Its quite good as a character-driven story, but often struggles between balancing its various parts.
There are three main story beats that Fate is juggling. First you have the more lighthearted daily life stuff with going to school, running errands, and other activities not really related to the Grail War. This is mostly packed in the beginning of each route but often continues for too long or crops up later in the story where it cuts into the better content.
Second there's the character-driven core of the story. Shirou's inner tensions about heroism, the motivations and struggles of the Grail War's various participants, and the many conflicts where these interests collide. This is easily where Fate is at its strongest.
And finally, there's the more magic and lore-focused elements of the story where the writers are trying to explain how everything functions and why the Grail War operates the way that it does. This ends up being a mixed bag as, while some explanation is necessary, it often ends up getting bogged down in unnecessary and time-consuming details that end up being the magical equivalent of technobabble. It gets even worse in Heaven's Feel where Fate begins exploring the Grail War's origins and history, pulling a whole bunch of stuff from thin air that was never hinted at before and bombarding the reader with endless explanations that only marginally help make sense of it all.
Fate has a very strong core and I think its character-driven conflict alone makes it worth reading. But it often strays away from its strengths in ways that undermine the experience. Sometimes its just a distraction that interrupts the flow of everything else happening, but at other times it grinds the story to an awkward pause and muddles the core focus rather than giving it additional clarity.
Still, give it a shot. I can absolutely see why the series became so popular in the first place and its reputation is well deserved. Just know that you may have to put up with a handful of rough patches along the way.
There are three main story beats that Fate is juggling. First you have the more lighthearted daily life stuff with going to school, running errands, and other activities not really related to the Grail War. This is mostly packed in the beginning of each route but often continues for too long or crops up later in the story where it cuts into the better content.
Second there's the character-driven core of the story. Shirou's inner tensions about heroism, the motivations and struggles of the Grail War's various participants, and the many conflicts where these interests collide. This is easily where Fate is at its strongest.
And finally, there's the more magic and lore-focused elements of the story where the writers are trying to explain how everything functions and why the Grail War operates the way that it does. This ends up being a mixed bag as, while some explanation is necessary, it often ends up getting bogged down in unnecessary and time-consuming details that end up being the magical equivalent of technobabble. It gets even worse in Heaven's Feel where Fate begins exploring the Grail War's origins and history, pulling a whole bunch of stuff from thin air that was never hinted at before and bombarding the reader with endless explanations that only marginally help make sense of it all.
Fate has a very strong core and I think its character-driven conflict alone makes it worth reading. But it often strays away from its strengths in ways that undermine the experience. Sometimes its just a distraction that interrupts the flow of everything else happening, but at other times it grinds the story to an awkward pause and muddles the core focus rather than giving it additional clarity.
Still, give it a shot. I can absolutely see why the series became so popular in the first place and its reputation is well deserved. Just know that you may have to put up with a handful of rough patches along the way.