Fate/Extella: The setting of the Fate series, dedicated to the struggle for the all-powerful Holy Grail of seven master magicians who control seven servants, does not in itself give much room for transfer to the action genre, since it is basically focused on duels between two, maximum three opponents. In the 2010 spin-off titled Fate/Extra, the developers decided not to deviate from the concept of duels and the school environment of the original Fate/stay night, despite the fact that the game was about a war that involved more than a hundred masters. And all the battles there took place one on one in turn-based mode, and indeed the game with all its dungeon exploration, interspersed with school life, suspiciously resembled something from the Persona series.
But when creating Fate / Extella – a direct sequel to Extra – the authors from the Marvelous studio completely and completely spit on the ideas of duels, schools and dungeons. This time they started to make not their Persona, but their Dynasty Warriors with Noble Phantasms and waifu Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. The result is mediocre.
Fate/Extella has exactly one mode: Matrix Capture. Throughout the game, we run through levels consisting of mini-arenas, take out crowds of dummy opponents, thereby conquering or recapturing territories, and repeat the process until the level boss appears, which you can still find in the crowd of extras. And so time after time. From level to level. In three story cycles. And a dozen plus side stories. And in free mode. We run and fight. We fight and run.
All the diversity of the same type of levels is manifested in rare missions, which should simplify the completion of the matrix. Well, it happens that, along with the usual dummy, a servant will be added to the mass of enemies, which is slightly stronger than the rest of the opponents. And that’s it. Diversity is over. Go and grab the next level.
But what is most surprising, despite all the uniformity, it is fun to engage in conquest activities. Well, how much fun can be beating the same bobbleheads. Just because if Marvelous didn’t really bother with the creation of normal opponents, AI, levels, gameplay mechanics … yes, almost everything, if you think about it, then what they really invested in was the variety of servant heroes. Each of the sixteen characters pleases with the development of techniques, fantasies, transformations, and most importantly – characters.
While the player spectacularly and very, very, very quickly scatters crowds of enemies, the servants actively comment on the whole process, squabble among themselves, and generally try in every possible way to amuse the process, remaining within the original images. And when it comes to story cutscenes with the chatter of Saber Nero, Caster Tamamo and Lancer Elizabeth Bathory, all that remains is to sit back and enjoy such undisguised fan service. True, apart from this very fan service, there is nothing in the plot.
Yes, we have a direct sequel to Fate / Extra, where the protagonist has already won an alternative war for the Holy Grail, his servant Nero has received the status of the master of the virtual world “Serial Phantasm” (SERAF), and now they are spending time together doing the favorite pastime of the King of Conquerors Iskander – capturing territories of other surviving servants. In fact, in the language of anime people, Nero’s waifu fights with Tamamo’s waifu over which of them is the best waifu. And, in fact, everything. The plot serves only as an excuse to open new arenas and introduce new servants (both familiar and cult, and new ones). The rest of the story is absolutely schematic, very short and in no way requires acquaintance with the previous part.
Fate/Extella is nothing more than a fanservice clone of the Dynasty Warriors games for Type-Moon fans. In small doses, you can get a good portion of fun from it due to the simple but spectacular action and the charm of the characters. But it’s much more likely that the game will quickly become boring due to the complete lack of at least some variety beyond the choice of a servant to destroy the extras.
