Fate/stay night Game discussion (Warning: Spoilers)

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by ShinMasaki

I've gone through all of Fate/Hollow (self translation) and it is a big task...the convenient thing about it is once you complete the game, you can simply select scenes to play/read through but perhaps the hardest thing to do is to make a good flowchart. I'm in the middle of getting a written translation out for the game as well but it's just a daunting task...trying to get this done ASAP so I'm well rested and prepared for Mahou Tsukai no Yoru later in the year. Translating really isn't all the hard or time consuming. The hard part is taking your translation, converting it over to another language and re-editing the existing text/software. Making a reliable flowchart for Fate/Hollow is impossible, I believe.

Yes, I've heard that F/HA is one of those scatter-games where you can go almost anywhere any time. But if you are working on a translation... would you by chance be Amukunau?

Originally Posted by ShinMasaki

Events with plot holes are allowed such as True Assassin's birth, Zouken's involvement in the Grail War, the birth of Sakura's 'shadow', the whole Archer's arm's magic circuit dominating Shirou (lol), etc. A fanfic is simply the author's representation of events that could happen. It is not necessary to explain everything so long as it works for your story.

Actually, plotholes in fanfics is sort of a pet-peeve of mine. I don't mind if you put a spin on a story, but at least explain how it happened rather then just be lazy and don't bother to explain it. So even if I view Heavens Feel as a fanfic by the author, that still doesn't really change my views.

[swtrooper42]

Got my game and finally wrapped up the Fate route after 28 hours of playtime, including all the Bad Ends. I gotta say, it was a wild ride.
So I'll just post my thoughts on the route as a whole:

Favorite scenes:
Day 14: Wish - The scene where Shirou, just about slashed in half by Gilgamesh, absolutely refuses to admit defeat and gets up despite Saber's pleas.
Plus him saying he could never give her up to a guy like Gilgamesh.
Day 15: The final battle between Saber and Gilgamesh, especially when she kicks him in the face.
Epilogue: The scene where Shirou talks with Rin about Saber, saying he will always remember he loved her even if his other memories of her fade.
And his muses that if he keeps trying, he'll eventually reach his goal.

Musings:
Rin is very lovely and I look forward to playing through Unlimited Blade Works.
Angry Rin and embarrassed Rin are win.
Ilya is adorable and lightened up gameplay considerably for me.
Lancer is all that is man.
Shirou may be an idealistic idiot, but he certainly has a sort of style to him.
I loved how Saber started to warm to Shirou as the story went on. Her smile just warms me up.
Sex scenes are hilarious. The metaphors make me cringe and the author certainly likes to use the words "meat" and "juice" over and over again.

Overall: Being as this is Saber's route, she just absolutely dominated. Her subtle feelings, devotion to Shirou, and warm smile instantly won me over, plus her jealously when Ilya first moves in. I already got my Saber fix from watching the anime version, which I was watching after playing through certain scenes so I could compare them. The parting was sad since I knew it was coming, but I know it was the only way. So, this route was easily worth the 28 hours of time put in.

Questions:
What is with the imagery of Shirou's body made of swords or whatever? It comes into play when he falls to his death at the school and again when he gets slashed by Gilgamesh. Did that have to deal with Avalon implanted in his body? Because that's what I was thinking.

What happened to Assassin? Since he was summoned by another Servant does that mean he only has finite mana and he just faded away when it ran out or did Caster dispel/kill him to free up mana for Saber?

How does Caster instantly order Saber to kill Shirou? I thought that Rule Breaker only dispelled magical contracts. Was the contract transferred to Caster and she used a command spell? Or did she use a normal spell to get Saber to obey? But then wouldn't Saber's A magic resistance shrug it off or at least allow her to resist?

[ShinMasaki]

Answer time!

Originally Posted by swtrooper42

Questions:
What is with the imagery of Shirou's body made of swords or whatever? It comes into play when he falls to his death at the school and again when he gets slashed by Gilgamesh. Did that have to deal with Avalon implanted in his body? Because that's what I was thinking.

If anything, it would be Shirou awakening his magical powers and unconsciously using his own magical ability. So not to spoil things too much because this is a big thing about Shirou, play through UBW (the next story arc after Fate). It explains a lot. If my understanding of Avalon is correct, it would not have anything to do with Avalon since Avalon only heals and restores wounds already inflicted and does nothing to prevent said wound from occurring.

Originally Posted by swtrooper42

What happened to Assassin? Since he was summoned by another Servant does that mean he only has finite mana and he just faded away when it ran out or did Caster dispel/kill him to free up mana for Saber?

It is assumed that Assassin was given X mana by Caster at his summoning. Assassin was summoned by Caster but actually linked to the hill itself and not Caster. Due to this, Assassin is not able to leave the hill as he has to stay with his Master, albeit the Master is a hill. As the hill is his Master, Assassin isn't receiving mana from his Master and has so many days to exist before his mana supply initially given by Caster runs out. As you know, running through the Fate story, when a Servant's mana runs out, they are done.

Originally Posted by swtrooper42

How does Caster instantly order Saber to kill Shirou? I thought that Rule Breaker only dispelled magical contracts. Was the contract transferred to Caster and she used a command spell? Or did she use a normal spell to get Saber to obey? But then wouldn't Saber's A magic resistance shrug it off or at least allow her to resist?

Rule Breaker dispelled Shirou's contract with Saber and Caster immediately picked Saber up as her own Servant. Remember that a Servant without a Master will disappear after a while, but during that time if said Servant finds (or gets found) by an available person eligible to be a Master a new contract can be made. So it's not that she used a spell to get Saber to obey, it's that she used a Command Seal to force Saber to obey. More is explained on this during the Heaven's Feel route.

Originally Posted by Keroko

Yes, I've heard that F/HA is one of those scatter-games where you can go almost anywhere any time. But if you are working on a translation... would you by chance be Amukunau?

I am not. There are actually a number of people actually working on their own translations to Fate/Hollow. It's just that some like Amukunau are more known due to posts and status updates on other boards like on nrvnqsr.com (Beast's Lair boards) and some of the other people from the boards on mirrormoon.org. Just think of me as one of those unknown people working on a translation that will suddenly be complete and nobody will know they were doing anything at all.

If you want an update about my status on F/HA, I have just about nothing physically translated, it's just a matter of transferring what I did translate into a physical form then editing all the stuff. Aside from the intro to F/HA though, I have nearly the entire game translated (just not written down). Just need to do that which shouldn't take all too long and then find an editor who wants to do the next step. From what I hear, the actual editing takes forever.

[BusterSword]

so what was saber's sword called? Caliburn or Excalibur? I thought it was caliburn but then excalibur is a sword too but then saber's hougu is called excalibur so im guessing that wasnt the name of her sword she was using or was it?

[Keroko]

Caliburn is the sword she usually fights with, it's only when she releases the wind and activates her Noble Phantasm that she summons Excalibur

[rastilin]

This question comes up a lot

Caliburn is the sword in the stone
-- but she lost that one ---
Excalibur is the replacement which she uses during the grail war

[BusterSword]

so just to make it clear saber has been using excalibur ever since she was summoned right?

[rastilin]

"so just to make it clear saber has been using excalibur ever since she was summoned right? "

Yes

[ShinMasaki]

In addition, the sword that Shirou projects is Caliburn. Saber is surprised about this since it is the sword that she lost. She also favors Caliburn over Excalibur.

She probably traded Caliburn for a good meal claiming she 'lost' it.

Saber - Servant of the sword eating.

[BusterSword]

ever since shirou made caliburn we were able to see saber use her sword so did she ditch excalibur for shirou's caliburn? lol

[rastilin]

I think the wind barrier is one-shot. If you drop it, it's gone. Although I could be wrong.

[Blade_Lord]

Saber prefer Calliburn to Excallibur.

[BusterSword]

how do you know saber prefers caliburn over excalibur? lol I must of forgotten if it said she did in the anime o_o

[Keroko]

I find it ironic though that the game lists Caliburn as the weaker of the two, despite Caliburn being the key to victory against Berserker (hence my initial confusion that Saber uses Caliburn throughout the game, I just fuigured she was using Caliburn and 'upgraded' it whenever she fired Excalibur).

[ShinMasaki]

Originally Posted by BusterSword

how do you know saber prefers caliburn over excalibur? lol I must of forgotten if it said she did in the anime o_o

If you play the game F/SN (the PC vicual novel) it says so in the weapon descriptions.

Originally Posted by Fate/Stay Night weapon description

Golden Sword of Assured Victory
Caliburn

A holy sword that symbolizes England's king of knights, King Arthur.

It is the symbol of a king, pulled out from a chosen stone under the guidance of magus Merlin. It is a different sword from the one granted by the fairy of the lake, and its characteristics as a Noble Phantasm differ.

But, it seems Saber is more attached to this holy sword.

Since a sword is a symbol of power, a sword carried by a king usually ends up being degraded to the status of an ornament covered by decorations.

This is the biggest difference between Excalibur and Caliburn. In exchange for being a beautiful sword, its effectiveness as a weapon does not match that of Excalibur.

In the legend, it is said that it broke when King Arthur fought in a battle going against the principles of chivalry.

Originally Posted by rastilin

I think the wind barrier is one-shot. If you drop it, it's gone. Although I could be wrong.

To answer this, again the answer is in the info in the F/SN game under the status of the Servants.

Originally Posted by Fate/Stay Night Saber reference guide

Noble Phantasm - Invisible Air - Boundary Field of the Wind King

Other than the advantage of making the blade invisible, it is possible to release the compressed wind, making it a single-use projectile weapon.

Originally Posted by Keroko

I find it ironic though that the game lists Caliburn as the weaker of the two, despite Caliburn being the key to victory against Berserker (hence my initial confusion that Saber uses Caliburn throughout the game, I just fuigured she was using Caliburn and 'upgraded' it whenever she fired Excalibur).

Silly plot hole. Yeah, Saber has always been using Excalibur, just concealed. Shirou projects Caliburn and beats Berserker with it although it is weaker than Excalibur. Also, Saber's Excalibur is the true sword Excalibur as it is made into a Noble Phantasm. The projections that Shirou makes are always of a weaker grade than that of the original, so it's like this.

Excalibur > Caliburn > Shirou's Caliburn = destroys Berserker? lol

[Tyabann]

I think it's because, although Shirou's Caliburn is weaker, it's still enough to destroy Berserker.

Saber couldn't actually use Excalibur in that battle, right? Simply because she didn't have enough magical energy/prana... so when Shirou creates her old sword and she's able to wield it, she can destroy Berserker with it.

[Keroko]

The plothole is that, even though it's shrouded in wind, she is already using Excalibur. A sword more powerful then Caliburn. Even if she can't 'Fire da lazor' her sword should have been more then enough to kill berserker.

Oh well.

[kaizer63]

Originally Posted by Keroko

The plothole is that, even though it's shrouded in wind, she is already using Excalibur. A sword more powerful then Caliburn. Even if she can't 'Fire da lazor' her sword should have been more then enough to kill berserker.

Oh well.

Where's the plothole in that? It's precisely because Saber can't "Fire da lazor" that Exaclibur can't kill Berserker--and neither can Caliburn. Both, on their own, could only take one potential life from Berserker. However, the actual activation of the Noble Phantasm is a different story entirely. A full-powered, direct Excalibur could likely take all 12 of Berserker's lives, but Saber didn't have the mana to use it. The activated Caliburn was strong enough to take only 7 lives, but the cost to use it is significantly lower (i.e. not 800 units of Saber's approximate 1200 mana (of which she was severely lacking at the time)).

Basically, Caliburn is capable of dealing a stronger, anti-unit attack like the version of Excaliblast that Saber uses against Gil. in the final fight and was useful solely because she didn't have to mana to use an Excaliblast.

[Keroko]

The problem lies in that that Caliburn is not one of Saber's Noble Phantasm's. If berserker can only be defeated by Excalibur in 'Noble Phantasm form', so to say, how come Caliburn, which is not a Noble Phantasm, defeat Berserker?

[kaizer63]

Originally Posted by Keroko

The problem lies in that that Caliburn is not one of Saber's Noble Phantasm's. If berserker can only be defeated by Excalibur in 'Noble Phantasm form', so to say, how come Caliburn, which is not a Noble Phantasm, defeat Berserker?

Caliburn IS one of Saber's Noble Phantasms. It's a mythical weapon she used in her lifetime and a legend has grown up around it associating it with her and granting it powers. In this case, the power of the kingship (and an attack that can only be used by the true king of England). Shirou doesn't just project swords, he projects complete swords--all of their history and power. The Caliburn he projected is no different than the Caliburn Saber wielded in her life (except for the rank down).

As for the reason Saber can't just pull Caliburn out of nowhere-- she simply doesn't have it anymore. I'd imagine that if she were a true servant she'd be able to use Caliburn as well as Excalibur because Servants are normally pulled from their prime and have access to all the NP's they used in their lifetime but the incomplete Saber didn't have Caliburn so the only one she could use was Shirou's projection of it.

Edit- Also, you seem to be misinterpreting the way Noble Phantasm's work. The weapon is always a Noble Phantasm with its own statistics, normally just a ranking, but sometimes they provide other things like K&B's magic resistance. A NP in the form of a weapon can always be used as a weapon, and in most cases its rank will never matter (Berserker's God Hand is the only exception that I know of). The difference is that for most NPs there's also another "special ability" that can only be used by declaring its name. This attack or form is considered a different NP that is part of the base weapon but not counted for the likes of God Hand immunity. This activation normally requires a mana-input as well.