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Finally finished playing the FATE route today. Yes, it’s been like a month since the patch release, but these things take time. One of the things I noticed about the fate route is how hard it was to get through. Not difficulty, but just getting the effort to play through it. Probably because I watched the anime first and knew exactly what was going to happen. Didn’t help that certain stretches of the story are incredibly long and boring. Why the hell do you need to explain the rules of the war every freaking other day! But I’ll talk about that more later on.

The good parts of Fate were the good parts of every Type-Moon work: strong characters and a strong storyline. Nasu took common myths like the holy grail and King Arthur and made them into something entirely new with great success. It’s an engaging storyline that questions the themes of what it means to be a hero in the modern world and questions those same ideals. Fate is also a great action story. The increased production values are used to great effect during battles, using a system of artwork and sound effects to make you feel every hit of the blade. The values of FSN must be commended as a whole, with artwork, music, and graphics all a step above Tsukihime. The only thing I would say on the music is that, while all tracks are good in some way, many are repeated to much.

Not to say Fate doesn’t have some negative aspects, all based in the story and writing style of Nasu. One is Emiya Shirou. I have never seen a more annoying protagonist in any written work. His stupid ideals, his uselessness to give into reason, his resistance to such modern ideas that women can stick up for themselves, his insanely flawed logic, everything about him is annoying. Even if Shiki was little more than a god-mode hax stand in for the author, at least he’s not stubborn.

The greatest thing I hate is his reasoning when trying to dissuade Saber from redoing her life. He wants her to wish for something selfish, to forget her oaths to other people and act for herself, and he gets mad when she won’t do that. The thing is, Shirou is the exact same goddamn way! Everybody tells him he should think of himself, and he refuses to. What right does he have to tell Saber that same advice when he won’t follow it? And when Saber decides to not redo things but go back and die, he’s happy. I can understand wanting what’s best for her, but isn’t that kind of death still unfair, since nothing has really changed? How does that make him happy? His logic is completely insane. Can’t wait for Heaven’s Feel Shirou to dump all that. No wonder Archer wants to kill him so bad.

Second problem I have is with Nasu’s writing style and sense of pacing. Fate really makes glaringly obvious the problems in Nasu’s style. One is constant use of arcane laws and rules to explain his universe. Sure, they’re kind of cool. But when he’s constantly interrupting the story to explain, in a very artificial way may I add, they just get annoying. Then there’s all the instances of Shirou getting almost killed. Nasu seems to have a cruel glee in describing the many ways Shirou should be dead, but isn’t. I get it, he’s special, but you don’t have to kill him every other day to explain that. Another thing I had problems with is the pacing. There’d be a major battle, then it’s like “oh well, no enemies to fight. Hey Saber, why don’t I get my ass kicked by you now?” It just felt so artificial, and didn’t help that those instances were boring, too.

I’ve realized something about Nasu now; this man should not be writing visual novels. The medium is too constrained, too artificial, requires too much fanservice. His best work, literary-wise, is probably Kara no Kyoukai, because he could change viewpoint, pacing, etc. Perhaps it’s kind of selfish, but I would prefer it if he did something like that. These days Nasu seems to be creatively dead, churning out one sequel to FSN after another. Hopefully he’ll fix that soon. Overall, I enjoyed the Fate route. It’s a good introduction to the characters and sets up the “ideal” situation, allowing for it to be questioned in Unlimited Blade Works and ultimately destroyed in Heaven’s Feel. Just have to wait for the translation to appreciate those. Oh, and Archer was still GAR here. I gurantee it.

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Most “wtf!” scene so far.