Is this the Most Polished of the Musou type of games?

[JDPUK]

I put this game right up there with Fire Emblem Warriors for easily one of the best and most polished Musou/Warriors type of games. It's definitely a heck of a lot better than the recent DW and Orochi releases. I give this game a 9 out of 10!

[Electro]

I generally avoid most Musou games because a lot of them just feel like they are inferior to DW games.

While I find this game fun, mostly for the online PvP. The PvE though definitely feels lacking compared to actual DW games.

There honestly aren't many real maps as it's mostly the same set pieces for each zone linked in different ways. This itself isn't an issue to me. But this would be better IMO if there was a mode for the battles to be a bit more randomized and with way more stronger enemies. Especially for characters already at level 150. Even doing battles way above your servants level are still too easy. Mostly due to no real enemy variety and horrible AI. Very Hard mode honestly should've been all level 150, or make a new difficulty just for that and probably call it Holy Grail mode.

Given the decent amount of characters in this game, it's a huge shame to me that most missions you only really fight like 3 servants the whole time and kill them quickly. And you never really face more than 1 at a time on the bigger maps, except very specific missions. And almost all the time without them being able to hit you once. And the Shadow Servants are always the copies of the same heroes, but waay too much of a pushover. Kinda tired of seeing the same Cú Chulainn Shadow Servant 3 times a battle.

I definitely wouldn't call this better than Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends Complete Edition on PS4 (because the steam version sucks). At least in most DW games there are enemies, even basic enemies on the hardest mode that could at least still try and punish you. Such as powerful archers in DW3 or how basic peasants could use formation attacks. And that enemy generals could actually break your guard with the first basic charge attack. In Fate/Extella Link however, they normally run up to you and try normal attack and then stop. Or they wake up after being knocked down and then start attacking. They are too predictable and easily beaten by skill spam, or attacking at the same time then win the clash. They are just too brain dead. And it doesn't help the fact that if you ever do decide to block, that it's straight up a 360 block and that dashing has an insane amount of iframes.

And even if they randomly decide to block, you can just mash your normal attack and stop before the final hit, and then and redo the entire chain again until you break their guard.

So I would say that this game is far from "Most Polished".

[JDPUK]

Yeah, most polished, probably the wrong verbiage. I played the hell out of DW8XL on PS4, best DW game, IMO. I'm one of the few that actually put in 300hrs or more into DW9 as well, lol. I agree on needing the ability to play battles with more randomized enemies, definitely needed for this franchise. Enemy types are greatly lacking and YES, I'm fatigued of seeing my own characters as bosses, kind of a weird approach, I probably should have set offering the most fun with best roster of unique characters. That said, WO4 is hard to beat when it comes to characters, though these have more personality and are represented in a much more unique way. You never really need to block in this game, unfortunately - the AI could most definitely use an overhaul.

[Hibernape]

I wouldn't say polished, but it's one of the best out there if you're still on your way up. Once you reach max level and bond, there sadly ain't much to do. You kinda have to make your own challenge. Just recently I tried fighting The Dream Team stage as Lu Bu with only Insanity and some Natural Body install skills.

I feel like this game would be a lot better if there's more Lv150 of Extra stages, major enemy servants had a bigger health pool, bosses need to have Moon Drive immediately active, let enemies use Counter active skills, and less stun on active skills.

I'm not the kind of player who seeks out challenge, but the game was too easy for me. Fortunately not in a snoozefest kind of way like the previous game was (anyone remember EM spamming?). I wouldn't be spending almost a hundred hours into it if I wasn't having fun.

[William Shakesman]

I think for an "off-brand" anime style musou, it's REALLY up there. The quality and movesets are definitely high tier. But I would rate DW8XL, OPPW3, and arguably FEW above it. DW9 and Basara I think are stronger as well.

The ease is a factor, to be sure, but when musou gets hard it usually gets hard in a garbage way.

[William Shakesman]

I will add the mission quality is a big plus for this. Even stuff like WO4 is packed with missions that make you do dumb escorts or listen to people talk for a while to open a gate. Extella Link has a bunch of missions of various lengths that are just real good at getting you quickly into the action.

[doo]

One of the better one for sure. But like Electro mentioned, there are lots of improvement that can be done and most of his point is solid.

[Outsider]

Hardly.
It's nowhere near DW8 or WO4.

[JDPUK]

Originally posted by Außenseiter:

Hardly.
It's nowhere near DW8 or WO4.

It has much more indepth and unique characters than both of these games IMO, and I have well over 100 hours in each of DW8 and WO4, both great games, though generic in comparison.

[Outsider]

Depth? What depth? Gameplay depth?
DW8 or WO4 characters have movelists like 2 times larger than Extella Link's characters.
You have much more intricate passives crafting system.
You have like 5 times enemy variety.
You have mounts.
You have HUGE story mode in DW8. WO4 story is comparable to Extella 1's though, but link barely has any story at all.
Much better maps.
And I'm not even touching on roster size, without any clones or palette swapped characters.

[JDPUK]

Originally posted by Außenseiter:

Depth? What depth? Gameplay depth?
DW8 or WO4 characters have movelists like 2 times larger than Extella Link's characters.
You have much more intricate passives crafting system.
You have like 5 times enemy variety.
You have mounts.
You have HUGE story mode in DW8. WO4 story is comparable to Extella 1's though, but link barely has any story at all.
Much better maps.
And I'm not even touching on roster size, without any clones or palette swapped characters.

Depth, characters and their overall abilities and their uniqueness.

[JDPUK]

Originally posted by Außenseiter:

Depth? What depth? Gameplay depth?
DW8 or WO4 characters have movelists like 2 times larger than Extella Link's characters.
You have much more intricate passives crafting system.
You have like 5 times enemy variety.
You have mounts.
You have HUGE story mode in DW8. WO4 story is comparable to Extella 1's though, but link barely has any story at all.
Much better maps.
And I'm not even touching on roster size, without any clones or palette swapped characters.

Don't get me wrong, all three are great games - WO4 and DW8 are amazing games, I will play them for years to come. Just in some ways have had more fun with Fate more so than them. Though both of them definitely offer a lot more content!

[Outsider]

Yeah that's what I said.
How do you estimate uniqueness of a character in video game? By the amount of their gameplay abilities and interactions between said abilities.
The most deep characters in video games you can find are featured in fighting games, followed by DMC franchise and platinum games.
The least deep characters are those featured in most old 8-bit platformers.

Somewhere between them are Dynasty Warriors characters.
And Extella Link's characters are closer to the less deep side.

[JDPUK]

Originally posted by Außenseiter:

Yeah that's what I said.
How do you estimate uniqueness of a character in video game? By the amount of their gameplay abilities and interactions between said abilities.
The most deep characters in video games you can find are featured in fighting games, followed by DMC franchise and platinum games.
The least deep characters are those featured in most old 8-bit platformers.

Somewhere between them are Dynasty Warriors characters.
And Extella Link's characters are closer to the less deep side.

I think it's more so due to having Fate's anime series and through them, I know a lot more about their backgrounds and their stories for one. Also, each character is very well laid out, their attacks their unique abilities, they all feel 100% different than each other. I have played DW, SW and WO since all of their first iterations, much more cloned and generic, IMO, though it's also likely due to this game being new for me.

[doo]

Dunno, I feel like characters play a bit differently for this game since Ability that you can set and you would use are different. For most DW, 1 character is 1 play style (or at least per weapon since you can change weapon, thus moveset). This game, you can have several style for 1 character (well, not all of them... but some do). On the other hand, DW and OW has much more characters you can choose from. So it really depends on what you are looking for really.

I can't really say about WO4, but from playing so many hundreds hours of DW8, I'd say this game isn't anything less of what DW can offer.

[doo]

And if you are talking about fate series as whole..... That's ♥♥♥♥ tones of depth alright xD