birthright is basically carried by fates gameplay, which imo is the best out of the fe games i've played bar none. even in a game with fairly bland map design, the core fates gameplay experience combined w/ the fairly novel hoshidan classes make for a game that's, at the very least, really really fun to play even if it doesn't come close to the heights of conquest. combine that with an uninspired but benign story, which is apparently the bar to clear in Fire Emblem: Fates, and you have a game that somehow manages to eke out a win as the only fates game that's decent across the board.