Fate/stay night

[Talon87]

So after many months of saying I would pick it up again and not doing so, I finally picked FSN up again last night. No idea why. And so far it has been glorious.

But things were majorly rough at first. I had forgotten so much, and knowing that I had forgotten so much was driving me so crazy, that I had to find out what I was forgetting. So I went back through the thread yesterday evening and re-read all of my Heavens Feel posts to try and catch back up. Did a pretty good job of this but then I had no more time to play. I resumed playing today and I'm currently at the part right after Shirou gets an unusual gift from Kotomine and Archer.

Shirou and Sakura Sex Scene #1:
So you might recall that this is where I got hung up back in February. It's kind of funny, isn't it? But if ever there was proof that Kinoko Nasu sucks at writing erotica, it's that the board's biggest hentai afficionado put down the game and didn't pick it back up for months because he'd gotten to yet another Nasu sex scene.

As far as FSN sex scenes go, this wasn't too bad. Kind of weirded out by the parts where Shirou was thinking "I want to destroy her" (uhh, what? ) and as usual Nasu's writing is distractingly and embarrassingly bad, but what can you do?

Shirou's tête-à-tête with Rider:
Not bad. I originally picked the most neutral option ("Say Rider? Aren't you hungry?") but felt I was copping out, went back, and decided to say "Look, Rider, I like you." As expected, Sakura took this to mean I like liked Rider and went ballistic. Fun scene ... but will it have dire consequences? Probably not, but it's fun to imagine.

Shirou's Journey into the Einzbern Forest:
"FUCK YEAH! Team Shirou x Ilya, here I come! It's about time!" This is what I pretty much thought when they announced this. I didn't expect what actually happened to happen.

Spoiler: show

As the scene quickly gives way to its first interlude, revealing Ilya is on the run with Berserker from Castle Einzbern and the dark phantom in pursuit of them, I thought, "Oh no, not again, " worried that this was going to turn out to be exactly like Unlimited Blade Works' Castle Einzbern scene.

The next thing I didn't expect was that a serious, plot-important fight was about to take place. I'm referring, of course, to the True Assassin + Dark Saber + mysterious phantom Vs. Berserker fight. The fight was kinda lackluster?, given the overwhelming odds for defeat Berserker was up against?, but I really enjoyed the allusion to Greek mythology when they had Berserker rip off his skin in order to free himself from the dark slime and to make one last-ditch attempt on Dark Saber's life. A, the ripping off the skin part. B, the fact that he did so to combat a poison. Nice reference to the legend of Hercules and how he died.

This scene was also Dark Saber's debut which was both unexpected and really nice. Would have been way more epic, of course, if I had not been spoilered on Dark Saber's existence ages ago: but that really can't be helped. I'd seen pictures of Dark Saber perhaps since before I'd even started watching the FSN anime, and certainly by the time soon after I'd watched it, and honestly the knowledge of there even being a path where there was a "Dark Saber" and a "Dark Sakura" was what really had me looking forward to playing the game some day in the first place.

The Mysterious Phantom:
I think I've mentioned it in older posts, but I'll go ahead and say again: the identity of the phantom still has not been officially revealed, but I've long suspected who it was due to the phantom's coloration and due to the knowledge of what the suspect looks like thanks to all the fan art I've seen of that person over the years. But anyway:

Spoiler: show

The game strongly, strongly hinted at the phantom being Sakura after the fight in the Einzbern Forest wrapped up. They showed Sakura, back at Shirou's house, having a vision of what the phantom was doing. They claimed it was because she was watching the scene unfold through Rider's eyes, but it was awfully convenient that she exited the reverie the moment the phantom vanished from the crime scene. Then they had her vomit and something came up out of her mouth. She then ambiguously says "Senpai's arm ...". Is it because she's vomiting because of the image of Shirou losing his arm? Or is it because, as I first read it XD, she actually puked up Shirou's arm? Obviously that doesn't seem plausible, but ... that was how I first read it (before continuing with the scene), and regardless, the dialogue here seems to hint at Sakura being the phantom. Whether she exists in two places at once or whether she teleports in between the Emiya household and the battle sites remains to be seen.

Servant Statuses:

Spoiler: show

Saber - captured and corrupted either by True Assassin's blackness or else by the phantom's. It's still sort of vague who/what is sucking the Servants away and who/what is corrupting them.

Lancer - dead, cause of death unknown (or at least I don't remember it)

Archer - dead (blown away by the phantom, gave left arm up to help Shirou)

Caster - dead, consumed by True Assassin

Berserker - dead, absorbed by the black slime (whether it was True Assassin's or the phantom's is unclear)

Rider - still alive, and pretty much the heroes' only remaining hope for victory

Assassin - dead, consumed by True Assassin

True Assassin - still alive and kicking.

Tohsaka's Compelling Interest in Saving Sakura:
I had completely forgotten that this epic cat was already out of the bag. But apparently it was because, after no mention of it during the previous scenes, it was then casually addressed by Shirou in his conversation with Rin at Kotomine's church. So apparently this was revealed during the time I played in February. Whoops for not noting it back then. ^^;

Adorable:
So then I get to one of the cutest Ilya glomp scenes since I put the game down in February. Had to screencap this, had to share.

Adorable. ^___^

[Talon87]

The Implications of Archer's Emergence from the HF Path:
It's interesting how one tweak to the story can completely change how Archer comes into being. In Fate and Unlimited Blade Works, it's presented pretty clearly that

Spoiler: show

Shirou will one day become Archer as he practices his craft and develops his natural talent.

But in HF, it's presented as though

Spoiler: show

Shirou became Archer because of receiving Archer's arm.

For instance, Rin has made comments in the HF path like "Normally you'd never have been able to learn how to do this, but now that you have this arm, you can." And it's funny because we've seen not once but twice before (Fate, UBW) that he totally can learn projection magic in a very short span of time, capably enough to take on the King of Kings, Gilgamesh, and emerge from the 5th Holy Grail War a survivor.

Speaking of the King of Kings ...
Gilgamesh has made only one off-screen appearance since I've resumed playing. He had a short conversation with Kotomine about whether Kotomine really doesn't have a wish or not. This conversation prompted Kotomine to have a flashback sequence which went into greater details than we'd had before about Kotomine's childhood, his relationship with his father, his beliefs, etc. Kotomine comes back out of the reverie and Gilgamesh asks him again about whether he has a wish or not that he wants granted. And Kotomine peculiarly answers that the Grail cannot grant his wish but it can allow him to wish into existence something else which can. Which, uh, is sort of admitting that you do have a wish and you do want the Grail. So why you gotta be so confusing about it, dude?

Sakura Sex Scene #2:
Not as good as the first one and I've pretty much run out of patience for Nasu's crappy sex scenes. So I rapid-fired the mouse quite a bit on this and I also read each of the screens blazingly fast -- it was more "scanning" than "reading" -- slowing down only to read parts that looked like they might have mattered to the greater plot.

Ilya knows! :
So I got to the first round of Shirou's training with Rin and Ilya in the dojo. Rin steps outside (to have an Interlude conversation with Sakura) but before we cut to that it's just Shirou and Ilya in the dojo. And then Ilya says something very strange: she tells Shirou that while Rin might not appreciate the gravity of the situation of Shirou having received Archer's arm, she does ... and she knows Shirou's relationship with Archer. A, that's all she says -- that she knows their relationship. She doesn't say what that relationship is. So B, this leaves Shirou puzzled as (in the Heavens Feel path) he's never learned the truth about him and Archer, much like in Fate. Interesting! How does Ilya know? Is it because she realizes, as a very magical being and as an Einzbern, that there should have been no way for the surgical operation to have been a success unless Shirou was {spoiler}? Interesting. Makes you wonder if Kotomine also knows. Makes you wonder if it's going to come up again after all.

Shirou offers to project Rin's sword but ...:
I had to laugh at the part where, after Rin has explained hers and Ilya's plan to have Shirou project a copy of the Tohsaka's heirloom sword, Shirou offered to project it just by looking at it. Rin then chastized him, saying, "No! We don't want another of your crappy hollow projections! If you don't have the raw materials, then we'll never stand a chance!" Had to laugh, of course, because even though Shirou's projections in the other paths were hollow and consequently were one-hit wonders that shattered as soon as he used them, he was still able to win in those paths doing the very thing he proposed and Rin rejected. But it will certainly be interesting to see Shirou create a sword from raw materials this time instead of doing his usual (from the other paths) and creating them out of thin air. Maybe it'll last for more than 3 hits this time?

The Shadow's Identity:
Still hasn't been officially revealed. But given that you-know-who woke up from a nightmare where you-know-who was the Shadow, it's seeming increasingly likely that the culprit's identity's been nailed since before I started to play (oh spoiler art ).

[Talon87]

Ilya, Please Stay!
Shirou and Ilya go shopping for three days' worth of food. On the way home, Ilya starts to sing Die Lorelei:

Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt,
Und ruhig fließt der Rhein;
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt
Im Abendsonnenschein.

Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar;
Ihr goldnes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar.

Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe
Ergreift es mit wildem Weh;
Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe,
Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh.

Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn;
Und das hat mit ihrem Singen
Die Lore-Ley getan.

Translation (from this source):

The air is cool in the gloaming
And gently flows the Rhine.
The crest of the mountain is gleaming
In fading rays of sunshine.

The loveliest maiden is sitting
Up there, so wondrously fair;
Her golden jewelry is glist'ning;
She combs her golden hair.

The boatman aboard his small skiff, -
Enraptured with a wild ache,
Has no eye for the jagged cliff, -
His thoughts on the heights fear forsake.

I think that the waves will devour
Both boat and man, by and by,
And that, with her dulcet-voiced power
Was done by the Loreley.

It's interesting because Ilya totally had this song in the other two routes as well (it played when we saw the flashbacks of her in the forest with Berserker and the slain wolves) but not until the Heavens Feel path has she actually sung aloud any of the lyrics, and here we see that they perfectly fit this path in describing Shirou's relationship with Sakura. Kind of weird, then, that they describe a girl other than the girl who is characterized by this song ^^;, but neato all the same that it ominously describes Shirou's willingness to lose everything, even his own life, if it means rescuing Sakura.

But perhaps the highlight of this scene for me was when Shirou finally popped the question "Will you be my sister?" Close enough! "Will you come and live with me after the war?" Awesome. Heartbreaking to hear Ilya's realistic response of (paraphrased) "I would love to, but it's impossible. If I'm alive at the end of the war, then that means you're dead."

Third Sakura Sex Scene:
I actually hollered "NOOOOOOoooooooo! " when this one started up. Was so, so glad it lasted like one-fifth the regular length of one of these Nasu sex scenes. But was very disappointed to discover that it fleshed out the remainder of Sakura's sex scenes in the Gallery. Because I was TOTALLY hoping for Shirou x _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _. Totally up my alley. Oh well. There's always erodoujinshi.

The Shadow Revealed
It's official.

Spoiler: show

Saw the scene where poor Sakura feels like she's following the Shadow ... except that she's feeling every emotion it feels ... and then she runs into Gilgamesh in a dark alley ... and he dismembers her. If I had thought that Nasu wrote ridiculous shit for Shirou, HERE was a truly ridiculous bit of writing. Holy shit: he graphically describes disembowelment, being cut in half below the waist, and having one of her arms lopped off at the elbow. And she STILL survives! And not only does she survive, she ...

... kills ... Gil? WHOA! What the hell just happened? Did she just eat Gilgamesh!?

So yeah. That was an interesting scene. If I'm not mistaken, it also shows that ...

Spoiler: show

we never get to see Gilgamesh in the Heavens Feel path while wearing his gold armor. Also, we never really get to see him do anything super-evil with lasting consequences. Poor Ilya he blinded and then ripped her heart out, which I would personally say was worse than Sakura's fate even had Sakura died. But the fact that Ilya perished whereas Sakura survived and then devoured Gilgamesh, for me, makes Gilgamesh's role in UBW his most evil one.

Rin Steals Sakura's One Precious Memory:
The scene where Rin talks to Shirou about how she, too, was spying on him on the track field four years ago. Not really important to me except that the scene serves as a catalyst for Sakura's further development into {spoiler}.

Ilya discusses Containers with Sakura:
The scene where Ilya reveals ...

Spoiler: show

that Sakura has the other four servants (Lancer, Caster, Saber, Berserker) but that she (Ilya) has Archer. The reason why Ilya knows so much about Shirou = Archer, perhaps? Probably. It would seem that after absorbing Archer, Ilya came to know about him. And this necessarily meant that she discovered the truth of his relationship with Shirou. It would also mean, if Archer's memories had returned by the time of his demise, that she knows how the War will turn out -- or at least how it turned out in Archer's timeline.

Zouken's tête-à-tête with Shirou:
This was a very interesting scene. Lots of important development.

Spoiler: show

This is the scene where Zouken asks Shirou to consider killing Sakura in order to save the townspeople. He comments that he can no longer go anywhere near her, nor can Tohsaka Rin. Only Shirou can because Shirou is the only remaining person in this world whom Sakura loves/trusts and thus whom the Shadow will not automatically destroy should that person try to do something to Sakura.

It's also the scene where we learn about what the Shadow actually is. Zouken explains that it's some sort of spiritual energy given form in Sakura that crossed the border between the realm where the True Holy Grail exists (i.e. the realm all the fake Holy Grails communicate back to) and our realm. Zouken seems to indicate that a proper Holy Grail construct, like the Einzbern's, is able to close the gate between that world and ours but that Sakura, as an imperfect experiment on Zouken's part, was not only unable to close the gate fully but that she allowed this creature/energy-being through. It's not really clear to me whether the Shadow represents the corrupted Holy Grail Doppel has spoken of to me before (War 3, you said this happened in?) or whether it's some other entity. It's also not really clear to me to what extent Dark Sakura is actually Sakura and to which extent it's this external force. Zouken makes it sound like Sakura has merely become a container for this being (i.e. the Sakura we know is long gone) but at the same time he makes it sound as though this being as adopted not only Sakura's form but also her emotions and memories. And that this is why Shirou's the only person, until now, the Shadow won't touch. (Even though it toally did lop off his arm that one time in the forest -- because Sakura willed that Shirou be grievously injured such that he could no longer partake in the war.)

The White and the Black Grails:
Ilya confirms what Zouken told Shirou. Tells him about her being a H_______s.

Shirou resolves to ... what!?:
So I saved here before quitting yesterday and this is where I'm set to resume now. Looks like it's the decision I made outside the church Part 2. Only this time I get the feeling that the situation is even more grave.

Spoiler: show

Outside the Church, I made the decision to save Sakura rather than to kill Sakura. Same decision as I'm making now. But the idea inside my own head at the time, and probably that within Shirou's as well, was that I wanted to have both Sakura -and- the townspeople. Shirou simply wasn't willing to condemn Sakura at that point. But now, it feels like Shirou is making a slightly different choice: one between certainly sparing Sakura but allowing her to become Dark Sakura and kill everybody, or else killing Sakura in order to avert disaster and to release Sakura from her pain. I don't know what I'd do in real life in this situation, but I think I'd probably have the attitude, even if it's ridiculously self-destructive, of "I won't try to kill you while you're you. I'll set to work if and when you do become irreparably evil." I.e. I'd probably cling to the hope that she isn't going to transform. In other words, I'd repeat my same decision outside the church and pick Sakura over the world. We'll see what the ramifications of that choice are!

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by Talon87

As far as FSN sex scenes go, this wasn't too bad. Kind of weirded out by the parts where Shirou was thinking "I want to destroy her" (uhh, what? ) and as usual Nasu's writing is distractingly and embarrassingly bad, but what can you do?

I've noticed this a lot in eroges. The guys are perfectly normal, but when they're riding the high wave they're always thinking degradation/destruction. "She's so proud normally, the thought of her depravity makes my member harder than diamond" or something.

It seems so uncharacteristic, but its ubiquity suggests a common repressed attitude among H-game protags?

[Talon87]

Make Your Choice!
So like I said, I chose the same option as I did before at the church. Thing is, I'm once again wondering if I'm jumped the gun in thinking I've identified the decision you all talked about as being the fork in the road between the True End and the other end. Because it looks like the choice I made wasn't just a viable choice but the only viable choice: Rider explains to Sakura after Shirou leaves that had I attempted the other choice she would have killed me/him. Dunno if that's just a path-specific bit of dramatic commentary or if I yet again avoided a Tiger Stamp moment. I've still got zero Tiger Stamps on this path.

Shirou's Conversation with Kotomine:
So the next morning Shirou runs off to confront Kotomine after he realizes that, given what Zouken said about the fragments of the last Holy Grail being {spoiler}, Kotomine should have definitely noticed. This conversation was useful since it spelled out, with no more bullshit vagueness, what Kotomine's and Kiritsugu's mentalities were like.

Spoiler: show

Kotomine explains that he was, as we had learned from his reverie a few posts back, born evil / born without the capacity to be good and to enjoy goodness. Thus he always sought good as a boy but realized it just wasn't him. And then his life goal changed and he vowed to protect the emergence of any and all life forms, no matter how wicked since he viewed his own life the same way: an abomination who should have been aborted and yet was brought into this world anyway. Kiritsugu, on the other hand, Kotomine explains, "loved humans" so dearly that he more or less committed himself to "evil" because that was the only way he could become a superhero. I.e. he said "Fuck the people I care about, I'mma go protect the many." So given my (Shirou's) choice to protect Sakura rather than the people of Fuyuki City, Kotomine commented that I am more like him than I am like Kiritsugu. This makes me all the more excited for Fate/Zero this fall. Really looking forward to seeing how things play out between Kiritsugu and Irisviel. Also looking forward to seeing how things play out between him and Kotomine.

Ran back home and noticed something was amiss. Saved, decided to post this small update, and will resume in a bit.

[Talon87]

Currently am at Castle Einzbern, fleeing from D___ B_______. Well, I dunno if he's D___ or not. Haven't actually seen him yet.

Chose to team up with Kotomine. Even if he has the 180º opposite goal as me in the long term regarding Ilya, for now he and I are on the same page for saving her. So I welcomed his help.

Getting confused by all the NasuVerse terminology. What's the difference between these three:
* Holy Grail (like Ilya)
* Holy Grail (like the one in the other realm)
* True Holy Grail (which apparently is hidden somewhere in this "land of Tohsaka")

I figured the True Holy Grail would be that second bullet point, i.e. the Grail and its contents that exist in the other realm which we are accessing via a man-made Grail (e.g. Ilya) in our own realm. Kind of like how we have Servants but we don't have the pure-form Heroic Spirit blueprints that exist in the Throne of Heroes. But now Shirou and Kotomine are referring to some third Grail that apparently is somewhere here in the land and which Shirou hopes to destroy the magic circle of. (What? Now I'm even more confused! Why would a Grail that was made 200 years ago still have a Magic Circle in place? and why would destroying the Magic Circle at this point destroy the grail? WHO THE HECK IS POWERING THE CIRCLE!?!?!?!?!? Is there some Immortal who's trapped down there keeping the spell running!? O_o)

Some reference was made to how the Grail in the other realm got poisoned, although I can't remember if the game specified that it happened at the end of War 3 or if I just projected that factoid onto the dialogue courtesy of memories of UPN conversations.

LOL @ Shirou's eight-story jump. (Well, three castle stories. But he said this equaled roughly seven or eight normal stories.) Goddamn Nasu and his "oh yeah Shirou can survive ANYTHING" stuff.

Speculation: given that Rider's contract with Sakura doesn't appear to necessarily be broken off (even though Sakura did use the last of her Command Crest spells to order Rider to protect Shirou no matter the circumstances), and given that Sakura is now über-powerful, does that make Rider über-powerful? We haven't really seen any indication of this yet. But I'm curious if Rider will be able to hold her own against a four-way onslaught between D___ S____, D___ B_______, D___ S_____, and True Assassin.

Speculation: Kotomine made an offhand comment to Shirou about how Rin's ancestors have got some vampire ties. I'm guessing that this is going to be what ties into Old Man Zelretch, eh? We'll see.

[Talon87]

So, I'm about to beat the game (the Shiny Sword vs. Shadow Giants fight has already taken place completely, self-sacrificial hug and all) but I haven't posted in a bit because I've been logging all my progress to a Notepad file and it's written more for my own bookkeeping than for you guys and I've been lazy about converting it from one to the other. I've decided I'll break the notepad file's contents into segments and will post them bit by bit. Here comes the first of them. Then I'll go back and resume playing ... Just remember! I'm actually much farther along than where this post ends.

==================================================

Escape Through the Einzbern Forest:
When Kotomine took hold of Ilya and broke into an inhuman run, I thought, "Oh shit! He's got the girl! @_@ And I can't catch up!" Thankfully Shirou did catch up ... but then he noticed something was very wrong about this entire situation. And the first piece of Kotomine's peculiar history was revealed.

I Know That Sword! :
When Kotomine handed Shirou the Black Key, I didn't recognize the name nor the description at first. But when I read the Status screen, a distant memory began to stir. And when I reached the final line, the one about how some Executors are known to carry hundreds beneath their clothing, it all came back to me. "CIEL! I bet these are the swords Ciel always had in Tsukihime!" A quick trip to the Internet confirmed it. A smile was had.

"And now you die ... HUH!?":
The part with Kotomine vs. True Assassin started off normal enough ... and then everything got "HOLY SHIT WHAT'S GOING ON OH MY GOD THIS IS AWESOME" when the unexpected happened.

Spoiler: show

Recall: True Assassin wears Kotomine down and eventually delivers the killing blow. Only there's two problems. First, he believes that Kotomine's swords will pass through his body as if he were a shadow. They don't: they instead pin True Assassin to a tree. He can't even budge. Second, he believes that his arm will connect, rip out Kotomine's heart, and kill him. But instead, he's horrified at something which has gone horribly wrong ... and you we see that Kotomine LIVES. :O

Such an unexpected twist. At this point, I was seriously entertaining such wild theories as "He's a Homonculus made in the image of the original Kotomine! :O" and "Oh my God what if he's Undead, like, a Vampire or something? What if he's even a True Ancestor? O_O" The reality ended up being a leeeeettle bit less crazy ^^; but it was still unexpected!

Kotomine the Badass:

Spoiler: show

Kotomine frees himself from True Assassin and leaps TEN FEET INTO THE AIR (WTF), grabs Matou Zouken, brings him back down to the ground, and -literally- beats him to a pulp. As in, his body is -literally- decimated into a pulp. Nasu graphically describes how half of Zouken's head remains, mushy brains sticking out. Zouken's half-head laughs at Kotomine as Kotomine delivers the final blow to it. All this while, he's chanting a mysterious chant of the Church's. Zouken meanwhile is spitting vitriol at Kotomine, saying such things as:
(1) that Kotomine is still searching for happiness and that he won't be able to find it
(2) that Kotomine was an abomination the day he was born

Such an epic scene. Even if it was disappointing to later learn that Zouken had not really been destroyed after all.

The Angel of Death!? :O Awwww man! False alarm. :
Some time earlier, Kotomine internally think-labels True Assassin as Malak al-Maut. So I looked this up and it's the Quranic name for the Angel of Death, Azrael! While Azrael is his name in Arabic, the Quran never mentions his name in this way, instead calling him Malak al-Maut, "the Angel of Death."

"Is it possible," I thought to myself, "that Doppel was wrong about True Assassin's identity? It doesn't seem that way: there aren't too many positive hits for 'Malak al-Maut True Assassin' on Google, suggesting he is Hassan after all." Later on I would discover that Doppel was of course completely right. But at the time, I was entertaining the possibility that True Assassin was, true to his name, the Assassin, the bringer of death to end all bringers of death, the Archangel himself, Azrael. I mean, both Azrael and Hassan have ties to the Middle East (as Azrael is a popular fixture in Islam and is also believed in by the Jews, who originate from the Middle East) and both certainly could be rightly considered "the king of assassins"!

The Birth of the Heroic Spirit Emiya:
The part where ...

Spoiler: show

Shirou tries to engage Dark Berserker in combat. This to me was just insane. A, Berserker is the strongest Servant. B, this Berserker isn't just any Berserker: he's fucking Hercules. C, this Hercules-Berserker isn't just any Hercules-Berserker: he's Hercules-Berserker powered by the colossal power of the tainted True Holy Grail itself. He ought to be a b-e-a-s-t. How on Earth is Shirou going to stand up to this monster?

And that, friends, is the first step the boy would take towards becoming the Heroic Spirit known simply as Emiya. Because it is GODDAMN AMAZING (even if it's kind of "lol Nasu " anti-climactic to see Shirou pulling this shit off over and over again ) for a mortal boy to defeat Grail-powered Hercules-Berserker.

The one thing I'm not sure of yet, even where I am in the game right now, is to what extent Shirou is becoming Archer and to what extent he is simply dying. The game is deliberately ambiguous about this and I can't stand it. I want some evidence, any evidence, that he's turning into Archer. Bronzed skin? White hair? Something. Anything. But at the end of this scene, all we get is a tantalizing hint: Shirou, his back turned to Ilya, is the spitting back-image of Archer. Well, duh, he SHOULD be, they're the same goddamned person after all. But the artwork takes it one tantalizing step further with the Shroud of Martin: it is the same crimson color as Archer's battle armor, of course, and the way it billows behind Shirou evokes the mental image of Archer's red cape.

Hey look, it's Deus Ex!:

Spoiler: show

Dark Saber arrives but lets Shirou go because Sakura is calling for her. And besides, she says, he's earned it anyway since he managed to defeat Dark Berserker. OH, COME ON! WHAT A LAME BIT OF DEUS EX MACHINA! There is no pity in war! This is dog-eat-dog! You see an opportunity and you TAKE it! She should have KILLED him right then and there! ESPECIALLY if those were her orders from Sakura. And hell! Even if Sakura was telling her "No! Come back, and DON'T harm Shirou!", she could have STILL apprehended the redhead and dragged his scrawny ass back to where Sakura was. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh well.

That's it for this post. Check in next time for Part 2 of my end-game commentary! And now, back to what looks to be the epic final chapter of the route ...

[Talon87]

Small little blurb out of sequence: I BEAT IT. ^_^

But I'll keep posting the play-by-play notes, continuing with Part 2 later tonight. I'll offer some short comments right now and will save most stuff for the final part of this post series later.

Spoiler: show

Fan of Rin becoming Zelretch's apprentice.

Not a fan of Shirou becoming one of Touko's puppets. Was not a fan even in Kara no Kyoukai of the idea that (KnK OVA 5 spoiler):

Spoiler: show

the real Touko might be dead and that the Touko we see before us is a puppet.

Jury's out on whether fan or not fan of Rider still being around. I love Rider, for the record, but still ...

Does Kotomine's connection with the Grail (at the end of the 4th War) explain why he was able to keep Gilgamesh around? They made it sound like the same was true for Sakura's relationship with Rider; but Kotomine never became as entangled with the Grail as did Sakura, did he?

Awww @ scene between Makiri Zouken and Justica von Einzbern in Ilya's body. I know it's awfully cliché to pull this sort of stunt, but I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: I'm a sucker for tragic villains. Matou Zouken did some truly heinous things in life, but awww at this scene.

ILYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! ;_;

So ... if I were wanting to unlock the non-True endings for either path, what would I need to do differently? No hints were offered at the end of completing the True End path so I don't feel too bad about asking. (There was a hint offered some time during Shirou's moments in the cavern where he recalled "nothing that just happened would have happened had I not scolded Sakura back then like I did", so I suppose that could be the hint, but I don't remember scolding her even being an option. Was it? If it was, I guess I just naturally picked it and it led to the True End.) Are the outcomes of the other endings lesser? (like, more people die, ending is overall crappier?) Or are they just different? 'Cause I gotta say, I'm kind ehhhhhhhhhh about the canon ending for Heavens Feel. ^^; NOT A FAN OF PUPPETS! ^^;

[Talon87]

Just finished reading back through everyone's posts (and I mean everyone's from Page 2 on forward), expanding all the spoiler boxes, etc.

I'm impressed Little Blue unlocked both HF endings so quickly. Is that because you can access them by making a choice very near the end of the game (i.e. once you're already inside the cavern?) and she just found it by guess-and-checking? Or what? Guess I should ask the actual person herself rather than speaking about her in the third person ...

Doppel, lol at your Rance thing. Is that supposed to be Oda Nobunaga? WHY IS HE MISSING AN ARM!? XD But now that I've played HF, I see what you were trying to go for there.

Doppel, there is so much we disagree on aesthetically when it comes to this game. But I'll wrap Little Blue into this as well by throwing it out there: of the three main FSN heroines, I liked Sakura best.

• Hers was the most believable romance if you come at it from a real world perspective, Rin's was the most believable romance if you come at it from a cinema perspective, and Saber's was just flat-out not very convincing. What I mean is, Sakura was a girl Shirou fell in love with bit by bit over the course of two years, and Shirou a man Sakura fell in love with bit by bit over the course of four years. Believable. Rin, on the other hand, Shirou had only gotten to know intimately for about a week or two. It's a fast-paced romance that screams Hollywood action-romance summer blockbuster.
• Then you have personalities: Saber's the kind of masculine, straight-laced girl. Not my thing at ALL. Rin was the bitchy tsundere. Can be my thing, hit or miss (for classic hits, see Love Hina's Naru and Ever17's Tsugumi), but as a rule I don't much care for bitchy tsunderes. Sakura was the shy beauty (cha-ching), the childhood sweetheart (not my thing but not against it), -and- as the story progressed the corrupted femme fatale (cha-ching). Absolutely wanted to H-U-G..H-E-R..T-I-G-H-T when she started petulantly shouting at Rin during their mana fight.
• Body-wise, it's got to be Sakura once again. Saber has a flat chest (STRIKE), blonde hair with green eyes (STRIKE for that particular combo), and SHORT HAIR (STRIIIIIIIIKE). Rin's kinda flat-chested too (I know Doppel adamantly disagrees, but did you SEE those sex scene CGs? ), has brown hair with blue eyes (STRIKE for that combo), and has curly-ish hair (STRIKE). Sakura is as near pure perfection as this game comes for the main heroines: purple eyes with longish straight purple hair (cha-ching!), nice bust (cha-ching!), and totally seductive when she goes dark (cha-ching!).

I think it goes without saying that unless you're a lolikon it's obvious that Rider is the game's most smoking-hot character: gorgeously luxuriant long hair, generous bust, and one hell of an outfit to show off those breasts, ass, and legs. Then if you are a lolikon, Ilya is the clear winner, no questions asked. She steals the heart of even the blackest-hearted non-lolikons. But of the main three heroines, if I had to pick a Mai Waifu, I'd go for Sakura. So I don't fault Shirou for doing this at all. Doppel, you wrote in one post that Shirou undertook extraordinary pains for an ordinary goal (i.e. Sakura). Clearly, you're not a romantic. Or at least you weren't playing FSN with the mentality of one. I saw Heavens Feel as one big path where Nasu crafted his personal magnum opus of what a man will do for the woman he loves. You don't really get that in the other paths -- Shirou falls in love with Saber and is already fighting for a different cause; likewise, he falls in love with Rin and is fighting for something other than that love -- but in Heavens Feel, you have a man who basically says "Fuck the world. Fuck me. Fuck EVERYTHING -- I'm going to save the woman I love." It's almost cheesy in how cliché it is. But I love it. I sap that shit up.

Other stuff to respond to will probably come up in my own posts. (I'll try and post #2 here in a bit.) But I also did not get all of the CGs.
Fate: missing one (the one from last summer)
UBW: missing one (probably has to do with the non-True End)
HF: missing two (probably have to do with the non-True End)
Another: missing one (the same one Li'l Blue was missing, so I guess I can't get this without getting all of the Tiger Stamps. Forget that: can you just upload it so I can see it? )

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by Talon87

Getting confused by all the NasuVerse terminology. What's the difference between these three:
* Holy Grail (like Ilya)
* Holy Grail (like the one in the other realm)
* True Holy Grail (which apparently is hidden somewhere in this "land of Tohsaka")

Holy Grail refers to any Einzbern homunculus who can manifest a portion of the Third Magic, but serve as a krater to pool Mana gained from the deaths of Heroic Spirits (since their bodies are comprised entirely of Mana).

In Heaven's Feel, there are three functioning grails - the original (Justica von Einzbern), Ilya von Einzbern and Matou Sakura. Sakura isn't a homunculus and is a "fake" grail, but she still consumes the Mana of Heroic Spirits in the same way that Justica and Ilya would. But she isn't capable of granting wishes or manipulating the Third Magic.

In most FSN scenarios, dead spirits are sucked in by Justica. In HF, Archer is assimilated by Ilya, which is why she knows his identity after he dies. Sakura eats most of the rest except Caster and Lancer, I think.

The True Holy Grail is like a portal, connected to Akasha, the Nasuverse God, and is the mechanism that allows the wishmaking. The mana collected from the lesser grails becomes fuel for the wish. The problem is, the "taint" summoned in the Third Holy Grail War usually perverts/distorts how the wish is enacted.

Originally Posted by Talon87

The Birth of the Heroic Spirit Emiya:
The part where ...

Spoiler: show

Shirou tries to engage Dark Berserker in combat. This to me was just insane. A, Berserker is the strongest Servant. B, this Berserker isn't just any Berserker: he's fucking Hercules. C, this Hercules-Berserker isn't just any Hercules-Berserker: he's Hercules-Berserker powered by the colossal power of the tainted True Holy Grail itself. He ought to be a b-e-a-s-t. How on Earth is Shirou going to stand up to this monster?

And that, friends, is the first step the boy would take towards becoming the Heroic Spirit known simply as Emiya. Because it is GODDAMN AMAZING (even if it's kind of "lol Nasu " anti-climactic to see Shirou pulling this shit off over and over again ) for a mortal boy to defeat Grail-powered Hercules-Berserker.

The one thing I'm not sure of yet, even where I am in the game right now, is to what extent Shirou is becoming Archer and to what extent he is simply dying. The game is deliberately ambiguous about this and I can't stand it. I want some evidence, any evidence, that he's turning into Archer. Bronzed skin? White hair? Something. Anything. But at the end of this scene, all we get is a tantalizing hint: Shirou, his back turned to Ilya, is the spitting back-image of Archer. Well, duh, he SHOULD be, they're the same goddamned person after all. But the artwork takes it one tantalizing step further with the Shroud of Martin: it is the same crimson color as Archer's battle armor, of course, and the way it billows behind Shirou evokes the mental image of Archer's red cape.

HF Shirou will not become Archer because Archer's self-sacrificing ideal is what gives Unlimited Blade Works its shape, and HF Shirou rejected that to pursue Sakura.

Also, Berserker in HF was much much much much weaker than Berserker in Fate and UBW. This is because he has high divinity supresses the effects of the corruption, making him less agile and strong overall. It's still impressive Shirou beat him, but I felt defeating Dark Saber was a bigger accomplishment given his history with Saber and how Dark Saber was stronger, if slower post-corruption.

Really though, speed and durability are Shirou's major problems when fighting the Servants. And in HF he wore himself down pretty quickly.

Originally Posted by Talon87

Spoiler: show

Does Kotomine's connection with the Grail (at the end of the 4th War) explain why he was able to keep Gilgamesh around? They made it sound like the same was true for Sakura's relationship with Rider; but Kotomine never became as entangled with the Grail as did Sakura, did he?

Gilgamesh's corruption gave him a physical body, but since he has a dead soul, he can't produce Mana on his own and had to consume children (the kids in the basement of Kotomine's church) to stay in the world. He's not dependant on Kotomine at all.

Kotomine was merely resuscitated by the grail, so he can still produce his own Mana.

Originally Posted by Talon87

So ... if I were wanting to unlock the non-True endings for either path, what would I need to do differently? No hints were offered at the end of completing the True End path so I don't feel too bad about asking. (There was a hint offered some time during Shirou's moments in the cavern where he recalled "nothing that just happened would have happened had I not scolded Sakura back then like I did", so I suppose that could be the hint, but I don't remember scolding her even being an option. Was it? If it was, I guess I just naturally picked it and it led to the True End.) Are the outcomes of the other endings lesser? (like, more people die, ending is overall crappier?) Or are they just different? 'Cause I gotta say, I'm kind ehhhhhhhhhh about the canon ending for Heavens Feel. ^^; NOT A FAN OF PUPPETS! ^^;

Don't be nice to Ilya.

Frankly, I feel you would like the Normal End far more. The True End is sort of harem-y in comparison.

[lilboocorsola]

Originally Posted by Talon87

I'm impressed Little Blue unlocked both HF endings so quickly. Is that because you can access them by making a choice very near the end of the game (i.e. once you're already inside the cavern?) and she just found it by guess-and-checking? Or what? Guess I should ask the actual person herself rather than speaking about her in the third person ...

I don't recall exactly what the choice was, but it was towards the very end of the game. According to walkthroughs, if you pick "Do it" as the last option, you get the Normal End. Funny, they say you can't achieve it on your first runthrough. Wonder how I saw it first then?

I'm really not one to comment on the romance aspect, but to each their own in terms of visual appeal. I personally think Sakura's design is the plainest of the three. >>;

Originally Posted by Talon87

Another: missing one (the same one Li'l Blue was missing, so I guess I can't get this without getting all of the Tiger Stamps. Forget that: can you just upload it so I can see it? )

I don't have the game installed anymore, but here you go:

http://fsn.seorinwastaken.com/archive/397.html

[Talon87]

Man, you sure did reply to a lot of old stuff I already found the answers to as I continued to play to respond to, Doppel. Respond to some of the newer stuff! Oh yeah ... I haven't posted much. Well, I posted some! You could respond to those points for now.

Also, are you sure about your claim that Justica absorbs the souls in other paths? I feel that this is incorrect. Ilya specifically indicates in HF that it was her duty to absorb the defeated Heroic Spirits but that unexpectedly (and, we as players recognize, for the first time) she had competition in the form of Matou Sakura; and that the only reason she even managed to absorb Archer was because she was so much closer to him at the time of his death than Sakura was. But Ilya, Zouken, and everyone else seemed convinced that Ilya's the one who's supposed to be receiving the spirits. This would also make the most sense in terms of using the girl as a key in the other paths. (In Fate, Kotomine abducts her in her entirety; in UBW, Gilgamesh gruesomely settles for her heart.) Also ...

Spoiler: show

Justica is already long-gone, so I don't see how she could be there to absorb spirits. She sacrificed herself to complete the activation circle for the True Holy Grail. It's kind of ambiguous in HF whether she was the one authentically having the conversation with Zouken or whether, in his dying moments, the old magus merely saw the woman he had loved in the eyes of her great-great granddaughter.

But as our resident Type-Moon expert, I trust to your expert knowledge of the back story. If you could cite something for me -- an in-game line, some supplementary material, Nasu interviews, anything -- I'd appreciate it.

[Talon87]

Kotomine's Past:
Awesome. Sad. Weird.

Spoiler: show

We discover that Kotomine, in his desperate attempt to be a normal man who finds happiness in good rather than happiness in evil, sought out and wed a terminally-ill woman. This woman, he recalls, was a saint, and she loved Kotomine very much. But Kotomine was unable to love her or their child. He was happiest when they were most miserable, and when they sought to please him they only made him unhappy. In the end, he stonefacedly tells his wife that the experiment was a failure. Bittersweet, she kills herself but not before telling him how much she still loves him. Kotomine then remarks -- and this is pretty fucked up -- that he was sad NOT because she had died but because HE had wanted to be the one to kill her. He had wanted to know the pleasure (WTF) of killing the woman one loves. Well, w/e.

Apparently sometime during the Fourth Holy Grail War, Kiritsugu shot Kotomine through the heart, killing (?) him, but when the contaminated grail's contents spilled forth onto Gilgamesh, the dark magical energy, not being able to completely corrupt the Servant, flowed onward -- towards the Servant's Master, towards Kotomine. Insodoing, it (quote) "resurrected" Kotomine and gave him a new (fake) heart to continue living on. THIS is why True Assassin's Noble Phantasm failed. You can't produce a fake to kill the real when the real is already long gone.

I really feel bad for the guy. He's not trying to blame it on how he was born. He's desperately tried fighting against his nature. But he's realize it's futile: he simply is the way he is. To me, he's an unrealistic entity -- I don't believe men like him are born -- but as characters in fiction go he's a tragic and fascinating one.

So now I'll just dust myself off and ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh SHIT. :
The part when Dark S_____ discussed Avenger and Angra Manyu [sic] with Kotomine was interesting if confusing at times. But by the end of the game, I think I got the gist of it.

Shirou's Losing His Mind:
It was MAJOR plot point time when we returned from the forest to the Emiya household. The original way I interpreted what was going on was:

Spoiler: show

that when Shirou was not conscious, Emiya was; and that slowly but surely, his body was being taken over by Emiya.

Doppel has explained already why this idea is inconsistent with what little we know of Archer's past from UBW (specifically how Archer felt betrayed by society when they turned their backs on him and transformed him into their pariah of sorts after he had already sacrificed what he held dearest in order to try and be a superhero and save them).

Still: this was the part in the game where Shirou, Ilya, and Rin have a serious talk about the truth behind the Holy Grail War system. And hot damn was it enlightening. Some reminder notes to catch you up to speed are provided below courtesy of yours truly:

Spoiler: show

Ilya explains the true purpose of the grail wars. She explains that the Einzberns and Makiri both desired immortality and, specifically, the Third Sorcery. They believed this could be granted by Heavens Feel and that Heavens Feel, in turn, would be given form via the Grail ritual.

Ilya explains that it was during the third war that the True Holy Grail (i.e. the magic circle in the land) became tainted. Einzbern cheated: they summoned an eighth class, "Avenger", and into that class they used a Zoroastrian scripture as a catalyst to summon Angra Manyu [sic]. But who they got was -THE- historic Angra Manyu, i.e. a boy in a Persian village who became a sacrificial scapegoat for all the evils of the world, and he lost in the 3rd war pretty quickly. But when his Heroic Spirit soul entered the Holy Grail, everything changed: because of (confusing long explanation Ilya provides), he corrupted the grail and it in turn transformed him into -THE- Angra Manyu, i.e. an über-Devil.

Then Ilya said some stuff that I wanted to look up and/or confirm with you guys:

Spoiler: show

Ilya seems to further explain that because Angra Manyu activated the Grail's wish-giving capabilities, the Fourth Holy Grail war was really a sham. She says she doesn't think Kiritsugu realized it until it had already begun, though she isn't certain. But the implication seems to be that THE GRAIL CANNOT/DOES NOT GRANT A WISH ONCE EVERY WAR, BUT RATHER THAT IT CAN ONLY EVER GRANT ONE WISH, PERIOD; or else that, after being corrupted by Angra Manyu, it was no longer in the business of handing out free wishes anyway.

The way Doppel has explained this in some earlier posts is that the Grail, in its corrupted state, will still provide wishes but that it will do so as perversely as possible. Bound to the words of the mage making the wish, it will give them what they requested but will give them the most horrible thing possible which still adheres to the wish's terms. Doppel seems to be implying, for example, that this is what caused the fire in Shinto (where Li'l Shirou lived) ten years ago. And maybe he's right, I dunno, they never really said it verbatim like that in FSN so we'll have to wait and see how things play out in Fate/Zero, I guess. But the way Ilya made it sound (see spoiler box above), it almost sounded like it wasn't even going to grant a bad wish, let alone good wishes. *shrug*

Ilya's explanation of how the Third Sorcery works was a little confusing, so I've decided to look into this more. The way she made it sound, I would say that words like "resurrection" and "immortality" are both incompletely synonymous with what is described by the Third Sorcery. They're partial synonyms: they almost describe what Nasu means, but not quite. To use the NasuVerse terminology Ilya does, the Third Sorcery "elevates" the soul to "the next level." I have no idea what this means, but the implication is that our souls are at Level x where they're not capable of being immortal/resurrected/some such and that, by going to Level x, Ilya explains that the soul can sort of rain back down into existence multiple times/ways. I dunno, will have to read more about it.

Ilya also explains that in the Third Holy Grail War ...

Spoiler: show

it wasn't that the True Holy Grail summoned a Heroic Spirit using the Third Sorcery but rather that it summoned a Heroic Spirit who on his own was -already- capable of using the Third Sorcery. This is interesting and warrants further research. Because the boy named Angra Manyu would have been a bonafide sorceror if he were capable of performing this magic -- and were he so capable, it would beg the question of why he was the villagers' captive in the first place. Also, I thought that according to Sakura there are five sorceries, that each has only been discovered once, and that the five were discovered by four individuals (meaning one guy, presumably Zelretch, discovered two while the other three each discovered one). Considering that Angra Manyu the boy dates back several thousand years, one would think that if he learned the Third Sorcery in life, he would have been its inventor.

And if it wasn't him? If the boy wasn't capable of sorcery, let alone magic? Then why did Ilya say what she said about how the True Holy Grail had summoned a Heroic Spirit who knew the trick? Does this tie back in to the whole Throne of Heroes concept? If so, is Angra Manyu's position on the Throne of Heroes one which is picking up information from all his existences? And if so ... how come he's not having an adverse effect on the Throne of Heroes? Wouldn't it be, I dunno, bad to have Satan in that group? Wouldn't he kinda sorta TOTALLY corrupt the dimension?

It's sooooo shiny ...! :O~~~ The Gem Sword Zelretch:
Some refresher notes:

Spoiler: show

Shirou and Ilya go to reproduce the Tohsaka heirloom sword. Rin isn't allowed to join us because she doesn't know that we've already removed the Shroud of Martin once before and plan to use Archer's arm once again in order to ensure as flawless a projection as possible.

Ilya links with Shirou's mind like the one time she did in the shopping district, only this time instead of showing him the path to Einzbern Castle, she instead shows him a memory built within her: of the day the True Holy Grail was created. In the center of the magic circle is Lizleihi Justica von Einzbern, and Shirou is so captivated by her that he spends/wastes most of the precious little time he has inside Ilya's memory gazing upon her.

I totally would have too, dude. ..... OW! *Talon rubs sore ribs elbowed by Yuki*

Spoiler: show

However, as his vision begins to crack, he realizes he's goofed and hastily searches for Tohsaka's ancestor such that he can identify the gem sword and burn its image into his mind. He finds Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg, sees the sword at his side, and immediately concludes that there is NO way he can possibly hope to project an accurate replica of the sword. He can copy its form, sure, but he can tell that it not only has great magic within but that IT IS CONSTRUCTED USING KNOWLEDGE FROM THE FUTURE WHICH WE DON'T EVEN HAVE HERE ON EARTH YET. And thus, given this, it's impossible for Shirou to make that which he can't even fathom. However, as he emerges from the mindmeld feeling defeated, Ilya congratulates him and points out that he managed to replicate the sword smashingly well.

Oh Nasu: once again you let the boy wonder do the impossible. I swear, if there's one thing which pissed me off to no end, it was that Fate/Stay Night wrapped up without confirming that Shirou is a

Spoiler: show

sorceror!

Other than that, though, this scene was pretty cool. What followed was eerie, from Shirou's time lapse issues to Rider's stony threat on Shirou's life after Rin and Ilya took their leave, but overall this was a great bit of backstory and probably the richest development we've yet seen of Meeting of the Minds between FSN's hierarchy (see: Justica, Zouken) and Tsukihime's (see: Zelretch). I'm not a big Tsukihime fan, though I liked it well enough, but even I can appreciate how cool this The Flintstones Meet the Jetsons moment was.

Oh, I should point out ...

Spoiler: show

Shirou stabs himself in the palm once again with Rin's amulet -- he had been using it to try and remain in this world, remember? by paining himself so he won't fall asleep? -- but his hand starts to bleed and Rin discovers the amulet. At this point, just as in the UBW path, she freaks out and demands to know where Shirou got this amulet, pulling out the SAME amulet from her own pocket. And, as in UBW, it is strongly hinted at (though not revealed here 100% officially as it was in UBW) that Rin pieces together the truth about Shirou's relationship with Archer. She demands to speak with Ilya and orders Shirou to rest. That's when Rider then shows up ...

Plot Hole!:
So yeah. Nasu kind of wrote himself a plot hole that I didn't notice until yesterday when I was reading something about Rider on the Type-Moon Wiki:

Spoiler: show

As the girls leave, Rider shows up. She reveals that she's been in hiding because, so long as it is Matou Sakura HERSELF who is trying to kill Shirou, she cannot/will not interfere.

The thing is, this goes against what Sakura told her to do. "No matter the circumstances, protect Senpai." Now, you could say that Rider is simply choosing between one of two contradictions and that she opts to prioritize her Master's life over her Master's command. I could be kind of okay with that. (It'd still be a plot hole though, but only a baby one.) But there's just one problem ...

THAT ISN'T WHAT HAPPENED THE PREVIOUS DAY! When Dark Sakura invaded the Emiya household and sought to abduct Ilya, remember what happened? Rider showed up and protected Shirou from Dark Sakura's black tendrils! (Remember how hurt and stony-cold-hateful Sakura was towards Rider when she felt this perceived betrayal? And how Rider was all "Master, please understand, I am merely following out YOUR orders"?) So yeah. For the sake of convenience, Nasu makes use of Rider when he needs her (like at the Emiya household scene) and then discards her when she'd be inconvenient (like with the Einzbern Forest scene with Shirou vs. Dark Berserker). TYPICAL. Typical Nasu. I swear, dude comes up with some great ideas but goddamn is his writing a little rough around the edges! ^^;

This ends Part 2. Look forward to Part 3 of the endgame posts tomorrow!

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by YUKI.N

I'm really not one to comment on the romance aspect, but to each their own in terms of visual appeal. I personally think Sakura's design is the plainest of the three. >>;

Think of it this way.

1. Talon went in wanting to love Sakura.
2. I went in wanting to hate her.
3. You and BBB went in with open minds.

Originally Posted by Talon87

Man, you sure did reply to a lot of old stuff I already found the answers to as I continued to play to respond to, Doppel. Respond to some of the newer stuff! Oh yeah ... I haven't posted much. Well, I posted some! You could respond to those points for now.

Yeah, the nature of your questions pretty much requested direct spoilers, so there wasn't much room to edge around with hints and suggestion.

I'll give you a straight up spoiler, though - the source of the taint in the Holy Grail:

Spoiler: show

The identity of the taint is Angra Mainyu, the Zoroastrian God of Destruction and Lord of all Evil - supposedly. In reality, "Angra Mainyu" was just this Persian kid who was sacrificed by an ad hoc mob in the same way Jesus Christ was sacrificed. In the same sense, all of the world's "sins" and evils were piled into this boy's soul, but as I mentioned earlier with Heracles, divinity allows one to resist that kind of evil influence. But this kid wasn't divine at all, and died cursed and full of hatred for the people who killed him. Yet the act of self-sacrifice, voluntary or not, qualified him as a Heroic Spirit.

I think the Einzberns tried to summon a "powerful Servant" during the 3rd Holy Grail War and aimed for Angra Mainyu, who as a God would be quite powerful. Since Angra Mainyu was a God though, this technically shouldn't have worked. But they ended up with this fake by accident, who turned into a worthless Servant with no Noble Phantasm that was easily killed, but his immensely evil presence perverted the Holy Grail's power.

In both the 4th and 5th Grail, Angra Mainyu causes incredibly havoc because of the immense Mana that goes into the Grail, and through people making wishes, he's able to exert his evil influence.

I'll look for other answers to plug in here, so sit tight. You've just written novels of stuff in the time it would take me to log in.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

I'll give you a straight up spoiler, though

You "gave" me neither a spoiler nor anything I hadn't already posted about previously. I'll, uh, redirect you to the post wherein I discuss this very thing: http://forums.upnetwork.net/showpost...&postcount=138 .

You know: the one right before yours. ^^;

[lilboocorsola]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Think of it this way.

1. Talon went in wanting to love Sakura.
2. I went in wanting to hate her.
3. You and BBB went in with open minds.

Curious: Why did you want to hate Sakura?

Since the animé, I was never too partial to Sakura. I'm usually not a fan of clingy, dependent girls. I thought HF might change my opinion by explaining her reasons, and it did. However, I still see her as weak. I don't mind that Shirou supports her, and I'm glad that she has him. Yet I was also hoping that with his help, she would grow to finally love herself and prove she's still capable of surviving without him. Which the Normal End revealed the opposite.

[Talon87]

I still don't know how to dock onto that. You said there's an option called "Do it," but I didn't see anything like that at all. (I always save at every choice and looked back at the last 20 or so choices before the end of the game.) The closest thing I saw to it was:

Spoiler: show

the scene where Shirou has the kitchen knife and is contemplating whether to go through with killing Sakura or not

Doppel seemed to suggest that it has to do with neglecting Ilya. If that's true, (a) I can see why I most definitely didn't dock onto that since I'd say maybe 85% of the time when even forced to pick between Sakura and Ilya I would still go with Ilya, but (b) I don't see what that has anything to do with the choice in the spoiler box. If you could either tell me more details, or if you could link me to whatever site/walkthrough it is that you may be using to figure out your own response, that'd be great. Originally, I wasn't planning on obtaining the non-True End for UBW, but going back through the old posts I see that Doppel seems to think that it's the best ending of the entire game. Interesting. Then there's HF whose alternate ending I wouldn't mind seeing since (a) Doppel says he thinks I'd like it more (we'll see!) and (b) I don't do puppets. ^^;

I'm throwin' it out there right now: if there are vampires in Fate/Zero, I'll roll my eyes but expect nothing less; yet if there are puppet users in Fate/Zero, I'mma wince. >_< Touko was probably the neatest character in Kara no Kyoukai, but I hate, hate, hate the idea of "puppet users" in my shounen action stories. Hated it in Naruto and I hate it here in the NasuVerse too. What I hate most about it in the NasuVerse is how badly Nasu seems to insist that ...

Spoiler: show

Shirou's perfectly normal in his new body. NO! I reject this! If he's a clone down to the genetic level, then guess what is: he's not a "puppet", he's a clone! But too bad Nasu specifically wrote in the end game text that Shirou's new body ISN'T a clone! So then I say "Okay, so if he's not a clone and you keep insisting he's a puppet, then that must mean that he's made of meat and sinew but that, at the genetic level, he's hollow. In which case, I DON'T LIKE IT! It's as much a Bad End as if you'd had his spirit inhabit a sword or a seagull!"

[lilboocorsola]

Originally Posted by Talon87

I still don't know how to dock onto that. You said there's an option called "Do it," but I didn't see anything like that at all. (I always save at every choice and looked back at the last 20 or so choices before the end of the game.)[/spoiler]

It might be available now since you cleared the True End:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/921327-fa...ght/faqs/53220

I honestly don't remember how I achieved the Normal End first. I guess according to Dopple I didn't rack up enough Ilya points. Yet I don't recall going so far back to rectify my relationship with her.

The Normal End for UBW is cute, and I'd agree it's probably the "happiest". Although it's harem-y like HF's True End.

The idea of puppets also kind of unsettled me.

[Doppleganger]

Wow, that was in /stay night? My memory/soul's crumbling, I could have sworn that was only FHA material. o_O

Originally Posted by Talon87

The way Doppel has explained this in some earlier posts is that the Grail, in its corrupted state, will still provide wishes but that it will do so as perversely as possible. Bound to the words of the mage making the wish, it will give them what they requested but will give them the most horrible thing possible which still adheres to the wish's terms. Doppel seems to be implying, for example, that this is what caused the fire in Shinto (where Li'l Shirou lived) ten years ago. And maybe he's right, I dunno, they never really said it verbatim like that in FSN so we'll have to wait and see how things play out in Fate/Zero, I guess. But the way Ilya made it sound (see spoiler box above), it almost sounded like it wasn't even going to grant a bad wish, let alone good wishes. *shrug*

The Fourth Grail's wish lead to the immense fire. That was Kotomine's wicked desires made real. The Fifth Grail also granted a wish, and it was severely less sinister, but that depends on your POV. I think the Muv-Luv cast would find it worse.

Originally Posted by Talon87

Ilya's explanation of how the Third Sorcery works was a little confusing, so I've decided to look into this more. The way she made it sound, I would say that words like "resurrection" and "immortality" are both incompletely synonymous with what is described by the Third Sorcery. They're partial synonyms: they almost describe what Nasu means, but not quite. To use the NasuVerse terminology Ilya does, the Third Sorcery "elevates" the soul to "the next level." I have no idea what this means, but the implication is that our souls are at Level x where they're not capable of being immortal/resurrected/some such and that, by going to Level x, Ilya explains that the soul can sort of rain back down into existence multiple times/ways. I dunno, will have to read more about it.

TYPE-MOON assumes a non-immortal soul (as opposed to Christianity) that like the human body decays over time, and the decay happens even if the soul is put into a new body. The soul also suffers from a form of Graft vs. Host diseases in that the soul will try to destroy a body that isn't its original, it is very resistant to storage in other forms. Ways to avoid this while maintaining immortality are to make the original body undead, like with Zouken and Nero, but the soul decay still occurs. Nero in particular lost his sense of individuality, and Roa believes he's a new being carrying on the will of the original Roa. This is because Nasu seeems to think memories are storied in the soul after being recorded by the brain.

I guess the scenario is analagous to how telomeres shorten over several rounds of cell division. Even if the soul (chromosome) finds its way into a new body (cell), information is lost until the lineage will eventually die out from decay.

The Third Magic basically grants immortality to the soul, also giving it pliability to "reincarnate" into a new form, whether it be a spiritual body, or a puppet, without information loss.

All of the "magics" are capable of reversing the dead somehow - Second Magic allows taking someone out of a parallel world, Third Magic allows them to perfectly reincarnate, while the First Magic allows reversal of time, undoing death.

Originally Posted by Talon87

Ilya also explains that in the Third Holy Grail War ...

Spoiler: show

it wasn't that the True Holy Grail summoned a Heroic Spirit using the Third Sorcery but rather that it summoned a Heroic Spirit who on his own was -already- capable of using the Third Sorcery. This is interesting and warrants further research. Because the boy named Angra Manyu would have been a bonafide sorceror if he were capable of performing this magic -- and were he so capable, it would beg the question of why he was the villagers' captive in the first place. Also, I thought that according to Sakura there are five sorceries, that each has only been discovered once, and that the five were discovered by four individuals (meaning one guy, presumably Zelretch, discovered two while the other three each discovered one). Considering that Angra Manyu the boy dates back several thousand years, one would think that if he learned the Third Sorcery in life, he would have been its inventor.

And if it wasn't him? If the boy wasn't capable of sorcery, let alone magic? Then why did Ilya say what she said about how the True Holy Grail had summoned a Heroic Spirit who knew the trick? Does this tie back in to the whole Throne of Heroes concept? If so, is Angra Manyu's position on the Throne of Heroes one which is picking up information from all his existences? And if so ... how come he's not having an adverse effect on the Throne of Heroes? Wouldn't it be, I dunno, bad to have Satan in that group? Wouldn't he kinda sorta TOTALLY corrupt the dimension?

I don't think that's what Ilya meant. I don't want to say something based on what you've digested that could be wrong, but I think she only meant he had the potential for using the Third Magic, not that he could actually use it. Zelretch hasn't found a single apprentice in all of his years of un-death who could inherit the Second Magic, except for potentially Rin. And there's no guarantee Rin will be fully capable of weilding the Second Magic.

Also, all of the "magics" date back from the dawn of time, and have been passsed down since then. No magic was invented in the modern era (only "sorcery"), not even in the Age of the Gods that the Greek mythological figures came from.

Originally Posted by YUKI.N

Curious: Why did you want to hate Sakura?

Since the animé, I was never too partial to Sakura. I'm usually not a fan of clingy, dependent girls. I thought HF might change my opinion by explaining her reasons, and it did. However, I still see her as weak. I don't mind that Shirou supports her, and I'm glad that she has him. Yet I was also hoping that with his help, she would grow to finally love herself and prove she's still capable of surviving without him. Which the Normal End revealed the opposite.

To clarify, both Talon and I had knowledge of HF's content going in, but I'd already disseminated the entire Fate body of work, and knew everything going in. So my memory of novel details are pretty bad because playing the VN was more a formality for me - I was frequently bored by the stuff I already knew. I had hoped that HF would have changed my opinion by presenting new stuff and not just reinforce my opinion, but it didn't happen.

Sakura is morally depraved. Voluntarily so. She's weak, but also desired wickness, because if she really wanted to she could have dominated Angra Mainyu's corruption (which she did in FHA, herp). Both Gilgamesh and Kotomine did, so I really had no sympathy or tolerance for Sakura at all.

While she certainly had the most relatably tragic past to a high school guy (Rin's isn't sad at all, while Saber's is something only a leader could truly empathize with) it didn't really justify her wanton, bloody rampage. Shirou's devotion to her likewise seemed to be an almost over-reaction given their level of interaction. Talon paints a story of gradual attraction, but given how Shirou just as easily fell for Rin (who he was already consciously attracted to) and Saber (over a two week period of intimacy) I just don't buy that he was really all that in to Sakura. And this with the same base childhood, I'm hard pressed to believe those early scenes with Sakura sold HF Shirou as a Sakura man.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Wow, that was in /stay night? My memory/soul's crumbling, I could have sworn that was only FHA material. o_O

Having not read much about nor touched F/HA, I can assure you that anything you read me saying about Angra Manyu [sic] the NasuVerse character definitely comes from this game.

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

TYPE-MOON assumes a non-immortal soul (as opposed to Christianity) that like the human body decays over time, and the decay happens even if the soul is put into a new body.

Yeah, I noticed that, but thank you for putting it into the words you did. It's clearer now. I don't like this, but then again, I don't believe in a soul anyway so I'm already having to play Mental Hopscotch to keep along with Nasu's universe's laws of biology.

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Also, all of the "magics" date back from the dawn of time, and have been passsed down since then. No magic was invented in the modern era (only "sorcery"), not even in the Age of the Gods that the Greek mythological figures came from.

I've noticed something in your own posts and have been quiet about it until now because I didn't want to sound pedantic ... you keep calling the Sorceries "Magics." Like, you've called the Third Sorcery "the Third Magic" numerous times. Likewise with the Second Sorcery. I didn't say anything because I chalked it up to "Okay, he's not using Mirror-Moon's specific English terms. I'm not going to criticize that. He's probably using the term the fanbase popularized before Mirror-Moon translated the games," but now I have to say something because in your very last sentence when you say that "no magic was invented in the modern era, only sorcery," you show me that you do differentiate between the two terms. So I went off to the Type-Moon Wiki to figure things out.

Matter became more complicated, however, when I discovered that the Type-Moon Wiki seems to use your nomenclature yet directly contradicts your claim:
Article: "Third Magic"

"The Third Magic was originally achieved by the Einzbern family, but its secret was lost one thousand years ago."
"There is no information on the original practitioners of the Third Magic."

Granted, wikis are user-constructed and smaller ones like this Type-Moon Wiki are prone to errors. But if we're to go off of this, it would seem that the Einzbern family did invent the Third Sorcery/Magic, rather than that it's been around forever. Maybe a better way to say it, just like people do for things like "Faraday discovered electromagnetism," would be to say that the Einzberns were the first humans to discover this technique but that the technique has existed since time eternal. I could go for that. It's just, let's be clear: the claim is on the table that no one knew how to do the Third Magic before the Einzberns did ... and yet Ilya's story seems to directly contradict that (given what she says about Angra Manyu).

Back to the matter of terminologies. To use a :,:: format analogy, it seems that

Mirror-Moon "Magic" : Type-Moon Wiki "Magecraft, Thaumaturgy, or Sorcery" ::
Mirror-Moon "Sorcery" : Type-Moon Wiki "Magic"

Very confusing. Especially since it plays a crucial role in the story. We're told time and again how important it is to recognize that quote unquote anyone can do magic like Tohsaka's but that only a very rare individual can perform true acts of magic, or (to use the Mirror-Moon term) sorcery. We're told again and again that the first category of magicks follow the rules laid out by the world whereas the second category of magicks bend or contravert the rules laid out by the world. Almost as though the first category is simply a magician knowing the magic password and whispering it in just the right way to achieve the desired effect whereas the second category isn't like this at all but is instead something much more, something miraculous, something which ought to be impossible being made real.

I really wanted ... (spoilers up thru HF True End)

Spoiler: show

Shirou to be that sorceror all game long (since they kept making a big deal about how he was insanely re-inventing the wheel every time he activated his Magic Circuit; or since how Shirou was made out to be only good at one thing but to be very very good at it and to actually be good not at what they thought he was good at but to be good at the other side of the coin, the harder side, and to be able to pull off an amazing feat no other magician could pull off). Was very disappointed that they never confirmed or denied that Shirou might have been sorceror material. Was very disappointed that in one ending (UBW True) he's just Tohsaka's manservant whereas in other ending (HF True) he's just Sakura's hubby and a puppet to boot. >_>;

Anyway, sorry that this post sounds incredibly pedantic. But it's important that we discuss the right terms. I can adopt yours if you want, especially since that's what it seems the fan community is using anyway if the Type-Moon Wiki is any indication. Knowing me, though, I'll probably start using the Japanese terms since those are true canon and leave no room for doubt. (They use mahou 魔法 "the way of magic" for the miraculous kind of magic and they use majutsu 魔術 "magic techniques" for the more ordinary kind.) So to use those terms ...

Spoiler: show

I wanted Shirou to be the next mahoutsukai, not a meager majutsushi.

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Sakura is morally depraved. Voluntarily so. She's weak, but also desired wickness, because if she really wanted to she could have dominated Angra Mainyu's corruption (which she did in FHA, herp). Both Gilgamesh and Kotomine did, so I really had no sympathy or tolerance for Sakura at all.

The thing is, Sakura feels very real. She is the most human, the most real villain in the story. She is a parallel existence to the True Holy Grail itself. To paraquote Kotomine, the True Holy Grail was neither holy nor evil at first: it was pure. Pure energy. Even the faintest taint in a pure body of water would "infinitely" darken that ocean, because even a 0.000000000001% darkening of a previously immaculate lake is, in terms of mathematics, an infinite or beyond-infinite darkening of the lake multiplicatively. If I ask you, "how many times larger than 100 is 1,000?" you answer "10", but if I ask you "how many times larger than 0 is 1,000", how do you answer? It isn't a thousand times bigger. It isn't a million times bigger. It is an incomprehensibly larger "times" bigger: because it went from no pollution to some pollution. Anyway, digression. ^^; The point is, a small taint taints the Grail. And Angra Manyu wasn't even a small taint: he was a colossally large taint which gave rise to an even more colossally large and evil entity. Sakura is much the same way. Every child is born into this world pure, not meaning "good" but merely meaning "devoid of record." They are a clean slate. I think it's undeniable that a child subjected to the life poor Sakura underwent would come out the way she did. And that's why she's such an endearing tragic character. The poor thing was ...

• given up for adoption by her biological parents
• beaten by her new family
• violated by her grandfather (if not sexually, then at the very least with the bugs being implanted into her)
• sexually violated by her brother
• beaten by her brother (kicked, punched)
• the small pleasures she had in life were constantly being either taken away from her or being in threat of taken away from her
  • her perfect sister was going to steal her crush
  • her brother was going to tell her crush how she was damaged goods

So on and so forth. While other children slept in warm beds and opened Christmas presents, Sakura was bitten and invaded by slimy, phallic worms. The few pleasures she knew in life were only given to her by her calculating grandfather so as to further accentuate the despair necessary for her transformation. (Why else would he allow her to go to school, be in the archery club, etc but for the fact that without the light the dark is meaningless?) She's a much richer, more sympathizable character than either Saber or Rin are. She's so selfless and yet at the same time so selfish that she is a completely relatable human being. Purely selfless and she'd be unrealistic, but purely selfish and she'd be a bitch. Sakura is this girl who is so nice on the surface but who underneath is an ugly, raw, real person. When I say ugly, I don't mean that she's hideous. If she were hideous, who would like her? I mean that she is not Pygmalion's statue. She is not an impossibly perfect woman, a Yamato Nadeshiko. She's real. She's petty. She's possessive. She's got low confidence and yet paradoxically also has a very high opinion of herself. This is just so real. I love it.

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

While she certainly had the most relatably tragic past to a high school guy (Rin's isn't sad at all, while Saber's is something only a leader could truly empathize with) it didn't really justify her wanton, bloody rampage. Shirou's devotion to her likewise seemed to be an almost over-reaction given their level of interaction. Talon paints a story of gradual attraction, but given how Shirou just as easily fell for Rin (who he was already consciously attracted to) and Saber (over a two week period of intimacy) I just don't buy that he was really all that in to Sakura. And this with the same base childhood, I'm hard pressed to believe those early scenes with Sakura sold HF Shirou as a Sakura man.

Fan interpretation, I'll admit. We played the same game and took it different ways. You placed a heavier focus on "time in, time out." I placed a heavier focus on "okay, Nasu is telling me that Shirou and Sakura have been slowly but surely building up to becoming an item over this past year and a half. I will in my own mind reinvent all those scenes." I guess it's like if we were to argue about Star Wars prequels and you said "Anakin x Padme is so shallow" and I was to say "No wai man :O George told us they like totally dig each other so BELIEVE IT!" I don't with Star Wars , of course, but I did here. Maybe it's because I wanted to, maybe you're right about that, but I was able to take Nasu's claims seriously. When he said, "Sakura x Shirou has been in the works from Shirou's perspective for a year and a half and from Sakura's perspective for four years," I believed it. I imagined the times she made him soup when he was sick, the times she vacuumed or prepped dinner when he was working overtime, the times he walked her to archery, etc. And so in Heavens Feel, it feels like the Holy Grail War just so happens to coincide with the blast-off of the Shirou x Sakura love rocket that was going to lift off ANYWAY right around this time. (Maybe a littttle later since the War nudged Shirou to act a bit sooner than he otherwise would have.) Whereas for the other two girls, they weren't in Shirou's life at all until the war. And he only got to know them over the course of two weeks.

[Talon87]

Confused. I just did the Heavens Feel non-True End as per Li'l Blue's walkthru's advice. And I got it. But ...

First of all, I was really underwhelmed by it. ^^; It wasn't nearly as thought out or developed as the UBW or HF True Ends have been. And I don't see why Shirou's decision should have been what made the routes different. In both routes he tried to "do it." So I don't see why they now make it that I have to choose and that now if I choose "Do it" I get a completely different ending whereas before there had been no choice, Shirou tried to do it, and failed on his own. Whatever.

Second of all, I'm not sure why Doppel thought I'd really like this ending. Maybe because it had no puppets? ^^; Maybe because it was tragic-romantic? But I'm actually a really big not-fan of:

Spoiler: show

women who get widowed very early in life and then stay widows forever

It's too tragic for me. EDIT: Well, it's too tragic for me to watch them live like that. I absolutely love these stories from the other side (i.e. ghost stories).

Third of all, I didn't unlock any new CGs. And I would have thought I'd have unlocked one of the ones I don't have because it's the one where ...

Spoiler: show

You see Shirou with Dark Sakura's Command Crest all over his face.

I would have sworn that that one would have come about from beating the game a different way. Surprised it didn't. So, uh, is it attached to a Bad End or something?


Separate question now: looking at Li'l Blue's walkthrough, it seems like it's a whole different adventure to dock onto UBW non-True End versus UBW True End. So here's my question: if I make the different choices, does the story play out different (we're talking way before the end of the game here) and I should take it slow and enjoy it over the course of several days of playthrough? Or is nothing different at all until the very very end and I should just bam bam bam knock off the different choices and reach the new ending? If it's an entirely new adventure, I might put it off for now. But if it's just an alternate ending, as was the case for Heavens Feel, then I'll probably go do it right now.

[lilboocorsola]

Originally Posted by Talon87

Third of all, I didn't unlock any new CGs. And I would have thought I'd have unlocked one of the ones I don't have because it's the one where ...

Spoiler: show

You see Shirou with Dark Sakura's Command Crest all over his face.

I would have sworn that that one would have come about from beating the game a different way. Surprised it didn't. So, uh, is it attached to a Bad End or something?

Are you referring to one of the CGs in the gallery Dopple posted (first in bottom row)? I never saw that one either. Might've been HA-exclusive, if that's where the screencap's from.

Originally Posted by Talon87

Separate question now: looking at Li'l Blue's walkthrough, it seems like it's a whole different adventure to dock onto UBW non-True End versus UBW True End. So here's my question: if I make the different choices, does the story play out different (we're talking way before the end of the game here) and I should take it slow and enjoy it over the course of several days of playthrough? Or is nothing different at all until the very very end and I should just bam bam bam knock off the different choices and reach the new ending? If it's an entirely new adventure, I might put it off for now. But if it's just an alternate ending, as was the case for Heavens Feel, then I'll probably go do it right now.

UBW's story plays out pretty much identical for both endings, IIRC. You just have to give priority to Saber.

[Talon87]

CG:
Yeah, that's the one. But no, I do believe it belongs to this game, Yuki. I have it in my Fate / Stay Night CG pack. The pack is incomplete (for instance, it's missing all of the character models) but it has all of the event CGs, I believe, and that was among them. Looked at it just last night after having beaten the game. Wanted to see what I was missing out on from other ends. (Didn't discern much. lol)

UBW End Stuff:
So you think I should blast through the choices then? Just follow the walkthru's advice and BAM, BAM, BAM blow through 'em and make haste for the Ryudou Temple? I'll do that if you say so. I see Doppel's here in the thread, so I'll give him a chance to tell me "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! DON'T DO THAT! O_O" before I head off.

[Doppleganger]

Gonna watch baseball soon, so don't wait for me on breezing through stuff. I'd leave it to your discretion...if Shirou annoys you, just skip through things.

I'd stick around for the bad HF end where

Spoiler: show

Sakura tentacle rapes Rin

...though...

[lilboocorsola]

Originally Posted by Talon87

CG:
Yeah, that's the one. But no, I do believe it belongs to this game, Yuki. I have it in my Fate / Stay Night CG pack. The pack is incomplete (for instance, it's missing all of the character models) but it has all of the event CGs, I believe, and that was among them. Looked at it just last night after having beaten the game. Wanted to see what I was missing out on from other ends. (Didn't discern much. lol)

Just realized I meant to say Réalta Nua, not Hollow Ataraxia. Darn the series' need for "cool-sounding" foreign language titles.