Fate/EXTELLA: The Umbral Star Reviews
For better or worse, Fate/EXTELLA embodies everything that makes an anime game "anime." Characters that speak only in exposition. Fan service that creeps you out - unless it doesn't. Gameplay that is more about watching cool stuff happen than actually being fun. Owners of the PlayStation versions need not double dip. If, however, you feel your Nintendo needs a little more anime, this can be the microwave mozzarella sticks before dinner.
For as much as I enjoyed Fate/Extella, I must admit that there simply isn't enough to keep most people interested in it. This is definitely one for the fans.
Fate/Extella will be a hard sell for most fans of the franchise. If you come into this expecting a setting, cast or narrative similar to any of the anime, you might be left disappointed and confused. It’s still a fun, addictive game with the flashy combat you’d expect from a Warriors-style game, but you might have to tune out the story in order to enjoy it. In a franchise where story is so key, that’s a huge bummer.
Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star provides the player of a very intense, colorful and a-little-repetitive musou experience, very advisable to fans of the series.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Fate/EXTELLA is a fun musou game for fans of the Fate universe that is let down by a lacklustre story and visual inconsistencies.
Though it definitely has a few kinks and its story will confuse anyone not familiar with the Fate universe, Fate/EXTELLA: The Umbral Star is a competent Dynasty Warriors-style slash-em-up featuring cool characters and abilities, and it's as entertaining as always.
The overly complex plot is paired with some juvenile and cringe-worthy dialogue that mars the experience
It's the epitome of being a game for fans and only for the fans "if" they like the gameplay loop, otherwise all that's left is a story to follow and if that's all the fun, the game might as well have been another visual novel.
Fate/Extella is a title that has a lot to live up to due to the immense popularity of the Fate series as a whole. However, it doesn’t do much to stray from the typical formula set forth by the countless other musou titles on the market. It sports a serviceable but unremarkable combat engine, along with a story that felt just as disposable as one of the tens of thousands of enemies I left in my wake.
If you’re willing to forego the story and just enjoy the action, Fate Extella is undoubtedly one of the smoothest playing Warriors-style games to date with kill counts ranging in the thousands for each battle. Repetition may set in early on, but by then you should be all ready to unleash your Noble Phantasm.
Fate/EXTELLA is a great hack and slash game that will most likely please fans of the series and please non fans who are looking for a great action game to play on their PS4.
The AI don’t really pose much of a threat until much later into the game.
It may have the Fate name in its title, but it doesn't present itself like a Fate title. The Umbral Star tells a bonkers story that only a Fate franchise can produce. The game itself is fun and features some awesome animations, but it’s instantly dragged down by terrible team AI and almost no sense of accomplishment.
A rock solid hack and slasher, Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star offers non-stop, totally over-the-top action from a fantastically fun cast of playable characters. Our only real complaint is that repetition can bleed into the experience over time, but give yourself a few days to recover from the fatigue, and you'll come back to a welcoming brawler that's stuffed with content. It's not quite up there with the best musou games on the market, but The Umbral Star scratches that button bashing itch and then some.
Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star for Switch could be considered as the best version of the title. Thanks to the technical aspects of the console that let it run with a better resolution in its portable format, it performs better that the one of the Vita. Also and eventhough it has less framerate in its TV mode, all of its gameplay runs smoothly, the ammount enough that make it not be outclassed by the PS4 edition. Also and as an aesthetic bonus, it has all of its DLC from the beggining.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
All that to one side and what I’m left with is a passable, extremely repetitive game that offers up brief bursts of catharsis muddled in a misguided sea of queasy colors, and all wrapped up in a convoluted and uncompelling plot. The game isn’t terrible: there is, mechanically, nothing all that wrong with it, and if you like Musou games – and have exhausted the likes Dynasty Warriors or Hyrule Warriors – or if you’re a fan of the Fate series, then there’s some service here for you.
Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star manages to bring a fully-featured Musou game to the Nintendo Switch, and the intense combat and eye-popping visuals make it one of the better games in the growing Switch library.
Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star is enormous and frantic. It also goes overboard at one moment too many, as it becomes a struggle to keep up with the plot, the characters and the combats. Bringing it down a notch or two would make it more balanced. As it is, perhaps only the most hardcore of purists will truly enjoy it.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
I had been quite seduced by the title
Review in French | Read full review
With the tight action carrying the game the majority of the way, this may well be a tough sell for those who aren’t into niche Japanese titles. However, for those who enjoy fluid combat and revel in the strange and the bizarre, this may well be exactly what Galen of Pergamon ordered.