This review contains spoilers
Set in the Edo period, Fate Samurai Remnant or FSR follows Iori Miyamoto, a samurai for hire, who ends up getting dragged into the Waxing Moon Ritual, an offshoot of the Holy Grail War. The premise is simple: 7 Masters and their servants fight to the death til one group remains to claim the prize, a wish granting vessel.
As a fan of Fate, I didn’t know what to expect from a spin-off that has such a similar premise to the original, but I was pleasantly surprised. The plot and the story feel original, organic, and well thought out.
It helps that the Waxing Moon Ritual is technically different than the HGW depicted in FSN, namely as it has many masterless or “Rogue” Servants. These heroes make the conflict more interesting as they’re essentially free actors who can choose what side they’re playing for, if they choose at all. Some of these Servants are fan favorite characters who’ve appeared in other entries and they’re a welcome sight here, especially since they’re all more than a simple cameo appearance.
Since FSR doesn’t have the story structure as FSN, all of the masters play a significant role in the plot right from the outset. They’re all fleshed out, three dimensional characters with their own grand ambitions. And so it’s easy to imagine pretty much any of the Masters winning the competition and so the war feels all that more intense. Every alliance forged or ripped apart can alter the trajectory of the conflict and I love that feeling.
With that said, FSR isn’t always a super intense, exhausting affair. There are plenty of light moments, thanks to Iori’s Servant, Saber. They provide the game with a much needed lighthearted and cheerful boost of energy. I love seeing Saber’s reactions to new foods and new sights. And, even during serious moments,
their banter with Iori is always playful and fun.
Most of my issues with FSR lie with the gameplay. There are several issues to discuss so let’s start with some of the simpler topics.
The navigation and exploration in FSR is super dull and monotonous. While there are plentiful areas to run around in, they all feel the same. There aren’t any puzzles or gimmicks to differentiate the areas and because the setting is in a relatively peaceful Edo, there also aren’t cool, mystical spaces to explore either. So most of the game is spent going from a large, boring map to…another large boring map.
Going through these areas feels even worse though because of the enemy encounter rate. It often disrupts the story’s flow to throw me into another fight against the same enemies that I’ve been fighting for the past hour or two. It gets to a point where fighting feels like a chore and not a reprieve and that’s a big issue, one that’s magnified immensely in a NG+ run.
You may think that this is an issue solely reserved for regular fights, but that’s very sadly not the case. Even boss fights against Servants get dull after some time because I’m fighting the same Servants over and over again and nothing changes. No new attacks. No new quirks. Nothing. The fights are basically rinse and repeat and that’s terrible cause fighting Servants is so exciting at the start and so blah by the end.
Combat, in of itself, is nothing special to write about either. While Iori gets five different attack styles to use, the last one, Void stance, makes all of the other ones feel useless. It’s what I used for most of the game when I got it and almost all of NG+. Needless to say, having one combat style trump the others makes for a monotonous experience. Couple that with the typical enemy designs in musou games and what you end up with is yawn inducing combat. I will commend the devs in making several different characters playable, however; for the majority of the game, Iori and Saber are the playable characters.
And that’s the major bulk of gameplay. While there are side quests and small mini games, this game’s core revolves around moving from place to place while getting into fights and that experience gets old after a while.
It may sound like I really dislike this game, but I don’t. While it’s got several big flaws, I still found myself captivated by the narrative and that’s why I would love to see the game adapted as an anime. It would strip away all of those repetitive gameplay sections and focus on the good remaining: an awesome, colorful cast and an engaging plot.
Fate Samurai Remnant is a good game, but may make for an even better anime.
As a fan of Fate, I didn’t know what to expect from a spin-off that has such a similar premise to the original, but I was pleasantly surprised. The plot and the story feel original, organic, and well thought out.
It helps that the Waxing Moon Ritual is technically different than the HGW depicted in FSN, namely as it has many masterless or “Rogue” Servants. These heroes make the conflict more interesting as they’re essentially free actors who can choose what side they’re playing for, if they choose at all. Some of these Servants are fan favorite characters who’ve appeared in other entries and they’re a welcome sight here, especially since they’re all more than a simple cameo appearance.
Since FSR doesn’t have the story structure as FSN, all of the masters play a significant role in the plot right from the outset. They’re all fleshed out, three dimensional characters with their own grand ambitions. And so it’s easy to imagine pretty much any of the Masters winning the competition and so the war feels all that more intense. Every alliance forged or ripped apart can alter the trajectory of the conflict and I love that feeling.
With that said, FSR isn’t always a super intense, exhausting affair. There are plenty of light moments, thanks to Iori’s Servant, Saber. They provide the game with a much needed lighthearted and cheerful boost of energy. I love seeing Saber’s reactions to new foods and new sights. And, even during serious moments,
their banter with Iori is always playful and fun.
Most of my issues with FSR lie with the gameplay. There are several issues to discuss so let’s start with some of the simpler topics.
The navigation and exploration in FSR is super dull and monotonous. While there are plentiful areas to run around in, they all feel the same. There aren’t any puzzles or gimmicks to differentiate the areas and because the setting is in a relatively peaceful Edo, there also aren’t cool, mystical spaces to explore either. So most of the game is spent going from a large, boring map to…another large boring map.
Going through these areas feels even worse though because of the enemy encounter rate. It often disrupts the story’s flow to throw me into another fight against the same enemies that I’ve been fighting for the past hour or two. It gets to a point where fighting feels like a chore and not a reprieve and that’s a big issue, one that’s magnified immensely in a NG+ run.
You may think that this is an issue solely reserved for regular fights, but that’s very sadly not the case. Even boss fights against Servants get dull after some time because I’m fighting the same Servants over and over again and nothing changes. No new attacks. No new quirks. Nothing. The fights are basically rinse and repeat and that’s terrible cause fighting Servants is so exciting at the start and so blah by the end.
Combat, in of itself, is nothing special to write about either. While Iori gets five different attack styles to use, the last one, Void stance, makes all of the other ones feel useless. It’s what I used for most of the game when I got it and almost all of NG+. Needless to say, having one combat style trump the others makes for a monotonous experience. Couple that with the typical enemy designs in musou games and what you end up with is yawn inducing combat. I will commend the devs in making several different characters playable, however; for the majority of the game, Iori and Saber are the playable characters.
And that’s the major bulk of gameplay. While there are side quests and small mini games, this game’s core revolves around moving from place to place while getting into fights and that experience gets old after a while.
It may sound like I really dislike this game, but I don’t. While it’s got several big flaws, I still found myself captivated by the narrative and that’s why I would love to see the game adapted as an anime. It would strip away all of those repetitive gameplay sections and focus on the good remaining: an awesome, colorful cast and an engaging plot.
Fate Samurai Remnant is a good game, but may make for an even better anime.