Fate/EXTELLA: The Umbral Star Reviews
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.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, Fate/Extella’s fundamentals are solid and fans will certainly love it, but newcomers to the Fate series should beware.
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 is a decent Musou-style action game with a few drawbacks that can dull the experience. While the game’s story is kind of interesting, it’s weighed down by some clunky, poorly written dialogue.
Fate/Extella: The Umbra Star is a perfectly ordinary Dynasty Warriors clone that's been slightly elevated by its license. The gameplay is fun but strictly average, and there's not much that makes it stand out beyond the plot and characters. If you're a fan of the Fate franchise, you'll probably get your money's worth in the story and characters. If you're looking for a brawler, this doesn't have much to offer. The lengthy story sequences filled with metaphysics might make it even less enjoyable than a standard game.
Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star is something of a mixed bag. This style of game works well with the Fate backdrop, and the actual Area Supremacy Battle makes for fun and addictive gameplay, but the presentation of it leaves a lot to be desired, with battles that feel too brief with far too much story interjected in between them. Not to mention that this story is terrible. Even the side stories for the supporting cast are heavily uninspired.
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.
Fans of the anime will likely be disappointed with the story on offer within Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star, that whilst manages to heat up in its final arc, is more akin to a fighting game than an in-depth story and pales in comparison to the far superior anime counterpart. But playing as each and every Servant - those made famous through the show and those not - is a heck of a lot of fun, with gameplay that is both cathartic and successfully brings an element of strategy along for the ride. Whilst there are some minor niggles within the combat gameplay that stop it being a cornerstone of the genre, there’s nothing that truly dissuaded my enjoyment in the complete package developers Marvelous have managed to offer fans. Whether you are seeking it out as a Musou title - an area it excels at - or just looking for something to sink quite a few hours into - on console or on the ago - then Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star exudes that experience in spades.
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.
The Fate series itself is a combination of strange things end up being cohesive, and this game is no exception to that rule. Fate/EXTELLA the took series in a new direction thanks to an dramatic witch in game genres and, if you ask me, it ended up paying off thanks to a solid combat system, good amount of character depth, and surprisingly large amount of story content.
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 is a fun musou game for fans of the Fate universe that is let down by a lacklustre story and visual inconsistencies.
The AI don’t really pose much of a threat until much later into the game.
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.
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.
I enjoyed my time with Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star as it satisfied my craving for a game in the Fate universe. The fighting controls are tight and responsive, and the action is intense. The lack of enemy variation was disappointing, but it didn’t take away from the frenetic fun of pulling off well animated combos against thousands of aggressors. This game might not be for newcomers to the Fate series, but offers a fun and impressive story arc to the franchise.
If you are already a fan of the Fate franchise, this game will absolutely appeal to you. If you’ve never heard of this series before, but you’ve played previous musou style games, this game will also appeal to you. Fate/EXTELLA: The Umbral Star has a lot to offer for fans that enjoy one or both of those scenarios just mentioned. The intense and quick in-your-face style of combat, mixed with the anime art style and graphics, works better than you would think.
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.
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.