Fire Emblem Awakening

• If you've never played a Fire Emblem game before, play it on Normal Classic, especially if you plan on playing other games in the series after it. If you have any experience with the series, start with Hard, but just be aware that it uses the asshole reinforcement system on Hard and above (enemies can move as soon as they appear), so don't be surprised if you have to restart a mission because you got ganked by something you'd have known was coming had you played Normal first.

• Always, always be paired up. Pairing up grants significant stat boosts, lets you hide squishy units behind stronger ones, and just breaks the game in half in general.

• Unpromoted classes get skills at L1 and 10, promoted classes at L5 and 15.

• Master Seals are used to promote units into an advanced class provided they are at least L10, and are infinitely buyable after Chapter 12. Second Seals allow you to change to a different class of the same "level" (promoted/unpromoted), and are infinitely buyable after Chapter 16 (or one of three sidequests that open up after Chapter 13).

• You should reclass your units if:

1) One of their other classes has a skill you really want (see: Mercenary and Armsthrift, Myrmidon and Vantage, etc.)

2) A unit's base class is awful (see: Archers) or has an otherwise objectively better class (see: Vaike and Fighter -> Barbarian)

3) They have options that they can easily adapt to (like Mage -> Dark Mage, Mercenary -> Myrmidon, etc.)

• You should go directly to L20 and promote if:

1) They have no skills you want in their other classes

2) Their reclass options are terrible (for example, Cherche is a wyvern rider who can change to Cleric and Troubadour)

3) Their new classes would require you to completely start over in weapon ranks and/or change their focus from Strength to Magic or vice versa (see: Ricken going from Mage to Cavalier)

• Much like FE8, you can grind infinitely if you want to. A decent amount of DLC will expect you to be coming in with maxed out (or near-maxed) units, so don't be afraid to keep hopping around classes and leveling up.

• You can have as many A-rank Supports as you want, but only one S-rank. The S-rank is finalized when you view the support, not unlock it.

• Chrom will automatically be married at the end of Chapter 11. Everyone else can be paired up at your leisure.

• You can mixmax the hell out of the game by pairing certain people together and getting certain skills, but it is not required in the least unless you're planning on going to the super hard final DLC map. It helps a bit on Lunatic, but anything below that and you can do whatever you want.

• If you want to get the most bang for your buck with the DLC, you want Lost Bloodlines 2 and Smash Bretheren 2 (new classes), Lost Bloodlines 3 (Paragon skill), Rogues and Redeemers 3 (Limit Breaker skill), and the Golden Pack (maps meant for grinding money, experience, and weapons). Otherwise, feel free to download whatever, almost every piece of DLC has something cool about it.