An excellent game!... if this was released a year or two sooner.....
Unfortunately, this was released in the lull between two generations on the same console, and accompanied by a poorly-recieved remake of the gen 4 games.

Graphics are passable for a Switch game, the music and SFX are enjoyable, and the gameplay shines through some of the typical shortfalls on main-series Pokémon titles, such as limitations on multiplayer and lack of voice acting.

The haunting melody of the Azure Flute resonates as a swan song, as future game development fails to keep up with fresher titles not limited to a franchise struggling to stay relevant and creative while pleasing the whims of its die-hard fanbase.

While enjoyable for its new battle mechanic and variety of maps, this game overloads itself with content, and its story is nothing to brag about either.

It is interesting and fun to see characters from past Fire Emblem games in a new game. The mechanic of Rings and Bracelets sharing power with your team is thoughtful and provides a fresh angle to build strategies and enjoy story-based support conversations.

While the new mechanic may be fun, the rest of the game suffers from overloading the player very early on. Once you get past the tutorial battles, you are introduced to a separate area called the Somniel, which feels burdened by extra activities and featuees alongside a turn-by-turn strategy game. Additionally, too many characters join your group in the first 10 chapters, sometimes three or four per chapter, leading most of them to feel irrelevant as you continue through the story.

Speaking of the story, it lacks the serious tone that came out in the Three Houses/Three Hopes game stories. My personal preferences don't mesh with that.
Overall, I consider this game to be a Genshin Impact-styled Fire Emblem game: disappointing for the franchise but still playable and enjoyable once you ignore the carnival/circus you get presented with.