Fate/Extra review

Being a Fate fan, I'm obviously slightly biased towards this game. Suffice to say I did really enjoy it. The story was classic Nasu storytelling with complex terms that will all become clear over time. There were a good amount of masters and servants, and what I personally really enjoyed was when they brought up servants that were not in the game. Servants such as Calamity Mary and Armstrong that as of yet do not have any appearance in any Fate material, and it's fun to imagine that there are far more servants out there than that we currently know. The story is told as it was a visual novel, not an unfamiliar territory for this franchise. Like visual novels, there are occasional dead ends/bad endings and alternative routes, but it's pretty obvious when that happens and the game warns you multiple times. What's interesting is that this form of gameplay is combined with another well-loved genre, namely turn-based JRPGs. The idea behind the combat in this game is precisely how I imagine Fate to be: learn more about your opponents through dialogue or fighting with them consecutively. Once you know their names or slight information about their history, you will be at an advantage. The execution is a mixed bag for me however. I usually felt the need to talk to everyone in school (the main hub), but that hub is slightly too big in my opinion with too many unnecessary places (the Archery being an obvious example). The combat works like rock-paper-scissors, and this can potentially really suck the less you know about an opponent. Some enemies do favour one particular style of combat over the other, or have a said pattern. But you have to learn that pattern first, and that can mean that early battles can be an absolute hell. Especially if you pick Caster, or this game's version of ''hard mode''. Caster is by far the weakest servant until she learns her magic spells where she funnily enough becomes the best servant. But until she learns those magic spells, she's extremely vulnerable and can die easily from critical hits. Even in late game she dies easily if you are unprepared because of her low defence, and there's not much you can do about it since you possibly don't know what their next attack will be. The dungeons are decently fun to explore, though I've never understood what the point is behind completing them 100%. Overall I had a good time with this game despite the frustrations I sometimes had with the battle system. If you're a Fate fan you should definitely play this, though I would also recommend it to non-Fate fans.


8/10