Reviewing Fate/Samurai Remnant on Steam Deck

(About 36 hours to see the full credits for the first time according to the save file. 1 hour into the New Game Plus as the time of writing. Played in Japanese text.)

Yours truly almost gave up on playing this one after a failed attempt to start a wiki page for it on this very site. Then on the day this game came out, a rather earnest fellow published his favorable review of it on Destrutoid. Since I had nothing for fun planned for the 8 days long national holiday here in miHoYo’s country of origin, so I dived in and rather glad that I did.

Fate/Samurai Remnant is not the first time the Fate franchise went to the so-called Musou land nor was it the second for that matter. But it was handled by Omega Force, the part of Koei “guilty” of creating the action game subgenre generally called Musou. And they certainly brought that Koei favor to this game both in terms of story and gameplay.

Old Tokyo is about to EXPLODE

The time is 1651 common era and the place is Edo, where would not be called Tokyo for another couple of centuries. Iori Miyamoto is a samurai who could not get a bureaucratic position in Tokugaka shogunate. Instead, he lives by taking odd jobs from local police so frequently that he is practically deputized. One night he got involved in a seven-sided magical battle royale not called Holy Grail War (Nor Clash for Chalice as yours truly would call it.) but the Waxing Moon Ritual. From then on, he is forced to work with a loose canon partner called Saber.

The amount of Type-Moon tropes contained in Samurai Remnant can warrant a Bingo game. A white-haired nice girl despite all the murders in her mind towards player character? Check. The game is rigged? You bet your ass it is, since it’s about the only way to make 7 sides in the 2, good versus evil. A girl next door needs protection because player character wants to keep her out of the game but then a plot twist reveals that she is in the game earlier and deeper thus needs more protection? Yes, and Bingo!

What Koei Tecmo brought to the table is dream and comedy more curated towards fans of historical fiction rather than fantasy. But what yours truly took away from it is something else entirely: a Lethal Weapon style buddy cop dramedy, with player character Iori being the “Murtaugh” and Saber being the “Riggs”.

Iori Miyamoto of course is based on a historic figure, adapted son and student of the more famous Musashi Miyamoto. The young man sure got a case of being Scott Eastwood: he can stand on his own all right but cannot help be compared to his icon of a father. To stay in icon town, the Berserker of Waxing Moon is a lady Musashi from a parallel universe that can be played by Marilyn Monroe.

“Grasscutter” is what people dislike Musou call it around my neck of the woods, which is ironic since this Saber’s sword was named that though not in this game. “The prettiest girl one can lay their eyes on” according to Type-moon’s Takeuchi is composed of oval face, pointy chin and saucer eyes, this Saber is no different on that front. Though, if you allow me into A Song of Ice and Fire town, the usual Saber faced characters all got fair blonde hair and green eyes like a Lannister, while this one being from Japanese mythology with dark hair and yellow eyes like a Stark. Actually, one can call this Saber an Arya Stark like since she fought with water element while Arya is trained in a fence style called Water Dance. While there is no term like “Arthurian” named after this one, yours truly did read two comic books about this one by Osamu Tetsuka and Stan Sakai respectively.

Despite the long cut scenes, the story of Samurai Remnant goes down a lot smoother than Stay Night without all that forced romantic plot and tabletop game rule lawyering. No one same would not except Iori and this Saber kiss throughout the game. They are buddy cops. In fact, one early jokey ending having Iori pulling sword and Saber holding out a badge on behalf of none other than Gilgamesh.

There are loose ends in the story though. Some might be saved for the trilogy of expansions promised by the game’s season. Other, like Type-Moon’s trademark mysterious prologue might be resolved in the New Game Plus your truly has yet beaten. Either way, old Tokyo is about to explode and it’s up the dynamic duo the player is part of to stop it.

Not quite like a dragon

Samurai Remnant is marketed as an Action Role-playing game. One might call it open world though I would certainly not. The so-called 808 streets of Edo are organized into a dozen of hub areas with shops, side things to do and dangerous back alleys to grind on. Those hubs usually switch between friendly town and hostile dungeons whenever the story demands.

The combat starts like the usual musou affair, there are hordes easy to cut and mini bosses harder to cut. Then there are monsters. While in the cut scenes, Iori would tell Saber about the difference between killing enemies and knocking out thugs, it would not be reflected mechanically. Then there are the Servant fights. Servants got regenerating energy shields that can be quite a grind to fight. Though the fights here are walks-in-parks compared to 2023 releases like Resident Evil 4 and Fires of Rubicon. For one thing, healing item or take-out food can be horded in this game, so yours truly only died twice in combat throughout 36 hours.

Iori is the only Master one got play in the game though one can play as Servants freely or when the story demands. Fighting as Saber is practically the super mode with time limit in this game. Then one can recruit the help of the so-called Rogue Servants by completing their side quests.

It might be fair to say that the way this Saber is handled here is not unlike Elisabeth in Bioshock Infinite and Ellie in the Last of Us ten years ago. This doe-eyed lass would run off to place interesting to her and ask the player to keep up even when they are engaged in some city wide magical urban warfare. The upside of this is the skill points one can use on her skill tree.

Speak of “city wide magical urban warfare”, this might be Omega Force and their usual Empire expansions of Warrior games come in. It’s a digitalized board game where one move city block by city block through Leylines. I would call it a mixture of Go and Monopoly. The goal is to get to one particular block of the city within certain number of turns and take as many power spots on the way. Of course, when one take the same city block as an enemy, the usual beat’em up action commerce. Or one can beat enemies by simply cut them off the leyline. Since Iori is stated as someone too poor to invest in real estate, this is the game’s only way for him to think about real estate.

Verdict?

Mid seventeen century Japan is a weird place to set a Fate story in. More than anything else, the setting would cut off the series’ Highlander façade with people melee dual in a modern city since hand-to-hand combat is the apex of police action back there and then. But I guess the player character being a material arts nuts happy to whack anything made up for it.

Licensed ARPGs are tricky to make. RGG studio’s attempt with Fist of North Star was somewhat disappointing to yours truly, so Samurai Remnant hitting the right spots is a pleasant surprise. Guess one should not write Musou off too easily.