So far I am really disappointed with Fire Emblem Fates. The story so far is just... dumb. The way the choice system is built in at the beginning makes it seem like Conquest/Birthright were intended to be the same game originally and then just cut out so people would have to buy both. The main thing that makes me think this is that it isn't just Red Team or Purple Team, but that the exp/gold rates are different, it seems like that would have made a good built in option in a full version of the game.
Other than feeling slighted by that, the game mechanics feel dumbed down. Oh you can't remember swords/axes/spears? Well how about colors for the baby so it isn't hard to remember.
At the same time though there are waaaaaay too many new skills, for players and enemies and a lot of them don't work in a way that makes any sense. Right off the bat the Faceless enemies have a skill called something like poison strike, which makes it so any time they initiate combat the target takes 4 poison damage... so even if they have a 0% chance to hit me, the skill which has a name that indicates physical contact occurring, still triggers.
So far the characters all seem watered down as well. WE ARE FRIENDS BECAUSE WE ARE FRIENDS REMEMBER?! seems to be the backstory for 90% of the characters. Others have their personalities ripped right from Awakening characters (Odin = Owain for example).
I am 10 missions in, hopefully it gets better or I am just gunna put it back in the case and play Awakening instead.