came their way with all of the crazy speed, and being like invulnerable to attacks they do get hit with with the crazy paired up resistance and defense. I was basically just using that 4-man team near the end and bum-rushing bosses.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun, since it seemed like you really had a lot of agency over which characters lived or died with the pairing system, where in previous games it seemed like you were completely at the mercy of their level-up qualities on whether or not a character would just be totally useless. A strong recommendation to even people who didn't like FE previously, just because of how forgiving the casual mode is, and how well implemented the pairing up system is.