Fate/Extra PSP

Fate/Extra is an RPG strongly inspired by Persona 3, in which time is divided equally between going to school and meeting friends, and fighting in a virtual labyrinth full of creatures. The title is the fruit of collaboration between Type-moon, a Japanese producer of visual novel games and Imageepoch, which has already released several relatively well-received titles for mobile consoles and Wii. Fate/Extra uses heroes and selected themes from the most popular Type-moon game called Fate/stay night.

The action of the game takes place in the near future. The main character is an inconspicuous pupil who becomes one of the participants in the war for the Grail, a powerful artifact able to fulfill any wish. The fighter, referred to as the master, calls his magical helper, who is the incarnation of a legendary historical or mythical character. Together with him, he fights other people who want to win the Grail in a virtual labyrinth full of traps and hostile creatures created for this purpose. This is the ultimate test and challenge for the skills of the masters and their servants.

At the end of the prologue introducing us to the story of the game we have to decide on one of the three available helpers. Each of them has their own personality, specific fighting style and skills. What is important, during the game we can talk to them freely and get to know their history, and even romance.

Time in the game determines the division into days and weeks. During the day, as ordinary students, we participate in school classes, talk to friends, make new acquaintances, but also collect information about our opponents and their servants and prepare ourselves for the fight by buying useful therapeutic items in the nurse's office. In the evening we can go together with our companion to the labyrinth, where he will gain experience while fighting monsters and will be able to develop his skills. After the end of each week we have to face another master participating in the war for the Grail. If we have collected enough data about him and his servant during the week before the duel, we will increase our chances of winning the fight because we can predict his movements.

The turn-based Fate/Extra combat system is a variation on how to play with paper-scissors-stone. In each turn our servant and his opponent perform six actions during which they can attack, defend themselves or charge. For example, when we attack in our action and our enemy takes a charge, we deal damage to him. In the next one we can defend ourselves and the opponent can charge again. Then he injures our companion. In short: the charge wins with defense, defense with attack, etc. This system is simple, but because we usually do not know what moves the opponent chooses, we have to think about the strategy he has chosen in a given turn. Fortunately, while fighting monsters, we automatically collect data about them, which over time allow us to predict their movements in battle. Fights are enriched by the possibility of using special attacks and objects that heal or change statistics.

Like Persona 3, the music layer of the game is mainly pleasant to the ear pop and jazzy melodies, interrupted from time to time by heavier rock songs. The interface, three-dimensional graphics and two-dimensional illustrations accompanying the protagonists' conversations are neat and aesthetic, but they certainly do not impress with their diversity or number of details.

Please let us know if you have any comments or suggestions regarding this description.

Last updated on 29 July 2011