On Awakening's ties to past games.

I see that Awakening had various ideas for ties to past FE games, like putting Tiki in the game, but not enough of those were really important enough to plot. Or they weren't explored enough when it came to how those ties changed over the millennia.

Look at Lucina. As far as I can tell, Lucina pretending to be Marth wasn't any more helpful than pretending to be say, Caeda. Nobody who Lucina would have wanted to listen her actually said they believed she was actually Marth, and she didn't bother to make her voice sound more like a man's. Lucina pretending to Marth is transparently a marketing gag.

Or Tiki. Tiki ends up having a bigger role in DLC than she does in default game. Let alone how she's been living in Valm instead of the continent where Grima, the only Earth Dragon who is mentioned in Awakening is sealed.

Awakening has ties to past games. But the ties are set so that newcomers don't know enough of what makes them a big deal. And the ties either aren't important enough or aren't explored enough when it comes to how those ties changed over the millennia.