Fate/Fact of the Matter

It should come as no surprise that I per-ordered the Aksys Games release of Fate/Extra so I could get all the limited edition goodies. The question for anyone who did not already get the game might be is it still worth hunting down the limited edition or the Fate/The Fact booklet that was only available by pre-ordeing the game through Gamestop? I will review the game itself when I have gone through at least one play through. Until then I don’t think I can give it a fair review. This is just a look three pieces of Limited Edition material for anyone who knows they want the game but is still curious about the additional material and if it worth the additional cost.

If you got the limited edition release of Fate/Extra you received a hard cover book with two premium items in it. The first extra is the Fate/Extra Visual Works art book. It contains 5 pieces of art from Arco Wada and a bonus drawing of Fate/Extra Saber by Takashi Takeuchi. There are also a few words from Takashi Takeuchi about his take on Busty Roman Saber as well as commentary about all the pictures by Arco Wado. The art work all involves either Saber, Rin, Rani, or the female version of the protagonist. There is unsurprisingly two cheesecakey illustrations but they actually have Lancer of all people in one picture as well. They are fairly well done and there is even a reproduction of the famous meeting of Saber and Shiro done with Extra characters. I was super surprised that there were absolutely no pictures of Caster or Archer in the art book. Caster is pretty darn cute and Archer has to be the most popular male Type-Moon character. All the other side characters were left out as well. Rider has a convincing pair of reasons to be featured and they are not her pistols.

The second bonus item is a CD with selection of ten songs from the soundtrack. It has the themes of the three playable servants and 7 other pieces of incidental music. The music is entertaining and lively. It is better than generic RPG music but not breath taking along the lines of the Umineko soundtrack. And of course since Archer is in the game it means another remix of Emiya. But Emiya is so intense it would be criminal not to include it. The most notable exclusion from the soundtrack is the opening song Ranse Eroica from the Ali Project. I am sure that the licensing cost for that song by itself is why we did not get a full soundtrack added but it is still a sad omission.

The last oddity is the hardest to get: The Fate/the Fact booklet. It is a little  magazine written as if it were a magazine from the Fate/Extra universe. It has quite a bit of background information about the setting and some surprisingly revealing details about some of the cast and the world the game is set in. In fact is straddles the line between being a supplement you should read before you play the game and a big old book of spoilers depending on how you look at it. It is a great book if you are one of those people who goes out of their way to read every data file in a game like Mass Effect to fully immerse yourself in the setting. Otherwise if you are someone prone to pound X when exposition comes on the screen so you can get back to the action it is just going to be a wall of words. I am curious how much of the information contained within is explained within the game and how much you can only learn from reading the book. Note: The author LOVES to use foot notes for all the articles. Each of the 5 articles have at least 6 footnotes. So strange.

So the big question is should you splurge for the full set or are you better off just buying the game via digital download. Back in the day I know my roommate and many people like him would buy strategy guides for games they had already beaten. This seems silly but the reason to do this was often those books had art you could only find casually in those books and so they worth their weight in gold to fans of the series. Now in this digital age it is not that hard to find pretty much all the art in Visual Works and any of the songs on the CD with a minor about of web searching. So then what is the value? The value is they are well made. Every part of the limited set just looks good. If you have an appreciation for the tangible there is something here to sink your teeth into even if we did get truncated versions. If you are any level of serious Type-Moon I am slightly shocked you have not already picked up the prestige edition. For everyone else while there is much to like about the bonus material it is not vital for the experience. Still I must applaud Aksys Games for this release. It was above and beyond and quite appreciated. A little spectacle at a reasonable price goes a long way to winning my praise.