As in the rest of the Fate series, EXTRA is set during a Holy Grail War in which Magi utilize Epic Hero Servants to do battle. The survivor claims the Grail, which is said to hold the power to grant its owner's every wish.The game consists of three different branches of the story (I'm still in the first) with a fourth branch in production in the form of Fate/EXTRA CCC (no release date announced yet).
The story advances in the traditional tournament style: week one has 128 masters in the war, week two has 64, week three has 32, etc. Each week naturally consists of seven days: the first six are spent leveling up and trying to discover the identity of your opponent's Servant, and the seventh is Judgement Day. On day seven, you convene with your Servant to bring your evidence together and attempt to identify your enemy. What's the advantage to all this labor? With your opponent's identity known, your Servant wil not only be able to predict more of your opponent's actions, but can tell when they will use their Noble Phantasm, their ultimate attack.
Battle takes place in turns and consists of 6 action phases and three actions: ATTACK, BREAK, and GUARD. Combat works on a Rock-Paper-Scissors basis: ATTACK beats BREAK, BREAK beats GUARD, and GUARD beats ATTACK. The key to victory is predicting your opponent's actions ahead of time through experience in the current fight as well as previous experience with that enemy type. In addition to your own mind at work, your Servant is constantly analyzing the enemy, lending their opinion as to your opponent's intentions (ex: ?-?-?-?-?-? turns into ?-GUARD-?-?-BREAK-ATTACK). Each Servant also has numerous abilities they can learn as they level up, whether they be support abilities that drop more loot or attack abilities like Saber's Veil of Petals.
The games soundtrack is ambient, only really coming to your attention in battle. In addition, all of the spoken voices are in Japanese, as in Fate/Unlimited Codes. All text is in English, though.
Replay value? Three completely different stories with a fourth on the way.
My only complaints come in with the difficulty. Even on normal, enemies can be very hard if you're not prepared for them. (The first boss' Noble Phantasm took off 1/3 of my HP... and I blocked!)
All in all a very good game for fans of the series and players who enjoy strategy with their RPG.
Name: Fate/EXTRA
System: PSP
Developer: Marvelous Entertainment, Aksys Games, Type-Moon
Players: 1
Retail/PSN price: $29.99
Gamestop/EB Games Use dprice: $19.99
DLC: Unknown, possibly Fate/EXTRA CCC
As in the rest of the Fate series, EXTRA is set during a Holy Grail War in which Magi utilize Epic Hero Servants to do battle. The survivor claims the Grail, which is said to hold the power to grant its owner's every wish.The game consists of three different branches of the story (I'm still in the first) with a fourth branch in production in the form of Fate/EXTRA CCC (no release date announced yet).
The story advances in the traditional tournament style: week one has 128 masters in the war, week two has 64, week three has 32, etc. Each week naturally consists of seven days: the first six are spent leveling up and trying to discover the identity of your opponent's Servant, and the seventh is Judgement Day. On day seven, you convene with your Servant to bring your evidence together and attempt to identify your enemy. What's the advantage to all this labor? With your opponent's identity known, your Servant wil not only be able to predict more of your opponent's actions, but can tell when they will use their Noble Phantasm, their ultimate attack.
Battle takes place in turns and consists of 6 action phases and three actions: ATTACK, BREAK, and GUARD. Combat works on a Rock-Paper-Scissors basis: ATTACK beats BREAK, BREAK beats GUARD, and GUARD beats ATTACK. The key to victory is predicting your opponent's actions ahead of time through experience in the current fight as well as previous experience with that enemy type. In addition to your own mind at work, your Servant is constantly analyzing the enemy, lending their opinion as to your opponent's intentions (ex: ?-?-?-?-?-? turns into ?-GUARD-?-?-BREAK-ATTACK). Each Servant also has numerous abilities they can learn as they level up, whether they be support abilities that drop more loot or attack abilities like Saber's Veil of Petals.
The games soundtrack is ambient, only really coming to your attention in battle. In addition, all of the spoken voices are in Japanese, as in Fate/Unlimited Codes. All text is in English, though.
Replay value? Three completely different stories with a fourth on the way.
My only complaints come in with the difficulty. Even on normal, enemies can be very hard if you're not prepared for them. (The first boss' Noble Phantasm took off 1/3 of my HP... and I blocked!)
All in all a very good game for fans of the series and players who enjoy strategy with their RPG.
Subjective Score: 8/10 (As a fan, 9/10!)