Is it worth getting Fire Emblem: Awakening?

[Ruski]

Ok, so, I bought the new Super Smash Bros. about a few days ago, and after hours and hours of gameplay, I, for some odd reason, got intrigued by the Fire Emblem characters. Someone told me a bit about it like Lucina pretends to be Marth and what you get to do in the game. I'm kinda interested now. So, even though I'm quite late to get it, is it still worth it to buy the game?

Note: I've never played any Fire Emblem games, so will it spoil anything for me?

[Psychospacecow]

The Fire Emblem games are pretty good about episodic style play. You don't really need to play any of them beforehand to understand what's happening in Awakening. You might catch a few references or know the meaning/history of an item, but its typically not a big deal.

Now, as for the game itself, Fire Emblem Awakening is a turn based strategy game based around rectangular tiles with named units. Every character is unique with their own special stats and level like in an rpg, (think Pokemon, The Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy). Fire Emblem actually prides itself on its difficulty. You can lose a unit in one turn from poor placement and never get them back. Of course, Awakening has a casual mode so if that's a problem then you can always use that so your units don't outright "die" and just leave the battlefield.

Similar games you may have played include

The Advance Wars series, The X-Com series, Final Fantasy Tactics.

Now, personally, I would recommend this game. Its a solid strategy game on a handheld platform that can take up many hours of your time.

Things to consider :
This is a game from a very niche genre that has performed exceedingly well in recent years.
This particular game in the series takes great pride in its writing which, though witty and enjoyable overall, is also very long at times.
This game in particular can at times boil down to a eugenics simulator in the same manner as a less extreme case of Pokemon.
The characters Marth and Ike do not under normal circumstances appear within the game. They can be fought after making contact with them via online connection and recruited with certain dlc along with other main protagonists throughout the series.