Omega Force and Koei Tecmo are at the helm of the latest entry in the Fate/stay night series. Generally when this publisher developer combo comes up one is likely to immediately think of a Dynasty Warriors version of whatever franchise they’ve gotten their hands on. They couldn’t be blamed for thinking so either given the number of games in that style that have been released in recent years. In this case they would, however, be wrong. Fate/Samurai Remnant does indeed have battle mechanics that are familiar to those that have played Omega Force’s games, but this isn’t one where the emphasis isn’t entirely on hacking down wave after wave of endless combatants.
Fate/Samurai Remnant is set during the Keian era in Japan, specifically during the year 1651. The player controls a young man from Asakusa named Miyamoto Iori. A proficient swordsman without a master, he puts food on the table working as a sellsword though it is often lamented that a warrior of his caliber was born in the wrong era. But the relatively-peaceful era for our hero changes rapidly as he sees himself involved in the Holy Grail War. He finds himself a master, able to command the heroic spirits of legendary warriors of ages past as servants as he learns of the Waxing Moon Ritual and how allowing it to be completed can have dire consequences for his world.
Going into Fate/Samurai Remnant the expectations were set on this being another Dynasty Warriors style game. In some ways that expectation was met as the battle sequences are reminiscent of those games. Unlike those games, though, the actual time spent in battle was a relatively small portion of the few hours that were spent during the preview build. A surprisingly large amount of time was devoted to story development through dialogue with other characters such as the various spirits that were summoned and a talking book known as the Crimson Codex. It almost felt like the balance between actual gameplay and dialogue sequences was too heavy on the latter, but that’s often the case early on in action RPGs.
During the early hours of gameplay Miyamoto Iori had plenty of activities to keep him busy. There were the matters of his day to life such as wandering through town, talking to the villagers and taking on odd jobs that utilized his skills such as taking care of violent thugs or getting involved with individuals with debt collector issues. Oh and patting all the village cats and dogs. That was prioritized among the most important tasks. But then there are the matters of a more supernatural nature, such as dealing with his newly-met servants and battling against supernatural forces. Plus he needs to build a mage workstation in his home to facilitate his magic powers that will assist in his upcoming battles.
Battles are fought against a variety of opponents, from rogue swordsmen to demonic beings and the undead. The numbers are never in the player’s favor, but the playing field is evened thanks to the assistance from Iori’s servant and his magic powers. The servant is naturally more powerful than Iori, at least in the early parts of the game, and her powers are beneficial to him. The servant can join Iori to execute a powerful link attack and sometimes the player can take control of the servant to effortlessly mow down the hordes of enemies. Iori has magic spells at his disposal as well that can heal him or fire projectiles at his foes. There’s an emphasis on different stances in battle, such as Earth Stance and Water Stance which can offer different effects during conflicts. There are some battles that fought across several districts in town which are too large in scope for the traditional battlefield. This is where the perspective changes to a grid were the player quickly travels through a network of Leylines. Capturing nodes called Spirit Fonts in this mode can take out some of the enemy forces, but given the limited amount of moves to complete these battles, the player needs to think several moves ahead.
Fate/Samurai Remnant blends Omega Force’s battles with heavy RPG elements. The few hours spent with it were enjoyable where the time was split between exploring the village to complete daily life tasks with acclimating the servant to the modern world and doing battle with mortal and supernatural enemies. The story was intriguing enough early on where it shows Fate/Samurai Remnant as having a great deal of potential to be a good action RPG with an engrossing story. Fate/Samurai Remnant is scheduled for release on September 28 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Switch.
