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.

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.