tl;dr: fate/extra is a solid title. it has fantastic writing, amazing art direction and visuals (especially for a psp game), and a great soundtrack! the gameplay pissed me off though. it's a great entry point for the fate series and is great with context as well. 7/10!
negatives first: the combat. i don't care what anyone says, RNG has no place as the main mechanic of a game... even if you can fight enemies enough to learn their patterns, and even though the game gives you different ways to learn the patterns of enemy servants, the mechanics were just never fun and leveling felt arbitrary. it's not like the game was particularly hard either, so this was all just a chore. the combat is easily the worst part of the game- though i did enjoy the exploration and talking to npcs.
i think the best thing to take from this game are its characters. every master and servant is memorable, despite the short presence they can have in the story due to the weekly battle format. i played through the game with saber, and she is just a delightful character, and i have heard that caster is just as great of a newcomer! i am very familiar with archer, so i'm sure he's great too.
fate/extra has a really unique soundtrack. it's reminescent of jazz fusion, with it's reliance on bass, sax, and keyboards. really dope shit, i was surprised it was as good as it was. similarly, all the art in this game was very, very good. the character portraits were really good at portraying the characters and their general aura, and the admittedly scarce cgs were very pretty. wada arco is a fantastic artist!
story-wise, this game has a pretty strong grip on me. you follow the protagonist through a holy grail war, with them coming to grips with their own identity and finding a purpose to keep fighting- it's standard stuff, but i feel it was very compelling and kept me in my seat throughout the experience.
fate/extra was a good time overall despite my grievances with the gameplay and it was definitely a special title. i'd recommend it to seasoned type-moon fans and newcomers alike!
negatives first: the combat. i don't care what anyone says, RNG has no place as the main mechanic of a game... even if you can fight enemies enough to learn their patterns, and even though the game gives you different ways to learn the patterns of enemy servants, the mechanics were just never fun and leveling felt arbitrary. it's not like the game was particularly hard either, so this was all just a chore. the combat is easily the worst part of the game- though i did enjoy the exploration and talking to npcs.
i think the best thing to take from this game are its characters. every master and servant is memorable, despite the short presence they can have in the story due to the weekly battle format. i played through the game with saber, and she is just a delightful character, and i have heard that caster is just as great of a newcomer! i am very familiar with archer, so i'm sure he's great too.
fate/extra has a really unique soundtrack. it's reminescent of jazz fusion, with it's reliance on bass, sax, and keyboards. really dope shit, i was surprised it was as good as it was. similarly, all the art in this game was very, very good. the character portraits were really good at portraying the characters and their general aura, and the admittedly scarce cgs were very pretty. wada arco is a fantastic artist!
story-wise, this game has a pretty strong grip on me. you follow the protagonist through a holy grail war, with them coming to grips with their own identity and finding a purpose to keep fighting- it's standard stuff, but i feel it was very compelling and kept me in my seat throughout the experience.
fate/extra was a good time overall despite my grievances with the gameplay and it was definitely a special title. i'd recommend it to seasoned type-moon fans and newcomers alike!