Replaying this in 2021 has allowed me to view Fates with a different perspective.
Originally I went into Conquest with the view that it was going to be focused on playing as the "evil" nation, conquering for the sake of conquering and it left me disappointed with the story. Now, 5 years later, I can appreciate it's narrative and characters more for what they are rather than what they aren't.
The first half of Conquest is actually decently well set up. It puts Corrin in a position where they're trying to change Nohr from the inside, without annoying Garon too much. While it's obvious that Garon will never change his psychotic ways, it is understandable that Corrin's unique circumstances growing up and the Norhian siblings raised alongside them, still view Garon as a father and hope that he will change someday. It does a decent job of showing what struggles Corrin's choice brings and the themes of family is one of Conquest's and Fates in general strong points. Families can be complicated affairs. They're messy and not always pleasant yet we always try and make the best of what we're given and it is interesting to see Conquest tackle that.
Now the story does kinda fall to pieces after the Valla revelation. It's obviously put in to tease players for Revelation, but it ultimately causes the narrative to dip severely, with Corrin, who doesn't want to kill people, decide to invade Hosido to get Garon to sit on a truth revealing throne, which ultimately gets thousands of innocent Hosidan's slaughtered because hey, Garon and Iago love to clean up behind you :)
I think if Corrin at least tried to convince their army that dethroning Garon is the best option for peace and the royals refused to fight their father, theeeen maybe this works better. As it is, it's one of the most frustrating plot points in the series.
Speaking of frustrating, Conquest makes it a point to let you know that Corrin and their army are absolutely not killing anyone, but the gameplay doesn't really reflect this at all, with only important characters stating they're retreating. Personally I would've loved to have seen a combination of Thracia's capture mechanic (which only Niles has as a skill in this game) and Elincia's mercy skill to make capturing enemies a viable option. Add in bonus exp for each enemy spared and you have a great way to make Conquest stand out with an interesting risk/reward strategy that matches the actual narrative.
I will say that Conquest does have some excellent maps. Takumi's map with climbing up the castle to get to him is cool, as is the rainbow sage one. The actual map design and objectives in Conquest are arguably some of the best in the series..... completely undermined by a lot of thing that I personally do not find fun. In fact, the actual act of playing Conquest frustrates and exhausts me to the point that I do not enjoy playing the game. As someone who generally plays FE on Classic/Normal, Conquest's difficulty exceeds all other FE games to a point that I have never beaten it on Classic. Enemies hit harder, tank more damage, there's some absolute bs stuff like Hinoka being able to use a dragon vein that allows her fliers to cover practically the whole map, and a defence map in which the water can be dried up so you're literally left wide open and defenceless.
On top of that, skills are more prevalent than ever with enemies constantly debuffing you or chip damaging you, Wane Festals that have 100% accuaracy, and it all adds up to a miserable gameplay experience for me. I now understand that in Fates, to get the most out of your units you need to use My Castle effectively, reclass your units to unlock better skills and essentially do a lot of things that I personally do not do in FE. For normal difficulty, I should be to get through the game with my base unit builds without getting lost in figuring out optimal skills and stuff, that should be for hard/lunatic thrill seekers. I understand that this level of difficulty and well craftedness is what a decent number of fans crave, but for me, it's not something that appeals to me.
There's so much more to Fates, like removing breakable weapons and the pair up mechanic being more balanced and all the My Castle stuff as well as the children mechanic returning but I'll love some of that for my other Fates reviews.
Ultimately, Conquest is a well crafted FE experience with excellent maps and a cast with hidden depth beneath their rather tropey surface. The difficulty cross over a line for me personally but I can still respect that the game itself is a good experience.
Originally I went into Conquest with the view that it was going to be focused on playing as the "evil" nation, conquering for the sake of conquering and it left me disappointed with the story. Now, 5 years later, I can appreciate it's narrative and characters more for what they are rather than what they aren't.
The first half of Conquest is actually decently well set up. It puts Corrin in a position where they're trying to change Nohr from the inside, without annoying Garon too much. While it's obvious that Garon will never change his psychotic ways, it is understandable that Corrin's unique circumstances growing up and the Norhian siblings raised alongside them, still view Garon as a father and hope that he will change someday. It does a decent job of showing what struggles Corrin's choice brings and the themes of family is one of Conquest's and Fates in general strong points. Families can be complicated affairs. They're messy and not always pleasant yet we always try and make the best of what we're given and it is interesting to see Conquest tackle that.
Now the story does kinda fall to pieces after the Valla revelation. It's obviously put in to tease players for Revelation, but it ultimately causes the narrative to dip severely, with Corrin, who doesn't want to kill people, decide to invade Hosido to get Garon to sit on a truth revealing throne, which ultimately gets thousands of innocent Hosidan's slaughtered because hey, Garon and Iago love to clean up behind you :)
I think if Corrin at least tried to convince their army that dethroning Garon is the best option for peace and the royals refused to fight their father, theeeen maybe this works better. As it is, it's one of the most frustrating plot points in the series.
Speaking of frustrating, Conquest makes it a point to let you know that Corrin and their army are absolutely not killing anyone, but the gameplay doesn't really reflect this at all, with only important characters stating they're retreating. Personally I would've loved to have seen a combination of Thracia's capture mechanic (which only Niles has as a skill in this game) and Elincia's mercy skill to make capturing enemies a viable option. Add in bonus exp for each enemy spared and you have a great way to make Conquest stand out with an interesting risk/reward strategy that matches the actual narrative.
I will say that Conquest does have some excellent maps. Takumi's map with climbing up the castle to get to him is cool, as is the rainbow sage one. The actual map design and objectives in Conquest are arguably some of the best in the series..... completely undermined by a lot of thing that I personally do not find fun. In fact, the actual act of playing Conquest frustrates and exhausts me to the point that I do not enjoy playing the game. As someone who generally plays FE on Classic/Normal, Conquest's difficulty exceeds all other FE games to a point that I have never beaten it on Classic. Enemies hit harder, tank more damage, there's some absolute bs stuff like Hinoka being able to use a dragon vein that allows her fliers to cover practically the whole map, and a defence map in which the water can be dried up so you're literally left wide open and defenceless.
On top of that, skills are more prevalent than ever with enemies constantly debuffing you or chip damaging you, Wane Festals that have 100% accuaracy, and it all adds up to a miserable gameplay experience for me. I now understand that in Fates, to get the most out of your units you need to use My Castle effectively, reclass your units to unlock better skills and essentially do a lot of things that I personally do not do in FE. For normal difficulty, I should be to get through the game with my base unit builds without getting lost in figuring out optimal skills and stuff, that should be for hard/lunatic thrill seekers. I understand that this level of difficulty and well craftedness is what a decent number of fans crave, but for me, it's not something that appeals to me.
There's so much more to Fates, like removing breakable weapons and the pair up mechanic being more balanced and all the My Castle stuff as well as the children mechanic returning but I'll love some of that for my other Fates reviews.
Ultimately, Conquest is a well crafted FE experience with excellent maps and a cast with hidden depth beneath their rather tropey surface. The difficulty cross over a line for me personally but I can still respect that the game itself is a good experience.