I’ve seen the Fate/stay night anime, so I’m going into the visual novel with it in mind. In this case, that seems to be a good thing, or at least an okay thing; I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how robust the game is so far, and I’m probably not even half an hour into it. There’s much more attention paid to Rin Tousaka in the beginning, for example — she’s the point of view character for a little while, at least — and you’re not about to see me complain about the tsundere getting screen time.
I’m not going to exhaustively document the entire game like this, but I do have some quick observations on the first few minutes, some of which are based on what I know from the anime adaptation.
Does immeasurable equal meaningless, then? Or, rather, does someone who focuses on the immeasurable lead a meaningless existence? Surely Rin doesn’t believe this, and she’s just cynically echoing the opinion of society. Insofar as art is an immeasurable abstract, you could say that art criticism is meaningless, not that that’ll stop me any more than magic being “kind of meaningless” will stop Rin from doing it. Where’s the meaning in doing a meaningless thing? I don’t exactly expect F/sn to delve into that, but I’ll be watching for it anyway.
Insofar as Shirou uses magic to work with technology, maybe he’s the zero point. Of course, I’m not supposed to know that yet.
Says the game: “Hey, uh, before you start masturbating, you really ought to know that I’m trying to deal with love here.” I hope you succeed, game, I really do.
Ayako would be pleased with the aesthetics of what’s to come, then. Interestingly, the idea here is that combat begets beauty, whereas in the opening bit with Shirou and Saber, Shirou mentions that Saber’s combat attire would look unappealing if not for Saber’s personal beauty mitigating the harshness of it — combat begets beauty vs. beauty beautifies combat. I don’t suppose they’re mutually exclusive.
From the anime, I know that Shinji Matou turns out to be kind of a douchebag, so I wasn’t especially surprised when this scene set Rin against him. What’s interesting, though, is that he’s a popular kid, and Rin apparently isn’t (due to lack of interest, I’m guessing). Wish fulfillment? I don’t care either way; I never felt the need to blast the popular kids in my high school with magic. Well, not often.
First! I hope.
Strike one!
Strike two!
Strike three!
I believe you’ve just broken the bank, dear sir. This VN was made for you.
You really like that broken-up URL gag, don’t you? :D Anyway, this is interesting, even though I don’t think my constitution is made for visual novels. I’ve tried a few. Maybe I’ll try this one anyway, since everyone and their tiny little dog is playing it.
I got the same impression with the intro as you did – what really struck me was how long the whole thing was! I’d watched the TV adaptation (which is basically the Fate route with one or two bits borrowed from the other two) already but I’d never played a VN at the time. Nor am I a gamer either, so the way it ate up my free time for who knows how many days/weeks was a bit of a shock. Not that it put me off starting Tsukihime afterwards!
It’s mentioned (but in fairness not really shown) that Rin is popular at school, but Shinji Matou is a bit of a git. In fact he seems to plumb further into the scummy depths of bastard-ness as the game progresses. Honestly, you’ll hate his yellow guts by the end. The magic seems to have quite a complex set of mechanics behind it, a bit like Earthsea’s; it’s like a science of its own, with rules and arcane terminology. Quite fascinating really.
The fourth screenie is an example of how the game tosses in little details that don’t really register at the time but looking back are cheeky little hints of what’s to follow; you seem more adept at spotting things like that than I am so I’m looking forward to seeing how you get on! Yeah, every bugger seems to be playing it but that doesn’t detract from the fact that it’s excellent.
@Owen
It’s safe to say that my awareness of interesting threads of meaning has been raised by you and IKnight’s odysseys through F/sn (though I have yet to really read through your posts on it for fear of spoilers). I have expectations now, and fortunately F/sn seems inclined to cooperate with me in fulfilling them.
@Cuchlann
I suppose my liking of “clever” domain names borders on unhealthy at this point. I have played one visual novel before — this one — though I didn’t get farther than a few hours in, so I’m essentially new to the genre as well. To be Super Fanicom-relevant, one thing I’m trying to figure out is to what degree they work like other video games.
@Martin
Ah, I like complicated magic systems. Or maybe it’s that I strongly dislike overly simple magic systems.
Yeah, I’m really hoping I accidentally run into some foreshadowing. I’m doing a note-keeping blog in part to have a record of what I think of little seemingly-minor things all along; I figure it’ll be easier to bring everything together into cohesive analysis this way, and hopefully I’ll be surprised at how relevant some things turn out to be. Saves me the trouble of rewatching!
Haha, yes, I was also really pleased how the prologue started out following Rin. There’s so much content and plenty of stuff to discuss, so I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
I always thought Rin was popular, she’s the one people admire but can’t truly befriend due to her lack of openness. Kind of like Kare Kano