Last week I was able to complete the latest singularity of Fate Grand Order, Shimousa. Overall I liked it and of the post Chapter 1 singularities it is probably my favorite so far together with Shinjuku.
Perhaps slightly better than Shinjuku since I am a sucker for feudal Japan, samurai and my favorite historical figure is Musashi. This singularity was all about those. Well, mostly about samurai and Musashi. XD
To be honest I was a bit apprehensive going into it at first for a couple reasons. The first was that the previous singularity, Agartha, was terrible, to put it mildly, despite all of its potential.
The second was that I heard some people saying some of the fights were hard if you stick to only using the bonus servants (only servants with the Knight trait, if I recall correctly). I only did that for the normal fights while for the bosses I ignored it and went with the usual class advantage/team composition that felt like it would work best.
But honestly even sticking to the bonus servants I think most of the boss fights are doable without too much pain. There weren’t any irritating gimickies or gotchas on the boss fights this time, the difficulty was mostly due to the classes, skills and Noble Phantasms of the enemies. So pretty much things you can plan for just from knowing what classes you will be fighting or being familiar with the bosses.
One cool thing they did for the boss fights this singularity was an announcement at the start of it like it was a samurai duel. This made each boss fights feel a bit epic for me and feel like these fights were actually important. 🙂
As for story, this one was all about Musashi. Since she is one of my favorite servants I don’t have (yet) I was whole onboard it. I like how she was portrayed in this singularity and that we got to know a lot more about her.
I guess what I like about Musashi, both in the most famous novelization of his life and in the FGO version, is that in both cases they are pretty much dedicating their lives to perfect swordmanship, and through reach a kind of enlightenment. A path that ends up leading them to duel with some random people or even using tactics that some would consider “dishonorable”.
In the case of the Fate Grand Order version in particular, I also like that she isn’t exactly a goody-two-shoes but she is also not the kind of turning her back to someone that needs help. There is a certain simplicity to the character that I just find very endearing. If before I just liked her because of the gameplay and because her personality felt likeable enough, now I want her because of the journey we shared together through this singularity. 🙂
Another thing I really liked about the story was the ending. It was pretty epic with some cool artwork to accompany it. I only remember them adding special artwork to accompany the story at the end of Chapter 1 and now I wish they did it for the end of every singularity as it makes them really memorable and adds a lot to the story.
Even the new servants there weren’t any I disliked, nor the portrayal of any of the other servants that had been around for a long time. One of those long time servants in particular was pretty cool in this singularity and we go to know a bit more about their background too.
All in all I am very happy to have played this singularity. Now I am looking for this year’s Halloween event. Like all these holiday events it is looking to be another crazy, hilarious story which is something I really could go for right now!