From the link here: https://m.reddit.com/r/fatestaynight/comments/3cbhp5/beginners_guide_to_fatestay_night_version_30/
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Fate/hollow ataraxia differs from its predecessor in its gameplay and tone, favoring slice-of-life comedy scenes while retaining a dramatic core story. Like Fate/stay night, hollow ataraxia did not receive an official translation, but an unofficial patch was created by fans. A manga adaptation is under serialization.
Beginners Guide to Fate/Stay Night by /u/AdelKoenig
Fate/Stay Night (F/SN) is a Japanese Visual Novel produced in 2004 by Type-Moon as an adult game for Windows. In 2007, Fate/Stay Night Réalta Nua was released as an updated version for PS2 with a rating for ages 15 and up.
F/SN was written by Kinoko Nasu, and covers the story of Emiya Shirou during the 5th Holy Grail War in the city of Fuyuki, Japan. The full VN takes an estimated 50-60 hrs to read, similar to 120 episodes of a 25min anime.
Routes
F/SN is divided into 3 routes: Fate, Unlimited Blade Works, and Heaven's Feel. These are three separate stories, on parallel timelines, with sequential themes.
1st Route - Fate
Theme: 'Oneself as an ideal'
This path is both an introduction route and Saber's route.
In Fate we are given most of the god-tier world-building the author Nasu is known for. It also tells the complete story about Saber, who she is and what she is after by taking part in the war.
2nd Route - Unlimited Blade Works (UBW)
Theme: 'Struggling with oneself as an ideal'
This is both the Archer and Tohsaka Rin route.
Most of the mysteries left unanswered in the Fate scenario are revealed and things start to go very 'wrong' in this route. The reveals in UBW makes you re-think everything you knew about the previous story.
3rd Route - Heaven's Feel (HF)
Theme: 'The friction with real and ideal'
This is both the conclusion act and Matou Sakura's Route.
The increasing development of Emiya Shirou's character reaches its final act. If you thought things went wrong in UBW, this route laughs at it and redefines what the word 'wrong' means.
Versions, Translations, and Patches
In 2012, The Realta Nua version was released as three separate .exe files (one per route) for Windows.
Realta Nua changes:
Adult content was removed (age rating is approximately 15+), with erotic scenes replaced with alternate scenes,
Fully voice acted,
A bonus ending called 'Last Episode' once all 5 endings have been completed,
Many new event CGs (with some of the original art assets touched up as well),
Around 20 new BGM tracks,
New and more dynamic animation effects in many scenes,
Different OP videos than original version,
Text is generally edited for quality, as well as to meet age rating.
The game has never been officially released in English. It was fan translated by the group mirror-moon.
/u/jacktheinfinite101 and Koto have made a patch for Realta Nua PC that is hosted on Beast Lair's forums. Their patch combines the original version, Realta Nua, and an English translation.
Jack & Koto's patch features:
English Translations
The choice between the original H-Scenes or the Realta Nua alternate scenes.
The option to view de-censored images.
Can choose 2007 release or remixed 2012 release background music by track
Has all the OP videos from both the original and Realta Nua
A switch to view the original violence/abuse related content without having the H-Scenes turned on.
And many other features
Jack and Koto's patch for Realta Nua is the best way to read the VN. See /u/torik0's F/SN VN Installation Guide for more info.
The Sequel & Prequel
Fate/Hollow Ataraxia
Fate/Hollow Ataraxia (F/HA) is the 2005 visual novel sequel to F/SN. It has a complete translation. Installation information can be found and the bottom of the F/SN VN Installation Guide. F/HA is set 6 months after F/SN and is a mix of all the different F/SN endings. It can be read any time after finishing the 3 routes of F/SN
Fate/Zero
Fate Zero (F/Z) is the 2006 light novel prequel to F/SN, written by Gen Urobuchi. F/Z develops the story of the 4th Holy Grail War that takes place in the same location but 10 years prior to the events of F/SN.
Anime Adaptations
Ufotable
In 2011, a 2 season anime adaptation for Fate/Zero was produced by Ufotable. F/Z was the first time that an anime got free streamed on a world wide scale subtitled in 8 different languages. Fate/Zero was very well received, qualified as 'magnificent' by most anime fans; it is currently considered the best Type-Moon adaptation and one of the highest quality anime that ever aired in Japanese TV for it's movie-like production values.
In 2014, Ufotable aired a 2 season anime adaptation of the 2nd F/SN route titled Fate/Stay Night [Unlimited Blade Works].
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Ufotable has also announced that it will be producing an animated film adaptation of Heaven's Feel. The number of films and release date(s) have not been announced.
Studio DEEN
DEEN made an anime adaptation of Fate/Stay Night in 2006. It used the Fate route as its base story, but tried to adapt all three routes into one. It is widely considered a bad adaptation, as the attempt to combine the routes only introduced spoilers without context, and it failed to characterize Shirou accurately.
It is recommended that you do not watch DEEN's Fate/Stay Night (2006), and if you do watch it, wait until after you've read the VN.
DEEN also made a movie adaptation of UBW in 2010. Because of time constraints, it is basically just the fight scenes without much context. It also suffers from the same problems as the anime adaptation, such as terrible graphics.
Read/Watch Order
The only bad way into Fate/ is a way that doesn't make you want more. However, because of the relationship between F/SN and F/Z, some ways are better than others. In order to get the story in the intended sequence, and to prevent the most spoilers, here are some suggestions:
Recommended
F/SN visual novel -> Fate/Zero anime or LN -> UBW anime -> HF movies.
Anime only
UBW anime -> HF movies -> Fate/Zero anime, or
Fate/Zero anime -> UBW anime -> HF movies
Please note that F/HA can be read anytime after the 3 routes of F/SN.
If you choose to skip the VN and the Fate route, /r/FateStayNight is currently doing a VN walkthrough of the Fate route. It is not intended to be a replacement for the VN, but it is better than nothing.
FAQ
Why are there 2 anime only watch orders?
Fate/Zero was written with the intent that the readers have already played all 3 routes of the visual novel. It skims through the concept and rules of the world as it assumes they are already known. Fate/Zero will spoil several major character identities throughout F/SN.
That being said, Ufotable adapted the UBW anime with the thought that most viewers will have seen F/Z already. Zero first is a different experience than what was originally intended, but it will still be enjoyable. It will change your perspective on the characters and events while you read/watch F/SN. There are plenty of more twists and turns so don't let this detract you from reading/watching F/SN! If watching F/Z first, giving F/Z a rewatch once finished with the 3 routes of F/SN is recommended.
So, should I read the H-Scenes or the RN alternates?
This is a topic of some debate. Nasu is infamous for his terrible writing in H-Scenes. However, Realta Nua censored out all references to sex and abuse. This changes the story, especially in Heaven's Feel. The recommendation for those who don't want to see hilariously bad hentai, is to turn the H-scenes off for Fate, and UBW, but leave them on for HF, and use the skip function (ctrl) freely.
I have a MAC, can I still read the VN?
Yes! If you use a Windows emulator, or program like WINE, you will be able to read the VN on a MAC. More information in the F/SN VN Installation Guide.
Fate/Zero: How the Holy Grail War stuff works. This an amazing post by /u/meteorMatador about the Nasuverse:
So, obviously, there are a bunch of mages, and they summon legendary dudes (Heroic Spirits) to fight each other. In case it's not clear, 'summoning' here means 'performing a weird ritual to request the services of a spirit from another realm,' and a Heroic Spirit can be just about any individual whose amazing deeds have been immortalized in myth or legend. The deeds can actually be fictional, but the spirit cannot.
Anyway, once they're all summoned, the designated summoners (called Masters) turn them against each other and make them kill each other. This is itself part of a much larger ritual to summon and activate a nigh-omnipotent magical artifact, affectionately nicknamed 'the Holy Grail' by participants in the ritual. Seven spirits get summoned, and six have to die, preferably in combat. When only one is left, the Holy Grail automatically shows up long enough to make a single wish. The seventh spirit has to stick around to perform the final step of the ritual once the Grail has already appeared.
The Einzberns (backstory, but not a spoiler) were the mage family that originally organized the ritual. They had a wish they wanted to grant, spent hundreds of years researching it, and concluded that the only way to succeed is by using the Holy Grail, and the only way to get to the Holy Grail is to summon it using Heroic Spirits. See, there's a ritual to summon a Heroic Spirit to save the world in the event of a major catastrophe (asteroids, Hitler, etc.), and they found a loophole in that. More on this later.
When you summon a Heroic Spirit, normally they'd just be pretty much a ghost, because magic that makes things take physical form consumes a ridiculous amount of power. (This is an important plot point eventually in F/sn, but I'm not sure about F/z.) However, the Holy Grail ritual permits (and in fact requires) a more advanced type of summoning. The Heroic Spirits become Servants, who not only get powered-up physical bodies, but also recreate all the memories and personalities they had in real life. As Rin explains in the game, this is orders of magnitude more ridiculous than an ordinary summoning, reaching levels of absurdity on par with walking to the moon.
The ritual has to cut a few corners to make these summonings physically possible. First of all, the primary magic circle governing the whole ritual takes about 60 years to gather enough mana to perform a summoning. (It's implied that it would take centuries if the ritual was performed in a different location; the town of Fuyuki has unusual magical properties.) For this reason, nobody is prepared for the Fifth Holy Grail War in F/sn: It happens only ten years after the fourth one, which is 50 years too early.
The second major caveat is that a place in the world must be prepared for each spirit before the summoning begins. The Einzberns didn't know which heroes they'd be able to summon, so instead of preparing places for specific heroes, they prepared fairly generic ones, each with a distinct class. These are like RPG classes; for example, WoW has Warrior, Mage, Shaman, and the like. The Holy Grail War has seven classes, each with certain compatibility requirements:
Saber must be a master swordfighter. There are obviously quite a few options here, so this is regarded by many as the best class.
Archer must be well-versed in projectile weapons... Not necessarily bows, but then again, there aren't a whole lot of world-famous gunslingers capable of standing up to fucking Hercules or whoever else might show up.
Lancer must be capable of close combat (not just mounted combat) with long weapons like spears and lances. Staves might count. I'm not sure.
Rider must have some manner of unusual ability for riding a certain kind of mount, or for mounted combat in general. This can mean either living steeds, or vehicles.
Caster must be a powerful mage, sorceror, or summoner.
Berserker can be any warrior associated somehow with madness or brutality, but the summoned version will be insane and bloodthirsty regardless of what the spirit's actual life was like. This class is liable to drive its Master insane as well.
Assassin must be a killer whose identity remained a secret throughout their life. Except under very weird circumstances, the only spirits summoned into this class have been members of a famous brotherhood of assassins whose individual members were anonymous.
Some Heroic Spirits seem to correspond to more than one class until you take into account their signature items, or Noble Phantasms. These are weapons, equipment, or even magic powers with key roles in their legends. For example, King Arthur was very skilled at both mounted combat and sword fighting, but since his name is almost synonymous with that of the sword Excalibur, he can presumably only be summoned as the Saber class. Normally you can expect each Servant to have only one Noble Phantasm; spirits with two or three are extremely rare. However, there's an important loophole, in that some Noble Phantasms consist of an ability to summon other powerful items.
I don't know if there's a magical reason for each class to be unique. Maybe there isn't, but at any rate the ritual is set up to summon exactly one Servant of each class, meaning there would never be a Holy Grail War with seven Assassins or whatever.
It is explicitly stated at one point that the Einzberns could add more classes if they chose. However, this would consume more mana, and they already have to wait sixty years between attempts. Besides, they only need seven Servants anyway, so more would be pointless.
What other works are related to Fate/Stay Night?
Here are the other works in the Fate/ series
Fate/tiger colosseum
A 2007 3D fighting game for the PSP.
Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA
A 2007 Fate/stay night alternate universe spin-off manga by Kalmia. It also has an anime adaptation.
Fate/unlimited codes
A 2008 fighting game for arcades, PS2, and PSP.
Fate/Strange Fake
A novel series by Ryohgo Narita. Originally a 2008 April Fool's joke, Fate/Strange Fake is just a prologue. A full length novel and manga has been announced.
Fate/Extra
A 2010 Japanese Dungeon Role Playing Game for PSP. It also has a 2013 sequel, Fate/Extra CCC for PSP
Carnival Phantasm
A 2011 parody anime, it places characters of the Fate/ and Tsukihime series into various comedic situations.
Fate/Prototype
A 2011 anime short of Nasu's original draft he wrote while in High School.
A prequel light novel series, Fate/Prototype: Fragments of Blue and Silver, is currently being serialized.
Fate/Apocrypha
A 2012 LN by Yuuichirou Higashide. Fate/Apocrypha is set in a parallel world where the Holy Grail disappeared after the Third Holy Grail War only to reappear years later.
Fate/Grand Order
A 2015 mobile game for IOS and Android
Lord El-Melloi II Case Files
An current novel series written by Sanda Makoto and illustrated by Sakamoto Mineji.
Fate Zero
Fate Route
Unlimited Blade Works Route
Heaven's Feel Route
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