A consistently highly fun experience, which is rare for a VN of this length. I was mindblown by every route. The main character, heroines and antagonists are all good or great across the board, which is also rare for a VN. The soundtrack and art are very much "early 2000s VN vibes", in a good way.

This is basically essential reading if you're really into chuunige, given the fact that it is believed that this served as inspiration for Fate and Dies irae. Whether you're into other Nitroplus stuff like Muramasa, Light, Type-Moon or mecha, I would recommend it. It is pretty underrepresented in the western VN fanbase, especially considering that other 2000s VNs are usually the most popular and acclaimed ones. Unfortunately the sequel is literally unplayable except Windows XP, and even then it sometimes doesn't work.

What a weird and charming game this is.

I both understand how it could be someone's favorite final fantasy and another's worst.

It's really all over the place, but odly enough it worked for me. I appreciate the imagination, style and just vibe of the whole thing.

The soundtrack is instantly nostalgic, the visuals were surely a treat back on the old ps1 and the cast of characters endearing.

A memorable entry in the franchise for sure.

The story has good ideas, especially near the end, and I'm glad that the MC isn't a 100% silent one. But even though I am probably the millionth person to say this, the gameplay is absolutely unenjoyable, probably my least favourite turn-based battle system that I've ever played. The game in general is underwhelming and episodic in the first half, with most of the thematic and interesting story moments coming later.

At least the music and visual style are very good, especially for a PSP game. Sadly, I was really only playing this for CCC, which was apparently Nasu's favourite project he worked on.

Well, this is certainly a huge step up from the first game.

Unlike Fate/Extra, Fate/Extra CCC actually tries to utilise its setting in an interesting manner. The episodic nature of the first game is abandoned for a much more flexible story structure. The cast is kept small and mostly recurring from the first game in a very character-driven story. The extremely unenjoyable gameplay from the first game has auto battles and more interesting opponents added as a band-aid fix, but that's good enough for the most part. The music is amazing, KATE, James Harris and others from the original F/SN and F/HA return to give equally memorable soundtracks.

The story is far more ambitious this time around. Unlike just having an episodic tournament structure, this game sees a change of scenery and actually has a compelling overarching villain. This is one of the better examples of strong and emotional character writing in the Nasuverse, especially with how it's consistently good across the board with the entire cast. I also think I found my new favourite silent protagonist in Hakuno Kishinami (female version). She's not quite fully silent — the visual-novel style NVL text monologue sometimes leaks out as a dialogue that can be responded to by other characters, but still. Her struggles are very believable. The scenery in this game is more gorgeous than the first, with a recurring cherry blossom tree motif.

Unfortunately, despite consistency, this story still has plenty of meandering in the early couple of chapters. It feels like stuff just happens. Oh well. But the biggest actual problem is how you have to replay the entire game to get the true ending, let alone if you choose to do other servant routes, which have essentially the same ending. This isn't just skipping through a VN's previously read text and selecting a few choices, you have to re-battle everyone and redo puzzles. It was quite frustrating, I can't imagine doing this natively on a PSP instead of an emulator that lets you speed up the game drastically.

The peaks of the story and finale have made this the overall the best Nasuverse product for me, making me regain faith in Type-Moon after slowly losing interest over the years. I think Tsukihime Far Side and Heaven's Feel are better, but as an overall work, CCC is a clear winner.