First off, what exactly was the "pick 5 characters" for? it was incredibly unclear and was just like "okay, saved". Oh, and it's weird to me that (especially after Awakening had done such a thing), beating the game seems to have unlocked a log of support conversations and other such extras, or a lunatic mode or anything.
Also, I went with Hard mode to start with for the first time in a Fire Emblem. And geeze, that certainly did what it said, as it was VERY hard to tank hits and took some real caution to get by. Definitely had quite a few soft resets due to character deaths. And geeze, hard mode made the ending map especially insane. Not as in "hard to beat", but since they surround you so thoroughly, you're pretty much boned and can only safely hide a few characters and have to essentially sacrifice at least a few... Aaaaand I just realized that "pairing up" would've saved those 5 or so deaths I painfully tanked to get to the ending. Guess that not coming to mind is because I never used it, which may in itself be a problem. Also surprising (but I was VERY grateful for it) was that dragon Garon just kind of walked forward to let me wack at him until I won, instead of messing with those scary looking Dragon Veins or whatever.
And while I'm sure this is partially due to my poor optimization of the player character, and I'm sure Revelations will probably do something about it... good lord did my player character end up weak by the end due to the lack of an evolved form and capping at 20. Just was pure dead weight for at least half of the game. Ryoma had a similar "not evolving after 20 and hits that level real fast" issue which made him and EXP sponge if you let him, but he was also an ungodly powerful unit, so... yeah.
Oh, and it may have been hard mode making the designs shine due to forcing you to play by their rules, but there were some very nice maps. In particular, the Opera House one may have my favorite objective design+map layout in the series, as it's just super cleverly crafted.