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Fate/Stay Night - フェイト/ステイナイト [2006 Anime] Review

Welcome to Rockmandash Reviews! I’m Kevin and this part 2 of my Fate Stay night Review, and just one of the many videos in my Type Moon Marathon. This is review of the Fate stay night anime, made by studio Deen in 2006. 2006 really wasn’t a great year for entertainment when you think about it.... 

Plot - Adapting a visual novel can be difficult, as there are multiple routes. Studio Deen tried their best but could not tell the story as well as the visual novel. In Fate Stay night, there are 3 main routes, Fate, Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven’s feel. They decided to take most basic yet bland arc; Fate, and try to throw other arc plot points into the story. Fate by itself is just above average, but when you throw in other plot points and never resolve them, It’s kind of like the anime doesn’t know that (people die when they are killed), or how to make a story without plot holes and red hearings that weren’t red hearings in the original. Even the parts directly from fate aren’t explained as well. The plot is less than average, and but it’s not the worst out there. >_> 

Plot 6.5/10

Pacing - One thing it did do well is the pacing, it’s not too long but it’s not too short. The pacing is pretty good in this anime, which is kinda surprising because the tsukihime anime was too short, and the source material was too long.

8/10

Animation & Art – It’s meh. Studio deen has a habit of going off model with shows, and even though it’s better than say… higurashi, it’s not great either. In comparison to the source material, it’s pretty accurate, but usually looks worse… And out of nowhere… a CG dragon.(Show WTF in video) FSN’s visual novel has a few sex scenes, and what the anime did to get around this was make a Sega Saturn quality CG Dragon which looked horrible, and it was just rubbish. The biggest disappointment with the art in this show is the more detail you have in the video, the worse it looks. I first watched this on a low quality stream and I didn’t think it looked too bad, then I watched a HD one and now that I can actually see the details, I can see all of the flaws this show has, and that’s generally something that shouldn’t happen. I have no other description for the animation other than its consistently worse than the visual novel.

6/10

Sound – This soundtrack is actually quite great. I really liked the first OP, it’s one of my favorites and is really soothing. Most of the soundtrack fits the atmosphere better than the game does, and I prefer the soundtrack overall. It has a grander feel in comparison to the soundtrack in the game. The voice acting for the Japanese dub has the same voice actors as game, so if you liked the game’s dub then you will like this one. As for the English dub, it’s a mixed bag. Some of the acting is really good but others are very bad. Shirou, Issei and Ilya sound just horrible while Saber, Rin, and Archer are ok. The Dub has some really good talent on it, I just believe it’s worse than the Japanese dub.

Soundtrack and Japanese Dub 9/10

English Dub 7/10

Sound overall 8/10

Personal Enjoyment – I’ve watched this show twice. I didn’t care for it both times. It’s just not very interesting in my opinion, but if you haven’t seen the source material I’d assume you would like it more than I did.

7/10

Conclusion This show is weird. It’s the polar opposite of the visual novel yet it’s the same thing. The biggest problem this show faces is that studio deen messed with the plot, thus it becomes worse than it really should be, even if it’s better in some aspects.  If I were you, I’d just watch ufotable’s Fate stay night anime.

7/10   Rockman Regrets

Pros
Good soundtrack

Good pacing

Cons

Rubbish Animation

Ruining of plot

Fate/Stay Night - フェイト/ステイナイト [Visual Novel] Review

Type Moon’s made some pretty great works, and with the announcement that Ufotable’s making an anime adaptation of Fate Stay/Night, I felt that now would be a great time to do a Type Moon Review Marathon, starting off with Fate Stay night, the gateway drug into the Nasuverse and all things type-moon.    

Story- Playing FSN is like playing 3 equally long games with 3 separate plots, and 3 completely different writing styles. Because of the structure of the game, and how vastly different each route is, I'll review each route separately and create a cumulative score for the plot.

The premise of the story is that there is a Fight-to-the-death tournament called The Fifth Holy Grail War (which isn’t really a war....) where people known as masters fight with Heroes throughout history, known as servants, for a chance to get the Holy Grail, which grants their wishes. Each servant is one of the 7 classes, Saber, Archer, Lancer, Berserker, Rider, Assassin, and Caster.  If you didn’t get that, well, this game has a lot of exposition to explain that basic premise, so you won’t be totally lost. The premise is one of the stronger parts of the game, it’s so unique that it’s made a pretty large franchise.  The main character in FSN is Emiya Shirou, whose ideals change along with the route, but he’s usually a hardworking idiot who cares about others more than himself, so much so that he’s willing to risk his life. The strength of the game is in the characters; all of the characters are likable in some fashion, and they usually have something to add to the story.

Fate

Fate is a typical, yet better than average plot, with Saber, Shirou’s blond haired servant as your main heroine. This route a good way to start, as it focuses on the most popular character saber, and explains quite a bit but it doesn’t really stand by itself well. Saber’s personality and situation in the arc makes her a very likable character, and she’s the reason this route is any good. There arn’t a lot of interesting plot points in comparison to the other routes, and in my oppinon the fate route really makes you want to face palm depending on the levels of Shirou’s idiocy. Fate is about Shirou embracing his ideals of becoming a hero, full on, and it’s just above average.

7.5

Unlimited Blade Works

Unlimited blade works is the most action packed out of all the arcs, and is my personal favorite. There’s alliances, change in power, and I hope you like a large dosing of Tsundere, because the main heroine is Rin Tohsaka, A tsundere honours student magus who comes from a family who’s history is ingrained with the holy grail war. Rin Tohsaka is easily my favorite character in the game because of her amazing and not totally bipolar tsundere-ness, and all the other quirks that tohsaka has. Unlimited Blade Works is about Shirou struggling with himself about his ideal and his life, both past and future which is something that’s really relatable to me and one reason why I love UBW. I believe that in UBW, the characters were the best of the whole visual novel, especially shirou.

9.5

Heaven’s feel

Heaven’s feel is by far the most depressing and best written of all the arcs. The main heroine, kinda out of the blue, is Sakura Matou, Shirou’s kouhai and Shinji’s little sister… and the choice of sakura as a heroine makes sense in context. Any real details about heaven’s feel in my opinion, would ruin it, so no spoilers here. Heaven’s feel is conflict within Shirou about reality and his ideals, and it is the most contrasting out of the others. There’s a reason this route is last; you need to sink into the world of FSN before heaven’s feel rips you out of it and throws you into the curb. It’s the best written route and its bloody fantastic, even if it’s quite depressing and dark.

10

For a game like this, story is everything. If you experience the game as intended, this game has a story that will really make you think a bit. It’s a fantastic story, interweaving ideals with a personal and action story.  It’s well written, and it’s fantastic.

9.5

Pacing & Length – One big thing that separates word based mediums like Visual novels and books from their anime and manga counterparts is length. Visual novels are much longer to flesh out the world and characters, and this one is no exception… The game should take you about a month or more to go through just main story. Do I prefer it this way? Not really… it drags out quite long and it’s hard to get into and complete because of the length. In comparison, I thought that the anime, was a more manageable size. Surprisingly, the pacing was very good even though the story is so long, which is really nice.

8/10

Gameplay – IT’S A FRICKING VISUAL NOVEL. There’s really nothing special…. You select options and read text…. When you get a bad ending, you get sent to Tiger Dojo, where give you advise on how to get the good endings and hilarity ensues. Tiger Dojos give this game A LOT of replay value and content, and if you get them all, you get a hidden extra scene. The gameplay is par for the course, nothing spectacular here.

7.5/10

Sound – Do yourself a favor and get Realta Nua, the PS2 version or a Mod for the PC version that adds the voice acting. It’s great voice acting, and other parts of the series have the same voice actors. Almost all of the text is voiced, which is OUTSTANDING, considering the amount of text that this game actually has. The soundtrack frankly is not one of FSN strongpoints though. Most of the music is there for atmosphere building, but it does that quite well.  It’s a very memorable soundtrack, mainly because you have to listen to the same few tracks over and over again. There are good tracks, but most of it is just ok. It’s a good soundtrack, but I can’t really say that it’s one of my favorite soundtracks.

8/10

Art/ Graphics - Ok. Keep in mind that this is a visual novel from 2004. This game looks pretty good, even if it’s just sprites. I prefer sprites over 3d models in visual novels usually, with a few exceptions (show AA here) and in FSN, the sprites are done very well. The character design in this game is great, and all of the characters look unique and interesting. The designs of the characters, especially the servants are intricate and detailed, which help build this world in FSN. One thing about the art in this game that I have to mention is that fate stay night is an eroge, aka Hentai game. If you’re not really into that, well…. There’s a censor patch for UBW and fate, but for Heaven’s feel… Just hold control until it’s over I guess… This is a huge reason why I want an official English version: the console version of realta nua replaces ero scenes with scenes of CG Dragons and Dolphins which is kinda random, but it’s still better than ero scenes. Other than that FSN looked great for the time, and it still holds up well today.

8/10

Personal Enjoyment – Honestly, I didn’t like it the first time I played it. I’m not the biggest fan of fantasy, but the more I played, and the more it sinks in, the better it gets. It’s like aged cheese in that aspect. One part I loved in FSN is that the world it builds is so thorough in the art, the music, the characters, etc.  It’s so cohesive and strict with following the rules it set that you really feel like your observing this great story…. Which leads me to my next point… if it has so much action, did it have to be a visual novel? I know for structuring the story, VN’s are more convenient, but whenever I get to an action scene, I wish I was either watching all of that fluid animated fight, or playing a game where I can influence the fight itself. Even with that nitpick aside, I really did love this game, and after I finished this, I had the feeling of the void and accomplishment. If a game can do either of those, it’s a winner.

9.5/10

Conclusion – Fate Stay Night is a fantastic yet really long Visual Novel. As a story, it’s bloody amazing, but it’s not perfect in its current state as a game.  Everything negative I say about this game is nitpicky though, as this game is fantastic, with great writing, a great world, and great characters. This is not a part of the review, but availability is an important part of any series and considering the popularity of this series, you would think Fate Stay Night would come to the states. NOPE! The only way to play this game in English is via pc thanks to the fantastic translation by the guys at mirror moon, or on the DS and Android platforms via VNDS. I hope in the future we can get something like the Vita version of the game, or if they ever decide to do an HD remake with the new character designs and art from Ufotable, but for now, the only way to get the definitive version of the FSN story in English is via a fan translation.

Pros

Fantastic Writing

Great World

Great Characters

Cons

Nothing major

9.25/10

I am the Keyboard of my Review

Reviewing is my Body and writing is my blood.

I have read over a Thousand Words

Unknown to Action

Nor known to Tsundere

Have withstood pain to create many reviews

Yet this Keyboard will never type anything

So as I Review

UNLIMITED REVIEW WORKS

Law of Diminishing Returns?

With a new console generation, is the expectation of a huge graphics jump. This time… that’s not really the case, which begs the question… Are we hitting the Law of Diminishing Returns on consoles? The Law of Diminishing Returns can be seen in almost everything, when you spend or improve so much that the gains become smaller and smaller. This is usually a topic of debate, and with every topic of debate, there are 2 sides to the issue, and I’ll try to present both sides equally.

I’ll start with why people believe we hit the wall with the advent of the PS4 and Xbox One. It’s quite hard to tell the difference between some of the games and improvements for games like BF4 and AC4 are kind of minor. Unless you have a direct comparison, it can be hard to tell the difference between the games. Spec wise, none of the new consoles are really running in new resolutions: some games on the PS3 and 360 can run in native 1080p, so why is it impressive that the new consoles can? 720p ->1080p is a much smaller jump than from SD -> HD. Another argument is more fundamental: the fact that games are expensive to make. Polygon making, texture designing, etc., it’s an expensive and hard thing to do. To make better looking games, they will have to put more effort than ever, and that was the case even with last generation.

Next is the other side of the argument, why we haven’t hit the law of diminishing returns on the new generation of consoles. The new consoles have a bunch of new stuff that you can easily see, with higher quality textures, better lighting, and just more effects in general that the older consoles couldn’t do and it really looks snazzy. Look at Forza 5 vs Forza 4, there’s a huge difference in that. The problem with these comparisons is that they are comparing games based on the same engine, and games that are built ground up for the new consoles, look so much better. Another aspect, is this generation is much easier to develop for, so in the future, we might see games that absolutely blows away the current gen stuff while not being that much more expensive. Development will be complicated, but with the easier to use tools, it might be easier than ever to make great looking games and it’ll help alleviate the bubble in graphics we have now.

Now that I’ve presented both sides of the argument, what do I think? I think it’s a Yes and a No. I believe that there’s a lot to go, but for most games on consoles we see, we essentially have but every mobile computing gaming platform has a long time before we get anywhere near this theoretical wall. It’s really a case by case issue: games look great now no matter how you look at it, and some games will make use of the new technologies, but others it’ll be really hard to tell. Nintendo has a good idea when they release a console with old technology: it’s cheaper and easier to develop for, and games still look great. Even last generation, with the advent of HD, the launch titles looked quite similar to their PS2 counterparts. Games will look better, that’s a fact. But some will look much much better, while others will look pretty similar. 2D games like platformers and Puzzle games hit a wall long time ago, you won’t find any improvement there… but for more graphically intensive games like shooters and racers, it’s quite a big difference.