Just finished Birthright on hard classic. Only lost a single unit during the whole game, it was Jakob. I'm not suuuure I would recommend playing both games honestly. This one did have some different stuff
but not enough to justify my 30-hour investment. That might change after I play Revelation, but for now my diagnosis is that it's safe to pick the game you think fits you best and just play that one, and branch out if you really want to, but don't feel like you have to if you don't. There are definitely important plot points that are only present in one game (
).
There are still just a couple of unanswered questions (
). I don't actually care about any of those things, so the biggest draw for Revelation seems to be that we can see what happens when the two casts meet and try some different combinations of support conversations.
I honestly didn't really enjoy Birthright that much. It sort of reminded me of Awakening in the sense that I didn't really feel very accomplished because the game was flooding me with so many resources that it didn't feel like my decisions really mattered. And with a few exceptions I didn't like the cast nearly as much. It's certainly not bad, but it felt a little hollow. I wonder if I would have felt differently if I had played them in the other order, but I think I've played enough Fire Emblems that I probably wouldn't.
Downloading Revelation now. Onward to the next one!