In my own eyes, the way Fire Emblem should be...
Gameplay - Ike is a member of the Greil mercenaries, established by his father. Crimea is a peaceful land until Daein invades, killing the royal family to take over, led by "Mad" King Ashnard. Princess Crimea, a survivor, finds her way to them and enlists their help to travel to Begnion, the law state, and gain an army to fight against them. Along the way, you learn about the laguz, a race of animals that transform between a human and animal form (consisting of three races: cats/tigers, birds/ravens, and dragons), and their fight against the beorc (otherwise known as the humans). Apparently, the laguz were once slaves, but even after their freedom they still remain bitter about enslavement. There's much more to the story, including the death of Ike's father to the hands of the Black Knight and the revival of a sacred forest, once home to the herons. Customary Fire Emblem tactics and movement, as well as the units and all. However, there is a twist. Each character somehow fits into the story, and once they die, they're dead for good (unless it's Ike, in which case you lose the game), and cannot be used again (and most will completely disappear, rather than retreat, but there's more to it). Weapons, skills, biorhythm, attributes, relationships...all of these play a good part in the magnificent storyline. Personally, I didn't like the durability system, but it became more of a tactic to manage it, and was easily gotten used to.
Graphics - Beatiful...simply beautiful. Some enemy designs are used over and over again, but it doesn't really subtract from the graphically-pleasing gameplay. The clash of your weapons on the enemy showers sparks, rendered greatly by the fact that you feel like your actually the one hitting them, not the character. It's so great that you feel emersed in the game. Critical hit designs are a little repetetive, but also don't seem that displeasing. Ike is apparently the only one with two different critical hit designs...another interesting feature is the use of CGI cutscenes. They're delightful to watch, but you'll hate the fact that there's so few of them.
Sound - No voice acting...like every other game, but this is still the GC, and I would've expected more from it. The sounds get repetetive over time, but the music doesn't seem that bad when you think about it. Battle noises are the only lacking part, while the music is varied and fun to listen to. Orchestrated wonderfully, if you ask me.
Value - The single player is long and amazing. There really isn't much after that you can do...no multiplayer mode, which would've been awesome, but also quite difficult to pull of when you think about it. Perhaps no replay value, but very excellent to go back and try again to see if you can get every unit and keep them, as well as do the hard mode. Plenty of features, single player-wise.
Other than the single player experience, which is rewarding on its own, there's not much of a reason to play the game unless you like epic fights against as many as 50 enemies with only a few characters. Leveling up is something that gives value and the sheer amount of characters to play with is stunning. Variety, and yet only best in its single player. Still a worthy game to the series.