A simple, nondescript white flower.
Countless times, he attempted to finish it and failed.
A piece missing in the center, a puzzle that can never be perfectly complete.
And... by filling the void that was himself, he has finally finished it.

I was going to give 4 rating to hollow ataraxia but the ending was fucking brilliant and it was worth it. worth the effort of going through the gameplay that I didnt like one bit, so much so that when after major event happened and main story continued I was filled with joy. please use the guide if you plan to read it.

new characters were pretty good and it was fresh air. I appreciate the change in main characters even though still having the same cast. bazett always hesitating to trust or dont trust avenger because of the bullshit hes giving to her and avenger giving meaningful speeches and helping her, then always hiding something from her and making her paranoid were different from what we've seen in other staynight routes. also she might be the coolest fate character ever (woman in suits save me please). caren is also good but has very low screentime with only being the main topic of the game in last 2-3 hours. also holy fuck we got child gilgamesh with a more likeable and decent personality, like how??

slice of life scenes looked to be good at the start but after some point it started to bore me and I had to skip some of those because you know which ones are just filler and which ones are important for the story with indicators in gameplay part, so I decided my time is dear and pressed ctrl on filler stories I didnt like where its going (still took 30 hours to finish the game). bored me more when the scenes were about characters I didnt humour and didnt enjoy reading like sakura or the students (not mitsuzuri she is a fun character) but there were some very funny and gold ones too (mainly servants events) so SoL aspect was hit or miss for me sometimes. learning more about the servants past and myths/ legends were nice addition hollow ataraxia made, polishing the cast even more and adding more to the overall fate.

last words: main story is superb while most slice of life parts were not, but deserves a 5 star just with the main story alone. nice try about the 4 day loop gameplay but I didnt like it, not the concept just the gameplay. its a good sequel-spinoff to a already good vn. read it if you like fate

Hollow ataraxia es toda una experiencia de inicio a fin y sin pedos podría considerarla como de lo mejorcito que tiene Fate en cuanto a historia/mensaje. Una historia que nos habla de apreciar los momentos bellos y cotidianos del día a día pero a la vez saber que estos no son para siempre, un día estos momentos terminaran y nosotros tendremos que seguir adelante.

Una historia y un mensaje tan buenos contados a su vez de una buena manera, tal vez algunos puedan decir que hay demasiados momentos Slice of Life, y si, pero al final estos momentos nos permiten conocer mas de los personajes y darles mas caracterización a personajes que antes no habían logrado tener tanta. Por otra parte, la parte de la historia también esta bastante buena, todo lo relacionado a Bazett, Angra y Caren es basntante interesante y el como estos mismos se van desarrollando tambien es algo genial y con un peak al final con las conversaciones finales que tienen los 3 al final (que para mi es de los mejores finales de fate).

Si esto hubiera sido el final de Fate no tendría ningun problema, es un juego que cierra con broche de oro.

Very special and soulful game, it genuinely had me questioning whether I'm too cynical. Notably, if you can get the voice acting working it's really amazing. Never been so impressed by a Japanese voice cast. In particular: Takuma Terashima (avenger) really impressed me. The slice of life bits CAN be an issue if you force yourself to read all of them. For me, I skimmed through the characters I care less about and really enjoyed the little moments that helped to really define and help me love the cast from Stay Night even more.

I can't put into words how great this VN is.
It truly is a fan disc. It's like a dessert you get after eating a very delicious main course (fate/stay night) but the dessert is a 20-layer wedding cake.
Every character and their relationships with others are expanded upon, more lore & mysteries have been added to the world, a ton of great comedic and comfortable scenes are present and so much more.
I also want to applaud to its soundtrack which is one of the best I have ever heard.
This VN is a true marvel and as good as F/SN if not even better

I want to say a lot of things about this game. So much so that if I start writing it would take hours, So much so that it would take days, So much so that it would take months...

But I am gonna stop here for now. Only thing I can say as of now is all of the pacing issues, all of the garbage comedy moments, all of the unnecessary time wasting was worth it just for the ending. To the point it made my score jump from 3 stars to 5 stars singlehandedly. It's that good or just felt "right" to me and impacted down to my core. This man knows no bounds, his pen is his blade and his mind is his weapon and as I pray, I desire to see unlimited masterpieces from him.

7.5/10
TLDR: Great plot with some good SOL bits here and there but the rest of the SOL events and the volume of them and the format of it lets down the VN a bit
I feel this score might be a bit generous cuz it feels like I have a few problems with the VN, I'll talk about the bad and the good though. I found some of the SOL bits boring and dragged, only enjoyed the School Trio, Rin, Caren, Taiga and some of Rider's SOL bits. The format of the VN doesn't really help with it either, was not a fan of the "choose your event" style of the VN as it kind of made it where you are going through dregs of SOL before getting to a plot event and by the time I got there I felt a bit drained. So in short, the plot events were just a bit far inbetween and the SOL should have been more spread out across the VN and I think I would have enjoyed the SOL a lot more. Though I did find the plot events when they came around interesting and didn't actually have any problems with that in itself. Really really like the new character editions in Caren, Angra Mainyu and Bazett. The last segment bit was great to read in one sitting. Maybe overtime my rating is prone to go up as I think about it more but I think this is a good rating for now

There's probably more I'm going to want to say about this game in the future, but I'll get out now what I can after basically finishing it not even a half-hour ago.

For a game that absolutely didn't need a sequel in any capacity, it's astounding how much of a perfect compliment to Fate/stay night this game is. Amazing how much it takes the time to build upon not just Shirou's relationships with basically the entire ensemble cast of Fate, but manages to reinforce on an individual level what made every single one of those characters so great to begin with.

I walked out of /hollow ataraxia with an appreciation of the cast as a whole on a level I hadn't before, with characters like Caster, Rider, Sakura and Kuzuki really gaining a lot of love from me this run around. Long-time personal favorites like Saber, Rin, Lancer, Archer, Illya and of course Shirou all get so much time to shine, and hell, the new cast members all felt right at home and evoked memories of Near Side-era Tsukihime. All the slice of life stuff felt right, I loved so many of those little moments - from laughter to tears, /hollow ataraxia brought it all.

I'm kind of falling over myself to get these emotions and thoughts out the door and I'm sure I'll have something a lot more concise and put together out there in the near future, but look - Type-Moon is a studio that means a great deal to me at this point and I think this is some of their absolute best work. I felt things from this game I expected, I thought about a lot of things I didn't, and I've walked away feeling that this is one of Nasu's most conclusive and hopeful works. I'm really grateful this universe entered my life. Thanks, Nasu. Thanks, Takeuchi.

what a journey me and this game have had. i started this game way back in summer of 2021, where i was stressed anticipating the horrors that would be my first semester of college. in that time, seeing these characters i grew to love live their daily lives gave me comfort and i applaud nasu's writing of the slice of life elements ten-fold. just watching these characters have fun, give tidbits of their life never before revealed, real talk with each other as these 4 days loop on, is a experience that couldnt be replicated anywhere else. the plot itself is also great, showing a life without any hate couldnt exist, a fear of death that would lead you to hurt people you care about, the fear of being forgotten, of being ordinary. bazzet's plea is an sympathetic one and it works. after an on and off reading of this story, i felt like the plot points accelerated the more stressed i got. the fears peaked as i take a break from college and suffer from anxiety and self loathing. but the story's ending is hopeful, bright and accepting. nasu's writing still holds as being emotionally powerful and well written, if a bit confusing and hand wavey at times. i enjoyed my almost 2 year journey with this game, and recommend it to anyone familiar with fate/stay night who wants 4 more days of fuyuki.