Fate/stay night Game discussion (Warning: Spoilers)

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

Well, Gil's fatal flaw has always been that he plays around and underestimates his opponents. He pretty much completely underestimated Sakura, a lot like Zouken did. I don't think he expected her to become as powerful as she did while working through HF.

Well, more to the point, he didn't expect her to become that powerful that quickly. He clearly knew what she was capable of but, equally, he also knows that he can kill her with Ea, if nothing else. Of course, he doesn't want to 'soil' his sword by using it in a 'mongrel' like Sakura, but it's there if necessary.

But, yeah, this pretty much covers it. He was playing around. Killing her at that point was both risky to him (because he would have been discovered) and unnecessary.

[RadiantBeam]

So, just asking a general game question, but what exactly would I gain from completing all of the Tiger Dojos? Minus the fact that I did the game up to one hundred percent, obviously.

[Moczo]

You get to see all of the Tiger Dojos, for one thing, which is a reward in and of itself.

Beyond that, you get an extra Tiger Dojo-esque scene with Illya and Taiga talking about the game.

[DragoZERO]

Originally Posted by Cherry_Lover

I'd say it should be the other way around. The romance in UBW is pretty obviously shoved in there without any real necessity. That doesn't mean that it doesn't work, but you could cut it out quite happily without changing the fundamental meaning of the route. It's purely tacked-on because Nasu needed it to have a female lead. With Fate, the romance is a bit more plot-important (because it leads in to Saber's character development), but it's still not essential in the way that it is in HF.

Sorry but, the romance in UBW is very important. It's what gives Archer extra motivation to do what he knows to be right because he knows that Rin will be there for Shirou, preventing him from following the wrong path.

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

Well, Gil's fatal flaw has always been that he plays around and underestimates his opponents. He pretty much completely underestimated Sakura, a lot like Zouken did. I don't think he expected her to become as powerful as she did while working through HF.

I can't fault him for what happened with Sakura. Who could have known she would still live after being attacked like that. He was just a couple days too late.

Originally Posted by Moczo

You get to see all of the Tiger Dojos, for one thing, which is a reward in and of itself.

Beyond that, you get an extra Tiger Dojo-esque scene with Illya and Taiga talking about the game.

The different endings are nice to see as well. Like one bad ending in HF is Saber's ending, more or less. But, you learn more about the story from the Dojo featurettes, plus get more out of the story. Just follow the flow chart, it's not hard, just a little time consuming.

[Flinch]

It's not so much Archer following the wrong path, because he did everything that he could to save lives, and saving many at the cost of the few is never the wrong choice. If Shirou were to fall in love with Rin, it would have prevented him from being willing to go out of his way to save lives, thus preventing that fated incident in which that one of the many he saved cried out against him for those he had killed.

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by DragoZERO

Sorry but, the romance in UBW is very important. It's what gives Archer extra motivation to do what he knows to be right because he knows that Rin will be there for Shirou, preventing him from following the wrong path.

Perhaps to an extent, but I still think you could mostly cut it out. Certainly it's not an essential part of the plot in the same way as Sakura's is. It develops alongside the plot rather than the development being part of it like it is in HF.

I can't fault him for what happened with Sakura. Who could have known she would still live after being attacked like that. He was just a couple days too late

Except that Gil quite clearly knows what she's capable of, hence why he wanted to kill her in the first place. And, he could quite easily have killed her if he'd fought sensibly. True, it's not as stupid as what he did against Shirou in UBW, but it's still a case of him underestimating his opponent.

Originally Posted by Flinch

It's not so much Archer following the wrong path

Well, Archer certainly thinks that he did.

saving many at the cost of the few is never the wrong choice.

I'm not overly convinced about this, especially when you follow it to the extent of MoS Shirou or Kiritsugu. Because the easiest solution might be to kill one person to save many, but it's not always the best solution. Sometimes it is possible to save everyone, and taking Kiritsugu's attitude prevents this (see in Zero, when he castigates himself for setting the fire alarm off before blowing up the hotel on Kaneyth, because he did it to get the other guests out as opposed to letting them die, as an example of where that sort of thinking can lead you).

Also, as a human, we naturally care about some more than others. For Shirou not to fall apart, he has to care about people, and it's impossible to care about someone if you'd let them die as soon as they become a potential danger to others. Plus, who gave Shirou the right to decide to kill someone because they're a potential danger?

Furthermore, not all lives are equal. If you had ten Shinjis and a Sakura and you had to save one group or the other, then to me you should sacrifice the Shinjis every damn time, because Sakura has never had a chance at life and has done nothing to deserve death, whereas Shinji has had a chance, and has fucked it up.

If Shirou were to fall in love with Rin, it would have prevented him from being willing to go out of his way to save lives, thus preventing that fated incident in which that one of the many he saved cried out against him for those he had killed.

Well, it means that Rin provides an anchor for him. Someone he cares for and who cares for him. She will stop him from going totally off the rails and just killing and killing over and over again. Much like Sakura does in HF, in fact, only less extreme.

[RadiantBeam]

Originally Posted by Flinch

It's not so much Archer following the wrong path, because he did everything that he could to save lives, and saving many at the cost of the few is never the wrong choice. If Shirou were to fall in love with Rin, it would have prevented him from being willing to go out of his way to save lives, thus preventing that fated incident in which that one of the many he saved cried out against him for those he had killed.

There's also the fact that with Rin, when she can't do enough to rein him in, Shirou will definitely have a partner backing him up when he goes to do something stupid that could kill him. Rin pretty much does this throughout UBW anyway; she knows there's very little she can do to actually stop Shirou from going out and saving people, so she actively stays by his side to help him and remind him that even if he wants to save others, his life is valuble to her. It's really quite interesting, because Rin is to Shirou what Shirou was to Saber in Fate; a humanizing factor.

Of course, Shirou wasn't as far gone as Saber was, but it's the same idea. Rin forces Shirou to actually value himself and have fun, much like Shirou does to Saber in Fate.

[DragoZERO]

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

There's also the fact that with Rin, when she can't do enough to rein him in, Shirou will definitely have a partner backing him up when he goes to do something stupid that could kill him. Rin pretty much does this throughout UBW anyway; she knows there's very little she can do to actually stop Shirou from going out and saving people, so she actively stays by his side to help him and remind him that even if he wants to save others, his life is valuble to her. It's really quite interesting, because Rin is to Shirou what Shirou was to Saber in Fate; a humanizing factor.

Of course, Shirou wasn't as far gone as Saber was, but it's the same idea. Rin forces Shirou to actually value himself and have fun, much like Shirou does to Saber in Fate.

Rin herself is enough reason to stay human. I don't know why, but her ZR is especially scrumptious.

[Haak]

Well I finally fgot round to finishing the Fate route. It was better than the anime in many ways. A lot of the concepts were far more developed and Sabers backstory was much more touching. And plus they didn't have that bafflingly stupid Caster arc, that I couldn't make any sense out of. Though, I still don't quite understand Shirou's logic for rejecting Kotmine's proposal for the Holy Grail. So what if all the memories of the pain that happened no longer exist? Isn't that the whole point? the bad endings were good in giving an anti-climatic "You could die at any moment" feeling. But honestly I didn't come across a bad ending anywhere near as good as the first one.

On to Unlimited Blade Works...

[DragoZERO]

Enjoy UBW. It is one wild ride. And in case you don't know to start it, here's how:

Spoiler for UBW:

after Saber is summoned and Lancer runs away, Saber will rush to attack Rin & Archer. You'll be given a new choice, choose to stop Saber.

[RadiantBeam]

Originally Posted by Haak

But honestly I didn't come across a bad ending anywhere near as good as the first one.

Don't worry, the bad endings you can get become much better in Heaven's Feel. I don't think I got that many dead and bad ends in UBW and Fate, but I got a ton of them in HF.

[Moczo]

Heh... I, like so many others, went back through after I finished and got them all on purpose to see all the Tiger Dojos. It really is hard to top that first one for sheer creepiness, though. Kids are scary!

Though not as scary as the fact that some of the ones in HF do manage to top it.

[DragoZERO]

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

Don't worry, the bad endings you can get become much better in Heaven's Feel. I don't think I got that many dead and bad ends in UBW and Fate, but I got a ton of them in HF.

I think half of the dead ends are in HF alone. Pretty treacherous waters. What's hard is that sometimes the advice from an earlier dojo won't apply to one at the end, in fact, it'd be the exact opposite.

The dead ends that ( got (that I can remember right now) were

Spoiler for Fate:

Not going into the basement in the church and at the very end, the final battle. I didn't do that extra strategy meeting with Saber so I never gave her back the sheath.

Spoiler for UBW:

Not favoring Illya enough and having her kill me. Very temperamental loli.

Spoiler for HF:

The deal with Zouken when Assassin visits you with his proposition. I forget the specifics, but it didn't end well, haha.

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by Haak

and plus they didn't have that bafflingly stupid Caster arc, that I couldn't make any sense out of.

That's because the Caster arc was a horrible bastardisation of the Heaven's Feel route (but, don't let that put you off HF itself, because HF does it much better and actually explains what is happening). It was solely shoved in there to attempt to deal with Sakura's story in the anime, even though the HF route is totally incompatible with Fate and UBW (due to how the story goes).

Though, I still don't quite understand Shirou's logic for rejecting Kotmine's proposal for the Holy Grail. So what if all the memories of the pain that happened no longer exist? Isn't that the whole point?

Well, the point is that everything he's done over the last ten years would be meaningless. Essentially, he'd have killed everyone he knows, because Sakura would be different (having never met him), Rin would be different, Saber would be different, Taiga would be different and so on.

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

Don't worry, the bad endings you can get become much better in Heaven's Feel. I don't think I got that many dead and bad ends in UBW and Fate, but I got a ton of them in HF.

Oddly enough, I managed to avoid most of them in HF, because they were blindingly obvious. Although, I did manage to get both MoS and the Geas ending

Spoiler for HF:

(the first because I didn't think that a 'superhero' would murder an innocent girl in cold blood, and the second because I thought "meh, just bullshit Rin with 'I'll do whatever you say'", and then got smacked with a Geas because Shirou is a retard and actually follows through with such talk).

I guess it depends somewhat on your position. If you don't like Sakura, it's easy to get a lot of bad ends out of HF, just like it's possible to get a lot in Fate if you don't realise that the core guiding principle of the whole story is "Shirou must act like a total retard at every opportunity". I don't remember where I got the most overall, though. I think I missed the majority (excepting when I specifically aimed for them). In a way UBW is the hardest, though, because it's not always quite so clear when to be cynical and when to be idealistic.

[RadiantBeam]

Originally Posted by Cherry_Lover

I guess it depends somewhat on your position. If you don't like Sakura, it's easy to get a lot of bad ends out of HF, just like it's possible to get a lot in Fate if you don't realise that the core guiding principle of the whole story is "Shirou must act like a total retard at every opportunity". I don't remember where I got the most overall, though. I think I missed the majority (excepting when I specifically aimed for them). In a way UBW is the hardest, though, because it's not always quite so clear when to be cynical and when to be idealistic.

For me it wasn't so much that I didn't like Sakura, it was just that I made the mistake of operating under the assumption in the beginning that Shirou's mindset from Fate and UBW would work out well for HF. So I chose some really stupid ones and ended up getting nailed with dead ends because the mindset Shirou had for Fate and UBW didn't work out so great when you were playing through HF.

Spoiler for HF:

Granted, I was spoiled for it, but I still managed to avoid that nasty bad end where you choose to save Saber and bad things happen. I got caught early on though when I chose to attack Saber head on instead of trusting in Rider.

[Moczo]

I think, other than one early in UBW,

Spoiler for UBW:

I dodged the wrong direction when Rin attacks you in the school. How was I supposed to know she'd set up a boundary field or whatever magical nonsense?!

The only bad ends I got that I didn't get intentionally were related to Relationship Values.

Spoiler for I wasn't nice to the right girl...:

In Fate I spent too much time teasing Saber and got myself shanked during the confrontation with Kotomine and Lancer. Then in HF first I wasn't nice enough to Sakura and got eaten by the Shadow, and then I overcompensated by being too nice to Sakura, which led to neglecting Ilya and getting killed by her. I swear, I just couldn't win on that one.

EDIT:

Spoiler for UBW again:

Oh! That's right, I also pried too much when asking Issei about Caster and got mind-control stabbed. That one creeped me the Hell out too.

[Kanon]

The MoS ending is still my favourite "bad" ending. I didn't get it on my playthrough though, as I always tried to do my best to save Sakura.

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

Spoiler for HF:

Granted, I was spoiled for it, but I still managed to avoid that nasty bad end where you choose to save Saber and bad things happen. I got caught early on though when I chose to attack Saber head on instead of trusting in Rider.

I couldn't avoid this one though.

Spoiler for HF spoilers:

I wanted to save Saber ;_;
Damn you Nasu, for forcing me to kill her. Truly one of the most powerful moment of the game.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by DragoZERO

[/SPOILER]

Spoiler for UBW:

Not favoring Illya enough and having her kill me. Very temperamental loli.

Are you sure that was UBW? I thought you didn't really interact with her all that much in that route.

The one bad end I remember getting hit with that surprised me most was:

Spoiler for UBW:

When Archer first goes over to Caster's side, and Rin's standing there in shock. I instinctively went into defender mode and jumped down to save her, only to get shanked by Archer.

[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

For me it wasn't so much that I didn't like Sakura, it was just that I made the mistake of operating under the assumption in the beginning that Shirou's mindset from Fate and UBW would work out well for HF. So I chose some really stupid ones and ended up getting nailed with dead ends because the mindset Shirou had for Fate and UBW didn't work out so great when you were playing through HF.

Well, yeah, that too....

I think I worked out pretty damn quick that it was not going to work that way in HF.

Spoiler for HF:

However, part of that change in mindset is to go from "I must save everyone" to "I must save Sakura (and then save everyone who is left once Sakura is OK)". Admittedly, that's somewhat later on in the route, but it's certainly a potential cause of a few bad ends.

Spoiler for HF:

Granted, I was spoiled for it, but I still managed to avoid that nasty bad end where you choose to save Saber and bad things happen. I got caught early on though when I chose to attack Saber head on instead of trusting in Rider.

Well, the same applies to me. I'm not entirely sure which option I'd have chosen if I'd not known that avoiding killing her was a bad end, though. I might have gone for "save Saber" on the off-chance that it led to a 'good end', but I equally may well have seen through it.

Originally Posted by Moczo

I think, other than one early in UBW,

Spoiler for UBW:

I dodged the wrong direction when Rin attacks you in the school. How was I supposed to know she'd set up a boundary field or whatever magical nonsense?!

Well, I believe I dodged that one (by sheer chance), although I think I'd already seen it (out of curiosity) when coming from Fate. But, there are a couple of bad ends that are just sheer blind luck whether you avoid them.

Spoiler for I wasn't nice to the right girl...:

In Fate I spent too much time teasing Saber and got myself shanked during the confrontation with Kotomine and Lancer. Then in HF first I wasn't nice enough to Sakura and got eaten by the Shadow, and then I overcompensated by being too nice to Sakura, which led to neglecting Ilya and getting killed by her. I swear, I just couldn't win on that one.

Wow, that's pretty impressive....

Spoiler for HF:

To be fair, getting the first Sakura relationship bad end is pretty easy, unless you recognise that it's Sakura's route and that abandoning a sick girl to go around the town hunting is a pretty damn nasty thing for Shirou to do. Ilya's bad end is similarly easy to get (hell, you can get it simply by giving the wrong answer to Rin in the lead up to the "meet Ilya" scene), although I'm not entirely sure how being 'too nice' to Sakura would lead to it.

Spoiler for UBW again:

Oh! That's right, I also pried too much when asking Issei about Caster and got mind-control stabbed. That one creeped me the Hell out too.

Yeah, I got that one too. That was just plain random, to me. There's no real reason to expect it.

Originally Posted by Kanon

The MoS ending is still my favourite "bad" ending. I didn't get it on my playthrough though, as I always tried to do my best to save Sakura.

Well, like I said, I got it because I thought that it would result in saving Sakura.

Spoiler for MoS:

I have to say that I didn't see the conflict in that scene at all (and, really, I still don't see how choosing to protect Sakura is "abandoning his ideal"). He wants to save everyone, and Sakura is a person. Ergo, he should protect Sakura, at least until she actually starts hurting people (as opposed to merely potentially doing so).

Originally Posted by GDB

Are you sure that was UBW? I thought you didn't really interact with her all that much in that route.

I'm pretty sure it's not.

Spoiler for Relationship with Ilya:

The only time Ilya points matter (or, IIRC, are even given) is in HF.

[Moczo]

Originally Posted by Cherry_Lover

Spoiler for HF:

To be fair, getting the first Sakura relationship bad end is pretty easy, unless you recognise that it's Sakura's route and that abandoning a sick girl to go around the town hunting is a pretty damn nasty thing for Shirou to do. Ilya's bad end is similarly easy to get (hell, you can get it simply by giving the wrong answer to Rin in the lead up to the "meet Ilya" scene), although I'm not entirely sure how being 'too nice' to Sakura would lead to it.

Spoiler for HF:

As I recall, I think my 'logic' was that I would actively avoid spending time with Ilya on the off-chance that I would then go home and spend time with Sakura instead . Yeah, Paranoid, but I had thought I was being nice enough to Sakura before and that led to Shirou getting eaten.