I think my love of Shining Force turned me off to this series as well. Which for a lot of people I know it's the opposite. The similarities made them love it more. But the aesthetic and battle mechanics were about all they had in common. The perma-death. Excessively hard difficulty. Bland and pointless characters. In Shining Force the stories seemed to matter more. But above all else, the characters mattered more. Everyone had personality. And this series seemed to have so much potential in that regard. But the few I played failed so utterly

Though, with that being said; Awakening, is freaking fantastic. The ONLY Shining Force gameplay mechanic I missed in that game, was an overworld and towns that could be traversed. The difficulty was adjustable, perma-death was optional, and all of the characters you get had their own individual personalities. They all mattered. And they even went beyond that, you could interact with everyone, make friends and bonds, and even watch as they made friends and bonds with each other. It was a phenomenal experience, and highly suggested to any Shining Force fan

But sadly, that does seem to be the one exception in the series. I can't say that I've tried them all, though. But I did try one or two on GBA, and then Shadow Dragon. And I tried patched roms from an unreleased SNES one, and an unreleased DS one. Though, the SNES was just too old for me, and I have to say Shadow Dragon probably fails for the same reason, since it's a remake (supposedly?) of the very first Fire Emblem. The unreleased DS one was pretty good, and had some similar mechanics to Awakening. But I never played the GameCube or Wii ones which seemed to be pretty well received over-all

But after Awakening, I have pretty high hopes for this series in the future