It's been the only thing I've been playing lately, and is really enjoyable.
I start the game with Normal difficulty (the easiest one) but with Classic mode (having permanent death). Normal because I always start with the easiest difficulty, and Classic because when I heard about the game, I heard there is a World Map feature in it, similar to Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones for the GBA, which is arguably the easiest Fire Emblem game out there even when there's permadeath. So I think that Casual would be too easy for me so I went for Classic.
Even though during certain missions, my characters really died due to a mistake I made, I don't really mind restarting the chapter, because I know that I can prevent it. Or maybe permanent death isn't considered a frustrating game mechanic to me.
I like to take things really slowly for certain games, and Fire Emblem happens to be one of those games where I take my time. I've only reached Chapter 12, which I think is a third to completing the game, and my team is moderately strong at this point. I would continue to the next chapter but at this point of the game, a lot of my characters are close to being able to promote to a better class, so I decided that I'll train them up a bit just to promote them before proceeding to the next chapter.
There's two things that I find to be rather broken in Normal difficulty (wait, make that three).
One is the Reeking Box. As I mentioned earlier, FE: SS was the easiest FE game because the world map features an area where you can train up your units, or sometimes enemies will appear on the map and you can fight them. Awakening is no different. Not only will these enemies spawn on the world map once a while, but you can buy these Reeking Box that will spawn an enemy on the map. The price of this item is cheap on normal difficulty (500 gold) and after a battle with the enemies you are CERTAIN to get back your 500 gold as there will be AT LEAST one enemy that carries 1000 gold with them. The Reeking Box is not broken on higher difficulties as it is sold at a high price (4800 gold).
Two is the Pairing Up mechanic. In previous games, there is a rescue mechanic, where a unit can carry another unit (with some rules applied), enabling the rescued unit to escape a sticky situation but the rescuer being more vulnerable to attacks. The Pair Up mechanic is much more broken than the Rescue mechanic in a sense that you can pair anyone with anyone to form a team of two characters occupying a space on the map. There will be a main unit and a supporting unit, and you can switch between each other. Also, while paired, the main unit gets a boosts in stats. While vital on harder difficulties, it is pretty broken on easier ones. Pairing a slow moving knight with a mounted horseman, and then using the horseman's mobility to move to the frontlines, then switch to the knight is a really good and rather cheap strategy.
Three is Donnel. Who is he? He's a Villager class that you recruit from a sidequest. While being really weak at the very beginning, he's blessed with magnificent growth stats. With the class change system in this game, you'll have to change Donnel's class from a Villager to a Mercenary or a Fighter. Whichever you choose, he'll still be a beast. Currently, Donnel is the lowest level unit on my main team, being 10+ levels below a lot of my other units. But due to his absurd growth, he's certainly one of the best. He's able to defeat most enemies using Bronze weapons (the weakest or lowest level weapons available). He's also fast enough to attack twice with his damaging attacks because he's fast too, and defeating the enemy with two hits in one turn (with some units only being able to the same unless they are paired). And then there's his insane luck, which makes luck based skills or weapons look like a permanent skill or advantage to him. So, yeah. A well trained Donnel will destroy everything in his path. But in harder difficulties, he's less reliable as it's harder to train him.
While these stuff makes the game a whole lot easier in normal mode, I still enjoy playing the game, and I'll probably try the game on a harder difficulty one day.
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