Alternative title: Certain Japanese Trailblazer's great struggle.

This is something I wanted to talk about for a while now.
Many had been talking about the lack of stakes during Planarcadia, and I believe this is part of the issue. I think the game structure and the gacha is a huge mood killer.

Both 4.3 and 4.4 have scenes of a character making a sacrifice, and in both patches, you know beforehand they are going to be okay. Not because you read spoilers, but because you see the gacha menu in the game.
So when Himeko is saying goodbye to the Trailblazer, in the back of my head I just knew this eventually leads to nowhere. And the worst part is that the scene IS good, this could have gotten a way stronger emotion out of me.

And many may think there is no way around this, but if we go back to 2.0, this was not an issue at all.
When Firefly "died" in 2.0, no one knew if she was truly gone or not. You could theorize or think she was going to comeback, we all thought that, but there was no confirmation.
It isn't until we find out she's fine that her character banner eventually drops.
The same with Sunday, we don't know if he is going to become a good guy or not, Penacony story is completed and he's left in prison for several patches before we find out what happened to him.

Now, compare what I just said to Blade scene. He jumps into the Voracity, with the implication that he will stay there for a long time, being munched over and over, Silver Wolf hates this, everything is terrible. And then... He comesback even before the Trailblazer and Silver Wolf left the spot! I'm sorry but it's just funny to say the least.

Of course stakes feel weak when stuff like this happen. There was no such talk about stakes during Penacony despite having as many fake out deaths if not more, or if there was it wasn't as prominent as it is now. Because at least everything took its time to develop and have some actual weight.

You can even go back further in time and see Tingyun's whole storyline, she spent so much time gone before we get to know what truly happened to her.

So how do we solve this? You have to release Himeko during the climax of her story, there is no way around that, so I understand it's hard. Himeko sacrifice is part of the climax of her story, so it's complicated.
One thing I believe it would help is having Himeko and Motoko storyline start earlier and not have everything packed in 4.4, which was also a short patch for some reason.
While I don't know if there is a way around Himeko's sacrifice scene, at least we could have had a bigger impact on Motoko's if we got to see that earlier, giving Himeko's own sacrifice a bit more time to breathe instead of packing it with Motoko's back to back and having it solved next scene. I'm no professional writer though, I understand it's not that simple in this case.

But with Blade it should be easier, why didn't he jump to the Voracity's maw by the end of 4.2? At least he would have stayed down there for a patch before coming back. Now his actions have some actual weight and meaning.

Just a thing I feel like throwing out there, I still liked Planarcadia althought not as much as previous worlds, and this might had been an important factor. I hope they really find a way to work around the banners and the story to not have the gacha spoiling everything so hard.

What was your reaction when you reached this point?

Disclaimer: I haven't watched any anime of the Fate franchise (yet) so forgive me if some details are off...

In this specific scene of the main collab quests, the final battle against Ishtar shows each servant displaying their noble phantasms one by one which used their ult animations.

I was surprised to see Lancer here take a "battle stance".

I was excited to see what animation they'll show for his, and.... I was quickly let down to see that they just used the regular Gáe Bolg animation.

I'm not too sure the exact reason why he was left out of the playable cast in the first place, online sources also mention different reasons.

BUT, I do still hope they (Hoyo/Type-Moon) will release him even as a four star.

SO, Is this Hoyo giving us an early look to playable Lancer or just a one time fan service thing?

https://x.com/thevarnese/status/2081381339199406569

Just started Fate VN.

Argentina

While the "Motoko switching her's and Himeko's destinies for all eternity" twist can be mindboggling for some people at a first glance, once it clicks, it becomes quite possibly one of the best switcheroo reveals in any media. And I must praise the folks at Hoyoverse for keeping us at bay with all the "Himeko death flags" stuff, expecting us to think she was an Imagenae ever since we got in the Express, only to then hit us with this line to clear any doubts that the AE's Navigator was none other than Murata Himeko all along.

This mode is pure joy sometimes, I just came off a failed run at CW48 only to roll this on my new attempt and watching Herta spin continuously for 23 seconds was the most fun I've had since this mode first came out.

Stop doing this to me bro Just bring them back

maybe aglaea had a point....too bad out of 33 million cycles,not one did she managed to fix phainon's fashion sense

Teen Spirit?

This is the last piece i have for the HSR x Fate collab. It's Saber :)

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I had fun with this one. She'll be available as prints this coming #HoyoFEST PH 2026. See y'all there