March 20th, 2018 
AstroNerdBoy Fate/EXTRA Last Encore 07
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Alice hears other Masters talking about problems with the Holy Grail War, but no one seems to hear her. And no one knows what this new thing in the sky is. Sometime later, Alice sees a calm Rin talking to an angry Amari, where Rin refuses to fight her. However, the two are unaware of Alice’s presence even when she speaks. Alice is missing “Oniichan” (Hakuno) and recognizes that her time is short as she’s starting to glitch. She absorbs objects for their energy to sustain her.
Alice is suffering greatly, but when she absorbs a tree, her arm becomes a tree branch. As she wanders, her neck becomes stretched out so her head snakes around. She encounters a group of Masters who panic and attack her despite her pleas, causing her body to slaughter them. Alice becomes more depressed waiting for Hakuno to return, more so since her body is now that of a monster, meaning he won’t recognize her any longer.
The day now having repeated, Hakuno, Rin, and Saber-Nero return to confront the monster they’d previously faced. As they walk, Rin chats about ghosts and Dead Faces, whom she equates to zombies. She gives Hakuno a knowing look as she talks. Hakuno has a vision where he’s spending time with Alice in her doll form. When he returns, he asks Saber if it is possible to win a floor without killing the Master. Saber confirms this, but before she can say more, the monster attacks. Rin puts up a barrier, but it fails and she’s killed. Hakuno activates a Command Spell, causing the day to reset.
Nursery Rhyme takes the form of Amari, since the Servant realizes Hakuno is trying to save Alice. She reveals Alice’s true form, a bloody, bandaged corpse in a bed. Nursery Rhyme takes Alice’s form and explains that the real Alice is watching events as if in a dream. Meanwhile, the day has reset, so after cleaning up, the trio return to the castle. Hakuno seems to be accepting the notion he is a Dead Face. Saber tells a tale of her former Master and their final battle on the 7th Tier.
In a flashback, Hakuno sees Alice, letting her know he’d won because Alice refused to participate. Alice realizes that because she was already dead, Moon Cell couldn’t purge her. Hakuno says his farewell to Alice, vowing to return for her after he wins the Holy Grail War. She promises to wait for him, desperately hoping to see him again. Back in the present, Saber realizes that Hakuno is spacing out due to things that happened in his past.
The trio arrive at the table where Hakuno and Alice had tea together. Now, there’s nothing left but an empty frame with the book form of Nursery Rhyme on the shell of Alice’s chair. Hakuno takes the book and remembers Alice with the book. Rin tells Hakuno that she now remembers there’s no one left in this castle, thus no one to save. They go to the top of the castle, where the monster pleads in Alice’s voice for them not to leave. Alice is the monster, broken by the pain, fear, and loneliness she’s experienced over countless years. As such, she attacks without thought, forcing Rin to reveal she is a Demi-Servant of the Lancer class (Cú Chulainn).
Using Lancer’s Gáe Bolg Noble Phantasm, Rin is able to critically stab Monster Alice, who cries in pain. However, Jabberwocky-Alice finally sees Hakuno holding the Nursery Rhyme book and she remembers and sees that Hakuno kept his promise to return. As such, she stops fighting and allows Saber to behead her. The book dissolves, leaving only a bookmark behind with what appears to be Alice’s image on it. The trio ascends as Alice partially reappears in humanoid form, wishing them a safe journey.
Thoughts/Review:
Fate/EXTRA Last Encore 07 showcases the one element about the entire Fate franchise that I despise more than anything, including the stupid, surreal, bizarre, massively confusing narrative format chosen by SHAFT. Nasu apparently loves to abuse lolis just to evoke emotions in the viewers.
A Confusing Narrative is NOT Brilliant Writing!
I hate it when writers and producers get too clever by half. For Fate/EXTRA Last Encore 07, the writers really decided to make things VERY confused, so much so that it was all but impossible to wrap one’s head around the events that were going on. That’s because for episode 6, SHAFT hid what they were doing, though it was confusing. When episode 7 rolled around, SHAFT doubled down on this.
So what was SHAFT doing? Flashbacks without letting the audience know they were flashbacks. (Update: They faded the image around the edges during flashbacks.) As such, there is no straight forward narrative. At any moment, what you see might be something from an unspecified number of years in the past, or it might be from the present. And to further confuse things, sometimes a character presented is the actual character, but maybe it is the Servant named Nursery Rhyme in disguise.
What irks me is that I know the production team at SHAFT probably thought keeping the viewers completely off-balance was brilliant writing. It is not brilliant writing if I have to go, “What the <censored> did I just watch?” For me, brilliant writing is not a confusing mess just to keep an audience spinning. Brilliant writing has me contemplating other things like character motivations or the impact events will have on characters. Surprises hidden in plain sight are brilliant. Putting the viewer on a merry-go-round until they are so dizzy, they can’t see straight isn’t.
So What Happened In Episodes 6 and 7?
Before I start, I want to thank Reddit user Deadeye117 for clearing this mess up. Also, thanks to blog reader Aki.
At the start of episode 6, what we are actually witnessing is a previous version of Hakuno with another Servant (not Saber-Nero), saying farewell to to Alice and promising to return. Then, within episodes 6 and 7, every scene with Hakuno and Alice is actually a flashback to Hakuno’s previous visit to this Tier.
Apparently, this is also true for Amari. Except for the time she meets with Hakuno at the dinning table, all scenes with Amari are flashbacks. (Correction: this is also a flashback.) So Rin has also been here before, though I’ll chat more about that in a bit.
When Hakuno came through previously, he was apparently the real Hakuno. This time, Hakuno is a Dead Face, which Rin equated to a zombie. This Hakuno is a false construct built on massive hatred. However, there’s a part of this Hakuno that seems to know there’s a little girl that needs to be saved. How much he actually remembers is more of a mystery.
Alice is dead in the real world, so her presence in Moon Cell is that of a cyber ghost. Despite that, she still ended up as a Master in the Holy Grail War, though she didn’t understand it and had no desire to really participate. Her Servant, a Caster class named Nursery Rhyme, who knows Alice is dead, but provides a dreamscape for Alice to be in on Tier 3.
During Hakuno’s first time through, Alice forfeited the fight, thus allowing Hakuno to win by default and ascend to the next level. Because Hakuno vowed to return, Alice has been waiting for who knows how many years. The Chakravartin appears in the sky over Tier 3. Alice begins to glitch and has to absorb material on the floor to maintain herself. However, this somehow causes her to eventually (and painfully) transform into the Jabberwocky.
After she is attacked by panicked Masters, Alice appears to slaughter them all (not out of malice or evil). She then wanders around for countless more years until she forgets Hakuno (whom she had called “Oniichan”), as she’s consumed by fear, pain, and extreme loneliness.
When current Hakuno arrives with Rin and Saber-Nero, they eventually encounter Alice in her Jabberwocky form, but Nursery Rhyme resets the day when they defeat her. Ditto their second encounter, where Hakuno uses a Command Spell to help defeat the Jabberwocky, thus saving Rin’s life. But on the third time loop, Hakuno seeks out Nursery Rhyme’s book form. Because of this, when Alice sees Hakuno with the book (which they’d read together in his previous visit), Alice remembers and allows herself to be beheaded by Saber.
Apparently, Alice’s ghost is still on Tier 3, but Caster (Nursery Rhyme) is gone. Not sure how this is, but there you go.
Apparently, Abusing Lolis is Fun
The folks at TYPE-MOON apparently love to abuse lolis. We saw this to gruesome effect in Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works. Thankfully, we didn’t get to see the loli slaughter in Fate/Zero (that I recall), though it was there. We got to see more loli abuse in Fate/Apocrypha, though the loli death there was an act of mercy. I despise TYPE-MOON for doing this. Seriously, seeing lolis getting viciously abused is horrible and makes me want to “Dr. Gill” some fools.
It is unfortunate that Alice’s death wasn’t done like an act of mercy. While the audience could clearly hear Alice’s spoken word screams of torment and pain, especially after Rin stabbed her Jabberwocky, Rin and Saber seemed to take some delight in trying to kill Jabberwocky-Alice. And SHAFT wanted to really drive the despair home to viewers by having Jabberwocky-Alice’s shadow actually be that of Alice. Click to enlarge the image below and see what I mean.
This whole story with Alice and Tier 3 really has me in a foul mood. I’m ticked that SHAFT sucker-punched me with this stuff by making it seem like the start of episode 6 was how the Tier 3 story was going to end. It makes me angry because I don’t know why Alice had to suffer so much. I’m pissed because Alice had to be slaughtered. My only hope is that somehow, Alice can be saved in the end.
Rin the Demi-Servant
To add to the already confusing narrative, Rin is suddenly revealed to be a Demi-Servant in this episode. Because I take a few minutes a day to play Fate/Grand Order, I am familiar with the concept, though I don’t understand it ’cause I don’t think the game has explained much, other than the Demi-Servant character now has the abilities of a Servant. Had I not been familiar with that game, this would have caused me to go, “What the actual <censored> is going on here?!”
Still, it does explain how Rin was able to defeat three Berserker class Servants earlier in the series. But what we don’t know is how Rin suddenly has Cú Chulainn’s Lancer powers. Also, we don’t know how Rin apparently knows Hakuno is a Dead Face. And though it appears that Rin has also gone through this once, we don’t know what happened that caused her to lose her Servant, then hang out on Tier 1 apparently waiting for Hakuno.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
Writing my review of Fate/EXTRA Last Encore 07 has been a struggle for me, since I despise what was done with Alice in these last two episode, to say nothing of the confusing narrative. Yeah, I know Alice is still there as a ghost, but she’s still alone despite her remarks on the happy ending and the bookmark left to Hakuno. Hopefully by the end of the series, Hakuno can save Alice. But if Nasu-sensei thinks I’m going to start playing the Fate/Extra game because of this anime series, he’s got another thing coming.
By the way, I apologize for blathering so much. Gah! The “feels” are too much.
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Well, it’s really unfortunate how you don’t like what SHAFT is doing with EXTRA, which culminated for you in this episode.
Personally, I love the direction the took with EXTRA. It didn’t feel like they’re putting me on a “merry-go-round until I’m so dizzy”, but like they’re giving me puzzle pieces of the bigger picture. Last Encore is obviously a show that’s meant to be watched multiple times afte it finishes so everything truly clicks for the viewer.
About what they did with Alice, not that I’m trying to change how you feel about how they treated her, but it really seems like Nasu is trying to drive a point home. Nasu was never one of grim for grim’s sake, as he actually went on record saying that he really has a distatste for characters suffering for no payoff other than for the story to be darker and that characters has to compensated in some way or another for their cog to have a purpose in the narrative machine.
What that point is, I do not know ATM, but to go as far as to make Hakuno&Co not hear her cries and kill her in cold only seems like build up for something, at least that’s what years of following Nasu’s writing across multiple mediums tell me.
Anyway, look forward to the next episode, because they start addressing some of the confusing elements in the story there.
I don’t mind puzzle pieces of a big picture. I like those because I’m thinking about the big picture. Here, some of the puzzle pieces have the wrong image on them, or an inverted image, or the like, thus I’m not thinking about the big picture. I’m thinking about how dumb it is to make things massively confusing ’cause “reasons.” ?
I can’t see Nasu having a point other than this whole Holy Grail system in Moon Cell is jacked up beyond belief. But then I already knew that from the other stuff we’d seen. I just don’t like seeing some cute, sweet, innocent loli getting abused like this.
Haha. Sorry, but that makes me laugh after what happened in Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works. That was also very horrific. I was thankful that new Prisma Illya series came out right after to help wash that horror out of my mind.
Quick comment test after I had to manually add code to fix a plugin issue that blocked comments.
Another small thing I’d like to add is that I disagree with what you said constitutes ” brilliant writing” to be, while what you were actually saying is that you like X and Y more in the stories you engage with, which is fair.
I say this because Last Encore seems undoubtedly brilliant to me with how it presents its events. It’s intentionally confsuing because Hakuno himself is abnormal, with all kinds of present events and past memories meshing together seamlessly in an unnatural fashion. It’s hard to follow what’s happening because that’s how Hakuno’s abnormal mind is experiencing them.
To end these long comments, I’ll just say that LE was, for me, the most fun I’ve had with Fate since reading the F/SN VN for the first time all those years back. SHAFT kinda made LE feel like directly reading a Nasu work, and it just feels new and really satisfying to me.
I hope how the story progresses in the future episodes appeals to you more.
Sorry for this long comment. I like reading your Fate reviews and your perspective on them, so I’ll be sure to read the upcoming ones 😀
I’ve long had a problem with confusing narratives. When I started the blog, I wrote a few pieces railing against the supposed brilliance of the Suzumiya Haruhi series. To me, it was merely a marketing ploy to get folks buying the anime. In my mind, I was proved correct when the sequel came out with a different kind of “brilliance,” only this time, fans didn’t gush over the Endless Eight stuff. However, I believe the production team thought fans would love what they did.
No problem. I enjoy reading comments from readers who have differing opinions from mine. Even if I don’t agree, it gives me greater perspective, if that makes sense. And thanks for writing!
Children are by definition vulnerable people and Grail Wars are by definition merciless struggles where the weak are plowed down without a second thought. Of course whenever you bring a child into a Holy Grail War that child is going to suffer horribly. This isn’t like Negima where magically things just turn out fine at the end no matter how many deadly dangers you throw at the children.
Even most adults don’t make it out of a Grail War unscathed, and it’s not like little boys fare any better- the Shinji seen in EXTRA was actually a child playing to be a man who was killed for his trouble, and even a non-participant like Shirou had his whole family massacred and his worldview warped beyond repair by the Fourth Grail War.
Also, while the series shouldn’t have relied upon one playing the game to fully understand what’s going on, I still like it fine, especially since most other anime airing right now are so very bad. All in all, I can understand the basics of what’s going on mostly okay.
In Fate/Apocrypha…
[spoiler]…Jack’s tale is jacked up and horrific, but at least Jack could defend herself and then some. I felt sorry for Jack, but when Ruler dispatched her, I saw it as an act of mercy. Granted Atalante didn’t see it that way, and the way she reacted in that anime is how I felt in Fate/EXTRA Last Encore.[/spoiler]
What made Alice’s dispatch more troubling is that Rin appears to know what’s going on. She’s been here before, or so it seems. On their third loop, she claims to have suddenly remembered that there’s no one here. Yet it almost seemed like she knew that the monster she was fighting wasn’t truly a monster, especially since Alice’s cries of pain and her pleas were ignored. Ugh. Just thinking about it again makes me…ugh.
@astroprogs @OverMaster As someone who played the game… even I am going “What the … is going on!?” and I’m not the only one… quite a number of us who have seen F/SN by Studio Deen but weren’t into the series then, actually started off with Fate Extra which ignited the fire for love in this series… but still this anime doesn’t even have 99% of the contents from the game in this series… the ones truly enjoying it are the anime only fans who aren’t too tied into the series/franchise.
I assume Astronerdboy came into the series with the expections of what he has seen in Fate Zero, Unlimited Blade Works, Illya Prisma and Apocrypha expecting a series more like them.
I mean had they adapts the game entirely… it would have been way more interesting because it would retain the aspect of a Holy Grail War but Tournament style, but with a period of preparation and Mystery Solving where you watch Master/Servant investigate their opponent. That way we can learn about the opposing servants rather than them showing up for a few episodes and then going ok… who are they and whats their power…
Because I am 100% certain no one is going to get the deal about the next Servant and Master…
Correct. Even if there were flashbacks, those were clearly defined and things progressed in a linear fashion. And the story for most of those was interesting to make me ponder what is to come next.
This episode was slightly better than episode 6 in the department of shock and surprise but still it was messy and it was confusing and it was rather disengaging to watch as you can’t really get absorbed into the story and you are trying really hard to work out what is going on…
So… haha… yeah… turns out anything that is set in the Floors is after the Fate Extra… so the Hakuno in the flashback is still a fake… it still isn’t the real Hakuno… at this point I don’t even know if the Last Encore is set after Fate Extra and Extra CCC (The Games) or Fate Extella/Zero (Fate Extra Alternative for Extella) and Fate Extella Game
I don’t even know if Last Encore is going to have any relevance for the upcoming Extella Link… I mean come on… they should have adapted the game if they going to use Last Encore as a Marketing Material to get people to invest interest in the who Extra series.
But yeah so… Everything that occurs in the School is Fate Extra, the true events that occur in the Games Narrative and the true events that took place during the Moon Cell Holy Grail War. Episode 8 kind of proves my hunches…
[spoiler]That every character we are seeing are all basically dead… they are some kind of data replica, NPC’s or Data Ghost of their former selves… because when you lost the Holy Grail War on the Moon you was deleted so it would be like Sword Art Online, you lose you die, end of story. So all these characters are basically dead (sorry huge spoiler)
Hakuno/Hakunon were NPC replica of a real person in a coma that had a rare disease. They are an abnormal existence as NPC’s were created by Moon Cell to simulate scenarios and to fill up a cast of characters but Hakuno gained a consciousness and became their own person so to speak.
They contract with Saber (Nero), Archer (Nameless/Emiya) or Caster (Tamamo no Mae) and then they take part in a 7 week Holy Grail War with 128 participants.
First Week – vs Shinji and Rider on the 1st floor/sea (that pirate boat with the fallen astronaut) Hakuno/Hakunon was his first opponent and they won, Shinji acted like a sore loser and tried to log out but he and Rider got deleted and wound up on the first floor of Last Encore being endlessly defeated and generated
Second Week – vs Dan and Archer, Robin Hood had a few restrictions due to his dishonourable methods of combat, forcing him to fight in a way that doesn’t maximise his assets and they ultimately lost to Hakuno/Hakunon and Servant and was regenerated onto the 2nd floor most likely as NPC replica’s created using data collected up to their moment of termination.
Third Week – vs Alice and Caster, again Alice was a Data Ghost that died decades ago… like Hakuno/Hakunon they are an abnormally but ultimately Alice just wanted to play like all kids do… but in a rather twisted manner… like you should read her game dialogues… like Alice and Caster suggest cutting off your head… but overall Alice was just an innocent child
But yes Alice and Caster like the others before them were recreated on the 3rd floor… and because Caster is a reflection of Alice’s dream… she basically manifested everything… even Alice’s real life state which was mentioned/hinted at in the game but you don’t really see the extent of her condition until now…
[/spoiler]
The Amari is Caster thing was interesting because it means that, this is Alice had she grown up… but most likely with a sweeter personality…
Now the Rin is a Demi-Servant thing was really surprising and what the …. because it means that either Cu-Chulainn is dead or something isn’t right…
So Demi-Servant is when the Spirit of the Servant has taken possession of a Human and has transferred all their abilities to said Human. So Mash and Rin are still themselves but with the powers of a said Servant.
This works in the same way as a Class Cards from Illya Prisma but more of a permanent basis like Kuro’s condition. There are other kinds of Pseudo Servant conditions like Possession which forms a hybrid of said servant/human like Ishtar or conditions like Sieg who has taken on the traits or acted as a medium for servants.
If you are interested in the Fate Extra Game, there is this straight forward guide I originally used when playing but do not it will contain spoilers… but if you are interested in the basic narrative it is a guide worth reading that summarise the game.: http://cirnopoly.blogspot.co.uk/p/fate-extra-complete-walkthrough.html
This exactly. I felt compelled to seek out answers to figure out what the heck was going on. Then when I watched it the second time to write my review (which was hard as all get out…even thinking about it depresses me), I could then make some grasp of story elements.
Heh. I should have known that would be the case. ?
That’s an interesting idea. I just thought Caster-Nursery Rhyme took that form because Hakuno knew Amari.
That makes sense, though if that’s the case, what happens to the Heroic Spirit? Yeah, I get that they possess a human, but is the Heroic Spirit’s personality still there somewhere, observing things?
I don’t have the time, even if I were super interested. I’ve been playing Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes for a couple of years now, so I continue to play that. And then there’s Fate/Grand Order, though I’m not bothering with the story because I don’t have time for it. SWGOH allows me to do a ton within a limited amount of time. FGO has limited “quality of life” improvements in the game, so I can only do very little within whatever daily window I can squeeze in for that game.
That said, thanks for the link. 🙂
That Blog just summarise the overall plot of the game which gives you a basic outline of the game if you dont have time to play it, but of course spoilers 🙂
Aside from that… the servent depending on the type of Pseudo Servant they become will have different effects. Example Class Card are the embodiment of said heroes power, each person who install the card will have different forms of said hero, I assume to best suit them.
Example Miyu manifest as Alturia Saber, Illya manifest as Saber Lily.
In the case of Assimilation like Sieg, he can either inherit said Servant power or manifest as said hero through the ise of command spells but it can only last briefly. His is more akin to Demi Servant but with elements of Possession.
In case of Possession, Hero who normally cant be summon, can be summon by possessing Human Vessels, but they are neither being. Example, Muramasa is a sword smith, his vessel is Emiya Shirou, Shirou is arguably a black smith mage, when the two merge they become neither person but they gain new elements and unique powers that the former never had.
Or in special cases like Ruler, she can possess a human with similar traits and take over completely and be the dominant personality, even modifying Laticia body to her former body (eyes and bust) but still get influences from her host example love and emotions she never experienced whilst she was at war during life
In case of Mash and Rin who are true Demi Servants the Heroic Spirit in question actually departs from the body and returns to the throne, but before leaving they transfer all their powers to the host. Like how Sieg gains Frankenstein power, but unlike Mash and Rin, he cant manifest Siegfried without a command seal and even when he does he becomes a more genuine copy than Siegfried
Mash and Rin are completely themselves but they possess the full skillset of the former hero providing they know how to use it
Thanks for the info!
I assume, to use a comparison most users of this site should be familiar with, Last Encore is UQ Holder’s timeline while Extella is the Negima Good Ending. That is, completely different time branches brought from different outcomes of the EXTRA Grail War.
@Aki Well, Nasu himself said that he wanted the game players to go “What the hell…?” as well. It’s full of new elements that aren’t presented in a familiar way and some of them actually contradict things we know from the game.
Also, I really disagree with the notion that a direct adaptation of Extra would’ve been more interesting. Extra, the game, is dull. It has a few interesting ideas here and there, but you can’t shake the feeling throughout that you’re just going through filler. And true enough, all the characters you’ve faced have absolutely nothing to do with the MC, the villain or the game’s themes, the Servants barely leave an impact and the villain comes out of nowhere as a direct result of 95% game being irrelevant to him. It’s a tournament Grail War because it’s Fate and we just have to have a Grail War and… well, we gotta fill that 40 hours playthrough somehow.
LE discards the Grail War structure to focus on the characters that matter (Hakuno, Nero, Rin and Twice) and adds twist after twist, all fueled by Nasu’s ideas he talked about in Extra’s mats and how he wanted to do them, but time constraints and the budget didn’t allow him to. These ideas include Chakravartin, Cu Rin, Twice’s early involvement to the plot and making the character you face affect the MC more than being level bosses you have to clear to win. In the game, they’re frivolous to the plot and wasting time on them will only feel like a waste when you reach the ending and realize that the game introduced 14 characters, 10 of which are utterly pointless beyond being mid-bosses.
About AstroNerdBoy’s expectations of Extra, that’s fair. It’s just that, LE feels way more inline with Nasu’s writing outside of Fate. Watching LE is kinda like reading Tsukihime and KnK. Timelines are all over the place, the characters are missed up in the head and the perspective is as surreal as it gets with few things actually making sense until the 70% or 80% mark, maybe even later and, more like KnK, it doesn’t try to satisfy by giving answers right away, you have to be confused and piece things together before the plot reveals itself. LE may not be a traditional Fate, but it’s traditional Nasu as it can ever get.
I didn’t read the visual novel for Tsukihime, but I did read the manga adaptation. I seem to recall some confusion at the end, but for the most part, I felt the manga adaptation did a good job at compelling storytelling.
In the case of Manga, Anine and Games, they tend to adalt it with their own imagination to best present the Story telling of title.
Like Nasu plays too hard on the mystery which I feel is great and fun but when the anime or who ever adapts his ideas dont present it well, it becomes weak story telling
Tbh i havent read the original VN for Fte Stay Night but most of the modern adaptions are written by other people whoch arguably for a fate series have been a lot better for the series and expandes universe.
Also Grand Order and Extra arent that far apart from each other just who ever wrote the story for Grand Order was much better.
Extra had a few flaws since it was still pre reboot and Nasuverse was still expanding, but you learn enough to get the gist of them. Hakuno/Hakunon was a blank state and over the course or the game you bond and learn more about Saber, Caster and Archer. Also if played right you get the bio on each Hero. Whildt you dont get an impressive impact, there is enough there for you to actuslly grow to love them more when you revisit them in CCC, Extella and Grand Order and you get character development. I did play the game a number of tines over so thats most likely why I like Extra, also it works because it got me into the Fate Franchise.
FGO E Pluribus Unum did a fine job on Robin Hood that made me like him and I love the extra servant cross over reference because they are the same servants from Extra who retain the memories and relationship from their extra encounters. Nero, Nursery Rhyme, Anderson, Nameless/Emiya, Tamamo, Robin Hood, Elisabeth retain their Extra and Extra CCC character relation, development and personality.
Like yes the Master and Servants were obviously going to be floor bosses but thats part of the tournament set up, also you got to learn about them which i feel has been better because original FSN by deen that was based on Nasu early work of Fate but with their own twist and it was just bad, i did not even know who Archer, Berserker, Gilgamesh and Rider or what the Grail War was about…
So when the reboots and modern adaptations choose to introduce all characters as individuals and deliver more on the concept and plot points you get more attach to them. Had the series been just about the protag, it just becomes a here is the protag the rest are fodders to go off and die.
Had I not explained how Rider, Archer and Caster ability works, I doubt AstroNerdBoy would have had any clue about them or their relevance… and it would have been even more confusing.
“Also Grand Order and Extra arent that far apart from each other just who ever wrote the story for Grand Order was much better.”
Grand Order has several different writers for each installement of the story. That’s why its writing is all over the place in terms of quality, with stark up and downs. Nasu himself, Urobuchi, Narita and several others have all contributed to it to some point or another, it’s more like an all Type-Moon huge jam session.
Yes but arguably it was the fact that the franchise had so many different writers that the series became successful.
I mean while Nasu may have created the Fate Nasu-Verse its a good thing he didn’t full on write the entire franchise because not all of us appreciate the mind F that is in his over complicated plot.
@AstroNerdBoy
For some reason I can’t reply directly to the comments, so I’ll just make a new one.
Horrific? Yes. Grim for no reason? No.
The reason this entire sequence exists is showing how broken Shirou is for trying to defend a psychopath who actively tried to kill him and even crying over her grave. And the reason it’s exceedingly graphic is to show how bad the “villain” is, overused as that trope may be. It all served a purpose.
And even then, Illya still got her happy ending in other routes, so her fate is not set in stone no matter the route.
Alice gets catharsis, but she doesn’t get happiness, nor does her suffering factor in anyway to the actual story of LE and her death with all that comes with it is completely over the MC’s head… or so it seems so far. This is why I’m hesitant to call it pointless because Nasu never made something like this; grim for grim’s sake.
Speaking of Prisma Illya, I’m surprised you haven’t checked Oath Under Show out yet.
The manga covers Arc’s route, which is a lot like the Fate route. It’s a an introductory route with a simple romance and an easy to follow story and the focus leans more on the characters from the start because most of the plot is saved for the later routes. This all changes in Tsukihime and F/SN by entering the later routes and realizing that you never really understood what was happening around you the entire time in Kohaku/Hisui routes and in Heaven’s Feel.
Well Alice was always a character that made you feel sorry for her.
Like in Last Encore she has no relevance… but in Extra she has her relevance.
A Child who died during a World War II bombing who was lept alive in a vegetive state because she had quality magic circuits.
Her consciousness became a cyber ghost in the moon cell and it made Hakuno question if they were dead or alive. Alice herself thought she meet someone similar to her and ideally she just wanted a friend to play with.
I suppose delving deeper into Alice’s past would have made this depressing episode even more depressing.
Sorry about that. Someone else mentioned that earlier. A major plugin recently made an update and disabled reply-to as a result. Since they seemed dismissive of this problem they caused, I disabled the plugin. It was OK for what it did, but I can easily get along without it. That said, replies should work now.
It is on the list. Working two jobs keeps me very busy. ? When I have free time, I often just don’t have it in me to write or do much of anything. 🙁
Thanks for the other info on Tsukihime and such.
I definitely recommend it. 3rei is my favourite instalment for Illya Prisma because it gets more darker and much more shonen/serious with its occasional comedy.
But yes Oath Under Snow is definitely very Fate ^^
Oh, I certainly plan to watch it.