Famitsu Speaks

Well, Famitsu gave FE13 a 36/40, on part with FE3 and FE6.

To place this in context:

36/40: FE3, FE6, FE13

35/40: FE5, FE8

34/40: FE7, FE9, FE11, FE12

33/40: FE10

31/40: FE4

Of course, FE11 > FE4 instantly invalidates Famitsu's judgement to some people... not to mention FE8 > FE7/9/10

Regarding Seth

I wasn't going to touch this subject, but damned if it doesn't keep coming up in different forms of media.

I like Seth as a unit and as a character.  Like him a lot, in an "I can potentially identify with this guy kind of way."  And from the beginning, I kind of connected him with Cain in the way that Cain's shown in FE3, where he's not Red Cav anymore but is instead a trusted senior knight/advisor, a right-hand-man, the guy Marth leaves in charge of Altea when Marth goes off chasing trouble.  [Orson is the Abel to Seth's Cain, with even worse results than Abel saw in FE3.]

But I stopped writing and exploring him and basically just left him alone for a while, because... reasons.  The things I liked about Seth, and found interesting about him, didn't seem to be the reasons that fandom overall was interested in him, plus I caught a general sense that Seth was overemphasized into a "semi-protagonist"[*]-- placed above his station, so to speak.  And, since I liked Seth but didn't LOVE him, it wasn't worth the grief.  I could just write about Cain or some other character that filled that same niche to me.

Part of it is, I think, the essential difference in the knight/Lord dynamic between Eirika's Route and Ephraim's.  Eirika/Seth is a problematic pairing to me, but I really dig the interaction between reckless Ephraim and cool-headed Seth... and not in a sexual way (no thanks).

Japanese FE fandom had a very useful tip on understanding Seth, knight of Renais.  Ammie helped translate it (and much else) for me.  

( In which we are NOT touching the psychosexual angles of FE8 )