I’m a bit of a late convert to the Fate series. I only recently got into it thanks to the suggestion of a friend, and have finished watching the Fate/Zero series as well as Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works. Hell, I even got started watching Fate/Apochrypha, though that was a bit of a leap from the other two. The point is, I find the series interesting conceptually, even though I just got into it. But I’ve never played the games based on Fate. Now, courtesy of the fine folks at Marvelous, I received a physical version of the game, the Fate/EXTELLA Link: Fleeting Glory LE to be precise. What did I think of this product, and is it worth the investment?
First, let’s go over the pricing for this edition of the game. Regularly the game costs $49.99, whereas this version is an additional $30. However, for that extra price, you get a whole lot of extras.
Included with the package, in addition to the game, are a Music CD, cloth poster, acrylic stand and a pack of cards. One thing I appreciated is that the art for the game box is different, front and back, from that of the outer box everything comes in. That’s a nice touch which isn’t always present in these sorts of collections. And keeping in mind how new I am to the series, even I recognized a few of the Servants illustrated on the game box, such as Astolfo.
Next up, let’s cover the music CD.
It features 26 tracks composed by the following artists – Keigo Hoashi, Keiichi Okabe, Syoutaro Seo and Ryuichi Takada. There’s a good variety of tunes, some rousing adventure music, others being more jazzy, casino style music. There’s even a couple songs which sounded vaguely Castlevania-like. I enjoyed all the tracks, but these were the standouts – track 10 “Last Stand”, track 13 “Dark Side”, track 17 “The St. Metropolita – Karolus Patricius -“, track 18 Karolus Patricius Auctoritas and track 21 “Daydreaming on the Moon”. It’s easy to get bored listening to music from some games, but that certainly wasn’t the case here.
Likewise, the cloth poster that comes in the Fate/EXTELLA LINK: Fleeting Glory LE is pretty snazzy. It’s very colorful and quite large. My only complaint is a common one, which is that you can see the folds on it. While you may be able to fix that with a hot iron, I’d be worried about doing damage to the thin poster. That said, it’s still pretty nice.
One of the more standout items (both literally and figuratively) was the acrylic plastic stand. I admit it took me a second to figure out how to place it, but once I did, I thought it was pretty attractive. Also, since it’s durable plastic, it should last a good long while. But perhaps my favorite item in the whole collection is the next one.
It’s worth noting that the Fate/EXTELLA LINK: Fleeting Glory LE was so tightly packaged I almost missed this item entirely. Namely, it’s a very sweet set of 10 cards featuring Servants old and new. These are really attractive, and my only minor complaint is one was slightly stuck to another, but I managed to pry them apart without any real damage. I can’t express how much I loved these cards, and feel they really brought the whole package together. The only way they could have been better is if the back of each card had some Servant trivia on them, but that’s probably asking too much.
All in all, I would highly recommend the Fate/EXTELLA LINK: Fleeting Glory SE to any fan of the series. Even if you haven’t played the games yet, this is a worthy item to decorate any game room. I applaud XSEED and Marvelous for their hard work, and will pay attention the next time they announce another limited edition!
