Status: Beaten (on 1/27/13)
My love for the Nasu-verse and all its related properties are no secret to those who know me well, so of course a big reason I even got a PSP was to play this game. The Fate/Stay Night series is one that is so well done in concept and execution in the original visual novel sense, and yet so hard to really translate into a video game. This game does it very well, and it should be commended for basically translating the feel of the original into a new idea entirely.
The basic concept of the game is that you are an amnesiac person in a computer system that runs a tournament to determine who gets the holy grail. You pick one of three possible summoned spirits, and develop that character through trips into the system grinding out levels, while researching your next opponent. The original concept that information tended to be more important than sheer power when fighting for the holy grail actually works out well here. The whole thing is integrated well into the combat system itself.
The combat system is glorified rock paper scissors, with your character getting special attacks to 'cheat' the system at times. Naturally you can only do this so many times, so its not very useful for basic enemies, but is immeasurably useful on fights with other summons. The battle rounds are set up several actions in advance, and most enemies have a pattern that they follow most of the time. The more often you fight a random enemy, or the more research you do on your next opponent in the tournament, the more that is revealed ahead of time. This is invaluable for the boss fights, since for most of them, a few wrong choices can kill you.
Out of combat, the game is heavily based around time. You have so many days to prepare for the fight, and each day there is some clue to find or event to handle in order to research your opponent. This can cause it to be rather stressful, as you worry about going in to the arena to level, since once you do your investigation outside it is finished for the day. It is highly advisable to have multiple saves, as it can be easy to screw yourself out of a clue or screw up a day and not know it till the match.
The replayability is a bit lacking, as other than changing spirits, the story mostly stays the same except for a few choice you can make. I finished it with saber, and started archer but got a bit bored midway, I need to get back to it, finish the two other spirits and the optional boss in the last dungeon.
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