Posted 27 August 2014 - 03:09 AM
@D'rek - ok, so mostly what BalrogLord said, but I'll lay it out in the context of my squee post:
There is a series called Fate/stay night which is set in the universe of a certain director at Type-MOON studios. Collectively works in that universe are part of the 'Nasuverse' (named for the creator, Kinoko Nasu) and they all share lot of the same basic principles of how things work (magic, for one), though some have subtle deviations as there are multiple "universes" in the collective Nasuverse.
This series was originally a visual novel which, as BalrogLord explains above, is a story told on PC which has various levels of interactivity for the player to make choices for the protagonist, affecting the outcome of the story. Basically, there is a lot of text, set to various background pictures. Sometimes it is voice-acted, other times not, depending on the budget of the studio making it. You read, click through, and (usually, but no always) come to a point where you have to make a decision - whether that is what to say, do, or what have you, varies from game to game and decision point to decision point. (It should be noted; a LOT of VNs (visual novels) are what are known as "eroge". In fact, it is probably fair to say that it is rare to find a non-eroge VN. However, a lot of these fall into the category of "plot with porn" more than "porn with plot" or just plain old porn - Fate/stay night is a pretty good example of this, and you can tell because most of the adaptations remove the sex scenes and stuff entirely and don't suffer for it. A lot of harem anime are based on these, just btw)
Now, within the game there are several 'routes' which make up cohesive stories of their own, essentially the outcomes of different actions taken by the protagonist. Often in a VN, there are even more options within those routes, which can lead to different outcomes (such as losing the game, or different endings). But 'route' tends to refer to a specific series of overarching events, and once you're on a certain 'route', you usually can't get off it and onto another - i.e. it's locked you out of other routes based on certain decisions, even though you can still make choices within that route for different outcomes.
With Fate/stay night, there are three major routes possible: Fate, Unlimited Blade Works, and Heaven's Feel. Now, each of these routes actually focuses on different characters and events, and are in most cases mutually exclusive - they are alternative tales. In some VNs, and certainly in some anime adaptations, they try to go for less rigid routes, but it often doesn't work or leads to early game loss (in the case of a eroge, it tends to be failure to not, er, "commit" to which girl you like, for example).
Now, the first route, Fate, has already been adapted by Stuido DEEN way back as "Fate/stay night". They also did a movie about Unlimited Blade Works called, you guessed it, Fate/stay night the Movie: Unlimited Blade Works.
Frankly, both adaptations are horrible. They are actually mediocre at best. Poor style, little to no redeeming moments of awesome (though UBW did have a couple of cool scenes, and the finale of Fate was pretty decent). I kid you not, though, I dropped Fate/stay night about six episodes in. The main character is utterly infuriatingly annoying, has no redeeming qualities, and should by rights be dead many times over by the time the series finishes. I had to *force* myself to watch the whole thing, just for the storyline, after watching Fate/Zero.
UBW was better...ish. In that it wasn't horrendously bad. However it did feel distinctly like it was suffering from too much time-pressure to make it fit the movie format. One of the best things about this route was that it didn't focus as much on the annoying-as-all-hell main character of the Fate route. (The best part of Heaven's Feel is that he has even less role...>.>)
Now, ufotable went and adapted the prequel light novel (i.e. not a visual novel - actual short novel with some pictures, no alternative routes) which is called Fate/Zero. They did a smashing job and it is basically one of the best anime out there. Not even joking. It's brilliant. No prior knowledge required to watch, either. Super-awesome.
So time went on, and then it was announced late last year that ufotable was adapting a Fate/stay night route. No mention of which. This lead to the tantalizing idea on the internet that 1) it would be Heaven's Feel, as this is the only route to date with no adaptation, and 2) even more delicious, that they would be doing an amalgamation of the routes into one "super canon" which allowed the main events of each to coexist. A pipe dream, perhaps, but you know the internet and rumours...anyway, internet went "boom" with anticipation.
It was then more recently announced that the route being adapted would be Unlimited Blade Works. Now, this makes sense, as there is only a UBW movie, and it was really rushed and poorly done, and so there was room for an anime series also. However, this is also disappointing as I, and most of the internet apparently, REALLY wanted to see Heaven's Feel - widely regarded as the "best" route in terms of drama and action and characters, and we do already have a UBW movie, bad as it is.
Then, which is what I just found out, there has been an announcement that ufotable will not ONLY be doing an Unlimited Blade Works series, but they will ALSO be doing....a Heaven's Feel MOVIE. Thus my enthusiasm.
The point of it all is this: the current Fate/stay night adaptations are crap. ufotable made the PHENOMENALLY AWESOME GO WATCH IT NOW prequel adaptation Fate/Zero. They are now also going to fix part of the mistake that was using Studio DEEN to do any of the other work, and make a much better Unlimited Blade Works.
They are also going to asplode my thinkymeatz and do the best movie ever made, aka a Heaven's Feel adaptation.
And I know what you're thinking. Why doesn't Silencer just go play the Visual Novel if he wants to see Heaven's Feel so badly? Well, VNs tend to be hard to come by in the West, for a start. Secondly, ufotable will make it BETTER. Also, I don't have time. XD (You have to complete the other two routes before you can play Heaven's Feel.)
Also, also, I have played several VNs and while they are often really interesting, it's rare to find one which doesn't have some drawbacks (bad voice acting, or bad character design, or horrible dialogue either by translation or design...usually an anime will be vastly superior, unless it's just a translation issue and you happen to read Japanese, which I do not....also, too much porn. XD).
SO yeah. Hope that explains things, D'rek!
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Shinrei said:
<Vote Silencer> For not garnering any heat or any love for that matter. And I'm being serious here, it's like a mental block that is there, and you just keep forgetting it.
Help
Whisperzzzzzzz, on 18 August 2014 - 03:53 AM, said:
Just as pointless as a scientist debating a creationist/fundamentalist). Any word on a dub for it?
Just as pointless as a scientist debating a creationist/fundamentalist). Any word on a dub for it?
