Fire emblem fates had had an interesting approach to its story and marketing: the story puts your avatar in the literal middle of a war, as you gotta decide if you wanted to ally with your former family or the people that raised you.... and to sell that the different campaigns got sold as different titles. COnsidering each camapgin felt like incomplete experiences on their own, this felt kinda scummy honestly... but at least the different campaigns tried to make something different from each other.

Of all of them, I feel Conquest accomplished its gimmicks the best: it's a really tough game, closer (according to the devs) to the more classic FE titles, with more brutal enemies and really fewer chances of grinding. The balance between the units is wider and using specific units on the long run can be incredibly detrimental (I love you Odin but my god you suck as a unit).

In the regard the maps are interesting though: all of them present specific gimmicks that will put your strategies to the test, with unique environments and honestly really solid level design (the best in the Fates trilogy for me). That makes it the most replayable of the three, as the gameplay loops shared by the other 3DS titles makes it for an enjoyable time...... if you skip the cutscenes.

Fates is renowed for the missed potential of its story, but in all honestly I feel Conquest gives anough interesting stuff with its writing to justify the more cringy moments of the narrative: it makes for a more interesting premise on paper (working for your crazy dada while planning to spit the least possible bloodshed), it has a bit more tension and what it does with characters like Takumi is really cool.
But yeah you got to ignore a lot of weird decisions and a scripts that needed to be rewritten more than once.

The story of Fates is its worst aspect for sure and this will hurt a lot of people's enjoyment. But I feel at least Conquest got the slightly more interesting end of the script and the level design at least turns it into a decent time.... still not the best the series has to offer sadly, but I can't say I didn't have fun with this one.

Finished off Fire Emblem Conquest last night. Again, I'm gonna keep this short and sweet becuase there's already been a ton said about this game's mechanics and such on this forum, so I'll mainly just stick to my opinion.

This is my favorite FE game I've ever played. The virtue of working for the bad guys, the dynamic that the main character has to go through with his/her siblings is so much more explored and nuanced than in Birthright. I enjoyed the side characters far more as well, as they tended to be either more entertainingly strange/quirky, or just written from a very interesting perspective (with my personal favorite being Forrest). Though this game doesn't have the infinite grinding that you can do like Birthright and Revelations, it still felt like I had tons of time to work out character relationships, and even planning which charcters to bring to which mission to foster which relationships was a very cool element to consider.

Verdict: Highly recommended to fans of the series and strategy games. In my opinion, the best FE to date in terms of both mechanics and story. Loved it to bits!

I would hesitate to call the story of Conquest functional. Every character is one-dimensional or a complete moron, the way they respond to plot events tends to make very little sense, and the entire conceit is wasted with shallow writing that's so incongruent with what you're doing in the gameplay that it's honestly hard for me to believe this got published as-is. It's truly baffling in every respect.

Despite this the actual gameplay is really well done. I've previously only ever played the GBA Fire Emblem games (and Echoes but I never finished it) so all the new mechanics were overwhelming at first, but rewarding to gain a deeper understanding of as I played. The different pair-up stances add much more immediate depth to even the simplest of skirmishes, especially when trying to align specific units together to build support. This game provides various methods of reclassing, giving you abundant freedom to customize units as you see fit based on many different parameters, which become even more layered as you take into account what skills and classes to pass down onto a child unit and how you want them to grow. It's so much to play around with and provides a near-infinite amount of options for repeat playthroughs. I was skeptical of the changes to weapon durability at first, and while I feel certain aspects are a bit overtuned (basically no reason to ever use a Silver weapon), it clicked when I started seeing them more as aspects of a unit's build as opposed to resources to be passed around and used up like in previous games. I do also enjoy the addition of hidden weapons and the consolidation of magic into one category for the sake of weapon triangle simplicity, as I always felt light and dark magic were too underdeveloped compared to anima for it to stand as any kind of equal balance.

The maps are also a major highlight, as they tend to utilize gimmicks that make battles clever and interesting without coming off as too obtrusive (for the most part, the fox illusion one is pretty bad). The Dragon Veins that facilitate many of these gimmicks add even further strategic elements to each map, as choosing when and how to activate them for best increasing your advantage while hampering the enemy adds a unique flair to every fight that never feels too far removed from the core gameplay experience. The design in both a gameplay and aesthetic sense is astounding, with a variety of different environments being employed in tandem with their respective gimmick that create a wide assortment of unique and memorable gameplay experiences. I don't think I've played another Fire Emblem game where I can immediately recall so many maps from memory after only one playthrough.

As boring as it may be I ultimately agree with the consensus regarding Conquest. I plan to play it again on a harder difficulty at a later date, using what I've learned to be much more optimal and plan out more diverse builds for each unit, but even for a particularly vanilla playthrough I still had a good time with the game. Just not when any characters were talking.

I genuinely tried to like the story, it’s bad (original take). Though I was pretty charmed by some of the characters like Xander, Leo, Charlotte, Azura and Felicia. Most of the supports were ass but I found myself reading a few from these characters.

I can’t help but be enamoured by this gameplay though. Though I like Thracia’s method more, I love the heavy unit investment here. I like every chapter and all the gimmicks (except kitsune), in particular the Hinoka map is amazing, easily one of the best chapters in the series. This game is also fucking hard but never unfair and I love the challenge. The OST carried this game and every track is good, give ‘A Dark Fall’ and 'Justice RIP' a listen. I know I adore a game when I think about replaying it before even beating it. Honestly 10/10, if you enjoy the classic games, give it a chance to prove itself. It took me four tries to get all the way through.

Harder than Birthright but not really better. Story-wise it's not exactly bad but it's not exactly good either. I think the biggest mistake Fates made was splitting the story in 3. It's admittedly a clusterfuck and unless you play all 3 games you won't really understand what's happening. But having to buy 3 separate games just to understand literally the same plot, when technically only one of them is actually canon just means you're in for an incoherent mess that would only be surpassed by the Kingdom Hearts series.

Still, the gameplay itself is great and I enjoyed it immensely for that alone and I play games for gameplay first.

Fire Emblem Fates Conquest is a fairly interesting game to me. By every metric, to me at the very least, it should be an awful game and experience. But it's something that just kind of...works. Which is mostly because of the position FE as a series has put itself into across it's lifetime.

First things first, the main story of Conquest is undeniably bad. But I wasn't really bothered for a few reasons. Firstly because Conquest's narrative isn't bad in any way that's not the norm for Fire Emblem, and honestly it's writing is better in quite a few ways compared to games that came before it namely Awakening, as the series as a whole is generally poorly written generic fantasy stories. The Nohr/Hoshido conflict is laughable at best which is fine because Conquest doesn't focus on it too hard outside of the earlier chapters. Instead, it relegates that to the background while it focuses more on the internal issues of Nohr; which isn't the best since Garon sucks as an antagonist but it serves to give the main characters a certain degree of nuance.
I can say that one thing Conquest does well with it's narrative is pacing. Fire Emblem narrative pacing is generally quite messy and leans on two extremes. Narratives are either far too fast paced and make their conflicts, themes and arcs feel very volatile, superficial and underwritten (Awakening/Path of Radiance). Or they're far too slow and dwell on plot points for far too long dragging them out while saying or providing absolutely nothing new (Three Houses, Three Hopes). Conquest is one of the games in the series (along with Genealogy and Thracia) that nails the pacing more or less perfectly in a way that compliments both the gameplay loop and the narrative themes.

The characters here, at least within the main story, are pretty hit and miss. The Nohrian Royals are the only characters that are consistently fairly solid mostly due to their dynamics and relationships with each other that drive a lot of the plot forward. Some of the characterization and dialogue can be weak at times, basically all of the Hoshidan Royals but especially Sakura and Takumi, but I generally found the cast to be either inoffensively uninteresting or genuinely quite entertaining within the main narrative.
Supports are another thing entirely and much more inconsistent. They can either make characters more entertaining regardless of how they are in the main story or insufferably cringe.
Corrin I found to not be a bad avatar protagonist. They have some clear cut, solid characterization within the main story and their inner conflict was fairly decent. They're not as well done as Alear but not close to as bad as Kris and Byleth, since they have an actual character and dynamics, while fixing the issues I had with Robin (who's very dull in the Awakening main story but more fun in supports). The "Avatar Worshipping" with Corrin is a lot more well founded here since Corrin is family to all of the major players within the conflict and it does lend to some of Corrin's characterization.

Now for the actual meat of the game. The gameplay is the major standout point and appeal to Fire Emblem as a whole. Conquest nails this near perfectly having some of the most fun gameplay in a game I've played in a VERY long time. The map design is fantastic with every map being standout in layout and gimmicks that really allows you to play around with strategy and the mechanics of the game in fun and interesting ways. This extends to even paralogues. Characters are well designed and have interesting gimmicks/personal skills that makes them standout and highlights the pair up mechanic a lot better than Awakening did. Finally, the design around Conquest's ludonarrative harmony ties everything together to make the entire campaign satisfyingly strategic and challenging. The smart limiting of resources, paired with second generation units to an extent, (money, promotion seals and so on) adds a layer of strategy to how you build your army like who you bench, when you promote and makes allocating kills and experience that much more thought provoking.

All in all, Fire Emblem Fates Conquest is a undoubtedly a flawed game but it's a flawed game that understands Fire Emblem's major strengths and appeal. Instead of trying to rectify flaws FE has almost always struggled with, it understands and then doubles down on it's strengths showing that sometimes it's best to play your hand straight and stick to what you know.

I've been playing this on and off since it came out. Had a long break after hitting the wall at some point, playing on hard classic. Turns out I just needed to be smarter lol, my reasons for shelving it probably stemmed from more than just difficulty.

I'm getting through this, chapter by chapter. The characters are nothing to write home about. The story is super dumb. I'm mostly doing this for the combat mechanics, locations and music. The support conversations have also mostly been fun.

But that overworld can go fuck itself! Grrrrr and so much clutter aside from the actual grid-based gameplay that I'm here for.

I know I already reviewed Rev, but this game is leagues better that both Rev and Birthright and to me is the best FE Fates has to offer.

Every time I discuss this game with my friends, I always come away feeling like a hater. The positives my friends list are all things I agree with, so why then do I rate it so much lower than them. I don't even dislike playing it, quite the contrary actually. The more I think about it, the more I truly believe the 2.5 - 3 star range is the perfect rating for this game, but on the surface it may not be easy to look at that and tell what I think.

A majority of these stars, if not all, come from the gameplay. The map design and gameplay loop present in SPECIFICALLY Conquest is very close to peak Fire Emblem for me. The rate at which you acquire units is slow yet paced, allowing for each map to build around your growing army. The moment you gain Niles and Odin, for example, the map design seriously shifts. Larger maps begin to take priority, most likely to take advantage of Niles' +1 movement bonus given to his pair-up ally. Through this and the transfer/shelter system, ferrying your units around the map becomes so much more involved, and you can find routes in which you can reach chokes or pivotal enemies a turn or more earlier than normal. Ballistae and magical orbs begin to appear, allowing for specific units to retain use as crowd control during defense maps (Chapter 10 in particular providing an experience that I'm not sure FE has replicated since). All of this is to say that the map design of FE Conquest is acutely aware of who you have access to and reward your creative thinking, rather than ignoring or punishing it as seen in Birthright and Revelations.

With that out of the way, this all seems great! Maybe I am just a hater, why isn't this game rated higher? This exact thought goes through my head after every conversation and discussion I've had about this game.

And then I remember Corrin.

(I could elaborate, but it's simply that I find the writing, characters, and story about as bad as the series gets.)