Fate/Extra’s Saber Route: Bisexual Girlgamesh is Sure to be Popular

While Tsukihime maybe have been the title that put Type-Moon on the otaku radar it is Fate/Stay Night that solidified their names in Otaku circles. The concept of legendary heroes summoned by powerful wizards in a secret war for a fantastic prize in the modern age is a powerful and wonderfully reusable idea. The original visual novel spawned a sequel visual novel, a prequel novel series, several fighting games, several anime and manga adaptations, and more merchandise than you can shake a Golden Sword of the Victorious at. Anyone who has played the Fate/Stay Night visual novel will see the clear table top RPG elements that influenced the game. So the next logical step in the Fate franchise is take the visual novel and fuse it with the table top RPG and get their child, the video game RPG. Fate/Extra is set in an alternate universe than the main Fate/Stay Night world. It takes the premise and some of the structure of the visual novel and combines it with the game play of a Persona style Japanese RPG with its own unique spin on both.

In Fate/Extra you are allowed to make several choices that majorly effect the story including if you are male or female, which legendary hero you choose as your partner, and who you choose as your main ally and/or romantic interest. For this review I chose to play as a male protagonist, with Saber as my champion, and the Egyptian alchemist as my ally. In this post I will go over all the basic game review points and my musings on the path itself. I plan to do at least 2 more posts looking at the Archer and Caster paths, the female protagonist, the Rin path, and how much you get out of replaying the game a second and third time.

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Red vs. Blue: Saber Edition

Over the years as an anime fan I have picked up a few skills from just watching enough anime. They include the ability to notice animation errors, an eye to detect directorial styles,  and an understanding of Japanese trends and tropes. You always have these abilities to some degree but the more you watch the better you are at it. The one skill that Narutaki and I have never been that great at no matter how much we watch anime is the ability to instantly recognize voice actors. We are far better at it then when we started the blog but honestly that is because the only direction we could head was up. We have the basic detect Norio Wakamoto and recognize Rie Kugimiya skill set but we are far below the proficiency of any decent seiyu aficionado.

But there is one voice actress I can always recognise and it is very unsurprisingly Ayako Kawasumi. While I remember her playing Melfina in Outlaw Star but she really caught my attention as Lafiel in Crest of the Stars. She has played roles I love like Megumi Noda in Nodame Cantabile and Kanako Ohno in Genshiken. She also starred in shows I have much less love for like Mahoro Ando in Mahoromatic and Aoi Sakuraba in Ai Yori Aoshi. But to cut to the heart of the matter the character that trained me to recognize her voice is very clearly Saber. If there is any character that is going to make me remember your voice it is her. So when Fate/Extra came along they announced that while the playable Saber maybe very familiar looking she would be a very different character to the point where she would be voiced by Sakura Tange. So hearing this new Saber leads me to an odd bit of cognitive dissidence which is what this post is all about.

Past this point is spoiler country. While I assume the identity of Fate Stay/Night Saber is firmly entrenched in the “No. *I* am your father ” territory for anime fans the identity of Fate/Extra Saber is far less a piece of common knowledge.

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Fate/Fact of the Matter

It should come as no surprise that I per-ordered the Aksys Games release of Fate/Extra so I could get all the limited edition goodies. The question for anyone who did not already get the game might be is it still worth hunting down the limited edition or the Fate/The Fact booklet that was only available by pre-ordeing the game through Gamestop? I will review the game itself when I have gone through at least one play through. Until then I don’t think I can give it a fair review. This is just a look three pieces of Limited Edition material for anyone who knows they want the game but is still curious about the additional material and if it worth the additional cost. Continue reading