Fate/Unlimited Codes

ah yes, you guys should have seen this coming.


So Fate/Unlimited Codes is a 3D game played as a 2D fighter. Confused? Well, in short, it's Street Fighter or Tekken with it's own perks. Player get to play as their favorite Fate/stay Night characters against their most hated ones, while reliving the Holy Grail War.

Well, not exactly. Anyone not familiar with the Fate universe will be lost immediately, but who gives a damn about the plot when it's a 2D fighter? It's the gameplay we're talking about, right? To be short about it, it really IS just Street Fighter or Tekken, except you get to play as Heroic Spirits or mages rather than Ryu. However, to pull off those super special moves that all the characters have is slightly different.

Each character has a magic gauge divided into three bars on the bottom of the screen. As each gauge fills through dealing damage to the opponent, player can have access to their super moves (i.e. Saber can unleash Excalibur). BUT. There's another perk. In between the health bars lies the Holy Grail gauge. This gauge fills when you either deal or take damage. The player that overflows the Holy Grail gauge will have a chance to use their Super Holy Grail Burst Move (yeah don't ask. Capcom made that up, and I'm serious. That's what it's called). After the Burst move is used up, the grail cannot be accessed again until the next fight.

In short, the game was fun while it lasted. Instead of hearing HADOUKEN!s, you'll be hearing EXCALIBUUURRRRRR!!! from this game. The three different game modes, Arcade (story), Survival, and Mission, give the game some extra flavor. Survival is your typical survival mode. Mission mode is where the player is required to pull off a set amount of damage in a combo, complete a combo listed, finish the match with a specific move, or or just play some fun minigames (which are unlocked after a certain amount of missions are completed). Even characters from Fate/hollow Ataraxia and Fate/zero make an appearance. Bazett Fraga Remitz stars as the representative for F/HA while Zero Lancer came from F/Z.

Story: X There's not much to say about the story, just if you know the Fate universe, then the dialogue will make sense.

Gameplay: 9 Very fun. Not much to say. Just like Street Fighter with swords.

Presentation: 8 The environments are fun to play in and the character models are pretty good for the PSP. After a while though, it gets bland. The controls also sometimes lags on the PSP which makes stringing combos a pain.

Enjoyment: 8.5 I normally stray from 2D fighters because I usually get bored of them after playing them for a couple of days. This managed to hold my attention longer than any other fighter would.

Final score: 8.5 I'm not a big fan of 2D fighters but I generally liked it. The game kept me going for a couple of days before I got bored of it.

The game was initially released as an arcade style game. Capcom later ported it to the Playstation 2. They then released it in the US for the PSP. Bazett and Zero Lancer were not initially in the game and were included only in the PSP version.