Fate/Extra

Fate/Extra
Developer(s)	Type-Moon Image Epoch
Publisher(s)	JP Marvelous Entertainment NA Aksys Games EU Ghostlight
Platform(s)	PlayStation Portable
Release date(s)	Fate/Extra JP July 22, 2010 NA November 21, 2011[1] PAL May 4, 2012[2] Fate/Extra CCC JP March 28, 2013
Genre(s)	Role Playing Game
Distribution	UMD, Digital Download

Fate/Extra (フェイト/エクストラ, Feito/ekusutora) is a dungeon crawl style Japanese role-playing game for the PlayStation Portable, created by Type-Moon and Image Epoch and published by Marvelous Entertainment. The game takes place in a parallel universe to the visual novel Fate/stay night. The game was released in Japan on July 22, 2010. Aksys Games localized the game for North America, and released it on November 21, 2011. Three editions of the game were released in North America: a Limited Edition, a retail standard edition, and a PlayStation Network downloadable version.^[3] On January 19, 2012, Ghostlight announced their plans to release the game in PAL territories.^[2]

Fate/Extra was followed up by a companion game, Fate/Extra CCC. Instead of being a straight sequel, the game is said to be a type of "Heaven's Feel" Route of Fate/Extra, similar to the such named route in Fate/Stay Night.^[4] The opening movie is directed by Akiyuki Shinbo and produced by Shaft.

Gameplay

An example of Fate/Extra's turn-based battle system. Empty boxes correspond to the appropriate commands the player needs to input to overcome the commands of his/her opponent

At the start of the game, the player may choose to play as either a male or female character, as well as selecting one of three Servants — Saber, Archer, or Caster, each with different strengths and weaknesses. Players spend one ingame "week" interacting with other characters, viewing scenes that advance the game's story, talking to their Servant in their room, and gathering clues to the identity of the enemy Servant. At the end of each day, they enter the Arena, a dungeon in which they can battle monsters to gain experience points and strengthen their Servant. Servants' stats are raised manually using skill points gained upon levelling up. At the end of each week is a decisive battle against the enemy Servant and Master, after which the player progresses to the next round of the tournament-style war.

The game's turn-based battle system is comparable to rock-paper-scissors -- "Attack" overpowers "Break", Break overpowers "Guard", and Guard overpowers Attack. During battle, both the player and the opponent line up six such moves at the beginning of each turn. Landing three successful hits allows use of an "extra attack" that cannot be countered. Most types of enemies have their own distinctive attack patterns, and memorizing these allows the player Servant to deal high amounts of damage while receiving minimal damage in return.

Plot and characters

Waking up in a strange virtual world with no recollection of the past, the main character finds themselves forced to fight for survival in a war they do not understand for a prize beyond value; the opportunity to have one’s wish granted. With only an enigmatic "Servant" by their side, the protagonist will have to face both friends and foes in battles to the death in order to not only gain possession of a mysterious object known as the "Holy Grail", but also to find the answer to the most important question of all: "Who am I?".^[3]

In addition to characters from Fate/stay night, several new ones were introduced in the game, as well as characters from other Type-Moon works. While familiar characters from Fate/stay night and other Type-Moon works appear, they are not the same character as their original counterpart. The game uses different voice actors than Fate/stay night.

Development

The game was first announced in the September 2009 issue of Famitsu.^[5] Marvelous Entertainment teamed up with Image Epoch and Type-Moon to develop a re-imaging of the visual novel series. Some of the staff involved in the production are Kinoko Nasu as scenario writer, Arco Wada as character designer and artist, dōjin artist Huke as weapon designer, Takashi Takeuchi from Type-Moon for the character design supervision, Kazuya Niinō (7th Dragon) as the producer, and Shuetsu Kadowaki (Luminous Arc 2) as the director. In an interview, Wada had said the reason she drew anthropomorphic characters, especially Caster, is because she was very fond of animal ears and found them to be very cute.^[6]

The official theme song of the game is "Ranse Eroica" (亂世エロイカ, Chaotic Heroic), performed by Ali Project.^[7] The game's music was composed by Shinji Hosoe.^[8] The official theme song of the second game is "Sakura Meikyū" (サクラメイキュウ, Blossom Maze), performed by Kanon Wakeshima.

Release

the game was released for the PlayStation Portable in both regular and the "Type-Moon Box" editions. The limited Type-Moon Box edition includes a Saber Figma figure from the game itself, a visual book and a limited edition soundtrack.^[9] While the original release was set for March 2010, the release date was pushed back to July 22, 2010 for further development.^[10]

In July 2011 Aksys Games confirmed it would be publishing the game in North America.^[11] The North American Limited Edition included the special 15-page Fate Visual Works art book and the 11 song Limited Soundtrack from the "Type-Moon Box"" edition.^[3] In January 2012, Ghostlight announced their plans to release the game in PAL territories.^[2] The four-volume drama CD series Sound Drama Fate/EXTRA was also released starting from winter 2012.

References

External links

• Official website
• Official website (Japanese)
• Fate/Extra CCC website (Japanese)
• Sound Drama website (Japanese)