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EP. REVIEW: Fate/Grand Order Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia


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ronri



Joined: 11 Apr 2013
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 29, 2019 6:27 pm Reply with quote
zrnzle500 wrote:
Not all of them are going to be winners, but there are plenty of solid characters to be found.

I feel I should point out that jl07045 seems to be very keenly aware of that since they already mentioned a preference for Camelot. While all the characters in FGO aren't perfect, the examples they gave are obviously cherry-picked.
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jl07045



Joined: 30 Aug 2011
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 29, 2019 7:37 pm Reply with quote
Solid characters need solid stories. Camelot works for me somewhat, because it expands on KotRT dynamics, that have been already established. If I hadn't read/watched F/SN or F/Z or even F/A, Camelot would mostly fall flat for me.
One of the main problems with F/GO and its business model is that the characters have been made into a merchandise. The story itself is not being sold, the characters are, so they get tailored in their outer appearance, personalities and skillset to lure players into rolling for them. As a result many if not most of them are dumbed down and feature the usual otaku media archetypes and behavioural tropes that rarely go well together with their historical persona, which is supposed to serve as an inspiration.

Quote:
I can understand if you don't like mobile games, but it has made it one of the most accessible parts of the franchise. Or is that a bug and not a feature for you?

It's neither, it's simply irrelevant to my ability to enjoy it.
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 29, 2019 8:45 pm Reply with quote
jl07045 wrote:
Solid characters need solid stories. Camelot works for me somewhat, because it expands on KotRT dynamics, that have been already established. If I hadn't read/watched F/SN or F/Z or even F/A, Camelot would mostly fall flat for me.
One of the main problems with F/GO and its business model is that the characters have been made into a merchandise. The story itself is not being sold, the characters are, so they get tailored in their outer appearance, personalities and skillset to lure players into rolling for them. As a result many if not most of them are dumbed down and feature the usual otaku media archetypes and behavioural tropes that rarely go well together with their historical persona, which is supposed to serve as an inspiration.


I'd say that their adaptation of the game, including this anime, shows that the story is also a selling point. If they were just selling the characters, they could have just made some anime original plot and featured as many fan favorite characters as they could, like a number of mobile game adaptations do. Instead they have faithfully adapted (part of) the story of the game, based on players' votes for their favorite parts of the story. To me, it sure seems like the producers of the anime think that the story is part of the selling point of the game, both generally and particularly the two arcs being adapted into anime. Personally, F/GO was probably one of the first mobile games whose story I bothered to read rather than just skipping over, so I think the story is a selling point, even if all the Singularities weren't created equal.

At the risk of drawing the wrath of fans of the original source material, I don't think characters being tailored in their appearance and personality (making characters that are useful in the game is just good design) to be appealing to otaku is as far from the rest of the franchise or even the original as you want it to be. I don't think their personalities are so incompatible with their inspirations as you do, and being different than their historical/mythical/fictional inspirations is not exactly a new thing in the franchise. I'd even go so far as to say that I like some of the ones that aren't like their inspirations in terms of personality, like the ones from Koha-Ace.

Ultimately, with Nasu writing the story of the game, I can't see F/GO as the outlier in story or character design - visually and otherwise - that you do.
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jl07045



Joined: 30 Aug 2011
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 1:10 am Reply with quote
I am not talking about figurative selling points, but about quite literally characters being the thing that is sold. So any kind of artistic vision has to be directly subordinated to business interest, because the income is dependent not on the whole package (the game being f2p) but on how much money are people willing to dish out to get specific characters.
As for the rest of your comment, I think you are under the false impression that your opinion on the game is under scrutiny instead of mine.
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fuuma_monou



Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 1816
Location: Quezon City, Philippines
PostPosted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 1:22 am Reply with quote
jl07045 wrote:
I am not talking about figurative selling points, but about quite literally characters being the thing that is sold. So any kind of artistic vision has to be directly subordinated to business interest, because the income is dependent not on the whole package (the game being f2p) but on how much money are people willing to dish out to get specific characters.


"Wah, it's not Art!"
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 8:39 am Reply with quote
jl07045 wrote:
I am not talking about figurative selling points, but about quite literally characters being the thing that is sold. So any kind of artistic vision has to be directly subordinated to business interest, because the income is dependent not on the whole package (the game being f2p) but on how much money are people willing to dish out to get specific characters.


Even if the characters are the most direct source of income in the game, you need something else to keep people coming back to spend money, and I'd argue the story is part of that for F/GO. The story is enough of a draw that they decided to adapt that story into anime, and I don't think it is a hot take to say that this will probably be one of the best selling anime of this season.

There's always going to be some concern about business interest with any art form - including books, traditional games, visual novels, anime, etc. - not just in mobile games, both generally and specifically regarding F/GO. Heck, given F/GO's dominance of the doujin market, I'd say doujin groups are not immune to concerns about what their audiences might want to see (and buy). I would find it hard to believe that the decision to switch from a female lead with a male King Arthur to a male lead with a female King Arthur was made totally absent any concern about what their target audience would want and strictly out of artistic vision. The point is that concern about what their target audience would want is hardly unique to F/GO or mobile games, both within the franchise and the mediums that the franchise has been published in.
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dark_bozu



Joined: 03 Sep 2012
Posts: 208
PostPosted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 9:55 am Reply with quote
kotomikun wrote:
you won't get much out of spending just a little money, you gotta spend a lot to max out rare characters--but more the pay-to-win angle. You absolutely must spend thousands of dollars on these games if you want the strongest possible units (and/or the ideal waifu).

Dunno about Magia Records, but you don't need to spend money on FGO to get strong units. Sometimes gold servants even worse compare to bronze or silver servants. On JP I have 30+ SSR servants, but I still use servants with low rarity, because they're useful. Like I said, FGO don't use a powercreep model and developers update old servants - not only skills, but animations as well. This is why characters that were released back in 2015-2016 are still usefull and great.
jl07045 wrote:
What I would want of Typemoon is anything but mobage. And preferably with actual characters instead of Taiga in a costume, Mexican caricatures, lolicon pirates and endless stream of lilies, alters and other wasted potential.

Here we go again. Why're you taking everything so serious? FGO is about fun, though there's heavy parts in story. But overall it's more about fun, not dark themes, like Kara no Kyoukai or Tsukihime. Either way, TM would release Tsuki remake next year, so no point in complain here. Fans should rather be grateful to FGO, because thanks to it's revenue TM were able to establish a new studio that would work on small and huge games. My bet goes on collab with FromSoftware in the future.
jl07045 wrote:
One of the main problems with F/GO and its business model is that the characters have been made into a merchandise. The story itself is not being sold, the characters are, so they get tailored in their outer appearance, personalities and skillset to lure players into rolling for them.

Nope, FGO has an interesting story and characters are just an appetizer. People not just want a new character - they want an interesting event, a new story to read. So, without interesting content, people won't stay in FGO for a long time and devs try to make an experience as much fun/pleasant as possible. E.g., on JP was introduced a feature that allows you to level up 1 servant of your choice to max, without spending anything. Greedy western publishers would tie it to subscription or season pass, but in FGO everyone could use it without spending anything. Thanks to features like this I respect FGO devs - this is one of the most F2P-friendly games, that doesn't sell convenience tools. Even whales would need to farm materials to level up their servants - there's no way to throw a 1000$ in game and make everyone max level instantly or get x10 exp boost. This is why the whole game isn't made in a way to sqeeze your money for exp boosters and crap like this.
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jl07045



Joined: 30 Aug 2011
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 10:53 am Reply with quote
dark_bozu wrote:
Nope, FGO has an interesting story and characters are just an appetizer. People not just want a new character - they want an interesting event, a new story to read. So, without interesting content, people won't stay in FGO for a long time and devs try to make an experience as much fun/pleasant as possible. E.g., on JP was introduced a feature that allows you to level up 1 servant of your choice to max, without spending anything. Greedy western publishers would tie it to subscription or season pass, but in FGO everyone could use it without spending anything. Thanks to features like this I respect FGO devs - this is one of the most F2P-friendly games, that doesn't sell convenience tools. Even whales would need to farm materials to level up their servants - there's no way to throw a 1000$ in game and make everyone max level instantly or get x10 exp boost. This is why the whole game isn't made in a way to sqeeze your money for exp boosters and crap like this.

Do you know how much money per average you have to spend to get an SSR servant on rate-up? Work out the numbers and justify me the cost.
And yes, even whales need to grind. You know why? Well, for one, the dev team is too small to provide enough content to keep people occupied otherwise. The other reason is because the more effort you put into something the more you feel justified about spending resources for it. It feels more worth it, a normal psychological response, that businesses like these take advantage of.
It's f2p friendly exactly because there are enough people who spend huge amounts of money to keep the model profitable. So don't say thank you to FGO devs, but to people who are spending thousands of dollars on it.
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FilthyCasual



Joined: 01 Jun 2015
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 11:17 am Reply with quote
dark_bozu wrote:
Here we go again. Why're you taking everything so serious? FGO is about fun, though there's heavy parts in story. But overall it's more about fun, not dark themes, like Kara no Kyoukai or Tsukihime. Either way, TM would release Tsuki remake next year, so no point in complain here. Fans should rather be grateful to FGO, because thanks to it's revenue TM were able to establish a new studio that would work on small and huge games. My bet goes on collab with FromSoftware in the future.

What is FGO about besides fun?

Tsukihime will never be followed up on. It is irrelevant. It offers no easy sources of monetization like Fate.
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 14 Dec 2012
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 12:06 pm Reply with quote
zrnzle500 wrote:
I would find it hard to believe that the decision to switch from a female lead with a male King Arthur to a male lead with a female King Arthur was made totally absent any concern about what their target audience would want and strictly out of artistic vision. The point is that concern about what their target audience would want is hardly unique to F/GO or mobile games, both within the franchise and the mediums that the franchise has been published in.


Marketing's going to be a factor in the decision making process of any creative project that's being made for a potential profit, yes,but I think it's fair to acknowledge how much that particular aspect has shifted between Stay Night/Zero and FGO, even just in terms of character design.

For one, it's just stating the obvious to say that FGO absolutely ups the amount of cheesecake with its designs. Even as a game with actual sex scenes, F/SN gave its cast pretty mundane outfits. It certainly wasn't devoid of fanservice points, as a decade+ of people obsessing of Rin's ZR can attest, but the most outright fanservicey you got were Rider and the dress Saber gets shoved into in UBW. And I guess Zero had a few minutes of Gilgamesh in his birthday suit.

Now compare that to Mash's constant wedgie or whatever the heck you'd call Ushiwakamaru's getup, and I think it's fair to say there's been a shift in creative priorities.
Or heck, just put the two Rins side by side


So I think it's fair to say there's been a change in approach to character creation within the franchise, at least between the different games. Whether you think that's good or bad or neutral or don't care, I can get why some folks would be unhappy with such a big shift, especially as FGO has quickly become the biggest priority for TM's creative staff
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 1:28 pm Reply with quote
jl07045 wrote:

Do you know how much money per average you have to spend to get an SSR servant on rate-up? Work out the numbers and justify me the cost.


If you are an active player and strategic with your quartz, you don't necessarily have to spend anything to get a 5 star servant. I have gotten 12 myself, even as a mostly free player (I only spend money on the guaranteed 5 star summon, and that's only happened 2 or 3 times since the US version started). I got all the servants from this year's summer event (plus two that didn't have a rate-up), including a second copy of one of the 5 stars, after saving up SQ and summon tickets for months. I got Meltlilith during the BB event and MHX Alter and Quetzalcoatl during this year's valentine's event similarly. There is of course an element of luck to it (I got MHX Alter on the first 10 roll, while I didn't get Meltlilith until the very last summon ticket), but if you carefully choose your target, you can make your own luck to some extent. Now, if you want the 5 star from every rate-up and/or you want to get that 5 star up to NP 5, that's a different story, but just getting a 5 star doesn't necessarily have to take any money. You can be a "gacha victim" or you can strategic in how you spend the quartz they give you.

*None of this is to imply that those who have a gambling problem are responsible for that. Just that for those that do not have such a problem and are either spending within their means or free playing, one can get high rarity servants without breaking the bank.

lossthief wrote:
So I think it's fair to say there's been a change in approach to character creation within the franchise, at least between the different games. Whether you think that's good or bad or neutral or don't care, I can get why some folks would be unhappy with such a big shift, especially as FGO has quickly become the biggest priority for TM's creative staff


Sure, that's fair. What I don't think is fair is putting it all on F/GO for being a mobile game, even when other parts have already experienced those changes. Look at Mordred's casual outfit.



You could say similar things about her unarmored form, or Jack's outfit. A number of characters in Fate/Extra are as fanservicey as anything you can find in F/GO, if not more so in a few cases.

And it's not like F/GO is all fanservice all the time. There are a number of more modestly dressed servants. If we stick to comparing Rins, the summer version of Ishtar actually has more clothes on - admitted not necessarily the norm with servants from the summer events.



So while I agree that it is fair to acknowledge that there have been changes in design over the years and that one might not be happy about those changes, I don't think it is fair to act like the franchise was High Art unblemished by commercial concerns right up until the moment F/GO was released. Plus, I'm not sure that those raising concerns here about changes between the original Fate and F/GO are really primarily concerned about fanservice so much as F/GO not really indulging in Nasu's brand of philosophizing. Certainly, fans of the original would not like that being changed, but I know others have a different opinion on that matter.
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jl07045



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PostPosted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 2:28 pm Reply with quote
zrnzle500
My argument was not about whether you can play the game as f2p, it was about what it costs you if you don't. It may cost you as much if not more than a full BD set of your favourite anime or a yearly WoW subscription for a single servant and if you're unlucky, much more. Not even talking about NP5.
By comprehending that, the argument that 'hey, at least they're not as greedy as publisher X' kinda falls flat on the face.

Quote:
I don't think it is fair to act like the franchise was High Art unblemished by commercial concerns right up until the moment F/GO was released.

Stop strawmanning, my argument was that as far as characters are concerned, this business model compromises artistic integrity much more directly than just paying a certain amount of money for the whole product. The idea that creators have to balance creative vision with business interest is not something that needs to be explicitly said, it's just a basic truth.
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 9:22 pm Reply with quote
jl07045 wrote:
zrnzle500
My argument was not about whether you can play the game as f2p, it was about what it costs you if you don't. It may cost you as much if not more than a full BD set of your favourite anime or a yearly WoW subscription for a single servant and if you're unlucky, much more. Not even talking about NP5.
By comprehending that, the argument that 'hey, at least they're not as greedy as publisher X' kinda falls flat on the face.

Quote:
I don't think it is fair to act like the franchise was High Art unblemished by commercial concerns right up until the moment F/GO was released.

Stop strawmanning, my argument was that as far as characters are concerned, this business model compromises artistic integrity much more directly than just paying a certain amount of money for the whole product. The idea that creators have to balance creative vision with business interest is not something that needs to be explicitly said, it's just a basic truth.


I'm not convinced that there is anything specially compromising about the f2p model, particularly for F/GO. If the idea is that because they aren't directly selling the whole package, they have neglected other aspects of the work to focus just on making characters that their audience would find appealing, that does not seem correct in F/GO's case. With the story, they have laid a much more solid foundation for the anime than a number of mobile games have for their anime, to the point where they can just adapt the game's story, nearly section by section into episodes for Babylonia, instead of just plopping down the characters, setting, premise, and enemies and leaving the anime's staff to come up with a story that makes sense and can be told in the episodes allotted. That's not to say that good works can't be made in those situations or that it is the only mobile game where something similar could be done, just that F/GO is clearly doing something different than a number of mobile game adaptations because of the material they had to work with. Like the story or not, there is definitely a story there and it is not merely perfunctory.

If that isn't what you mean, please let me know what you do mean. What specifically is so different about the characters to you?
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jl07045



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PostPosted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 3:20 am Reply with quote
What I mean is that I find a lot of characters in FGO garbage and the most direct cause of that is the business model that forces prioritizing selling points over characterization as part of a narrative. People roll for those characters not after they've read the story and found them entertaining and well written, but because their tits (or abs) are showing. Not because they have an interesting backstory or internal world, but because they're a loli and call 'you' onii-chan.
I am not trying to make a sharp contrast with previous works, lord knows they have had a lot of wasted characters, but FGO makes the problem worse.
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dark_bozu



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PostPosted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 6:39 am Reply with quote
jl07045 wrote:

Do you know how much money per average you have to spend to get an SSR servant on rate-up? Work out the numbers and justify me the cost.

And yes, even whales need to grind. You know why? Well, for one, the dev team is too small to provide enough content to keep people occupied otherwise.

The other reason is because the more effort you put into something the more you feel justified about spending resources for it. It feels more worth it, a normal psychological response, that businesses like these take advantage of.

It's f2p friendly exactly because there are enough people who spend huge amounts of money to keep the model profitable. So don't say thank you to FGO devs, but to people who are spending thousands of dollars on it.

1) I spent 0$ on NA. So, 0$ per SSR, I guess.

2) Devs provide enough content to keep people occupied (at least to me - I usually clear all events without farming that much). FGO doesn't have a lot of farm heavy events - I think there's 2-3 per whole year (basically, raid events).

3) Is there even a point to justify anything afterwards people drop money in game? I think it's just a good game design that doesn't rely on convenience microtransactions - devs made game level/level-up mechanics good enough, so you don't need a "help" for additional $. While it's not a too easy process, it's not tedious at the same time. And because game doesn't provide players an option to buy materials, devs think about how make a resource gathering process more easier/enjoyable. Everyone equal in that regard, people with billions $ and F2P players.

4) It was always F2P, even before it became a financial hit. So, I think it's thanks to devs and Nasu influence (he dislike mobile games and just borrowed a lot of ideas from his favourite Demon's Souls lol).

FilthyCasual wrote:
dark_bozu wrote:
Here we go again. Why're you taking everything so serious? FGO is about fun, though there's heavy parts in story. But overall it's more about fun, not dark themes, like Kara no Kyoukai or Tsukihime. Either way, TM would release Tsuki remake next year, so no point in complain here. Fans should rather be grateful to FGO, because thanks to it's revenue TM were able to establish a new studio that would work on small and huge games. My bet goes on collab with FromSoftware in the future.

What is FGO about besides fun?

Tsukihime will never be followed up on. It is irrelevant. It offers no easy sources of monetization like Fate.

1) Grimdark story, I presume. Do you read Babylonia or Camelot?

2) Bruh, Nasu already confirmed that it's in a play test state. It would be released in 2020 (it's Tsuki 20th anniversary after all).
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