Pros:
+Satisfying Hack and Slash Combat
+Particularly great for Fate fans with it’s large roster of playable characters
+A decent story to keep you playing
+Mission design that keeps the game from getting too stale

Cons:
+/-Controller recognition complications
-Constant Interruptions whilst playing
-Technical issues where lag consistently occurred
-Basic enemies aren’t any sort of threat


+Gameplay:
As a hack and slash game, how the combat feels should be Extella Link’s main concern, and I’m happy to say that the game does so very well. Each attack performed has a strong impact, and comes off as incredibly satisfying when finishing a combo and blowing multiple enemies away. You are very much a “one man army” so to speak, but on higher difficulties enemies can become bigger threats that deal much higher amounts of damage if you’re not careful. So depending on how you like your battles fought, you can choose between running everything over vs having to think before you act (although the hardest difficulty is locked until you’ve viewed all 3 endings of the game).

+Characters:
The Fate series is an incredibly large franchise at this point with multiple shows and games featuring a multitude of different characters, and many fan favorites converge here in Fate Extella Link (*cough* Astolfo *cough*). Of course, that’s not to say that you need to know who some of these characters really are from their original games, but it’s something that certainly adds to the experience. One of the ways that the game helps you from feeling everything is too monotonous is by offering these different characters with their own differing special abilities and using the “money is power” system. Not every character is available to you upon starting the game, and as you progress through the story the character you play as will level up accordingly. However, when you get a new character they always start at 1. The game lets you use these characters immediately by allowing you to spend a certain amount of in-game money (which isn’t hard to earn) to level them up to the equivalent of your highest level character.

+Story:
The story is arguably something that doesn’t need to be weighed significantly considering the nature of the game, but Fate as a franchise always likes to try to make the events to be intriguing. With that said, I found the story to be decent at best. While it claims to be a sequel to Extella, the pick off from where Extella left off (providing more insight on the character Altera) was admittedly weak in my opinion. Altera isn’t completely unrelated in this title, but she more or less takes a backseat while the new servant takes the spotlight, so do keep that in mind when considering the game.

+Mission Design:
Aside from the plethora of characters available to the player, another way the game keeps itself fresh is by changing up the rhythm of the game. More specifically, you may still end up having to kill everything in sight, but there are a lot more obstacles that will get in your way. My favorite one being jammers interfering with your vision of the map. The map when unimpeded gives an easy to understand situation of the battlefield and makes navigating towards your destination simple. However, jammers cover up a large portion of the map preventing you from knowing what’s happening where, and you then have to locate and destroy the jammers by exploring unseen territories as a result. Other such obstacles that can give you a game over if not handled appropriately exist as well, and it’s not something that occurs often to the point that the obstacles themselves seem to be repeating in an annoying fashion.

+/-Controller:
If you don’t intend to use a controller for the game then feel free to skip this point. Basically, when I started Fate Extella Link for the first time, none of the controller inputs were as they should be, prompts like A and B were shown as numbers instead, and buttons like dash were attached to my controllers start button (ridiculous I know). Probably the first time I’ve encountered such a thing from an XSEED port, but this is fixed by turning off controller recognition in steam’s big picture mode. Why? I have no idea, but so long as you do so, you shouldn’t encounter the issue.

-Let me play the game:
So. Many. Interruptions. As I said earlier, any given stage has there share of obstacles, many of which are introduced as you progress through the stage. Well, when these obstacles appear, you are taken out of combat to view a cutscene to highlight that these obstacles are now present. It’s not too bad at first, but it gets old fast when you’re just trying to destroy enemies and have to look at a cutscene you’ve already seen.

-Frame Drops:
Fate Extella Link suffers from some technical issues as well, particulars are unknown, but I had many times where my frames would drop when performing certain attacks. These drops don’t seem random either as some moves seemed to recreate the issue rather consistently. This isn’t the case for all the characters (at least I don’t believe so), but is something to think about. The frame drops at most are by a full second, perhaps even less, but was something I couldn’t ignore after a certain point since it occurred a fair amount of times.

-Nonexistent Smallfry:
You really only need to distinguish two kinds of enemies, those with health bars and those without. To call the enemies without health bars “weak” is an incredible overstatement. At least on normal difficulty, the “grunts” shall we say do nothing but stand there. I completely understand that this is a game where you single-handedly destroy thousands, but if I decide to simply stand around in the middle of a mob, they should at least look like they’re going to attempt to hurt me.

In terms of hack and slash (or musou, if you’re familiar with the term) games, Fate Extella Link earns its keep as a part of the genre fairly well. If you’re familiar with the Fate franchise then you’ll find this title particularly enjoyable. Not an outright requirement, but definitely a plus.

This product was reviewed with a key provided by the Developers/Publishers.

Follow our curator page, OCG-Curations if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.

[h1] [u]The Short of it[/u] [/h1] [u]Pros:[/u] +Satisfying Hack and Slash Combat +Particularly great for Fate fans with it’s large roster of playable characters +A decent story to keep you playing +Mission design that keeps the game from getting too stale [u]Cons:[/u] +/-Controller recognition complications -Constant Interruptions whilst playing -Technical issues where lag consistently occurred -Basic enemies aren’t any sort of threat [h1] [u]More In-depth[/u] [/h1] +[u]Gameplay:[/u] As a hack and slash game, how the combat feels should be Extella Link’s main concern, and I’m happy to say that the game does so very well. Each attack performed has a strong impact, and comes off as incredibly satisfying when finishing a combo and blowing multiple enemies away. You are very much a “one man army” so to speak, but on higher difficulties enemies can become bigger threats that deal much higher amounts of damage if you’re not careful. So depending on how you like your battles fought, you can choose between running everything over vs having to think before you act (although the hardest difficulty is locked until you’ve viewed all 3 endings of the game). +[u]Characters:[/u] The Fate series is an incredibly large franchise at this point with multiple shows and games featuring a multitude of different characters, and many fan favorites converge here in Fate Extella Link (*cough* Astolfo *cough*). Of course, that’s not to say that you need to know who some of these characters really are from their original games, but it’s something that certainly adds to the experience. One of the ways that the game helps you from feeling everything is too monotonous is by offering these different characters with their own differing special abilities and using the “money is power” system. Not every character is available to you upon starting the game, and as you progress through the story the character you play as will level up accordingly. However, when you get a new character they always start at 1. The game lets you use these characters immediately by allowing you to spend a certain amount of in-game money (which isn’t hard to earn) to level them up to the equivalent of your highest level character. +[u]Story:[/u] The story is arguably something that doesn’t need to be weighed significantly considering the nature of the game, but Fate as a franchise always likes to try to make the events to be intriguing. With that said, I found the story to be decent at best. While it claims to be a sequel to Extella, the pick off from where Extella left off (providing more insight on the character Altera) was admittedly weak in my opinion. Altera isn’t completely unrelated in this title, but she more or less takes a backseat while the new servant takes the spotlight, so do keep that in mind when considering the game. +[u]Mission Design:[/u] Aside from the plethora of characters available to the player, another way the game keeps itself fresh is by changing up the rhythm of the game. More specifically, you may still end up having to kill everything in sight, but there are a lot more obstacles that will get in your way. My favorite one being jammers interfering with your vision of the map. The map when unimpeded gives an easy to understand situation of the battlefield and makes navigating towards your destination simple. However, jammers cover up a large portion of the map preventing you from knowing what’s happening where, and you then have to locate and destroy the jammers by exploring unseen territories as a result. Other such obstacles that can give you a game over if not handled appropriately exist as well, and it’s not something that occurs often to the point that the obstacles themselves seem to be repeating in an annoying fashion. +/-[u]Controller:[/u] If you don’t intend to use a controller for the game then feel free to skip this point. Basically, when I started Fate Extella Link for the first time, none of the controller inputs were as they should be, prompts like A and B were shown as numbers instead, and buttons like dash were attached to my controllers start button (ridiculous I know). Probably the first time I’ve encountered such a thing from an XSEED port, but this is fixed by turning off controller recognition in steam’s big picture mode. Why? I have no idea, but so long as you do so, you shouldn’t encounter the issue. -[u]Let me play the game:[/u] So. Many. Interruptions. As I said earlier, any given stage has there share of obstacles, many of which are introduced as you progress through the stage. Well, when these obstacles appear, you are taken out of combat to view a cutscene to highlight that these obstacles are now present. It’s not too bad at first, but it gets old fast when you’re just trying to destroy enemies and have to look at a cutscene you’ve already seen. -[u]Frame Drops:[/u] Fate Extella Link suffers from some technical issues as well, particulars are unknown, but I had many times where my frames would drop when performing certain attacks. These drops don’t seem random either as some moves seemed to recreate the issue rather consistently. This isn’t the case for all the characters (at least I don’t believe so), but is something to think about. The frame drops at most are by a full second, perhaps even less, but was something I couldn’t ignore after a certain point since it occurred a fair amount of times. -[u]Nonexistent Smallfry:[/u] You really only need to distinguish two kinds of enemies, those with health bars and those without. To call the enemies without health bars “weak” is an incredible overstatement. At least on normal difficulty, the “grunts” shall we say do nothing but stand there. I completely understand that this is a game where you single-handedly destroy thousands, but if I decide to simply stand around in the middle of a mob, they should at least look like they’re going to attempt to hurt me. [h1] [u]Conclusion[/u] [/h1] In terms of hack and slash (or musou, if you’re familiar with the term) games, Fate Extella Link earns its keep as a part of the genre fairly well. If you’re familiar with the Fate franchise then you’ll find this title particularly enjoyable. Not an outright requirement, but definitely a plus. This product was reviewed with a key provided by the Developers/Publishers. [quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/7871885/]Follow our curator page,[b] OCG-Curations[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote]