Fate/EXTELLA: The Umbral Star Reviews
While Fate/Extella doesn't actually break any new ground, it has a lot to offer. Newcomers will be able to enjoy its simple but engaging gameplay, while fans can dive into its shockingly complex story written by non-other than Kinoko Nasu himself. If you are in search for a unique Warriors game, don't look any further.
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.
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: The Umbral Star is a capable Dynasty Warriors clone but its lack of imagination when it comes to enemies, gameplay, and modes holds it back from being a great game.
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.
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.