Which is nice, because you can actually relax and enjoy them and not stress about wasting valuable turns for social iteraction. Support conversations are now held between battles. Thieves can steal unequipped weapons too-and these weapons no longer have to be ones that would be dropped anyway. Secret shops are gone, but your character will promote automatically after level 20 anyway and Master Seals can give almost any promotable character an early promotion. No longer will you have to make a risky manuver to visit a shop/armory in the middle of the battlefield-the merchant handle this too. No longer will you have to worry about being forced to chuck good items because your character can't hold any more-the merchants will now carry your items for you. The first is the merchant convoy that comes around level 8. There were a couple of improvements from the Gameboy games here. Some levels can be easily beaten at the cost of losing a valuable character which might help you out in another level so you're forced to decide whether the sacrifice is worth avoiding the harder way. As frustrating it is when a character dies, it also forces you to not only think about completing the level but also for the long term as well. True, if characters die they're gone forever. But the cut scenes are beautiful and 2D artwork is extremely colorful and well detailed. Yes, the enemy minions are obviously recycled models, yes the maps are slightly dull when you're viewing them bird's eye view. I can't see why people complain about bad graphics. I've played all three Fire Emblems that are out in English, and I have to say this is my favorite one.