Fate/EXTRA

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Fate/EXTRA is a Spin-Off of the Visual Novel Fate/stay night, released for the PSP in 2010 by Type-Moon and Image Epoch. Described as some as Fate/stay night meets Shin Megami Tensei or .hack. Similar to the later entries in the Persona series, it is a combination of Visual Novel and RPG elements based around a Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors system.

Story-wise, it is an Alternate Continuity from Fate/stay night but takes place Twenty Minutes Into the Future, in Cyberspace. (According to Word of God, it diverges from the Fate/stay night timeline in 1980, but the standard Nasuverse Word Of God disclaimer applies.) The main character is literally described as "Yourself", and can be male or female. You can select from three Servants at the beginning of the game: Saber, Caster and Archer[1]. Much like in Fate/stay night, a Holy Grail War is going on and your character gets dragged into it... but this time, there are 128 Masters! Because of this, the setup is more like a tournament, where at the end of an in-game week, your character has to fight an enemy Master and their Servant.

Aksys Games localized the game and released it on November 21, 2011.

An Interquel called Fate/EXTRA CCC, which serves as the "Far Side" story to the original game's "Near Side", was released on March 28, 2013 in Japan.

Tropes used in Fate/EXTRA include:
  • Absurdly High Level Cap: The level cap is 99, but you'll usually be in the high 30s/low 40s by the time you reach the Final Boss.
  • Alternate Timeline: Supposedly, this game takes place in a timeline that diverged from the normal Fate/stay night universe in 1980, when the prana of the world suddenly vanished. According to Rin and Twice, this shouldn't have happened, and history is corrupted somehow. Also, the moon landings haven't taken place yet, despite occurring in the normal timeline before the prana vanished. Leo's dialogue implies the Harway family prevented space-travel to prevent anyone from landing on the Moon.
  • And You Thought It Was a Game: Many of the Masters view the Holy Grail War as just an online game at first, and don't fully comprehend the consequences of losing. The results of the first round drive the point home to most of the surviving participants.
  • Angrish: The Berserker class Servants' incoherent speech due to Mad Enhancement.
  • Anthropomorphic Personification: Alice's Caster-class Servant is the personification of nursery rhymes.
  • Anti-Grinding: The amount of XP you gain from beating enemies drops the higher your level is, and XP requirements for the next level increase greatly every level.
    • Levels follow a set formula. Experience needed is always (Current level^2) x 10.
  • Beehive Barrier: Whenever someone is hit while using Guard.
  • Betrayal Tropes: Being betrayed is a major theme of each of the three playable Servants' backstories.
  • The Berserker: Berserker-class Servants.
  • Bittersweet Ending: You stop Twice's plans and obtain the Holy Grail, but you are essentially erased in the process, with the girl you saved being the only one to escape the Holy Grail War. She's looking for your real body, but it won't have any memories at all, and the real world is still stagnant, although there's a little hope left. Welcome to the Nasuverse!
  • Blank Book: One of the clues in the prologue that shows that things are not right.
  • Bonus Dungeon: The Zeroth/Infinite Chimeric Lunar Sea, accessible before you go to claim the Holy Grail. However, it's not that difficult and doesn't have anything of value except for the Bonus Boss, if you've unlocked her.
  • Book Ends: The beginning and the end of the Holy Grail War for the protagonists involves walking down a long corridor that changes shape as you move along it.
  • But Thou Must!: Sometimes, you only get one dialogue option, like when Alice asks you to play with her and attempting to peek in on your Servant getting... 'recharged'.
  • Character Level: Your level as a Master increases when you gain enough XP after defeating enemy programs, which also has the effect of empowering your Servant. You also get 3 Skill Points per level, which you can use to boost your Servant's stats.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Twice H. Pieceman actually makes a early appearance during the 3rd week, which also comes with a Chekhov's Gun related to Alice and a plot point later in the game.
    • Why couldn't the Decoy Protagonist use a single attack with his Effigy? Because Julius had gotten his Servant before the Grail War started, according to his backstory, and he had Li Shu Wen shred the Decoy Protagonist's Magic Circuits. That's why Julius didn't kill him and just knocked him out. Without Magic Circuits, he was doomed anyway.
  • Color Coded for Your Convenience: After the War begins, this is how you distinguish non-unique Master models from regular NPCs. They both wear the same yellow-brown school uniform, but in different shades. Masters wear the brighter ones from the prologue, NPCs wear a darker shade. Also, Student Council members wear black.
  • Counter Attack: When someone using Guard is hit by an Attack.
  • Crapsack World: Several people have pointed out that even with all the horrible things going on in the Moon Cell, the regular world is even worse.
  • Critical Hit: As in most RPGs, it increases the amount of damage done.
  • Dead All Along: Alice, the Master of Caster. Also Twice H. Pieceman, Master of Saver.
  • Decoy Protagonist: The initial playable character is a Master candidate who fails his trial. Once you get control of the "proper" player character, an interesting (and really creepy) perspective flip occurs on several events.
  • Demoted to Extra: Sakura in the first game. She is set to have a bigger role in CCC.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Apparently a requirement of the Archer class.
  • Deus Sex Machina: Rani or Rin has to use this to repair your Servant's Magic Circuits after Assassin destroys them. However, you're kicked out after you activate a trap that's meant to kill anyone who peeks. All you really see is a bare leg, but Sakura's dialogue after you look in and your Servant's dialogue later on even if you didn't practically confirms it.
  • Digital Avatar: Nearly everyone you meet in the Moon Cell. Whether they look the same in the real world is never mentioned.
  • Digitized Hacker: Pretty much everyone in the Holy Grail War, except the NPCs, are this. It is also one of the few ways left to perform magic, see Magic From Technology below.
  • Disappears Into Light: Masters and Servants defeated in the Elimination Battles are covered in darkness and are deleted; Nursery Rhyme just vanishes to become someone new, Arcueid tears her way out, Ryougi vanishes, probably to another world, and Savior disappears into glowing light.
  • Double Entendre: Lil' Ronnie's Lancer-class Servant is a walking pile of these.

Lancer: "Hahaha, salivate in anticipation, my wife! For soon, there will be meat in your unsatisfied cavity."
Lancer: "My spear rises in giddy joy when I ponder my luck in meeting you!"

    • A few other characters have... questionable-sounding lines. Assassin would like to say that he'd grown tired of strangling cormorants and wanted to feel what he was doing.

Assassin: "Want to feel something, boy?"
Assassin: "Ooh, a spirited one! I'm glad you came this way, boy."

  • Dungeon Crawling: You and your Servant go around different mazes in order to find out more on your next opponent, obtain the Triggers you need to not be disqualified, obtain Sidequest items and Level Grind.
  • Elegant Gothic Lolita: Alice and her Caster-class Servant.
  • Epiphanic Prison: The game starts off in one; it takes the form of a very cliche school drama/comedy setting. Realizing that everything is fake and trying to assert your identity even when you can't remember it is apparently the preliminary section of the Holy Grail War. Only 128 people succeed, including the protagonist.
  • Expy: Rani VIII is a homunculus created to fight in the Holy Grail War, has a famous warrior who is a Berserker like Ilya, and is a purple haired Alchemist of Atlas like Sion.
    • The playable Caster bears a striking resemblance to Kohaku's Magical Alter Ego, Magical Amber.
    • The playable Archer is very likely the same one as in Fate/stay night.
  • Fan Service Pack: Sakura has one of the biggest bosoms in the Nasuverse, which is combined with rather unkempt hair. CCC took these two traits and amplified them, Sakura's already well-sized breasts became huge tracts of land, and her unkempt waist-length hair now goes down to her knees. Sakura basically took Medusa's measurements for herself, except height, hence her Fan Nickname Sakurider.
  • Foreshadowing: The sentences that pop up on the bottom left of the screen showing off the Arena just before you enter it tend to be quite relevant to whoever it is you're fighting in that week.
    • A more comedic example is in the prologue. If you talk to one of the students outside, she says that "You'll have to pick sides in the nerd war soon." On the 3rd day of the 4th week, talking to the male student outside, whose opponent is a manga fan while he's a comic book fan, forces you to choose which one you're a fan of, or you could pick bande dessinee.
    • Early on in the War, you learn that there's a Master who's hanging out in the Chapel, complaining that she hasn't received a Servant yet due to a 'system malfunction'. You also learn that the reason for having only 128 participants is due to that being the maximum number of Servants the SE.RA.PH can support at once. So, there's one Servant unaccounted for... and it turns out to be the Final Boss.
    • Another early one, the dream sequence just after the beginning of the first week is of a disaster that claimed many lives. The way it's written implies that it's a memory of the original Twice's last moments before he dies during the terrorist attack.
    • There is a Master in the garden outside the chapel who's quite knowledgeable about flowers. The meanings of each of the flowers she mentions is very relevant to current events.
    • In one week, you see a transparent figure walk towards you before disappearing, and Leo explains that it was a digital ghost, that you shouldn't worry because they're just images that can't affect anything. The figure you see is Twice Pieceman, you are a digital ghost who's damn well affecting things, and after he's defeated, Twice walks towards and past you, fading away as he did in the hall.
  • For Want of a Nail: You could either save Rin or Rani from the other. This also changes which Master and Servant teams you fight later.
    • In Spite of a Nail: You still face the Harway brothers, Julius and Leonard, as the fifth and seventh Masters respectively.
  • Four Is Death: The Information Matrix has four points on it; finding out enough about your opponent to fill them all gives you an advantage that comes in handy when you're fighting them. Also, potential Masters had four days to realize they were being tested and prove their mettle; failing to question reality enough or survive the tests ended poorly for everyone who didn't qualify.
    • Plays a role in the first battle with Assassin. Every round, his fourth move is an auto-counter to your fourth move, unless you used a Skill.
  • Gender Flip: As before, a couple of Servants are female incarnations of male historical figures.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: Saber's Panty Shot is fully visible on the American cover box.
  • The Ghost: Rani's Professor, who is a member of the Eltnam family like Sion.
  • Grand Theft Me: Julius B. Harway took the place of Souichirou Kuzuki by hacking his profile.
  • Guide Dang It: Getting the playable Caster's Matrix Level to E relies on a series of specific conversation choices throughout the game, and most of these don't look like they're significant at all. Here is a very detailed guide.
  • Ham-to-Ham Combat: The playable Saber versus Dan Blackmore's Archer. Quite hilarious, and awesome, as they snark-off.
  • The Hedonist: Rider's personality. If you choose Saber, she also shows some of this, such as when she congratulates the protagonist on using 200 items for such overt consumption, and decides that she needs to keep up by upgrading one of her skills to do more damage, but consume more MP as well.
  • Hello, Insert Name Here: Naturally, you get to come up with the Protagonist's given name, surname, and nickname (which can naturally be the same as their given name). In voice, though, Saber calls you "Praetor", Archer calls you "Master", and Caster calls you "Goshujin-sama"; which can both mean "Master" and a respectful way of saying "Husband."
  • Hopeless Boss Fight: Sometimes, you'll be bailed out by the SE.RA.PH, but other fights like the Jabberwock, if you don't have the Vorpal Blade, normally cannot be beaten. (Theoretically, you can win if you spam skills and are greatly over-leveled, but in practice, you'll need to cheat and have infinite HP and MP, since even grinding to level 99 won't be enough. However, there's a unique sequence that plays if you somehow manage to win. Here's a video of it with Saber, for those of us unwilling to cheat just to see it.)
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Rani VIII and her Berserker-class Servant.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: A favored tactic of Lancer-class Servant Vlad Tepes III, which includes impaling himself (which doesn't do any damage to him, oddly).
  • Infant Immortality: Heavily averted. You're forced to fight and kill two, though Shinji was Younger Than He Looks and Alice was Dead All Along.
  • Infinity+1 Formal Wear: The Demonic Atlas is dropped by the Bonus Boss when defeated. It completely nullifies any damage from a single move, even Noble Phantasms.
  • Instant Win Condition: Twice H. Pieceman's Servant Saver has a condition where every two turns, a mirror lights up. If all seven mirrors are lit, you lose and he wins.
    • Also, if a Master does not obtain the two Triggers in the Arena before the Elimination Battle at the end of the week, the other Master wins by default. This can happen to you, so don't slack off on Dungeon Crawling.
    • The Bonus Boss insta-kills you if all your moves are Sealed.
  • Interface Screw: As both playable characters in the prologue realize that Things Aren't Right, the world gets progressively stranger, down to static and distortion filling the screen.
    • After you beat week two, the game deliberately makes you think you've entered a Bad End of some sort, straight down to subtitling it Dead End like one of the non-combat game overs you can get... and then your Servant and Rin barely save your life. (Rin didn't even mean to, hilariously enough. At least, that's what she says.)
  • It's All About Me: The playable Saber loves attention, but she's far from the worst offender. Shinji is so conceited he can't comprehend the possibility of losing and assumes he's naturally superior to everyone in every way, which is normal behavior for an eight-year-old Child Prodigy. Leo Harway's even worse, as he's downright friendly and absolutely frank about how he and his family are going to rule the world, which he acknowledges will likely require killing everyone who doesn't accept it. He casually mentions they may use this solution on everyone in Asia.
  • It's a Wonderful Failure: If you get a Bad End or lose in an Elimination Battle, the game describes what happens, and in the case of the Elimination Battles, your opponent has several things to say to you.
  • Luck-Based Mission: Due to how combat works, just trying to fight normal enemies can become one of these. It gets easier the more you fight the same enemy, but it's quite possible for a fragile character like Caster to be taken from full HP to dead if you're unlucky enough, particularly later on in the game.
  • Luck Stat: Determines chances of getting a Critical Hit, increases defense when your Servant's health is in the red and decreases the chance of being affected by Standard Status Effects or by Gae Bolg.
  • The Magic Goes Away: Fate/Extra deviates from the rest of the Nasuverse in the 70's, where an incident caused nearly all prana to drain away. The only magic left is psychic/virtual.
  • Magic From Technology: In the virtual world, people with coding skills are equivalent to magic-users because they can warp the artificial reality by hacking; they're even called "magi" by the system.
    • All magic is "internal" in the Fate/Extra universe. Either within one's mind or within a computer system, due to The Magic Goes Away.
  • Mega Corp: The Harway family owns 30% of the real world's land and 60% of its wealth. They even have their own army.
  • Money for Nothing: Aside from the Ruby, there's nothing really that expensive in the Commissary, which is the only item shop in the game. However, you can't buy the Ruby normally and must complete the packed lunch sidequest, even if you do have the ludicrous amounts of PPT needed.
  • Money Spider: All of the enemy programs and Servants give PPT upon defeat. Probably justified, as the Moon Cell should be providing the PPT as a reward.
  • Monster Clown: Lanrukun/Lil' Ronnie.
  • More Dakka: Rider's Noble Phantasm, Hunt of the Golden Hind, fires a barrage of cannons from her armada. It is substantially more awesome than the simple description makes it sound.
  • Mythology Gag: There are Shout Outs, Cameos, and Expys from other Type-Moon works.
    • From the Fate/stay night series, we have:
      • Masters: Rin Tousaka and Shinji Matou.
      • Servants: Archer and Lancer.
      • NPCs: Sakura Matou, Taiga Fujimura, Kirei Kotomine, Issei Ryuudou, Yukika Saegusa, Kane Himuro, Kaede Makidera and Soichiro Kuzuki (In Name Only).
    • From the Tsukihime and Melty Blood series:
      • Servant: Arcueid as a Berserker-class Servant.
      • NPC: Aoko Aozaki.
    • From Kara no Kyoukai:
      • NPC: Touko Aozaki.
      • Bonus Boss: Shiki Ryougi, who has the Class of "Monster".
  • Never Heard That One Before: One of the NPCs in the school is named Sharon Tips, and she says that she'd like to strangle whoever gave her that name.
  • New Game+: You get to carry over your Arena enemy combat data, money, your Formal Wear (aside from Servant specific ones and one unlocked through plot progression), and it lets you skip the prologue to the point when you select your Servant. You also get a chance to fight the Bonus Boss.
  • No Fair Cheating: In-Universe example: attacking your designated opponent on school grounds will result in a penalty to your Servant's stats and fighting in the Arena before the Elimination Battle is limited to three rounds before the system breaks up the fight. Often, this helps you more than it hinders, as it pulls you out of most Hopeless Boss Fights.
  • Nominal Importance: The prologue uniquely has YOU as one of the many nameless, identity-less faces wandering around the school. The guy realizes to his horror that, like the protagonists of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, he has no memories at all of how he got there, what he's supposed to be doing, where he's going or even if he exists at all as a person.
  • Nonstandard Game Over: It's possible to get a number of Bad Ends in the game, including one if you go the wrong direction in the prologue. Granted, you really have to ignore the game prodding you away in order to get that one.
  • One Steve Limit: Averted, due to the fact that there are far more than seven Servants in this version of the Holy Grail War and they all go by one of the seven Class titles.
  • Panty Shot: The playable Saber all the time, due to her dress design.
  • Preexisting Encounters: Enemy programs can be seen roaming around the Arena. They will attack you if they see you, unless you've killed enough of them.
  • Rainbow Speak: Blue is generally used for characters, like your Servant and the other Masters. Red is usually used for important terms and for enemy Servants. Gold is only used once, in a book you can read if you visit the library during the 4th week.
  • Randomly Drops: Enemy programs can drop items upon defeat. Mostly, they're just decent healing items.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Omake from Type-Moon Ace actually paint Saber and Caster in this light, frequently they will argue over one thing or another just on principle.
  • Relationship Values: Aksys staff have confirmed "...a definite affection element in the game..." See this interview for more.
  • Red Herring: During the early part of the 6th week, it's heavily implied that Leo is your opponent. It's actually the girl you didn't save.
  • Respawning Enemies: Enemy programs respawn after a period of time. The rare enemies, like the Nephilim, however, usually respawn after one or two in-game days.
  • Shout-Out: In the English version, just before having to choose whether to save Rani or Rin, look at the middle row of the code that pops up when the protagonist touches the film projector. You can see the numbers 999 and the words BlazBLUE and AGAreST, all of which were also translated by Aksys Games.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Shinji spends most of his time shrieking and whining about how he's better than everyone else, but we don't really see much justification for this other than his apparently-good coding skills. This is, of course, perfectly normal behavior for someone who is only eight years old.
  • Something About a Rose: The playable Saber has rose petals appear in some of her special skills and when she summons her Noble Phantasm.
  • Spoiler Opening: Which the game doesn't play automatically in order to avoid spoiling the fact that you start off playing as the Decoy Protagonist.
  • Standard Status Effect: Poison/Curse (standard damage inflicted per turn), Paralysis/Stun (prevents being able to act on random moves on a turn, Stun only lasts for one turn) and Seal (prevents the afflicted from using the move that is sealed). Typically inflicted by Skills, though some of the later enemy programs and Servants have a small chance of inflicting them using normal moves.
  • Status Buff: Some of the Skills.
  • Status Buff Dispel: Some Code Casts can dispel them.
  • Stripperific: The playable Saber.
  • Stylistic Suck: Arguably, the whole setting. The cliche school with cliche characters and minimalistic hallways is a poorly-realized artificial reality, and you're trying to get out of it into something that actually matters.
  • Surprisingly Good English: Archer's well-known chant for activating his Noble Phantasm, so much so that some people thought the entire game had been dubbed.
  • Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors: The three main choices of action when fighting:
    • Guard > Attack > Break > Guard
      • Guard blocks and Counter Attacks Attack.
      • Attack strikes before Break.
      • Break smashes through Guard.
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Some of the later enemy Servants automatically counter any action you take in a turn unless it's revealed by the Information Matrix. Just like you do with them.
  • Theme Naming: The various families of enemy programs all follow their own separate naming conventions, including psychological conditions, animals and famous scientists.
  • There Can Be Only One: Even more so than the original universe; killing the Servant kills the Master as well (except in very special circumstances, like in the Rin vs Rani battle). Also, only 1 out of 128 Masters may claim the Holy Grail, and even more had died in the prelims. The winner also has to beat Twice H. Pieceman, because he still counts as a Master, and only when there is one Master left do they get to leave.
  • Trial and Error Gameplay: Combined with Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors above. You select six moves per turn, and the enemy does the same thing... but you might only know one or even none of the enemy's moves in advance. Eventually, you'll figure out the patterns (and, helpfully, monster families all behave in a similar manner, so later in the game you won't be totally helpless if you've been paying attention), but usually not before dying a few times.
    • And, in case this isn't enough, defeating enemy programs enough times allows you to uncover more of their moves on the move queue, so eventually there will be less guesswork. This carries over in a New Game+, which is handy.
    • With Servants, you have to gain information on them. The higher your Matrix Level, the more of their moves are revealed. This is not carried over in a New Game+, but if you managed to do it the first time, you should be able to do it again. Also, when you fight against them in the Arena, the patterns they use then will still be used in the Elimination Battle.
    • For enemies like the Bonus Boss, whom you have no way of gathering info on or memorizing their pattens beforehand, three of their actions are revealed per turn.
  • Tron Lines: Pretty much everything in the Arena have them - the walls, the monsters, the treasures, etc. Even the playable Saber's sword gives off the appearance. Rin's Lancer-class Servant has quite a few as well.
  • Underground Monkey: The various enemy programs inhabiting the Arena belong to several families. Programs within a family are Palette Swaps of each other, with increasing power the further you get in the game.
  • The Unfought: Even though there are 128 Masters, you only get to fight 7 of them, each using different Servant classes (which results in you fighting one Servant of each class in the end).
    • Justified since it's a knockout tournament, so most of them are beaten by other Masters first.
    • Even more justified, considering the losers die!
    • There's also the fact that Shiki Ryougi killed 99 Servants (and their Masters by proxy), possibly during the prelims as well, since there was mention of a spate of murders going on in the prologue.
    • The transition of the prologue seems to indicate that before the preliminaries ended, there were at least 999 Master candidates participating, most of whom never even made it to their first battle.
  • The Untwist: If you read through Caster's skill list in her information section, you can learn her true name (which is regarded as a very important subject) on as soon as the first day. You'll still act as if you don't know it when she reveals it, of course. This is very likely to be a goof with the translation.
  • Visual Novel: It's actually more of a RPG with a novel battle system, but it retains the Visual Novel roots of the Fate/ series by having lots of screens of first-person narration as well as Bad Ends.
  • White-Haired Pretty Girl: Alice and her servant.
  • Win to Exit: The only way to leave the Holy Grail War is to be the last Master standing. This includes Twice H. Pieceman and the Servantless girl you saved. Once the protagonist beats Twice, claims the Holy Grail and gets deleted in the process, the girl s/he saved leaves, and swears to find the protagonist's real body.
  • You All Look Familiar: Justified, due to Digital Avatar. Most of the Masters in the War use the default avatars, which are shared with the NPCs, while the skilled ones like Rin and Leo can customize theirs. The protagonists are in-between, they have unique faces, but wear the default clothing. This is because they're a NPC based on a real person.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Shinji's got blue. Rani VIII has lavender and/or purple hair. Rider has bright pink hair, whereas the playable Caster has a lighter shade of pink. The player character even acknowledges that it's pink in a hilarious and quite meta sequence.
  • Your Mind Makes It Real: If you die in the Holy Grail War, your soul is deleted. Yeouch.
  • Zettai Ryouiki: Rin, Rani and the playable Caster in Extra, the Magus in Black from CCC.
  1. ↑ Well, Archer does "steal" Noble Phantasms.
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