Fate/Hollow Ataraxia – zomg I finally started playing

As I slowly count my remaining summer days I’ve decided to finally continue playing Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, something that I’ve been wanting to play for almost 2 years but never actually had a chance to due to either school work and/or other stuff that have been keeping me occupied. Most folks have known that I’ve gone on hiatus with the translations, that’s mainly because I can’t seem to find the more “interesting” (not Eclipse, that part isn’t translated for me either, and the SFW part doesn’t look all that great) scenes in my folder.

I’m going to start playing for several reasons. Mainly because I’m actually rather interested in seeing some of the parts in game as opposed to reading the text files with several CG inserts, as well as tracking down several more good ones, such as the penguin ice shaving machine scenes to translate with the CGs that I want. Of course, I won’t deny the fact that I’m also going to play for the sake of saying that I actually played it. Also, it seems my Chinese has degraded somewhat since I stopped doing translations, so now is a good time to brush it up.

The basic story is rather weird, and actually makes more sense to introduce the characters first. Well, first off we have Lancer’s true master, Bazette Fraga McRemitz. Bazette joined the Holy Grail War but was killed on the fourth day. Avenger makes a contract with her and revives her with the Four Day Loop, which is a repetitive four day cycle of the first four days of the Holy Grail War. Karen Hortensia comes and replaces Kotomine Kirei as the mediator of the church (clearly stated that Kotomine is killed, even though I think he’s less hated than Mato Shinji, namely via the Mapo Tofu scene). However, I haven’t ran into Karen yet, so I can’t say much more.

Relationship budded from Heaven's Feel (rather surprisingly Mitsuzuri Ayako is ranked 11th place in the popularity contest)

Most people think Fate/Hollow Ataraxia is a continuation of the Fate route. I’d actually have to say it is a continuation of the story as a whole, meaning that it draws element from all stories, also Fate does take dominance as Shiro being Saber’s master. Rider remains as Sakura’s Servant though living at Shiro’s place as well as the fact that Sakura and Rin openly refer to eachother as sisters now are from Heaven’s Feel. (Come to think of it, there are no significant events that happen in Unlimited Blade works other than revealing the identity of Archer).

I’m rather not so familiar with the mechanics of other visual novels, so the stuff that I’ll be writing down might really not represent what most visual novels are (I’m pretty sure this will happen). At least with Fate/Stay Night, the story is rather linear, with decisions made along the way about whether to do A or B, and of course, certain actions would get you into bad ends down the road (ironically, none of the bad ends are actually compareable with getting nearly sliced in half by Berserker in the beginning).

The mechanics are different in this case from Fate/Stay Night, as the player has more control over their actions as opposed to going through a more or less linear story. You have the freedom to explore the town of Miyami as Shiro and talk to whoever you find. Of course, there are some limitations to the decisions, such as the fact that you’re forced to spent the whole day at school if you decided to visit school in the morning. Also, not everywhere has things to do, so the game won’t allow you to just go to places and randomly waste time like that.

Berserker is rather tame in this story (was funnier in Fate/Tiger Colosseum though)

I’ve mentioned it countless times already but it seems people (namely the guys on Facebook) never got the message. Fate/Hollow Ataraxia is more of a “slice of life” genre than anything else. Technically, it’s all about getting to know all of your other characters (such as Lancer fishing at the docks as well as working as a grocery store clerk) as well as providing the necessary filling for some…for the lack of better words…plot holes, such as (for most folks at least), who Lancer’s true Master is.

Day 3, before noon (that's what it says)

The day is split into morning, afternoon, and night. The events during the day changes depending on what you did previously (such as the school stuff I mentioned earlier). However, as the four day cycle repeats itself, you will unlock all the scenes eventually.

Slot 1 is my experimental slot to test stuff.

Unlike the prequal, Fate/Hollow gives you three playing slots. Progress are saved automatically tells you how much progress you have made.

From the interphase you see before you enter the game, you will note a “continue” as well as “start”. Continue is rather self explanatory. Start means you start from Day 1, essentially restarting the game, except with one difference – your progress is not lost. On the event that you get into a scene where you have visited already in your previous session, you will receive an option to skip it.

You can revisit previous scenes at any time, as the game keeps track of the scenes you have unlocked and puts them into a list. I guess this is what the reference site I go to did.

It seems I never did made it to day 4 without hitting Start by accident

At the end of day four, the cycle repeats itself and everyone renew themselves. Things of unlikely nature may also occur, and some may learn about karma the hard way (note Lancer’s fishing incidents 1, 2 and 3).

Events have no chronological order as in the general sense because time is messed up. Thus, the approach I have taken into translating the scenes were bad in both accounts, the fact that they are rather scattered scenes and the fact that it prevents me from actually playing the game.

There is no dead end in this game because of the nature of the story as well as the nature of the four day cycle. To actually finish the game is to go through all the scenes, and there have been incidents where people get stuck at 97% or something because they’re one scene short or something. Either way, I’m really far from finishing and it feels so weird to play without voices.

I guess I’ll talk a bit more about the “extra” stuff we get in this game.

Game CGs originate from two sources: by playing through the game and buying them from Tosaka’s Shrine (money can be collected as you progress through the story). Another is where the CG from Tosaka’s Shrine is stored.

Upon buying a picture, you get some dialogue that is usually quite humourous

Saber: “It’s been almost two years since the original story was published. People might not be able to recognize me if my sword and armour aren’t drawn on, it probably isn’t a good idea as far as advertising goes.”

The wallpapers that came with the game can be directly set as your desktop wallpaper. Just select the resolution you want and click the button in the middle.

I have ended my hiatus on the translation thus far, but I will be doing translations on scenes I feel are rather interesting. My first translation will be on the prologue (which is crazy ass long), and hopefully push out two or three more before I have another major schedule change as I return to school.

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