Fate/stay night is where Type-Moon’s prolific and popular multimedia Fate franchise began. Originally an adult (read: hentai) visual novel released in 2004, an updated version called Fate/stay night Réalta Nua was released a few years later with additional content and the hentai scenes replaced by non-hentai alternatives. Over time, the Fate series has spawned anime series, video games (such as 2011’s Fate/Extra on the PSP, being remade as Fate/Extra Record), and more. Fate/stay night Remastered (a remaster of the 2012 Vita version of Réalta Nua) released in summer 2024 and marks the game’s maiden voyage outside of Japan.
A lengthy prologue and a striking animated intro kick off Fate/stay night Remastered’s main story arc, called the Fate branch. Making the best choices at certain junctures in this densely written visual novel is paramount to getting the good ending. But the game does not end there. Starting a new game after a successful completion opens up a path to access the Unlimited Blade Works story branch. Successfully completing Unlimited Blade Works then grants access to the third story branch entitled Heaven’s Feel.
The Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven’s Feel branches extend beyond the first branch’s scope and offer unique worldbuilding and character insights. Multiple replays are therefore necessary to wring the most out of Fate/stay night Remastered. Completing all three branches took me over 45 hours, even when judiciously using the various fast-forward and scene-skip features.
Visual novels live and die by their stories, and Fate/stay night Remastered‘s excellent, if long-winded, story brilliantly transcends its Hunger Games-style premise. Every so often, seven select humans (called Masters) pair up with Servants (mystical companions based on legendary heroes) in a lethal battle royale to wish upon the Holy Grail. The various Master-Servant relationship dynamics are the most intriguing component. Some of these relationships are more toxic than others and made me wonder, “What was the universe thinking when pairing those two up?”
Players navigate Fate/stay night‘s story as Shirou Emiya, a teenage boy with a haunted past who gets caught up in this Holy Grail war after unwittingly summoning a Servant (a powerful swordswoman named Saber) during a life-or-death moment. Shirou lacks any powers but possesses an affinity for fixing broken machinery and a strong desire to help people. Unfortunately, his willingness to help anyone in need makes him a bit of a pushover. He is also stubborn to a fault, resulting in several disagreeable character traits, such as occasional gender perceptions that are outdated even by 2004 standards. Shirou is not the most likeable protagonist, but traversing Fate/stay Night Remastered in his flawed and conflicted headspace is quite an experience that gave me insight into how someone very different from me navigates complicated circumstances.
Franchise fans have strong opinions on Fate/stay night Remastered’s lack of hentai scenes. Some fans feel that removing the hentai scenes takes away from the original game’s integrity. Other fans say that the hentai scenes in the original Fate/stay night felt tacked on and that the Réalta Nua version’s revamped scenes and extra content is the definitive Fate/stay night experience.
As far as I’m concerned, transitions bookending these scenes played out smoothly, and the alternative scenes made contextual sense. I did not feel like I was missing out on content. The intense (and often violent) story’s mature themes hit all the necessary emotional notes. This contrasts with the recent version of YU-NO where some hentai scene extractions and the editing surrounding them felt jarring; I could easily tell that scenes were missing.
To keep track of storyline paths, an ongoing flowchart exists in the menu. It is easy to get bad endings or walk into lengthy trajectories that lead to bad endings, so the flowchart is quite useful. That said, it is worthwhile to get bad endings because they lead to entertaining and insightful hint sequences called Tiger Dojo sessions.
Along with the flowchart, the menu contains profiles of the Servants, their weapons, and their skills. It would have been nice if the humans (both Masters and side characters) had dossiers too. Another addition I would have liked is the ability to turn off the flashy strobe effects. There is no seizure warning, and speaking of warnings, the only content/trigger warning is a brief and easily overlooked sentence amidst an entire screen of easily ignored text. Fate/stay night Remastered contains harrowing moments that justify more prominent and detailed content/trigger warnings.
Fate/stay night Remastered is a well-thought-out game, except for its clunky menus and user interface. Keyboard controls are best, but the default button mapping is haphazard and can’t change. The game functions using a gamepad, but that makes useful keyboard hotkey shortcuts unavailable. Navigating some menus, such as the title screen menu, is sluggish due to button lag.
Unlike typical visual novels where character portraits interact through dialogue boxes, Fate/stay night Remastered appears more like a conventional novel, where copious amounts of descriptive text fill the entire screen atop crisply rendered stills. Environments utilize colors to elicit certain emotions, and the expressive character designs are appealing to look at. My only discrepancy with the art is that some character designs do not fit their descriptions. For example, an athletic girl described as having muscular arms is drawn daintily with slim arms.
No labeled text boxes define who is speaking, but I could follow conversations thanks to the voiced dialogue. The 2006 anime series’ Japanese cast voices the characters, though Shirou’s lines are not voiced at all. This is a common visual novel design choice, as Shirou is a player-insert, but conversations felt and sounded disconnected. For example, when Shirou converses with a cryptic priest, I want to hear the exasperation in Shirou’s voice and not only imagine it while silently reading his lines.
Fate/stay night Remastered’s blend of action and drama with occasional bouts of comic relief requires a dynamic soundtrack that balances these disparate elements. Several genres of music utilizing all manner of instrumentation serve that purpose here. Each composition feels thought out, and every piece of music elicits the necessary feelings at the right moments. Many visual novels have music that blends into the background, but this game’s evocative music is as prominent as its lovely visuals and involved story.
Fate/stay night Remastered holds onto several 2000s trappings that may not appeal to contemporary sensibilities, but playing it most certainly brought me back to my younger days. The moment I saw the slick anime intro following the lengthy prologue, I knew this was the kind of game I would have absolutely devoured twenty years ago. Fans laud Fate/stay night Remastered for good reason and I am glad I finally got to play it.