Introduction

My first introduction to the Fate series of video games was with the mobile entry Fate/Grand Order(2015). I began playing it over the pandemic, and it’s blend of lightly turn-based rpg combat and dense, rich narrative engrossed me through those challenging months. After catching up with the ongoing narrative last summer, I decided to dive further into legendary writer Kinoko Nasu’s oeuvre by reading early 2000s Doujin(small scale independent creator, unincorporated) Visual Novel Tsukihime(2000). The poor translation, circular writing, and limited soundtrack did little to distract me from the immense strength of Nasu's prose and character writing that was present even from his first titles, and I realised I actually like longtime collaborator Takashi Takeuchi’s art more when it’s worse. As I was coming to this game from a similar mobile title, I opted to play Tsukihime through it’s modern, fan-made browser port, a testament to the ongoing doujin spirit of derivative works. I played this port in short spurts, on the train, in the bath, during lectures. A bug in the web port caused the background music to continue playing even after the phone entered sleep mode, and I allowed this to lightly accompany my day to day life, extending the games contrasting tone of everyday living with suddenly violent situations lying beneath. I played both of these games in a walkmanly manner, allowing it to be a figurative and literal soundtrack to my day to day life.

After finishing Tsukihime, I moved onto the next title, now officially available in english, Witch on the holy Night (魔法使いの夜、2012). This marked a departure for both me and the series, being the first officially translated Visual Novel TYPE-MOON released in the west. I transitioned from playing a game made by two fans of the genre, later translated by an amateur fan of the game, and 20 years later ported to the web by fans of that translation.In contrast, I played Fate/Stay Night, sitting at a television. I had a reproduction Sega Saturn controller in my hand, released by Retrobit in 2024, and I played the game in hours long chunks, usually broken up by in-game days. I primarily played the game at night, as to allow me to use the living room television without risking spoiling my housemates on the narrative twists of the game, as I was further along in the game than my housemates who were also reading it.

Fate/Stay Night, or Fate, tells the story of the protagonist Shirou Emiya, a teenager living in suburban Japan in the winter of 2004. He is thrust into a war of mages fighting over the holy grail, with each Master summoning a Servant, a reincarnated spirit from throughout history, which they will use to defeat the other 6 masters, and claim the holy grail that can grant any wish for themselves. The game is presented in what a western player would call a Visual Novel, a game primarily consisting of dialogue and prose, with the player directed to make choices that affect the outcome of the narrative.

The structure of the game is broken into 3 main routes; Fate, Unlimited Blade Works, and Heaven’s Feel. Owing to the games cultural role as an Eroge(short for “Erotic Game”, an adult-oriented title with moderate sexual elements. Not to be confused with Nukige, which is more akin to straightforward pornography, the eroge fills a cultural niche somewhere between 18-rated film and exploitation cinema), each of the three routes broadly corresponds with the three heroines of the game, Shirou’s summoned servant Saber, local mage and classmate Rin Tohsaka, and longtime friend Sakura Matou. Unusually for a genre where the only verb is choose, the order that you play through each of these routes is not actually up to the player. The player is required to read through the entirety of one route, with the events unfurling over the course of a number of in-game days, then return to the start of the game, at which point they will be moved onto the subsequent route.

Destroying the command seals and leaving the holy grail war

A first-time player will encounter a number of decisions early on, after a rather lengthy prologue presented from Tohsaka’s point of view, which contains absolutely zero choices whatsoever. The player is presented with the choice to either help Sakura prepare breakfast or engage in chores around the house. The player is immediately asked to engage with a branching narrative, although in a much smaller scope than what will come later. This choice, and all choices up until the end of the third day, do not result in any sort of failure state for the game. The choices made simply result in different scenes playing out in a branching structure, before returning to the main storyline. Additionally, the choices made can affect each of the heroine's Affection levels.

These simple choices provide a strong contrast from the strictly linear narrative in the prologue, inducing an effect where the player is asked not to simply observe the protagonist, but is presented with a choice of their own: Am I making the choices I would make, or am I attempting to play the role of Shirou Emiya? For the first few days, the lack of major decisions (no combat situations give the player any agency) begins to condition the player to what Shirou would do when put under duress. This, combined with the full access I was given to his inner monologue (something which is absent in the anime adaptations, to the massive detriment of his character) necessitated me to become engaged in the act of roleplaying right from the off, if only subconsciously. The game begins to reveal that the question asked of you from the minute you stepped into Shirou’s shoes, was not a decision, but a test, and there is a right answer.

On the evening of the third night, after Shirou successfully summons Saber, Tohsaka takes him to the church on the hill, where local priest Kire Kotomine will debrief him on the nature of the Holy Grail War he has found himself thrust into. After a lengthy exposition, it is here where we are presented the first meaningful decision of the game: Shirou has the choice to forfeit his place in the grail war, relinquishing his power to the church, or resolve to fight in the coming war, at whatever cost that may bring. A first-time reader will likely choose to fight, but this could easily be written off as a contrivance for the story to actually take place. If the protagonist gives up and goes home, then the game ends there. This is of course true, in a certain sense. If the player does select to destroy the seals binding Saber as Shriou’s servant, Shirou will be ambushed by a master on his way home, and the game reaches it’s first Dead End. A short, non-canonical comedy skit plays out, giving the player advice on what decisions to make in order to avoid reaching this fate, and the player is given the option to return to the last decision that they made.

This scene, overall, introduces us to three core components that will be key to analysing the game going forward. Firstly, it impresses upon us that there are failure states for the game. Secondly, it shows that despite the absence of what people in the west would consider to be traditional gameplay, there is still a difficulty curve in play, with choices getting harder as the game goes on. And finally, to the attentive player, it’s the first sign that the game is inviting you to really engage with role-playing as Shirou Emiya, as every bit of writing thus far has made it clear that there’s really only one thing he would do in this situation, and to deviate from that results in a game over. In that way, it’s not terribly dissimilar to Assasin’s Creed’s animus system handing out game overs whenever the player deviates from what the historical figure would have likely done (although with much less mechanical rigidity).

Day #9: Who should I protect

This next narrative slice I wish to examine takes place on the ninth day of the Heaven’s Feel route, approximately 80% of the way through the game. By this point, I had gotten a number of Dead Ends, but all that this required to address was a reversion to the last decision branch, and to proceed down the unexplored narrative branch. But what I wish to examine here are two choices (or lack thereof).

Under the moonlight, both Shirou and the player are presented with possibly the hardest question the game will ask of them: Sakura, her condition worsening, is beginning to go berserk, threatening the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians. Both you, and Shirou, are presented a choice to either put Sakura down, or to continue protecting her, at a monstrous expense of human lives. On my first playthrough, I lingered on this decision for a number of minutes, the stars in the background twinkling, and the music washing over me. I eventually decided to uphold Shirou’s ideals as a hero of justice, an ideal inherited from the man who saved him as a child. At this point, the game fades out, not on a Dead End, but a Bad End. By presenting this outcome as not simply a Dead End, a game over to be rebounded from, but a Bad End, the game presented me with a counterintuitively rare genuine decision to make. So great was the weight upon Shirou, that I could sincerely believe that either decision is equally plausible. But ultimately, the only way forward is to protect sakura, which gave me a deeper understanding of how Shiou works.

Save Illya

The final decision I’d like to look at occurs on the 15th day of Heaven’s Feel, when I felt that the end was in sight. The events of the previous day have led Sakura to capture Illya, in an attempt to use her as a sacrifice to embody the third magic. While the mechanical details of the magecraft aren’t relevant, what is important is that Shirou has to work to save Illya.

After journeying to the Einzbern estate on the outskirts of town, scaling the walls to the mansion, and breaking in, upon seeing Illya, three choices appear on the screen. All three options read simply: “Bring Illya home.”. Unlike other similar games I had played, Fate allows Shirou to exert his own will without pretence. This moment instead represents a confident assertion that I was already fully inhabiting Shirou Emiya, and at that moment there was nothing else on my mind that to bring Illya home. The game will feature choices after this point, but these serve to flesh out the erasure of personhood Shirou undergoes after this point. This single moment is the game telling me that I have nothing left to learn, a statement which held true, as after this point I would receive no more dead ends. Fate/Stay Night, through it’s million words of prompting, negative conditioning, and inner monologuing, had made me a more engaged and participatory reader than any book had, and made me understand the characters more deeply than any game had before.

Conclusion

The primary thought I had when looking back on Fate was not the characters, but the mechanics. I felt so immersed within Shirou, and the description of Tokimeki Memorial(1994) from Tim Roger’s marathon essay on the game came to mind. To paraphrase, we do not play as the faceless protagonist, but we exist something closer to his hormones. The player character would say each of the three dialogue choices by himself, if given the time, our role is simply to guide him. In Fate, I played as something much more akin to Shirou’s instincts, making split second decisions and working in tandem to understand him.

Fate/Stay Night, to an inattentive reader, is an excellent visual novel, who’s medium is largely detached from it’s narrative content. This was my expectation going in, having watched both of the lavishly animated but thematically dry anime adaptations. However, Fate surprised me by simultaneously demonstrating the narratological strengths of video games, and also why a strictly narratological analysis of even the most narrative video game is fundamentally incomplete. Despite starting out intending to perform a narratological analysis, I found that the moments that were most impactful to me could not be solely explained through a recounting and analysis of the simple events contained within. They necessitated some degree of ludological analysis in accompaniment,

Bibliography

Rogers, T (2021). Action Button Reviews Tokimeki Memorial Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb-DtICmPTY&t=17501s

Fate/Stay Night Secret Book (2005) published in Comptiq Magazine vol.2

Giantbomb(2010) Top 25 Longest Game Scripts Available at https://www.giantbomb.com/profile/jagged85/lists/top-25-longest-game-scripts/89583/

Game References

TYPE-MOON (2004). Fate/Stay Night

TYPE-MOON (2000). Tsukihime

TYPE-MOON (2015-). Fate/Grand Order

TYPE-MOON (2012). Witch on the Holy Night (魔法使いの夜）

Konami (1994) Tokimeki Memorial