Fire Emblem

I don't remember if I got this game as a gift or if I spent resources to find and buy this game, but in either case when I first started playing I was blown away at the story and just the individual characters. Never played any of the older games in the series, nor for that matter any other RPG games for the Game Boy Advance. 
The story was pretty solid and the characters were really memorable-in the sense that when I spent almost 30 hours grinding to level my team, and suddenly losing a character I almost wanted to throw my Game Boy Advance out my bedroom window and just cry in frustration. I liked the fact that certain characters got specific missions that also tied into the storyline, and their cut-scenes were different. What was really cool was the fact that I found out that by fighting side by side certain characters they would increase your stats momentarily when you battled. The only problem with that is the fact that you have to spent an almost mind numbing amount of turns/time to get those advancements to work, but it pays off in the long run. 
Game-play was pretty straight forward, you would start off by picking what team to bring with you since not everyone was allowed at once. You can only see as far as a couple of squares but with torches or by using a thief character you could expand your line of sight. Combat was turn based with percentages and mostly luck, sometimes the game would be forgiving by squeaking out a victory when it looked like it could of gone either way. The game has you always seeking better and unique weapons once you found out that bosses and certain characters had improved versions of what was sold in shops. The only problem was the fact that the merchant was an actual character that had to be guarded but could be upgraded to move later on. I found out real fast that when a member of your entourage dies, death is final. They don't come back, no revives or anything like that. If they're not part of the story the game continues on and you either have to accept the loss or start over which can get real frustrating if your trying to improve those weaker party members.  
There were different modes you could play: Lyn's-which mostly consisted of the tutorial. Eliwood's viewpoint which was the standard and also the first mode available, and lastly Hector's viewpoint which was a little bit different mission wise but the same story throughout. At the end of each you could look at a stat page which showed how long it took to play, how much gold you acquired, it gave you a letter grade based on how long it took for each mission, members lost, etc.  
In order to get the full potential out of this game it's really best to either play some of the older Fire Emblem games and/or get the guide that comes with it. I only say this because certain characters and items have specific requirements in order to obtain them. I found myself spending anywhere from 2-4 hours on a single map to get each item/character/mini-story but was rewarded when I got to use such in the later levels. I did like the different abilities different units had and found myself using certain units like the horsemen and mage's to get out of a bind. 
As for multi-player, its basically a team elimination where the last team/member standing wins. The only hiccup is finding other people to play with you can be hard.   
 
My overall impression of this game is that once you get over the harsh penalties the experience is really rewarding. I would definitely buy the newer and the even dive into the old games in this series.