Part 14: Flame Poem Arc - Intermission

Intermission

Now that Flame Poem has been taken care of, for the most part, I'd like to take a little bit of a break and go over some of the extras for this game, that are outside of the main storyline. Don't worry, this won't take very long.



Our first major feature, which was unlocked after Flame Poem stage 2, is the Servant Side-Stories. The premise is simple.



You take control of any playable Servant you want, and you play a short little story that stars them, in an alternate universe not related to the main story. Well, that's not *strictly* true. There is one definitely, and another kinda, that are related to the main plot. However, all but one of them at least have some context to them that relates to the plotline, if that makes sense.

Now, while Nero, Tamamo, and Altera are the main stars of this game, they are a good deal in the background in these chapters. Which is good, as it'll give me a chance to talk a lot about the Servants on their own. And trust me, I've got a lot to say about the Servant cast of this game. I'll discuss the Servant's actual history (i.e. their mythos or in-series lore), their place in the Fate franchise as a whole, and any other neat tidbits I feel like bringing up. It'll be a jolly old time.

However, there is a catch. The game does lock Servant's stories behind story progress, even ones you've unlocked. For example, we can play all of Cu Chulainn's story right now, but Nameless? We can play his first two chapters, I believe, but his third is locked until after you've nearly completed the entire main storyline, for some reason.

So how am I gonna play this? Well, given all these factors, I've decided it's most prudent to wait until I've completed the first three arcs of this game's story (it has four), then do the side-stories. "But wait" you may ask. "Didn't you just say Nameless' story only fully unlocks after finishing the whole game?" You'd be correct. See, before I started this LP, I backed up my previous Extella save onto the wonderful PSN Cloud, so whenever I feel like retrieving it, I can.

So what I'll do is, I'll LP Tamamo and Altera's arcs, then delete my current save, then re-upload my old save back into this game, so I can knock out all the Servant side-stories at once, THEN move onto the final arc. That way I can play everyone's story on Very Hard, as well, without grinding like a chump for hours to make that remotely fun. But for now, that's what the Side-Stories are.



Next stop on this tour is Free Battle. This is a lot more simple.



Free Battle is how you can grind levels or whatever without any semblance of interference from the plot or whatever. It's very simple. Just choose the Servant you want to play as...



Choose the enemy you want to fight...



Then choose the "context" of the stage. See, there are many circumstances in which Altera would be the final boss of a stage, for example. Here, I'm simply putting Cu Chulainn into the context of the second-to-last stage of Flame Poem. All the Sector Traps, all the enemies, and all the allies are the same as Flame Poem Stage 5.



See? We've got Iskandar, Jeanne, Gilgamesh, and Gawain all in their same positions. Just choose your settings on the left, check your Side Missions, and away you go. You can also use this mode to get better grades, if you say, don't like using Nero as much as Gawain or something.

When it comes to Side Missions, you can choose any Side Mission from any character that's been unlocked, I believe. So, if you were say, fighting Elizabeth in a stage, and you've unlocked Elizabeth as a playable character (won't happen until the story's end), you can choose her side mission, and can complete it while fighting her.



Here, we have the Gallery. The first option, you can view more detailed information about any Servant you've unlocked the biography for, as well as model viewers for everyone and any alternate costumes you may have for them. Event allows you to play any scene you've seen again, and any unseen ones are locked, as you might expect.

Now, there are some events for Flame Poem I didn't see, either because I didn't meet the requirements (like, for example, failing the first stage and going back to My Room will get you a short little scene), or Nero's bond level wasn't high enough. When I upload my old save, I'll record all the extra scenes and post them as an epilogue update. Sound good? Oh, and remember that event where Hakunon could choose to listen to Nero sing, and I'd tell you if Sakura Tenge actually did? Yeah, she does not, unfortunately. I mean, Hakunon describes her singing, but you can't hear it, more's the pity.

Music allows you to play any song you've heard. About all there is to say about that.

Encyclopedia is a one-stop shop for any terminology you might not be familiar with. You'll get random Encyclopedia entries when loading screens pop-up, but most stuff should be pretty evident just by playing the game and listening to the dialogue. Any others that need explaining, I can do so myself or ask other people who would know.

Code Cast simply lists all the Code Casts you've crafted. There's no real point to getting 100% of the Code Casts (I mean, nothing cool gets unlocked or anything), and frankly, getting all of them is hellaciously dull, because you have to grind *every* Servant's bond level to level 30 to do so, not to mention all the other stuff that needs to be done, such as playing a certain stage on a certain difficulty to get just one, etc. Nothing more needs to be said, so nothing more shall on this matter.

Install Skills is basically the same thing, except for, you guessed it, Install Skills. Unlike the Code Casts, though, you'll almost certainly unlock all of these through natural play, just given the sheer number of Install Skills that'll drop. Again, not really worth further mention.



One down, three to go, and that's not counting the Side-Stories. Strap in, because there's a LOT more extella to go.