#mad's fgo

[madillhethen]

Ok, I’ve been posting rather negative stuff for the LB/Crypters lol so I thought I would post something more positive since I’m about the halfway mark (I guess? LB2 and LB3 feel relatively short compared to 1 and what I know of 5) and some opinions have changed since the last I posted about the Crypters.

Beryl: I hate him still. I do think the writers did an amazing job in making us know so little of him and still making him relatively...disliked? At least the people I know don’t like him.

Daybit: he hasn’t given me any information to hate him but also none to love either. He’s pretty enigmatic to me so he’s neutral.

Wodime: (I swear I keep forgetting how to spell his first name so it’s either going to be written as Kirsch or Wodime in my blog) he’s in a similar boat as Daybit except I do have information on him--he has done actions that are admirable but I’ve yet to see who he is actually and for me that’s a lot more important. As of now, he feels like how Saber was in FSN, where the hype is there, the greatest ideals and everything has happened, and everyone admires/loves them for one reason or another. How great of a leader someone is doesn’t exactly tell me who they are so I’m still on the fence with him but he’s slightly going up.

Kadoc: I think someone mentioned one manga doing more for him as a character, and I know a lot of people love him from spoiler territory which I didn’t touch. I think I like him enough as a person from what I saw. He’s relativably human and his relationship with Anastasia was cute. But I want to see the aftermath of it all. He kind of feels like he hasn’t changed much? But I don’t know if he’s grieving or something or blaming himself, I just want to see the development and effect Anastasia had on him which I think will be explored later.

Akuta/Yu Mei-Ren: I hardly consider her a Crypter because of what I know. But I love her. She’s great. Summer Camp really solidified it for me. Every time she came sure it was a bit whiny and comical, but she was really kick a the entire time too. She was a stellar example of someone Mash and Guda could look up to especially with everything that has happened, someone who has endured lamentations and loss for so long, and just seeing her being very human despite of it, it just feels right. In LB3 she was really mysterious for the most part, but her elusiveness to the entire situation is what makes her stand out too.

Pepe: gosh, I don’t know but I think Pepe could wind up my favorite or being very close to it. I barely know anything about him, but his compassion and uplifting personality easily makes him more interesting--at the same time, he has a twinge of what seems to be mischief imo. The fact that all the Crypters are warring with each other, and everyone is just ‘I’m doing my job’ not concerned with anyone else (because they’re technically enemies) and here comes Pepe just...checking in on them? Making sure they’re ok, and actually saddened when he can’t get ahold of them or when Ophelia actually dies. The fact he called Ophelia for no reason, just to check in, that’s just so sweet, and so human, and unexpected but not unwelcomed.

Ophelia: gosh, I never really expected but Ophelia as of now is my favorite Crypter. When she first appeared, I was just ‘oh here we go. Another pining girl with the theme of love who can’t get the guy but might wind up doing so’ except the more I learned about her, the more I felt she was really relatable in a sense. (Not the pining part) but the fact she kept pressuring herself to be an exemplary magus, an exemplary person, stubborn and blindsided by the need to be somewhat perfect, she failed to see the possibilities (despite her Mystic Eye) and even when she cut off all possibilities, she lacked the resolve, but during LB2 we see her growth. The fact she wanted to be friends with Mash was really cute too. And in the end, she might not have lived up to anyone’s expectations, maybe not even her own, but she got to move the stagnant world, she didn’t betray Mash or Wodime, and she let herself be happy and at peace with the decisions she made. She saw everyone’s possibilities, and their convictions and strengthened her own, and I really loved seeing that. And I loved seeing her have this air of the noble magus, and aloofness but in reality she was just a sweet person--she was one of the first people who cared for Mash. 

When she died, God, I had to do a doubletake because I really thought she would...last longer? Appear again? But she didn’t and it was really sad. (I’ll post some stuff in my LB2 review because I was confused on some things as well...)

[madillhethen]

In Singularity F, everyone only ever makes a big deal about the Caster Cu vs. Shadow Emiya fight, is anyone talking about how many parallels/foils there are with Heaven’s Feel?!

Everyone’s already talked about the Cu vs Emiya so I’ll just sum it up. Basically, Emiya is your enemy and Cu isn’t, roles reversed, etc.

Anyways, beyond that, ever notice how in Heaven’s Feel, we don’t know anything about Cu? He’s straight-up eaten by the Shadow before anything (besides attacking with Rin and Shirou in the Prologue). Rider becomes a more constant companion, while still retaining the mystery of who she is and her past. Much in the same way, in Singularity F, Medusa is now Medusa Alter, appears briefly and is taken out before any real significance and now Cu is our constant companion. We know him as Cu, but there’s still a lot of mystery shrouding him (no one say anything about LB).

Then when we get to the Cavern, where the Greater Grail should be, instead of having Saber Alter guarding Dark Sakura (the one who caused all the servants to change sides) it’s Shadow Emiya guarding Saber Alter (the one who defeated all 5 other servants and caused them to change). On top of the fact, Heaven’s  Feel revolves around how terribly wrong everything went that the Grail War went askew, just like how the mystery events of Singularity F.

And the worse part, in the fight at the cavern where Illya willingly sacrifices herself when Shirou dies as the finale of HF, Olga Marie is the unwilling sacrifice to kickstart the events of FGO while we survive.

[madillhethen]

(alright, I actually leveled her bond up a while ago and lost the screenshot in my phone so here we go!). Bond Level 10 for Medea! I’m slowly going through the original FSN servants if you haven’t noticed (Saber, Medusa, Medea, Emiya--the rest are still being leveled. Cu is almost there).

So I actually don’t know too much of Medea’s actual relationships in her past (besides her killing her own brother, and her essentially divorced relationship with Jason) so it’s nice to see an acknowledgment to it. It also makes this really sad when you remember in FSN all she wanted was to go home, yet she fell in love with Souichirou, and fate has always been cruel to her that she never gets anything she wants--toyed with by the gods, thrown aside by Jason after she becomes the villain and loses everything only to be summoned by a crap Master and fall in love with a new one.

I think one of my biggest complaints on her portrayal in FGO is that there’s no story relevance portions for Medea :(. She’s only there as Medea Lily or to be Jason’s ex-wife, but beyond her actual characteristics shown in FSN/HA, we don’t get a lot of it, and I don’t know...I kind of wish there was more emphasis on her time with Souichirou. It feels like that’s a big part of her story, and her conclusion (I mean hell, she marries him in HA, right?) I mean of course keeping to ‘HS don’t remember’ logic, it can still be like a far off memory or something she remembers from her report in the Throne.

[madillhethen]

Everyone on the bird app likes to show off their Apocrypha, FSN, Zero or some other Fate collection. Mines not that impressive as you can see, I’m greatly lacking in one golden king. (I rolled 20 pulls of free SQ and decided he wasn’t coming.)

But I’ll comfort myself by saying Gilgamesh is technically the 4th Grail War Archer so he’s not needed for FSN’s 5th Grail War. (Also I don’t need another archer since Emiya doesn’t leave my party. Ever.)

Actually, I got really lucky with all these characters (I mean like half of them are from the FP summon pool that anyone can get💦). Didn’t spend any money except to NP5 Emiya (but I didn’t spend that much. He came relatively easy.) Saber was from story banner, Hercules I don’t even remember how or when I got him. Emiya I got from the million download ticket exchange.

Also on discord everyone says Cu is easy to get. He’s not. This man avoided my Chaldea for 2 years. I was running around with Diarmuid a lot longer then Cu. The only reason Cu is NP5 is because he pops up easier on paid banners in my experience. The saddest part is how I have Caster Cu at NP1 but Merlin and Ruler Jeanne at NP3 💦.

Angra Mainyu can be obtained from the Friend Point Summon. Actually, I think that’s the only way to obtain him. You’ll probably have to spent a lot of FP points. His drop rate I think is the lowest of all servants.

Saber Lily costed me over 200,000 FP. Angra came easier (20,000 FP) but I’ll probably blow the rest of my FP’s to get him to NP5 hopefully. Saber and Hercules are only at NP1. I’ve never seen an OG Saber above NP2 which is...odd because I have seen so many NP5 Gilgamesh’s (goes to show how popular he is nowadays with all his rate-ups and everyone with a maxed out golden king.)

[madillhethen]

Long overdue review of Lostbelt 2.

Putting under the cut in case its too long and in case some mutuals are still behind.

I finished this a while ago actually lol. Anyways, When we first arrived in Scandinavia, I was unimpressed with another snowy place, like they really chose Jötunheimr for the location amongst the entire Norse mythology worlds but it explains it all in the end.

I have to admit after Lostbelt 1, this Lostbelt felt...lackluster. I feel like I enjoyed almost all of the characters--Napolean was really great. He came in with a strong introduction and continued to carry us throughout the Lostbelt, at times when he was withholding information I thought maybe he was suspicious but he wasn’t. He was a man who had regrets, and love and despite the harshness and almost hopelessness of the entire situation he kept going with a smile and I loved it. 

I mentioned before that I love Ophelia. Coming to know her was great, her story chapter and her relationships with Mash and Napoleon were both touching and funny. I was also glad to see it wasn’t focused entirely on Guda. 

I feel like Brynhildr introduction and the lore dump was good, the mystery revolving around Sigurd and Surtr’s integration. I loved the cast of Lostbelt 2, but the story took a dive in the wrong direction.

I know the entire point of the Lostbelt was stagnation, but having the plot go that way was a poor choice in motivation in my opinion. Skadi’s own unwillingness to act made the entire chapter feel like I was reading the same 10 pages over and over again. The fact they tried to make her an all-good Queen was...okay? I guess, it just felt that it lacked wisdom in my opinion. It was an interesting concept to explore about the all-loving-Queen and a world without war and hatred, only for them to turn around and try and say she wanted better but just couldn’t do so because of Surtr, just to justify the stripping of humanity, and making kids breed before 15 and killing at 25 was in poor taste. It felt like a poor ploy to try and sympathize with her. 

I don’t know, it just felt like if someone told me ‘oh Zouken used the worms on Sakura because he wanted to eradicate all evil so he was good actually’ like that doesn’t excuse the crap he did to Sakura, in the same way, I don’t care that Skadi wanted better for humans when she was the cause of it all, killing what made them human to begin with. The fight for their survival here felt weak too. 

I wished it had explored more on Gerda and her hopes and dreams in the aspiration from Napoleon. It felt like it was heading that direction but they wanted to beat around the bush.

Sitonai’s and Dante’s guest appearances made me happy but then they barely played a role at all so it felt a bit useless. 

There was also something, I don’t know if it was just me or what, but the pacing of story segments after and before battles felt...off? Many times after I read a segment, I felt like I was missing something or that I skipped something entirely.

And when Ophelia died, it made me incredibly sad, but then Mash was on the field again and no one talked of Ophelia, and just...what even happened to her body after that??? Did we bury her, or did it disintegrate because of the Sirius Light? It never explained.

I don’t know, each character arc in this was great but piecing it altogether felt like a hot mess which kind of sucks to me because I really liked the cast. I loved Ophelia, Bryn and Sigurd, hell Napoleon was great too. 

Oh! The part of putting Holmes on the bus, when he fought alongside us against Not Sigurd was great. The little tidbit of information of Helena, and him being sad, I really loved it. Like I want Holmes with us on the field! I don’t want him to be just another Romani.

I don’t know, if there’s any mutuals here that did love it, I would be happy to hear about your opinions! For me, this is just in the less than favorable opinion. Lostbelt 1 really went all out for me and maybe that just rose my expectation too high.

[madillhethen]

I finished Lostbelt 1, and God, I really love it. There was a ton of Apocrypha references which I was not expecting but they were good.

Everything about it was really great. It started out with a slow start, and I wasn’t very impressed with the Crypters. Just being in that situation with the end of Romani and adult Da Vinci was really sad. I really miss them.

Getting to know Patxi was great. Lostbelt 1 wasn’t the story of just Chaldea saving Humanity. It’s the story of Patxi. Patxi being the representation of all of Russia and the Yaga.

I love the fact they drew so many different servants from different timelines and tied it all back nicely and each and everyone had a purpose. Yes, I know the singularities had them too, but I also felt some characters were rather random in past singularities or just there for fanservice/comic relief (Babylonia, Solomon and Camelot excluded mostly.)

Fate has always been about how good and evil isn’t black and white, and Lostbelt 1 really hit it hard here. If the singularities were us coming together to defeat a common enemy, a common ‘evil’ this one really went and blurred the lines.

We fought alongside the Yaga—showed them a different life. Rejecting the idea of how foolish the ‘strong survives’ ideal is, only to find out, we’re their very enemy. The people we fought alongside is the very people we were killing. The villain of our story is the hero of theirs, and we the heroes are the villains. But, there is no right and wrong. No one did anything wrong. We all fought for what we believed in, and in the end we all had to come to terms with what we’ve done.

I really saw the growth of Mash and Guda here. Guda had so much personality in Lostbelt 1 that I really loved it. It wasn’t just needless comments, it was us actively making decisions. And in the singularities we had so many people give their lives for us, we had to be protected but here, here we really went and worked with the rebellion, we were the heroes, we had to make the hard decisions and be the defense for others. Obviously plot armor prevents us from dying this early on but you really get a taste of it when you see Guda using Golem Keter Malkuth and Mash coming here to defend Salieri. That was amazing. I loved it.

And every servant had a role to play that wasn’t outshined by one another. They weren’t needless background noise or extras. They all played a part. I especially found myself loving Avicebron and Billy. They made a ton of references with Avicebron’s part in Apocrypha that when Kadoc pulled him away, I was so scared they were going to pull the betrayal part with his master again.

But no, they didn’t. They gave him character development, and I absolutely loved that they kept it that he doesn’t remember what happened. It was just in the records, similar to how EMIYA’s, he got character development after his death, during his time as a heroic spirit. Avicebron really drew the line of being a mage and being human. In the end, he chose atonement for his actions by becoming our main trump card all while ‘playing into the bad guys’ hands’. That was really great.

And Billy, God, I don’t remember him much back in...was it, America? I can’t remember (I think it was? Right? He was with Robin Hood?) Billy really shone here. He was a friend, a comrade and he went out by himself for a cause he believed in, stuck to us to the end, and made it possible in defeating Anastasia and Kadoc. 

Atalante was great too. I was a little surprised she betrayed us, but at the same time, I understood. I understood what she was fighting for, and why she had to do it. That confession between her and the Yaga was really bittersweet. Then Beowulf! He went on about how he wasn’t a king--he’s exactly king material. Fierce, protective, wise, and loyal, a leader to his people and more.

Salieri was amazing here. I was really happy during the battles that they actually played the different music he played. When he first shows up, he’s made off almost like the comic relief character with a super cool looking mystic code and a one-track mind of ‘music, piano, Amadeus this and that’ but no, his role was so vital. In a world where there was no passion, no simple things in life to live for, he really painted a colorless world with his emotions--rage, envy, passion, and love. And at the end when he played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. That was so sweet, so sad and so symbolic. 

Patxi was the star here though. His story was incredibly sad, and even though he was so bitter and so angry, I couldn’t hate him. I understood him. He was betrayed, looked down upon, lost everything in a cruel world, the victim in so many stories and it wasn’t just him. It was every Yaga. All he wanted was to live, but he found that there were other reasons to live, he saw Guda’s reason, and he envied him. He hated Guda, because he had none of it. In the end though, Patxi was our friend, and he gave us the last push we needed to pull through, to make us realize, yeah, neither of us was good or evil, but our world was a happy one, filled with different opportunities and life. And God, that smile at the end killed me. And when Billy and Guda wanted to bury Patxi, that was so sorrowful, humane, and beautiful. We couldn’t save him, but the least we could do as a friend was give him a proper burial.

[madillhethen]

Oh, I didn’t realize when I summoned her but Ruby is a...hose?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

FINALLY

FGO is feeding me what FSN failed me--what Emiya Gohan gaslighted me into believing--EMIYA AND ILLYA CONTENT!!!!!! I love how he’s being so supportive of her. It’s so cute. He’s like ‘no, sis, please be excited. You’re a child.”

You’re technically an unusual case as far as servants go as well, Emiya.

[madillhethen]

Is that second option an absolute reference to Rin and her amazing scene when she straight up jumps off the school’s roof and tells Archer, “Archer, handle the landing!”