Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star is a Dynasty Warriors-esque action game set in the popular Fate universe and takes place after the events of Fate/Extra. In the series, human mages summon heroic beings as servants to take part in a war for the Holy Grail.
In the beginning of the game, the player character has won the Holy Grail war with his servant Nero Claudius, granting them the Regalia ring and kingship over other servants. But their rule is short lived as two other servants appear with their own Regalia ring and threaten to overthrow you. You play the main story through each of their arcs, as well as one true ending route. There are also several side stories that focus on the other servants. The main story is full of clichés and uninteresting, but the side stories were entertaining.
The main routes are divided into two sections — one includes cutscenes and interactions with your servant, while the other involves killing thousands of enemies. Every stage is divided into sectors and players take over a sector by defeating special enemy units known as Aggressor. You are required to take over enemy sectors while also defending your own. Some of them involve plants that spawn Aggressors, traps that deal huge damage and boss battles with enemy servants. The goal is to repeat this and collect keys required to complete the Regime Matrix and defeat the boss.
For combat, you combine light and heavy attacks to taking out large groups of enemies. While fighting enemies can get repetitive, every servant has a few special attacks. Extella Maneuver targets a bunch of enemies while Form Change alters your equipment, granting you access to deadly attacks for a short period of time. In addition, there are three pieces scattered around the map, collecting them allows you to unleash your Noble Phantasm.
While combat is fun, the game gets repetitive. There is just not enough variety in the mission design. Still, fighting an unimaginable amount of enemies with your favourite characters has a certain charm. But the story is shockingly poor. Those expecting an in-depth dive into the universe will be disappointed as romance takes precedence over everything else.
Overall 7.0
