Hey, I really want to thank everyone for replying. This is exactly the feedback I was hoping for. I think you all have definitely nailed what I like and don't like. I personally love the rebalancing of Awakening's gameplay systems and mechanics. And for me, something I don't think people said, was I loved the art style. The aesthetic of japan fighting against medieval europe was very very cool to me and gave the different sides tons of personalization. Especially with their weapons. And conquest was a blast to play through and felt very classic but yeah while the story was serviceable it wasn't compelling but it's not terrible so you end up feeling like it could have been so much more.
As for the flaws I think I finally understand why this game is so polarizing. Because it certainly has a lot of flaws and there was a lot of hype. And playing it is so great as far as gameplay I think it comes down to how much the bad story, and weak characters, in a story and character focused game, hurts your individual experience. Or how much weaker gameplay of certain stories puts you off. And if you spent money on all of them but only enjoyed a few it could definitely feel wasted.
Ertrick36 hit on what might be one of my biggest missing pieces of this game and that was world building. I was constantly asking things like "Where are we? What are the troop numbers?" And the writers seemingly didn't care to put a lot of effort in and would just plot write through any of that. Which was specifically disappointing because one thing awakening did really well was world building.