Title	Fate/Samurai Remnant
Developer	Omega Force
Publisher	KOEI TECMO GAMES
Release Date	September 29th, 2023
Genre	Action RPG
Platform	PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam
Age Rating	ESRB – T for Teen
Official Website

Last month, I had the opportunity to try a preview build of the latest game in the Fate franchise, Fate/Samurai Remnant. After my short time with the game, I was impressed with the taste I had of the game’s story, characters, and combat. Now, I’ve had the opportunity to play through the full version of the game. Was Fate/Samurai Remnant able to meet the expectations I set for it, or did the full game dispel any positive feelings I had from the preview build?

Fate/Samurai Remnant takes place in 1651 Edo, Japan and follows Miyamoto Iori, a student of the famed swordmaster, Miyamoto Musashi. After a run-in with a powerful Servant, Rider, and their Master, Yui Shousetsu, Iori finds himself dragged into a conflict known as the Waxing Moon Ritual. He, alongside his Servant, Saber, must now navigate this contest, battling powerful foes and making allies along the way. Will Iori and Saber be able to protect the peace in Edo while contending for the Waxing Moon, or will this ritual consume the city in the flames of conflict?

I enjoyed my time playing through Fate/Samurai Remnant’s story. The game did a good job explaining how the Waxing Moon Ritual came to be and developing some of the characters involved in the conflict in my first playthrough. The story gave me genuine moments of shock and awe, but there were also some moments that may have been a bit predictable, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless. Rider’s True Name reveal and Iori’s showdowns with certain characters probably stuck with me the most. Iori and Saber, being the stars of the show, had the most development throughout the game. Iori became not only a competent Master, but he grew to be a powerful swordsman, capable of holding his own against monsters and Servants alike. Saber grew to care about Iori and the city he lives in, and soon saw Iori not as a weakling that needed protection, but a capable partner. You also come to learn the motivations of the other masters, such as Zheng Chenggong and Takao Dayu, and I really sympathized with them. Unfortunately, there are some characters that didn’t receive as much development as others, like Chiemon and Dorothea. For these characters, I was given some background info, but I never really learned what their motivations were. What did they want to wish for?

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Earlier, I specifically mentioned my first playthrough Fate/Samurai Remnant and its story. This is because at certain points in the main story, there are decisions that you can make that will change the direction of the plot. For example, there are two locations you can go to, but you only have time to go to one of them. So, while I am disappointed some characters didn’t get as much development as I would’ve liked, their development may actually be in the routes I didn’t choose. Having a branching story gives the game much more replay value, and while I didn’t have time to do a second playthrough before writing this review, I am looking forward to seeing what occurs in the paths I didn’t choose, and learning about characters I didn’t learn much about in my first playthrough, such as Rogue Saber. I’m also interested in seeing if the game’s ending will be affected if I choose different options. A helpful option that unlocks after you complete the game for the first time is the Completed Story section in the main menu. This gives you percentages on how much you’ve completed of each chapter and optional Digressions. So, if you want to make sure you’ve seen everything there is to see, you can always go back and check this section.

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Speaking of Digressions, these are optional side stories focusing on characters involved in the Waxing Moon Ritual. While I call these optional, I highly recommend doing them so you can get the most out of the story. These Digressions can take place in the past or present, and can help develop not only the main cast, but also characters who don’t get much screen time in the main story, such as the Rogue Servants. So if you want to get closer to characters such as Rogue Rider, make sure to do their Digressions. They also show you events leading up to characters meeting Iori and Saber in the main story, which may only be mentioned in passing but not elaborated upon if you just play the main story. For example, Iori runs into Berserker at a crucial part of the main story, and Iori questions why she’s there. Well, you can find out exactly how Berserker got there if you play the Digressions. You want to find out how Berserker met Takao Dayu? You have to play the Digressions. Not only will Digressions help flesh out the story more, you can also get some nice rewards too, such as currency and items. This is also the only way to unlock a Rogue Servant’s True Name and Noble Phantasm, so if you want to get the most out of them in battle, you have to play the Digressions. There’s a time limit for how long you have to complete certain Digressions, but the game gives you a helpful notification if a Digression will go away if you continue the story. The name of the Digression will also be colored in red to show you which one will disappear, so you can focus on those. Of all the Digressions, I enjoyed Rogue Ruler’s (Boss) the most as it gave me a good chuckle every time because of how ridiculous he is. 

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A helpful section I touched upon in my preview of Fate/Samurai Remnant is the Logbook. This will document all the information you’ve compiled on the characters in the game as well as some terminology used. Again, this is fantastic, as there are a lot of words used that may confuse people new to the Fate universe, so it’s helpful to read through it. The Logbook also contains some information not spoken about outright in the main story, such as background information on Masters, and information on Servants after their True Name is revealed. I will say you should be careful reading the entries for one of the characters. You’ll know which character as they are related to Saber. I found one of the entries for this character spoils Saber’s True Name, before it is explicitly revealed to the player in the main story. So, I would just be careful reading about any entry or character relating to Saber, everything else should be fair game.

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Fate/Samurai Remnant has four major gameplay portions: preparing at home, exploring Edo, combat, and Spirit Font Conflicts. When at home, you can help Iori prepare for the perils of the Waxing Moon Ritual. You can rest in bed to restore HP, maintain your swords, carve statues, choose which Rogue Servant will accompany you, and renovate your mage workshop. Maintaining your swords starts a simple minigame, and you can get an EXP bonus depending on how well you do and what materials you use. So, if you do it perfectly and with the best materials, your EXP bonus can be increased by 20% and for eight battles, which is very helpful. Carving statues is a way to not only gain some EXP, but it’s a way to make some good money as well. You can take the statues you create and sell them to the Boss at Babyloni-ya for a good chunk of change. After a certain point in the story, your home will be where you can choose which Rogue Servant will accompany you. So, make sure you have your favorite one accompanying you before you go out to battle. Renovating your workshop can give you permanent buffs (increase your Valor Gauge fill rate, increase Affinity Gauge fill rate, etc.), give you more options at your workshop (ability to upgrade your sword mountings, option to craft gems, etc.), give you benefits when exploring Edo (decrease price of goods at shops), and even give you the ability to switch out your Rogue Servant outside the house. Unlocking these benefits will cost a good amount of materials and currency, so make sure to save up!

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Once you’re out in the town, you can purchase materials and recovery items, stop minor squabbles between townsfolk, fight monsters and ruffians, pet your favorite cats and dogs, and complete Local Trials and Commissions. You’re not limited to staying in Asakusa, you can open the Edo map most of the time and go to a different district if you want, unless the story limits you at the point you’re at. Stopping squabbles and petting animals both help fill your Affinity gauge, but only petting animals will restore some of your health, so you know which one to do. Local Trials are objectives you can complete in each Edo district that can be completed for currency and materials. These are relatively simple to do, such as defeat a certain amount of enemies or pet a dog or cat a certain amount of times. Once you complete all of them, you get a Town Completion bonus, which is even more currency and materials. Commissions are like Local Trials, but they’re not limited to specific districts in Edo. So you can make progress on these no matter where you are in Edo, and they usually give much bigger rewards than the Local Trials. I do wish there were one or two more minigames to break up all the action, some that need a little more input from the player, because stopping squabbles is way too easy. I think they could’ve added a fishing minigame in here, since you’re allowed to visit ports in the game. It’s not a big deal, just a minor nitpick.

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Combat in Fate/Samurai Remnant is an action affair. You can use regular attacks with the square button, heavy attacks with the triangle button, jump with the cross button, utilize Valor Strikes with the circle button, and dodge with the R2 button. The L1 button allows you to expend Gems to use spells or switch Iori’s current Sword Style. The R1 button accesses the Servant menu and allows you to use Affinity techniques and switch out with Saber, or your chosen Rogue Servant, if the Substitution gauge is full. Saber’s gauge and the Rogue Servant’s Substitution gauge are separated, so you don’t have to worry about choosing one over the other. Valor Strikes are similar to Musou attacks, in that you expend the Valor gauge to perform a special attack which wrecks all the foes around you. When controlling a Servant, the Valor gauge turns into the Noble Phantasm gauge, which in turn changes the Valor Strike into a Noble Phantasm. You can only utilize a Noble Phantasm once you find out the Servant’s True Name, so make sure you do Digressions for those Rogue Servants! I thought it was interesting how Iori could change up his Sword Style to fit the combat situation. My favorite Sword Styles were the Water Style, which emphasizes speed, and the Fire Style, which gets stronger as your health goes down. I found combat to be fair, with a mix of easy fights and those that will challenge you. Most of the challenging fights will involve enemies that have a Shell gauge. These gauges prevent you from dealing a lot of damage to a foe unless it’s broken. This can make these enemies a bit tanky, but it isn’t too bad if you’re patient.

In order to make fights easier, you can obviously level up, but you can also spend Skill Points you accumulate to unlock buffs and abilities for Iori and your Servants. These buffs can include increasing your damage against Servants and monsters, increasing your Shell gauge depletion rate, and even unlock an ability which revives Iori after getting KO’d once in battle. If you don’t have enough Skill Points to unlock an ability, you can spend items, such as Skill Jewels, to gain points needed to get the ability. Other than unlocking nodes in the Skill Tree, you can also change Iori’s Sword Mountings. You can change four different aspects of your swords, and each will give you different benefits depending on the mounting used. Benefits can include things such as healing your HP after defeating an enemy, increasing your damage against Servants, etc. You can upgrade your favorite mountings at your workshop, so you can keep using your favorites as the story goes on. Also, your mountings actually change the appearance of Iori’s swords, which is a very nice touch.

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You know you’re about to enter a pretty important battle if a Spirit Font Conflict starts. In Spirit Font Conflicts, you have to make your way usually from Asakusa all the way to your destination in a certain amount of turns, all while taking, and defending, Spirit Nodes from your opposition. Taking specific Spirit Nodes will give you buffs, such as increasing your attack. You can also work alongside Rogue Servants you’ve bonded with throughout the story to make the Conflict easier. You can also split off Saber from Iori, effectively giving you two or more units to take Spirit Nodes with. If you run into an enemy in the same node, this starts a battle. You have an optional time limit to take out the enemies within, and if you defeat them within the time limit, you get extra rewards. If a Conflict is ever giving you difficulty, you can utilize a Support Mystic Code, which can give you different benefits, such as transporting to a node under your control or giving you additional actions within a turn. You can also click the right stick (R3) and ask Gramps for advice if you’re really stuck. What I liked about Spirit Font Conflicts is if you run into an enemy with Saber or a Rogue Servant without Iori, you can control them with no limitations. This is a good opportunity to really let loose and smash your foes. I don’t have a problem with the time limitation when controlling Servants normally, as it adds an extra challenge to battles, but sometimes I just want to wreck foes with reckless abandon. Honestly, Spirit Font Conflicts were a bit too easy for my liking on Sword Fighter (Normal) difficulty. It would’ve been nice if you needed to put a little more thought into moving your units, but the game tended to hold your hand throughout the process.

Continue Iori’s quest for the Waxing Moon on page 2 ->

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