Video Game / Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star

aka: Fate Extella

Halation star moon phase, next frontier From Fate/EXTRA

"The story of the mind between human beings is over; this is a tale between humanity and the world, in a new sea carved into the Moon."

— Kinoko Nasu

Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star, known in Japan as just Fate/Extella, is a video game developed for PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation Vita. It's a sequel to Fate/EXTRA and shares the setting of Fate/EXTRA and Fate/EXTRA CCC. The game is a hack-and-slash action game where the player can take control of one out of a total of 16 playable Servants.

The Moon Cell Automaton is an ancient and omniscient supercomputer whose function is to observe and record the entirety of human history. Within its limitless databanks, the records of historical and mythological figures who have become sufficiently venerated by human civilisation can be digitally recreated in the form of "Heroic Spirits", who bear the powers and armaments of their legends.

At a certain time, a great number of human "spiritron hackers" digitally uploaded their souls from Earth to the Moon Cell to take part in a "Holy Grail War": a single-elimination combat tournament where each "Master" was partnered with a Heroic Spirit "Servant", and fought alongside each other for the prize of a single wish.

The Holy Grail War is now over. The victor has been granted the Regalia which signifies their divine authority over the Moon Cell, and its endless cyberscape is reformatting itself into a new world worthy of its ruler. Yet when it is discovered that there is more than one Regalia, a new war breaks out between the competing factions looking to claim the omnipotent power of the Moon Cell as their own.

It was published by Marvelous in Japan and released in November 2016, whereas XSEED and Marvelous Europe localized and released the game in January 2017. A Nintendo Switch version was released on July 2017 for all regions and a PC version on Steam was also released the same month.

A sequel for PS4 and Vita, Fate/Extella Link, was also announced with a planned release date on June 6, 2018 for Japan and Winter 2018 for the west.

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Tropes Appearing in the Game

• Above the Gods: Around 14,000 years ago (from modern Earth time), gods existed as physical beings that walked the Earth. Then an extraterrestrial being called "Sephyr" came, killed many of those gods and caused major devastation before it was defeated. It results in the first decline of the "Age of Gods".
• The Ace: All Servants qualify to a certain extent (or they wouldn't be notable enough to be Servants), but the grand prize goes to the seven Top Servants, the most powerful beings in SE.RA.PH, who are usually deployed by the system itself to deal with particularly extreme threats. Naturally, you tend to end up fighting them, since the enemies of the Moon Cell know how powerful they are as well and go out of their way to hijack them.
• Actionized Sequel: The game ditches the slow turn-based RPG gameplay of Extra and CCC in favor of a much more action-oriented and fast-paced hack-and-slash.
• All There in the Manual: Robin Hood is only mentioned in the special edition exclusive Fate/Extella material book, where it's revealed he's been made Tamamo's entertainer and is forced to obey her every whim, otherwise he gets zapped. Romulus is also stated to be in SE.RA.PH., somewhere.
• Alternate Timeline:
  • Unlike the ending of Fate/EXTRA, where Hakuno fades away after defeating Twice and Fate/EXTRA CCC where Tamamo, Nero, and Gilgamesh save them from deletion, they were granted the Regalia and rule over the Moon Cell.
  • In the backstory for Extella, the events of Extra were significantly changed; e.g., Tamamo being an enemy Servant to explain how Nero and Tamamo know each other in this game despite never having actually met in the previous two games, and the male protagonist going up against his female counterpart, a duplicate NPC of himself, who's been paired with a half-burnt Nameless, for Week 7.
  • The events of CCC happened but are only vaguely remembered by Hakuno, which is how both Gilgamesh and Elizabeth know and remember Hakuno. The True Route where he leaves with Sakura and having Berserker as his servant in the original were Retconned to a new Hakuno who had Nero like above and goes through CCC again with her and Tamamo before returning to the new events of Extra.
  • Each route in-game takes place in an alternate reality along with the sub stories. Archimedes has been traveling through each one to initiate his Evil Plan.
  • Nameless not only served the female Hakuno like above, but also went through the war himself with her and won but is forced to watch his master be deleted, remembering the events of CCC from this different reality.
• Ancient Astronauts: The Twelve Pillars are implied by Titan Altera to possibly be alien in origin like her original self, Sephyr. Fate/Grand Order confirms this by stating that they were alien robot space ships deployed from a Dyson sphere known as Chaos.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Completing a Servant's side missions rewards the player (aside from the trophy) a new cosmetic outfit for that Servant. Nero, Tamamo, and Altera's alternate outfits are unlocked from leveling up their bonds during their route. Elizabeth has two extra outfits for reaching Bond levels 10 and 20 with her, as well.
• Antagonist Title: The Umbral Star of the game's subtitle refers to the Velber.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: The Twelve Pillars, the original Conceptual gods that serve as the basis for numerous deities and whom many gods are reincarnations of and retain the Pillars memories. The Olympians and Roman Pantheon are groups most associated with them as their direct reincarnations and can personally wield their weapons such as the Sword of Mars, the sword taken by Altera as Sephyr.
• Bizarrchitecture: Tamamo created the Millennial Capital patterned after old Kyoto in spring, except for one area that resembles a disco nightclub with statues of her legs all over the place. Characters comment on it more than once.
• Boss-Only Level: The Final Boss of each route, along with the levels you fight the Big Bad, has no other objectives aside from defeating them. Downplayed as there's still mooks. Additionally, Artoria's substory is this, but with Dual Bosses instead of one.
• Charge-into-Combat Cut: Both Cu Chulainn and Karna's substory ends with a CG of him confronting someone. In Cu's case, it's Gilgamesh, in Karna's, it's Sephyr.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The Attack Programs have different colored armor depending on their allegiance to each side (Yellow for Nero, Silver for Tamamo, Dark-Grey for Altera, and Brown-Red for Neutral).
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Opposing Servants are perfectly capable of using any of their attack finishers, or in better terms of saying it, any attack in their attack chains at any moment...without having to actually attack to use said moves. You actually have to attack without being knocked out of your attack chain to use any sort of finisher. Notable examples are Gilgamesh pulling out the actual use of Gate of Babylon from his normal attack chain which is the finisher as his first move and Nero using several of her mid-attack finishers freely. Completely avoided with some of the more rational Servants like Nameless, Karna and Jeanne who will attempt to pull out the finisher just like how you would by completing the entire attack chain most of the time if not all the time. Exaggerated when fighting Stage Bosses, some of them will attempt to use their Noble Phantasms several times whether or not their first attempt is successful. Artoria (when she's the Final Boss in Nameless, Gawain and Gilgamesh's final side mission) as well as Gilgamesh or Iskandar (in Artoria's final side mission, the one you didn't defeat will auto-charge their Noble Phantasm if he isn't in Super Mode) will use their respective Noble Phantasm when the condition is met. In Artoria's case, once her HP has been depleted by about 30-35%, she'll start to charge her Noble Phantasm for the first time. If you stall out the battle by damaging her but not quite defeating her, she'll continue to try to use her Noble Phantasm at random moments, meaning that you must keep the camera on her unless you want to be defeated in one blow (and be forced to used a Command Seal if you don't want to lose the mission). In the case of Gilgamesh and Iskandar, the one you didn't defeat will auto-charge their Noble Phantasm if he isn't in Super Mode. Delay the battle by not finishing the remaining Servant will cause said Servant to possibly recharge his Noble Phantasm for another use.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Played with and played straight. Both Sephyr and the Core of the Velber Flagship are completely immune to status effects making it useless to have any skills that would inflict said effects equipped during those stages. It's played with since Sector Bosses and opposing Servants (both as normal enemies and as Sector Bosses) are still affected by status effects but they have a very high resistance to being inflicted by them making it conditional on whether or not you desire to try to see if you can inflict an effect on them.
• The Corruption: Sephyr has the ability to mutate wild animals into giant monstrous beasts as her minions before it eventually kills the beast.
• Cosmic Keystone: The Regalia is the crystallization of the Moon Cell's authority. If all of its pieces are united and then destroyed, the Moon Cell's systems will shut down. Archimedes wants to do just that, so that the Moon Cell's anti-Velber jammer will shut down and the Umbral Star can harvest the Milky Way's civilizations unopposed.
• Creative Closing Credits: The credits follow a light on a circuitboard going through different lines depending on the route. The multiple lines of the circuitboard symbolise each route of the game and the light the one that you were playing. Several of them stop at a certain point, signifying uncertainty for the timeline's survival. Tamamo's ends with it going past that point, hinting that they might survive the upcoming battles and the true route has it go past the point, glowing the brightest of all.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Nameless and Gilgamesh were main characters for the first two Extra games but were made lieutenants of Nero and Altera. Gil himself plays a more of a role than expected in Altera's, having joined to try to help Hakuno and aids them both against Archimedes.
  • Drake, a popular character in Fate/Grand Order, does not appear in the sequel game of her home franchise. She, however, reappears in Fate/Extella Link.
• Downloadable Content: Several alternate costumes were released in packs after the game's release.
• Dual Boss: Artoria's substory is three levels of this. First with Cu Chulainn and Medusa, then Tamamo and Lu Bu, and ending with Gilgamesh and Iskandar.
• Dub Name Change: Artoria's name in the Japanese version is "Altria". Additionally, Sefar was changed to Sephyr in the localization.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Good lord, do you ever. Due to Archimedes' machinations, the player has to go through four routes before ending the main Velber threat. Doing so has: "Mind" Hakuno ending up basically brain-dead on Nero's route, Nero and Tamamo dying on Altera's route, Altera dying on all routes, and "Body" Hakuno performing a Heroic Sacrifice at the end of Altera's Route. The happy ending has at the end of the True Route, Altera being reborn as a child that, according to Nero, is quickly growing up due to Nero managing to sever Altera's connection to the Velber.
• Earth Is a Battlefield: Or, rather, Earth's moon. The opening depicts the entire moon as an eventual warzone.
• Elite Mook: Aggressors are the stronger variants of attack programs.
• Final Boss: Sephyr is the final boss for the first three main routes. In the true route, it's the Velber ship's core.
• Genre Shift: Fate/EXTRA and Fate/EXTRA CCC are both turn-based RPGs, but Fate/Extella is a Musou-styled action game, where the player takes control of a single character and fights through waves of large hordes of enemies at a time, chaining combos together and performing flashy (sometimes cinematic) techniques.
• Götterdämmerung: The backstory of this game reveals that the true decline of the Age of Gods began 14,000 years ago, when the White Titan Sephyr landed on Earth and proceeded to defeat the primordial Gods living there. From there, the surviving Gods were weakened enough that they eventually resorted to creating Gilgamesh in a last ditch effort to keep control of Humanity.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: In a way, the routes of the main story form one of these. While they take place in alternate timelines, all of them have a Quantum Timelock in one month, meaning that the route that reaches this point will have its events be preserved as immutable fact and all timelines that are too divergent will be pruned. Archimedes is traveling across these timelines to create a future where Velber will return to the Milky Way and destroy the world, and when he can't do this in one route he travels back to the beginning of the next, replacing his parallel world counterpart by way of Mental Time Travel. Eventually, once they get their hands on the full Regalia, Hakuno follows suit.
• Historical Gender Flip: Nero, Artoria, and Altera are gender flips of famous historical figures.
• In Spite of a Nail: The game introduces the concept of "Quantum Timelocks," events that are designated as immutable truths across all timelines of The Multiverse. If someone travels back to the past in an attempt to undo an event preserved by the Quantum Timelock, then events will conspire so that the Timelock will still happen anyway. Archimedes' Evil Plan hinges on the fact that a Timelock was created around the time when Hakuno split themselves with the Regalia, and another one will happen one month afterward. He wants to shut down the Moon Cell and its anti-Velber jammer just as the second Quantum Timelock happens, so a second Velber invasion will become a certainty across all timelines, and he has the month between both Timelocks to travel between timelines so he can make this happen. Ultimately, he is thwarted when Nero and Altera destroy the Ark just as the Quantum Timelock happens — meaning that the Golden Ending is now an immutable truth, and no further time travel on Archimedes' part can change this. Furthermore, Body Hakuno's Heroic Sacrifice at the end of the Dawn arc - destroying themselves to send their memories back to the past - happened just as the Quantum Timelock was starting, so when the Golden Poem arc reaches that point Body Hakuno fades away to preserve the universe's stability.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • Artoria's status as a Secret Character^note Ignoring her Advertised Extra status is somewhat spoiled by the Trophy list mentioning "Artoria Pendragon's hidden side mission, then defeat her once".
  • All of the playable characters are listed alongside their true names in the character select screen, which could be spoiler-y to people new to the franchise.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Normally the identities of a Servant are closely guarded in-universe, and the setup for major spoilers or twists come out of it. This time all the Servants are named by their real names upfront. Archer being given the name "Nameless" is the only hidden identity... and he's from Fate/stay night, so his identity is well known by now.^note Technically Archer has followed a difference course of Character Development leading to subtle differences in personality and motivation (including voluntarily discarding any identity to embody the ideal of a "Hero of Justice", hence going by Mumei/Nameless) but knowledge of /stay night is still enough to grasp the salient points.
• Lost in Translation: Changing Sefar's name to Sephyr in the localisation removes the reference to the actual god named Sefar who was depicted in a series of Neolithic cave paintings from the Sahara, tying to how Attila was found in the Sahara and hinting that the paintings of Sefar are actually paintings of Velber 02.
• Mirror Match: In Free Battle mode, it's actually possible to select your own character's stage, so you'll end up fighting your own character as the stage's Boss Servant.
• Mook: The attack programs that make up the armies of each faction.
• Moon Logic Puzzle: The process for unlocking Artoria as a playable character is... unusual in its requirements, to say the least. Here's how it's done^{Artoria's Unlock Requirements}1: The first thing you have to do is go into your system settings and set your clock between 3:00 and 4:00 pm if you have version 1.00 of the game. Artoria will only appear during this hour. If you have patch 1.01, then you can skip this part).
  2: Next up, you'll need to choose one of the main levels with a "Mystery" side mission on any difficulty.
  3: Complete the Regime Matrix, but don't defeat the boss in the stage.
  4: From there, you'll need to go to one of the following locations: Sector D in the Jeanne d'Arc stage of Nero's arc; Sector J in the Nameless stage of Tamamo's arc; Sector E in the Cu Chulainn stage of Altera's arc; or Sector H in the Tamamo stage of the Special arc.
  5: After completing the Regime Matrix and entering one of those sectors, begin to kill the enemies and make them drop health power-ups. Consume 5 health power-ups in that sector after completing the Regime Matrix. Being low on health (the health bar has a red flash on it) makes enemies drop more health power-ups.
  6: After completing those steps and consuming 5 health power-ups, you'll be informed that Artoria, King of Knights, will challenge you to a fight. Once you defeat Artoria (force her to retreat,) you'll need to defeat the boss of the stage and finish the stage as usual. You now have Artoria unlocked as a playable character.
• Multiple Endings: There are three main routes with their own endings, and each Servant who doesn't have their own route, instead has a sub story which all have their own endings. Then there's the true route ending, which is the Golden Ending.
• Mythology Gag: Quite a lot. Servants use attacks/techniques that they used in other Fate media. There are also alternate outfits referencing their appearances in other entries of Fate. The Servants from the original VN also tend to talk to each other as if they retained their memories of that Grail War, referencing things that happened during it.
• Nerf: Most likely to prevent each Servant from being too strong otherwise by applying Competitive Balance to everyone. Either a Servant uses a weaker variation of their Noble Phantasm or their true version is weakened^note The Noble Phantasms themselves keep any of their side-effects however some Servants such as Nameless and Tamamo get theirs buffed since originally theirs was more of a way to buff themselves and now hit quite hard. Enemy Servant Noble Phantasms will KO your playable Servant no matter what if you let them use it unless you either are in Moon Crux Mode/Regalia Mode which reduces the amount of damage taken or time your own after they start up theirs (this creates a scenario where if you start up your own Noble Phantasm after they start their own, they will cancel theirs and not use it at all as you are immune to theirs) but you will not see Jeanne as an enemy use hers as it would give you a free Victory if you revived after she used it, their attacks are weakened from how they would perform, and/or their other important abilities are removed. This can be split into three categories with some examples shown below:
  • Noble Phantasm: Gilgamesh^note Uses Ea over Enuma Elish, Karna^note Vasavi Shakti is massively weaker than how it 'appeared' in Fate/Apocrypha however it still retains the downside of defensively weakening him after each use, Li Shuwen^note Somewhat played straight but kept like how it worked in Fate/Extra as only in cutscenes did it actually come closer to killing the victim in one blow, Jeanne's La Pucelle^note Its overall power in completely annihilating the victims is removed but it still kills her after she uses it making this more of a risky reward even though it still hits very hard, Cu Chulainn^note Gae Bolg doesn't reverse cause and effect to either immediately pierce a Servant's heart or (if they're lucky enough) render them crippled Iskander^note He doesn't force the opponent to fight an army of Heroic Spirits, due to how unfair that would be.
  • Overall attacks^note This includes any 'skill', Noble Phantasm or Extella Maneuver attack that appeared in any other work: Karna^note He's hit quite hard as Brahmastra/Brahmastra Kundala are much weaker than in Fate/Apocrypha and just one use nearly killed Jeanne thanks to his 'Master's' support, Nero^note Oddly, it's her Extra CCC skill, Fax Caelestis which doesn't auto-Burn debuff those who get hit, Cu Chulainn^note Perhaps the worst as Gae Bolg doesn't prevent those who are hit from healing. This is apparent as Servants who retreat then reappear in the same Stage return with some more HP than they had before they temporarily left and hits from enemy Cu can be healed off if you still have Code Casts/use healing items, Gilgamesh^note Chains of Heaven only restrain the enemies during his Extella Maneuver and his original use of Gate of Babylon is in one of his combos not his regular heavy attack.
  • Abilities^note As in abilities/certain skills that are either enemy-only or are removed from the game: Nero and Cu^note Nero's Thrice-Setting Sun and Cu's Battle Continuation skills which can auto-revive them after activation are removed but this is most likely due to Command Seals being able to revive your Servant up to 3 times, Nameless^note This applies to his arrows which in Fate/Extra and Fate/Extra CCC could debuff enemies at a chance, Gawain^note Only as an enemy on certain stages does Numeral of the Saint take effect and it makes him a pain to defeat if you want to fight him while he's buffed by it, Li Shuwen^note Presence Concealment only applies to Li when he's an enemy on certain stages and it makes him invisible completely until he reappears which is usually when he decides to attack, Karna^note His armor and earrings are nerfed heavily to where they don't reduce damage from enemies by 90% like in Fate/Apocrypha however they do make him very durable until you use his Noble Phantasm, Medusa^note Bloodfort Andromeda's actual use is an entire Stage debuff to all your allies while it heavily buffs the enemy Servant Lu Bu whenever he shows up and the effect is 'still' in place unless you take over the designated sectors, she does have a weakened version as one of her attack finishers but it lacks the effects of the perfected version, Gilgamesh^note His Armor isn't as durable as it was in Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night since he takes normal damage that isn't weakened, Artoria^note More like she isn't able to use her 'Hidden' Noble Phantasm, Avalon at all. Most likely as being immune to an enemy Servant's Noble Phantasm completely is quite cheap.
• Nostalgia Level: One of the stages, Mare Malum, is a replica of Fuyuki City and you can fight in places like Ryuudou Temple and the docks.
• The Power of Love:
  • Cruelly subverted in Nero's route. Sure, her affection towards Hakuno keeps Nero strong and motivated to win the fight no matter what and face Sephyr too, even with odds stacked against her, but once Mind!Hakuno almost disappears and gets reduced to a pitiful, almost brain-dead, state, she develops a massive Heroic BSoD and gets reduced to begging them to recover. While it's hinted they do recover in part, the fact that her timeline goes dark in the credits suggests that she won't be able to save the world.
  • Played straight, however, in the True Route. Nero, using Altera's Sword of Mars, is able to channel Venus, the Roman Goddess of Love and Beauty, transforming her into Saber Venus. Doing so allows her to destroy the Velber ship that Archimedes calls to try and destroy the Moon Cell. She was ALSO able to sever Altera's connection to Velber, thereby saving her and allowing Altera to live a normal (for a Servant anyway) life.
• Purple Prose: Enjoy reading many lines of the same sentence with different text.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • The main rivalry that the game focuses on is Nero vs. Tamamo, with Nero portrayed as the fiery one and Tamamo as the cold, icy one. However, unlike most examples of this trope, personality-wise they'd both be considered the Red Oni. Altera, however, does play the blue to both their red oni, with Nero being the more obvious one.
  • A better example however, is Nameless and Cu Chulainn. Ironically, the red-clad Nameless is the calm and reserved blue oni to the blue-clad Cu Chulainn is the aggressive and energetic red oni.
• Retcon: In the original Extra, it was implied by Word of God that the reason magecraft faded away was because of a ritual to summon the Dark Six from the planned Tsukihime sequel that was not made yet. Last Encore and Extella reveal that it was the Harways performing an unknown ritual and the Age of Gods decline that started with the Velber's attack on earth some 12,000 years ago.
• Secret Character: Artoria. In an unusual case, she's an Open Secret as she was advertised quite a bit, despite being the last unlockable character. Unlocking her... well.... Saber Venus, on the other hand, is a much better case of this.
• Sequel Hook: Archimedes and Corroded Elizabeth are still out there, trying to help the Velber. And then there's the fact that Velber is still coming to the solar system...
• So Last Season: With the exception of unleashing the full power of Noble Phantasms, almost every Servant uses powers with wild abandon that were extremely costly or even one-off in earlier appearances. Even Command Seals, which are normally strictly limited to three per Master per story^note And using the third removes the link between Master and Servant, making its use Pyrrhic at best without some serious planning ahead, regenerate between battles. This is justified by the setting, however; the Moon Cell provides tons of Mana that Servants can freely use and regenerating Command Seals are a privilege the Master earned by winning the Grail War in the backstory. True Noble Phantasms, on the other hand, are such a high-impact undertaking they require a set of booster circuits to trigger, and some still have their nasty side-effects^note Karna's Noble Phantasm drastically lowers his defense after use, and Jeanne's actually kills her, which can cause a Game Over if a Command Seal isn't used to revive her.
• Spell My Name With An S: As usual for her, the game's Japanese website gives Fate/stay night Saber's name as "Altria" while XSEED's official trailer gives it as "Artoria". This appears to be the "official" way her name is rendered now, as Fate/Grand Order also does this.
• Spin-Off Babies: Fate/Ikustella, a gag manga where two Hakunos are babies and are being taken care of by the different factions, with male Hakuno being taken care of by Nero's and Tamamo's faction alongside Archimedes and female Hakuno being taken care of by Altera's faction.
• Status Effects: This game offers five variations, six if you take skill slots into factor for the fifth and the sixth one is locked to one Servant.
  • Fire: This does more damage than Poison but doesn't last as long. Sector Traps sometimes have these that go off and do large chip damage but without the lingering flames. Servants who can inflict this to enemies naturally under certain conditions are Gawain and Karna (only in Moon Crux Mode), Li Shuwen (one of his attack finishers) and Gilgamesh (only as an enemy when casting Gate of Babylon).
  • Poison: Like Fire, it does a little damage while it lasts, while doing less damage than the above it lasts slightly longer. Sector Traps that have these do less than average damage but have the effect persist for a long time. Only three Servants up to date can inflict this normally and they are Li Shuwen (his normal attack finisher), Tamamo (in Regalia Mode) and Gilgamesh (when using Gate of Babylon).
  • Ice: One of the two non-damaging effects. Instead of doing damage it instead slows down the enemy's speed, effectively making it easier for them to be hit and when the enemy has this ability, it freezes you in place but prevents you from taking damage until the debuff duration ends. Sector Traps that have these tend to have it do enormous damage regardless of the buffs your current active Servant has in use. The only Servant to actually use this naturally is Tamamo while in her Regalia Mode.
  • Paralysis: The other non-damaging effect. Instead of doing damage, those that are paralyzed are completely unable to do any kind of attack until the effect wears off. Some Sector Traps have this that does little to no damage but the effects last longer than usual. Two Servants who can inflict this normally are Karna (standard heavy attack) and Iskandar (as an enemy). This is also the most annoying status effect by virtue that whenever you try to see if you can attack if you are unsure if you're still affected by it since it leaves you vulnerable to enemy attacks for a few seconds.
  • Instant Death: This is only a skill effect and it's the least likely to even work...against non-bosses for the most part. This effect has a slight chance to make your standard normal attacks instantly bring down an enemy regardless of their current health. Even when stacked to have increased chances to activate, is still the least likely to trigger.
  • Petrification: This is solely locked to Rider Medusa when she uses Breaker Gorgon as by chance it will petrify enemies for a few seconds, so far only opposing Servants, certain Sector Bosses and Sephyr are immune to this by default.
• Super Mode: The game offers each Servant at least one of these while some Servants feature two (normally one of the two Super Mode forms is unique with a different animation start-up) and those with two normally can use one or both at the same time by first entering the common Super Mode feature all Servants have then entering their unique one^note this doesn't apply to Artoria and Gawain as their unique Super Mode abilities does the same as their common ones which activate their swords true power. While the real Moon Crux/Regalia Forms grant the inability to be stunned, do more damage to enemies and reduce damage taken, each Servant who has a unique/similar version of their own sports a special animation for when they activate it. Nero and Tamamo each have their Regalia Forms thanks to the Moon Cell while Altera sports two individual Super Mode forms. Others usually have their regular Super Mode which have to be activated by normal means^note which is accomplished by pressing the triangle button and the button for Guard at the same time shown as an indicator of them holding back normally before getting serious, this includes Cu Chulainn^note activates his normal Super Mode by using rune magic, Nameless^note just like the shared Super Mode, he activates his by turning Kanshou and Bakuya into their Overedge Forms, Gawain^note channels the Power of the Sun into his sword adding flames to his attacks, Karna^note uses his Prana Burst Flames ability to imbue all his attacks with flames, Altera^note activates the power of her sword which shows by her glowing red for the duration and Jeanne^note raises her flag and for the duration, her flagpole will flash with the color gold. Li Shuwen stands out as unique in that his personal Super Mode can be activated like the other Servants as in it can be activated in the same way and be used after entering his common Super Mode...or be activated passively by using his combination finishers as some of them restart the duration back to full and thanks to this it can potentially have infinite duration thanks to it also being activated constantly (and by this, his unique Super Mode duration meter returns to full duration if he resets it) thanks to Li's combination finishers each time he pulls one off.
• The Stinger: After the end for the credits of the first three routes, Archimedes has either a monologue or a chat with Elizabeth Void, before quantum sliding into the next timeline.
• The End of the World as We Know It: The true villains could trigger one for the entire solar system.
• Theme Naming: Each stage's name is based off the naming of the Moon's seas, with Mare Aurum (Sea of Gold), Mare Luxuria (Sea of Lust), Mare Origo (Sea of Origin), and Mare Malum (Sea of Calamity).
• There Can Be Only One: Or one faction, in this game. One faction must beat the other two and obtain their regalia. Except in the true route where Nero and Tamamo's work together to stop Archimedes.
• Third-Option Adaptation: Rather than pick one canon route from the original game, the backstory for Extella, according to Nasu's diary, combines all three Servant routes from EXTRA along with the events of EXTRA CCC:
  • The first three rounds and the fifth round are mostly unchanged. With all the Masters and Servants in pretty much the same roles. Nero is the Servant summoned by Hakuno and Hakuno is male.
  • The fourth round, which was originally a route split depending on whether you saved Rin or Rani was against an entirely new Master, Atram, with Tamamo as his Servant. Atram loses, but he uses Tamamo as a scapegoat to escape (though either Julius or the Moon Cell takes care of him later). Tamamo is saved by Hakuno using a Command Seal and becomes an ally, competing with Nero for the position of Hakuno's main Servant. She helps out up to the end when a bug check catches her and forces her to escape.
  • The events of CCC happened, which is how Elizabeth and Gilgamesh know Hakuno. Hakuno and Nero only vaguely remember the events, but Tamamo remembers everything.
  • Rin and Rani are defeated in the sixth round, while Leo is defeated by a mysterious opponent.
  • An NPC modelled after Hakuno of the opposite gender gains an ego at the same time as Hakuno and enters the war with the nameless Archer (in a collapsed, burned state) as her Servant, going through struggles much like the male Hakuno. Female Hakuno occasionally talks with the Male Hakuno and Leo, disguising herself as a generic NPC, while Archer occasionally helps out male Hakuno from time to time. She makes it to the sixth round and it plays out much like how the original seventh round from Extra played out. Thus, she makes it to the final round against the male Hakuno; however, since she has an ego, but no soul, she's destined to self-destruct even if she wins. Archer realizes this, but resolved to take her as far as possible so she could be satisfied. In the end, Female Hakuno loses and passes on her memories to Male Hakuno.
• Too Awesome to Use: The Noble Phantasms of the Servants. They're big, flashy, impossible to interrupt once triggered (on the player's side), and literally the most powerful moves in their arsenal, capable of destroying anything short of the stage boss with one use. The problem is that in order to use them one needs to collect three sets of booster circuits, which can only be obtained in specific areas around the map or by attacking an enemy Servant and interrupting their Noble Phantasm usage. However, due to the fact only the Boss Servant of the stage will likely ever attempt to use their Noble Phantasm, there are only three sets of booster circuits at most on any one map, and that using the Noble Phantasm resets the count means that a Servant can only hope to use their Noble Phantasm once during a level, so it will likely only see use as a finishing move against the boss. That's not even considering the negative effects some of said Noble Phantasms can have, such as lowering defense or even killing the user.
• Wolverine Publicity: Artoria appears on the cover and got a fair bit of screentime in various trailers and promotions, however she doesn't appear in ANY of the 4 main storylines (unless you meet her unlock criteria on any stories specific stage) and has no impact on the main plot of the game at all.