mahoyo: yeah it's good, i like it

tsukihime: yeah it's good, i like it

fate/stay night: actively one of the best things i've ever experienced in my entire life. so unbelievably tight, densely layered and multifaceted that every single time i think about it i make a new connection. not only as good as everybody says it is, but even better by an extremely significant magnitude. so perfect that its only real flaw is basically fixed by a matter of framing certain scenes differently in the animated adaptations. three years on i cannot stop thinking about this story and probably will not ever stop thinking about it. what the fuck. what the fuck. what the fuck.

fate/zero: yeah it's... fine. i guess

fate/extra: yeah it's good, i like it

If one so wanted, one could divide fiction into a spectrum that goes from "straight-forward" to "obscurant". A straight-forward story is one which carries everything that it containts on an open sleeve, it doesn't hide anything from the reader and slowly but surely reveals all of its secrets. They are stories that don't leave much to the imagination, they have a theme, or idea, or message they want to tell and they are making sure that it is getting to you. On the other hand, obscurant pieces of fiction often only hint at certain ideas, leave things ambigious and open to interpretation. Their goal is to build a story together with the reader: The story is as much where your imagination took it to as the actual text itself.

A story being "obscurant" or "straight-forward" says nothing about its complexity or depth. You can have an obscurant story with heaps of depth and complexity, or an obscurant story that is fairly simple. Many poems or love songs only hint at their plot through beautiful and engaging wording and articulation, but said plot can often be fairly simple. Likewise, everyone knows about some obscurant stories with incredible depth, such as Franz Kafka's works which can at times have 5 to 10 different interpretations of the text which are all simultaneously considered valid.

Both kinds of stories have their merit and place to be, and both are enjoyable. But personally, I have always enjoyed straight-forward stories more. Because in many ways, when I am enjoying fiction, I am not interested in my own opinion, or what emotions it causes within me, or what thoughts I am having when reading or consuming said fiction. Reading fiction is for me an exercise in relating to humanity. Any piece of fiction has the worldview, experiences, context, likes and dislikes of their creator poured into it and by reading it, it's as if I can partake in their world and their ideas, and if I find myself within them, if I can understand where they are coming from, it makes me feel connected to them.

Fate/Stay Night is an incredibly straight-forward story. Its stakes are clearly defined, its characters are thoroughly explored, the rules of its world are explained in excessive detail, and its messages and themes are clear for all to see. While this does cause a rather slow pacing, extremely long info-dumps and to some extent repeated content, it also allows FSN to be one of the most thorough and systematic pieces of fiction that have ever come out of otaku media.

FSN is a central piece of otaku culture and as such is fully rooted in it. Most anime fans have started getting into this culture through simple shounen anime stories such as Dragon Ball, Naruto or One Piece, thus we are all familiar with certain youngsters with interesting and cool abilities fighting for their friends/the world, overcoming difficult challenges, growing as a result and philosophical or thematic opposition being resolved through battles, where usually the winning party didn't just win because they were simply stronger, but because their superior philosophy allowed them to win. What FSN does is not necessarily "deconstruct" the shounen we grew up with and that marked us, but it takes these themes and tropes and takes them as seriously as possible, explores them thoroughly and builds an extremely rich world where these themes have their perfect home.

The central theme of FSN, as anyone should know by now, is heroism. But what sets FSN apart is that while it explores the theme of heroism - as explained - in a very straight-forward and obvious manner, it does it in such a methodical and thorough way that at the end of it, you feel like you have learned everything that there is to learn about the trope, have experienced all iterations of it, all of its consequences, its beauty, its ugliness, its desirability or undesirability. FSN is as close as you can get to a full discussion of any theme or trope . At the end of it all or on a reread, you can see all the different pieces fall together to create a coherent network of interconnected symbols, themes, the chechov's guns, world-building and systems whose sole purpose is to flesh out the theme of heroism.

FSN achieves this by structuring the whole plot around its protagonist. It is no exaggeration to say for me that I have never seen any character in fiction that is so thoroughly explored and analyzed as Emiya Shirou. While in some ways he is a "simple person" - it would be impossible to fully explore any sufficiently realistic person - every detail of his story, his relationships, his abilities, his personality, his social status were clearly chosen with purpose in mind, not only for Shirou to serve as the perfect vehicle to explore the heroic ideal, but also to allow each of the three routes to take his character in three very different directions and explore everything that this character could possibly offer. Each route of course discusses a different aspect of the ideal of heroism, and in each route it is Shirou's character that goes in a different direction in order to do so.

And it is in this way that FSN is extremely straight-forward. By the end of it, there is nothing about Emiya Shirou that we do not know or do not understand, there is nothing left to the imagination about this character, his strengths, his weaknesses, goals (or lack thereof) or how he would act in each situation, yet it is precisely this what makes FSN unique and in my opinion a masterpiece of otaku culture next to the likes of Steins;Gate - by the end of it we have experienced a complete discussion. We were given a theme or idea, the ideal of heroism and every aspect of it was explored, everything ended up fitting together, but we were given it in a familiar and entertaining package of thrilling action, fascinating abilities, hotblooded characters and hype moments. It is fun and entertaining, but never ignores or forgets its own themes or its own depth.

FSN is a visual novel where one can fully get lost in, and at the end come out of as a richer person. There is nothing quite like it.

To be honest, my opinion of this novel fell with time and a reread. Fate is a whatever first route, UBW is mostly meh except for 3 peak scenes, HF is cool but both the main endings aren't good to me, the pacing is questionable, the magic system does whatever it wants and pretends to be a hard magic system, and Rin is for some reason an extremely mediocre character except for HF, which is not her route. But I can't hate it, not when I like Shirou as a protagonist quite a bit, when the soundtrack is good, when some of the ideas and themes presented are this good, and when some of the characters like Shirou, Saber and Kirei are this interesting.

ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVORITES:

at the time of writing this review it's been my fourth reread overall and it's still just as good as i remember. without getting too emotional i'll just say i'm really glad that the innocent middle schooler all those years back downloaded this off of god knows where and laughed reading all the h scenes at times while also crying over some genuinely great character moments that still resonate with me to this day. sure there's a lot of criticisms that can be levied against it and there's a lot more visual novels i've read since then but to say that fate changed my life is a drastic understatement and it's still something i'm very grateful i decided to read all those years back. your mileage might vary but as the years go on i think i'll still love fate as much as the first time i read it. honestly, there's really not enough i could say about this visual novel without keeping most of it a surprise still so i'll just say rin tohsaka is literally me and i'll leave it at that ! kamige/10

I spitefully resisted for eons but. Shit. What do you want me to say? Fate is good! I admit it! Its really good! I like Saber a lot, maybe one of my favorite characters ever! Shirou has endless bounds of depth and nuance and one of the most psychologically damaged characters I've ever seen. Rin's story is introduced from her perspective, immediately cutting me off from being able to just dismiss her as a normal tsundere archetype. The narrative gives every character different tragedy and dynamics across 40 + hours of story. The beloved huge anime franchise I've intentionally avoided for years is good! I was wrong! Fuck!

can you imagine how this would be "fucking incredible" instead of "kind of mildly unpleasant" if the fan translation didn't burden it with some of the absolute worst prose i've ever read, with "bland and uninteresting" at best and "actually incomprehensible" at worst

i'm not really a vn person at all to begin with but the storytelling, worldbuilding and atmosphere of fate is great enough to make me want to stick with it alone if not for the fact that trying to read it makes me want to rip my eyeballs out

the anime adaptations are great though!

A visual novel consisting of 3 routes (plus a secret mini route if you're playing the realta nua version of the visual novel) each with its own take on the games core theme of idealism taking that concept and bringing it into a new perspective with every new route.

Along with the game's many deep topics it explores it is also accompanied by an amazing cast of characters that all have their own amazing stories that you get to learn about as the game progresses keeping you hooked waiting to see how each one of them will tackle any problem they are faced with seeing them struggle and rooting for them all the way, they are all so amazing and it has to be one of my favorite cast of characters in any media i have experienced so far.

The holy grail war itself was amazing providing countless of awesome fight scenes along with teaching you about the rules of the world of this game about magi and the different organizations around them while also teaching how the fundamentals of magic work in this game allowing you to be immersed in such a world.
While the fights were amazing most of them having a deeper meaning behind their reasons for fighting the same can be said for the slice of life scenes which while they can be fun little distractions from the war that is going on they can also grants you a glimpse inside each character's mind allowing you to come to a better understanding of their actions and their motivations.

This game provided for me one of the best and most engaging stories i have ever read making me sit and read on and on for hours without even taking a break, it was honestly such an addicting game and i would definitely recommend it to anyone that enjoys a good visual novel.

As for my personal ratings for the 3 routes of the game:
Fate 8-9/10
UBW: 11/10
HF: 10/10
Now i'll be taking a break from fate cause i do not remember what sleeping is like anymore.

That's hell you're walking into.

Fate/stay night is probably the best work to understand Nasu -- his thought process, and the accumulation of hard magic worldbuilding and concept he's been packing in his brain for years.

At its core, the narrative is invested in exploring heroism -- the sacrifices needed to achieve it, and reconciling it with an increasingly demanding and evolving world. As an urban fantasy, Fate stands out in framing historical figures in a modern-day settings where they face the same immediate struggles that mere mortals live through -- trauma, attachment, grief, convictions.

The pacing is sloppy and can sometimes meander, but as a gold standard for urban fantasy, Fate's slow segments reinforce the experience as more than just constant action set pieces. It characterizes Shirou and the world around him rather than brick-walling the reader with nonstop guitar ballads and German chanting.

If a story like Muramasa explores the challenges of heroism and its potential to cause unintended harm in wartime, Fate reinforces faith in standing behind altruistic sacrifice and encourages us to keep punching up to achieve a better world. While not particularly politically charged, Shirou's journey is aspirational to anyone who imagines a happier world.