LogFAQs > #883941282

Awakening is a good intro to the series - it's user friendly and tones down some of the more assholeish elements that can nab new players (like Jeigan characters, difficult-to-recruit characters, limited experience, and - optionally - permadeath). It's also pretty engaging.

Fire Emblem 7 (simply known as "Fire Emblem" in the West) is a GBA game that is probably available on the eShop and is also good, but be warned it's probably the hardest of all the translated games (though not so hard that a beginner can't handle it - it was my first and I managed, albeit making a number of mistakes along the way).

The Radiant Series aren't on 3DS (the first is on Gamecube, the direct sequel is on the Wii) - they're good (especially the second one), but also hard to get a hold of these days. Sacred Stones (GBA) and Shadow Dragon (DS) are both pretty meh - Shadow Dragon, in particular, is very unpolished (it's basically a DS-rerelease of an NES game with no attempts to revise the mechanics to modern standards).

The other 3DS titles are Echoes (which I haven't played) and Fates (which has Birthright and Conquest variants). Fates is overall awful - the gameplay is alright, if you're playing Conquest, but the story is atrociously bad and the game itself gets boring quickly.

So yeah, stick with FE7 or Awakening and you'll get the two best games the series has to offer.
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