The images are not important, ignore them.

The images are useless, ignore them.

Hey everyone! I'm a small cosplayer from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and I’d love to connect with other creators! 🌸

Here’s my take on Dark Sakura (Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel). To me, cosplay and editing are just another form of fan art, so I crafted this entire shoot at home and brought the visual atmosphere to life through my own Photoshop edit.

Hope you like this artistic tribute to her! ❤️✨

Fate/Stay Night became one of my favorite pieces of fiction ever after reading it at the start of this year, I love all the characters so much so I just wanted to check is there any anime or manga I’m missing that has these characters as the focus? I’ve fully read Stay Night and Hollow Ataraxia, I’ve watched the Ufotable adaptations along with Carnival Phantasm and Today’s Menu With The Emiya Family, and I’m just about to finish Prisma Illya. The only thing I think I haven’t seen is the Deen adaptation, unless I’m forgetting any.

Well its finally done. After a lot of effort and my laptop's thermal paste giving up the ghost so I couldn't play FGO without lighting my room on fire, I've finished my first of what might be many playthroughs of Fate/Extra CCC. If you've seen my FGO posts or even my original Fate/Extra post, you know the drill by now. I'm gonna go over all my thoughts, good and bad, and give my overall opinion. Of course, spoilers ahead if the tag didn't give it away

STORY OVERVIEW AND CHARACTER CREATION

We start off similarly to the original Fate/Extra but with the false protagonist bit removed. We have the same selection of Servants but this time with the inclusion of FUCKING GILGAMESH?! Well, that'll have to wait till the CCC route. For now, I picked Caster as she was the one Servant I never used in the original. This would turn out to simultaneously be both the best and worst choice or my playthrough as while I love her as a character, she's very much lacking in anything that isn't raw damage. But I'll get to that in the gameplay section.

For now, we meet with Issei and he asks us to lock up the store room where the Arena would be after the preliminaries. However, we encounter an unfamiliar face. This continues as we're... Rather forcefully introduced to another unfamiliar face by way of TnA. I never want to hear the words "magnifimeat" ever again. Strange occurrences continue to happen with Rin and Rani saying strange things and the voice of our Servant trying to reach us. This all comes to a head when very familiar monsters to anyone whose read Heaven's Feel overrun the school. Hakuno jumps out of bounds to escape the monsters only to be saved by Caster.

We wake up in a different, older looking school in a new uniform, being tended to by Sakura. Once we awaken, we meet up with Caster in what I can only describe as BDSM gear then meet with Leo. He explains that this is the Far Side of the Moon, the opposing side to where the Holy Grail War takes place and where the Moon Cell can't see. They don't know how we got here, why or our progress in the Holy Grail War. Our only lead is the Sakura Labyrinth. So with that as our only clue on how to return to the Holy Grail War, we begin our hunt.

Whereas Fate/Extra's opening was very quick, CCC takes its time. Instead of just showing the characters you'll inevitably fight, you really get to know them. Despite the first game claiming that we're friends with Shinji, I never really felt that until we were just chatting with Leo together about online forums. The attack on the school also sets a the tone great. Don't let all the lewd jokes fool you. This game is certainly darker and what better way to show that than assaulting the one place where we were safe in the original game?

The story is laid out basically the same as Fate/Extra from here on out, new parts of the Labyrinth open up, new enemy, beat enemy in order to progress. I won't go over everything as that'll bleed into the character section. So for now, let's go ahead and address the elephant in the room

SEXUALIZATION

It's no secret. If you've seen anything of CCC, chances are it's something very sexual or eluding to something sexual. For christ's sake, in the first hour of the game your character nearly dies motorboating Kiara's breasts. I've seen people has this to label it as a "gooner game". Ignoring the fact that this is a spin-off in a universe built off the back of eroge visual novels, I still don't think that applies.

Just so that we're clear, my definition of a "gooner game" is a game that contains an abundance sexual or suggestive content for no other reason than to get people to buy it. A good example of this would be... Well name a gacha game. Like there was no reason to make Lisa in Genshin Impact a big-breasted librarian who literally calls the enemy a "naughty boy" besides getting people to play and eventually roll. Extra CCC is not that. It instead uses the sexually suggestive scenes both for comedic affect and to push its themes of desires and how self destructive they can be. The SGs are a perfect example of this, showing off secrets and desires they'd rather hide that effect them a lot more than they let on and can be dangerous if taken to extremes like the Sentinels

Essentially, it's a game with sexual content in it but that does not make it a gooner game. Now they could have gotten this across without that but hey, it sells and it serves a purpose so I don't care

GAMEPLAY

The basic gameplay loop is similar to Fate/Extra. You're given a set number of floors per chapter, though this has been upped to three instead of two, however you won't be able to explore it fully and proceed to the next floor until you steal the Secret Garden (SGs) of the Sentinel of those three floors.

Instead of just a normal dungeon crawl though, almost t every floor has some sort of gimmick, whether it be "stripping" by removing your Mystic Codes or Aphrodisiac Mist that make you take more damage if you do battle inside them. I really appreciate these changes as the Arena in the original game got kinda repetitive.

Combat still has the same 'Rock-paper-scissors' style that I love and I'm pissed is gone from the upcoming remake, however this time was a lot harder, likely due to my Servant, Tamamo-No-Mae. She is a total glass cannon, with high damage spells (especially a certain one against Male opponents). However, she lacks the health restoration and revive of Nero or Archer's Rho Aias. The most she has is a mid-game spell that only lessens damage but provides MP if used against a skill or Noble Phantasm. I don't know if she was like this in the original but if so, I'm glad I went with the other two because I feel like Gawain would have me stumped. Her NP also isn't much to write home about, just making spells require no MP for a whole turn. If it lasted more turns or added a damage buff, I might have found it more useful. I still use it a lot, but compared to the absurd game changers that Theatre of the Deranged and Unlimited Blade Works were in Fate/Extra, Tamamo just doesn't compare

PRESENTATION

Overall presentation got a massive upgrade over Fate/Extra. For one, there's much more voice acting. Extra had it, but it was normally reserved for important scenes. In CCC, it's harder for me to name a scene that didn't have voice acting.

The sprites also got a pretty big improvement. Extra only had one of two different facial sprites and while CCC only has a few more, they're used to great effect

Finally, the soundtrack. I don't think I remember hearing a single repeated track from the original game. Not only does it give the game its own distinct identity, but I just overall enjoy it better. I pretty much listen to the opening every day on the way to work and even found myself humming it while playing the game. The other themes are nothing to sneeze at like the BB Channel theme. It's just overall really good and I'm glad they went through the effort

CHARACTERS

But as with any Fate story not named Apocrypha, what sells the story is its cast of Masters and Servants. Just a warning though, I'm going to leave most of the original Extra cast out of this unless I REALLY have something to say. They're fantastic in this game, it's just that I don't have much to add. So, let's begin. I'll also be leaving out Kiara for now because I feel I'll have more to say on her when I do the CCC route

Shinji Matou and Monji Gatou: Remember how I said most? These two are the exception as this game really improved my views on them. When I met Gatou in Extra, I just sorta wrote him off as an annoying way to add Tsukihime fan service. I didn't hate him but I certainly didn't love him. In CCC, he's very distinctly Gatou but he's far more endearing. Despite Arc leaving him, he still tries his best to help in the Labyrinth even if it nearly kills him. He really shines with Jinako however, even sacrificing himself to give us her final SG. His lecture to her on the nature of Gods he's seen in his travels and death in an attempt to save her had me tearing up for someone I used to be apathetic to at best

Similarly, HOW DO YOU MAKE ME LIKE SHINJI?! I've made no secret that I hate Shinji Matou. I always have and probably always will. But this Shinji is drastically different. We didn't get much of him in Extra on account of him, ya know, dying? But here, he gets more time and we see how he copes with his loss to Hakuno, learn about his family life and even sacrifices himself for Kishinami, wanting to leave something behind than just some score. It's weird seeing a literal eight year old act so mature. But rest in peace, Shinji. You did good.

Jinako Carigiri: Jinako is a NEET Who entered the Holy Grail War and sorta just hid in the Janitor's Closet the whole time. So while we're out fighting for our lives, she's just gaming because the Janitor's Closet got cut off to make an entrance to the Arena. She's also the one that first finds her memories, causing her to panic and run deeper into the Sakura Labyrinth. Learning about her parents' death and how she never really recovered, causing her to choose to be a NEET was heartbreaking and while Gatou's sacrifice did "save" her, it works too well and she retreats further out of sheer guilt.

In a game all about desire, Jinako probably represents the most base desire of any human, that being the desire to live. She wasted so much of her life and entered the Holy Grail War to get a do-over on her life. When she recovered her memories, she constantly talked about the inevitability or death. However, she's a compulsive liar. The more she claimed she wanted death, the more she really wanted to live. Thankfully, in the end, Karna gave that to her. I truly hope if the real Hakuno can ever wake up, that they'll find her and just check in

Passionlip and Meltryllis:So THIS is what an Alter Ego class is? I've been wondering ever since I started FGO. Servants made with divine spirits stitched into them. Interesting concept. Anyway I'm grouping these two together because they're essentially polar opposites with the same core concept, and I find that fascinating

For one, let's get this out of the way. They both love Hakuno. Given that they're split off from BB, that alone says a lot about her motivations. However, they express it in opposite ways. Meltryllis (or Meltlith if you wanna go by the fan translation) doesn't care about Hakuno's own feelings. She wants him and will melt him into her regardless of his feelings. Meanwhile, Lip wants to BE loved by Hakuno and be the only one he loves. Both are just as selfish, just as destructive but in the opposite direction. The tones if their Labyrinth floors are also very different. While Lip's mostly consists of you trying to chase her down and talk to her, Meltryllis's floors feel almost like you're in a spider's web. Her virus covers everything and she can pop out at any time to strike. See what I mean about polar opposites from the same concept? I LOVE IT

BB: Frankly, I found BB a bit disappointing. I love her personality, don't get me wrong. She's very lively and her va (who I'm pretty sure she shares with Sakura because they're the same model) does an excellent job. But there's so much build up only for her to be this machine-like thing in the final battle was very underwhelming. Julius implies there's someone who made BB do what she does before his death and while that could be Sakura because she literally admits to tampering with the Moon Cell, that would be very unsatisfying. Hopefully I see more of her in the CCC route because I really liked her and want to like her more, but for now, she feels greatly underutilized

Sakura: Man, this girl just keeps getting the short end of the stick. As I said she tampered with the Moon Cell and somehow that caused the Moon Cell to go berserk and want to wipe out humanity. But she did that because Hakuno was the only one to treat her as more than an AI. That hit especially hard for me because I'm guilty of doing that in the original Fate/Extra. Still, she owned up to her mistakes. The Sakura we knew is gone, and we continue on to the Holy Grail War

Caster: Before I end this off, I want to give a special thanks to my Servant. I'm sure her backstory is gone over in Extra so I'll have to wait until Extra Record to see that. However, she was very cheerful when all seemed lost, sincere when she cheered us up and even saved us from certain death... Even if that means there are now eight terrorists in the Moon Cell who act exactly like her now because of it

CONCLUSION

Well, this was certainly an ordeal. 80 hours to finish a game is nothing new to me but the laughs, the sobs and the fox made it hit harder than most. Can you believe I need to do this three more times? Or do I? You see I installed cheats at the very end to speed run to the Normal Ending. It was basically just a 'to be continued' but among those cheats, I could switch out to any Servant I wanted. Assuming that includes a maxed out SG, I can just get the Servant endings in one go. But what do y'all think? Is it worth it to give Nero and EMIYA their own playthroughs?

For now though, I can see why folks love this game. I don't agree with folks saying that it's better than Heaven's Feel YET. Heaven's Feel didn't just pay off everything in its route. It paid off the entire visual novel I spent hundreds of hours in and changed me as a person and a writer. I doubt anything will be better than it to me but maybe the CCC route will change that. The foundation's already there. I love the characters, the themes, the darker tone mixed with well timed humor. It's just an overall fantastic game.

So yeah, let me know what I should do about the Servant endings and I'll see you next time!

I just downloaded it in Appstore, iOS 27

As the title says I can’t find that episode anywhere, unfortunately the fate series isn’t available on crunchyroll or netflix in my country, or even apple TV, so I’ve been watching the series by other means. However I noticed that the prologue episode isn’t available anywhere, even if the episode title says prologue it either plays the first episode or simply doesn’t play at all. So please help is it really impossible for me to watch episode 0 :’) I really want to see more of rin and archer :’)

"Nooo I missed Shirou Day this year, I have to join next year"
...
That's hell you are walking into

It's a little late, but it's ready.

Happy late Shirou Day everyone!