Fate/EXTELLA: The Umbral Star Reviews
Fate/Extella offers mindless fun, sure, but there are a slew of other Musou titles also available on PS4, and nearly all of them are superior to this.
A worthy debut for not only the series but also the genre on Nintendo Switch, Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star combines a solid foundation of enemy wave eliminations and territory domination with a surprisingly developed and engaging narrative, despite the various camera issues and regular jargon blockage. It is definitely a slow burner that fits well into a mindless brawler or an intriguing fable on demand.
The real trick of making a game work in this style is to ground it in some sense of normality. Where the Musou series excels, and indeed how it has survived for such a long time, is that for all the Japanese humour and charm, the core story is a simple one of warring kingdoms fighting battles. It is awesome when a story doesn't hold back on its vision and complexity and does not abandon its world. However, Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star gets lost in this vision at the expense of its Western audience. With that said, where it does succeed is in making a fun, if forgettable, action title that has plenty of content to work through, even if it does tend to get a little predictable and stale after the first few hours. There is definitely something to work on here for future titles, though, and it is great to see the Warriors style reimagined by another developer.
It’s made me into a fan of Fate. If that’s not a sign of a quality game, then nothing is.
It's a fun game if you play in small sessions as otherwise the combat may get too repetitive. The story has a lot of faults and one could probably make a case for skipping the story altogether and getting the better experience out of it. Fans of the Fate Series will want to try this out however as it's fun to be able to control your favorite characters from the previous games and anime shows and dish out damage by the thousands. There is also enough content here to keep you busy for about 20-30 hours (story included)
Fate/EXTELLA: The Umbral Star makes for an entertaining hack and slash experience which feels right at home on the Nintendo Switch. It's admittedly a little pricey at £49.99, but for those looking for some Dynasty Warriors style action, it fits the bill quite nicely.
Overall, Fate/Extella is a fairly simplistic Warriors-style game with a visual novel component and pretty enough graphics. I was impressed that there's never any slowdown, either in tabletop mode or on the TV. As I said, there's already a better Warriors game on the Wii U and 3DS, but so far this is the best one on Switch. If you like anime nonsense and slaughtering robots, you could do worse than Fate/Extella.
Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star is a decent hack-and-slash with a solid character upgrade system. If you are a fan of the FATE series, then you will most likely enjoy this game. If you don't know anything about it, however, then you might want to check a couple videos out before purchasing the game.
Outside of its existing fanbase, Fate/EXTELLA can only be recommended to those who simply must have a stop-gap as they wait for Fire Emblem Warriors, or those in desperate need of validation from cute anime girls.
Aside from the repetitive gameplay, this is a game that Fate fans will absolutely enjoy playing and exploring in an officially released Fate game, since the Stay Night visual novels don’t seem to be coming out anytime soon, including the several other games that spawned from this franchise. From a gaming perspective is a flawless execution of what a Servant would do against an army, but is mechanically challenging.
Fate/EXTELLA: The Umbral Star is a confusing game for newcomers but should be a fun experience for the fans of the series.
In the end, Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star serves as a good appetizer for those who want some Musou action now.
A game dripping with cool intrigue and style marred heavily by bad level design, bland hordes of enemies and awkward systems. Fate/Extella will still appeal to many but in this case, it feels like failed potential. To have started with an awesome, stylish, uncommon RPG to being diluted into a simple hack and slash title. This "Warrior-ising" of franchises is slowly wearing down the existence of more unique games. Disappointing.
The bloated and often confusing narrative might be a bit too much for those that aren't already fans of the Fate series, but for those willing to brave the ridiculous amount of dialogue a satisfactory Musou game awaits them underneath.
Fate/Extella is clearly made for hardcore fans of the series. It's a hard sell to anyone that's not well-versed in the Fate franchise, and even then, the repetitive, clunky combat system and overly wordy story sections will likely drive off those that have any interest in the game.
Fate/Extella offers tons of content, but it’s often frustrating content nonetheless.
Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star has a title that makes as little sense as its punctuation to an outsider, but it serves as the glue that holds everything together.
Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star is a game made of highs and lows. Its indisputable merits counteract an equally large number of defects, which make the purchase only recommended to fans of the Fate series.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Not awful but far from good, Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star is a title that lets down fans and keeps away newcomers with a pithy story, mediocre gameplay, and a generic art direction that betrays the franchise’s roots.
While the gameplay is fun the whole experience is overly repetitive. Add in a confusing setting and a complete tonal shift from the anime and you get a game that does not live up to expectations.