Almost feels like deja-vu, but this year we got to try out Koei Tecmo and Type-Moon’s Fate/Samurai Remnant, at this year’s Anime Expo 2023 in Los Angeles, and specifically a demo that was showcased at the event featuring some early quests, combat encounters, exploration, and the game’s Affinity Technique mechanic that lets you learn skills from your servant, Saber!
Fate/Samurai Remnant launches worldwide for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam on September 29.
▍Fate/Samurai Remnant Anime Expo 2023 Hands-On Gameplay
▍Fate/Samurai Remnant Anime Expo 2023 Impressions
The Fate/Samurai Remnant demo lasted about 15 minutes in length, during which it showed an introduction of our main character and a starting quest where the player Miyamoto Iori’s helping a moneylender collect some debt from ruffians who refuse to pay him back.
During combat, Fate/Samurai Remnant’s combo structure is similar to Dynasty Warriors, or Fate/Extella. You’ll be combining light attacks with the heavy attack button to perform a series of combos, with the number of light attacks you string together first resulting in a different heavy attack finisher. When fighting certain enemies like bosses you can also trigger a clash when both of you attack at the same time, resulting in a button-mashing QTE where the winner deals incredible damage to the other, while also stunning them.
Outside of combat and performing quests you can also explore the streets of Yoshiwara, certain treasures, and quest objectives. As you move you may be given prompts by your servant to perform Affinity Techniques, these are both combat moves and context-sensitive commands to be used in the world, like jumping up a tall structure or dousing a wall of flames with Saber’s water techniques.
As mentioned Affinity isn’t just for exploration but for combat, and this is exemplified when fighting non-human bosses that have a “Shell Gauge”. Shells act as a boss’ armor, and as a human, you won’t be able to deal enough damage to penetrate the tough shell of these enemies, but by using Affinity techniques learned from Servants, Riposting the enemy, or even controlling the servant in the middle of battle, you can damage the enemy enough that Iori can also come in and dish out huge pain.
Sometimes during a fight, Saber may even call out to Iori, letting you both perform a “Link Strike”, a powerful context-sensitive move that deals massive damage and depletes the enemy’s Shell Gauge, while also raising your affinity gauge with your servant for more Affinity Techniques.
After completing the quest for the debt collector the game jumped gears and switched to the battle with Takao Dayu’s servant that was seen in Fate/Samurai Remnant’s trailer. For this part of the fight, Takao decides to leave the job to her Servant and flees the fight, while Iori decides to give chase to her, meaning you’ll only be able to control Saber during this portion of the game.
This felt like another way for the game to tutorial Saber’s combos and abilities as if you somehow didn’t swap to them during battle, you’ll now have free control and reign of their powerful abilities for the duration of the bout. Servant fights operate similarly to other bosses in that they also have a shell gauge, though their moves are much more telegraphed and easier to read since you’re now fighting a humanoid.
The demo capped off with a longer version of a scene from the trailer, where while Iori was giving chase to Takao, he ends up in an empty street of Yoshiwara before clashing swords with a familiar face using the same sword style as Iori. This is none other than FGO fan-favorite Miyamoto Musashi-chan, who Iori barely manages to repel while recognizing her as his master.
Despite being a fairly short demo as you’d expect from an exhibition, the game managed to introduce a fair amount of its satisfying hack-and-slash mechanics while still letting you be in control of the game most of the time and managed to end just as its story was starting to pick up and more questions were left, made us wanting more out of the game and can’t wait until the game comes out later this year.
Fate/Samurai Remnant launches worldwide for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam on September 29, and you can wishlist the game now on Steam and can soon pre-order its multiple editions.