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Fate/Grand Order:

Fate is a weird franchise to tackle, born as a an 18+ Visual Novel, the brand quickly gained popularity and continued to spread across a variety of mediums, the main element connecting them all being the "Holy Grail War" a skirmish between mages where heroes of myth and history are summoned into the present day all to botain the fabled grail.

To say it was succesful would be an understatement, the absurd amount of spin-offs, adaptations and merchandising (which is sorely lacking on Lancer goodies) has made it Type-Moon's most important product and a huge cash cow franchise, the latest installment and the one that brings us together today is Fate/Grand Order a mobile game available for Android and iOS, and the newest source of income for Type-Moon.

Story



Yeah, that's as far as my knowledge of japanese (zero) will get us.

Grand Order is set in yet another AU, this time focusing on the Chaldea organization, which employs both magic and science in it's attempts to ensure the future of humanity, things go awry as they have to for the plot to move, things explode, time goes bonkers and your co-worker Mashu ends up fused with an Heroic Spirit becoming the pseudo-Servant known as Shielder (she is your first unit, hope you like her).

From there on your protagonist, Mashu and the supporting cast of Chaldea hop around from era to era, getting involved in various Grail conflicts while trying to rectify the problems in the timeline, currently available are the Fuyuki, France and Rome chapters.

I can't really judge the story, but there are some pretty fun moments so far like an evil version of Jeanne d'Arce burning alive the people who killed her and there are tons, and I mean tons of (purely cosmetic) choices.

Gameplay

Mobile games have their own set of quirks, at first glance Grand Order saves itself from most of it's issues, while there are multiple types of currencies, all are obtainable in-game with no money involved, while there is a cooldown period to prevent you from playing all the time, the amount of Action Points you get is more than enouuh to give you a few matches, and all of your AP gets refilled with each level up, you won't feel much of a gap between free and paid accounts, at least at first.



As a mobile RPG the core mechanics of Grand Order are suprisingly fun, you control a party of up to 6 Servants (3 active and 3 as backup), 5 of which are chosen from your own pool of units, while the Support Unit is chosen from either your friend list, the in-story allies or random players, the feature allows you to test units you don't own and stronger Servants might help you as crutch characters during your journey.

Each unit has a set of 5 cards, the cards of your 3 Servants form a 15 card pool out of which 5 random ones are chosen each turn, the cards are split into Buster (highest damage output), Arts (fills your NP gauge) and Quick (They obtain critical stars).
Once you press the battle button you get to choose 3 cards, choosing 3 cards of the same color gives you a bonus, Buster Chain increases damage, Arts Chain adds 20% to the NP bar of all the involved units and Quick Chain gives you 10 stars, which raise the odds of landing critical hits.
Aditionally if you choose 3 cards belonging to a single unit it forms a Brave Chain which gives the character and adittional attack, Brave Chains can even be stacked with the color based one, landing you for example a Brave Buster Chain.

The aforementioned NP gauge is your special bar, once it reaches 100% it allows you to unleash the unit's Noble Phantasm (the weapon/item most closely associated with the character), NPs come in all variety of flavors, from buffs, to debuffs to offensive moves, and they also fall into one of 3 colors, meaning you can add them to your chains for extra pain.
All of this makes for a rather engaging battle system, thinking of how your different servants add or detract to your deck is pretty entertaining and pulling devastating chains is always fun.

Outside of the card system units have various skills that affect the flow of battle, you can use them any time, but all fo them have a cooldown period.

The Challenge


(If you get this guy, keep him, you'll end up loving him.)

Aka, the part where everything falls apart.
This game has serious balancing issues, and I mean SERIOUS, basically, it's really broken.

The 7 Servant classes are awkwardly stuck in a rock-paper-scissors format, which does not sound terrible on paper, but quickly becomes more trouble than it's worth.

As 7 is not an easy number to work with for this format there are two independent RPS triangles [Saber->Lancer->Archer->Saber] and [Assassin->Rider->Caster->Asassin], if you know your math you'll realize that only amounts to 6 classes, the last one Berserker is stuck in a ridiculous state of being simultaneously strong (deals extra dmaage to) and weak (receives extra damage from) to all the other 6 Classes, turining them in the most hilariously broken glass cannons you'll ever meet.
Shielder is thankfully free from any of those woes, as she's average against everybody, but Ruler adds a resistance to all classes but Berserker, and some story enemies have their own set of unexplainable weaknesses (Flauros is strong against the entiret of the first triangle, but weak to the second).

If you think the broken wheel is still manageable, don't worry we are just starting, because Servant distribution plays a huge role in it, do you need to take down a powerful Saber? Time to worry, as there are only 3 Archers in the whole game, one of which is a 4 star, and as such is incredibly hard to get. Pretty much all the Sabers are 4 stars or higher meaning they are a pain to get, so don't expect to have a lot of them to choose from.
I've talked stars, and they play huge role, all Servants have a 1 to 5 rank, this rank never changes, and is fixed for each unit (All of the Jeanne d'Arc out there are 5 stars), higher rank means a higer level cap, and stronger stats as a whole, but also a higher rarity.
You won't get any free Servants except for Shielder and one Servant per area, after you finish the tutorial missions you'll get an extra Servant, which is random, and will be your only ally for a long, loooong, looooooooooooong time.

You obtain extra units by rolling, good old gashapon style, Servants being random is not a surprise, you need to find a way to keep the fans hooked, papa needs his waifus, it's not something I will hold against the game.
Okay, I lied, I hold it against the game because it's poorly handled, there are two types of rolls, Friend Point rolls, the cheapest and simplest one, given that Friend Points are a renewable source, and Quartz Rolls, which use a currency known as Saint Quartz, which is limited in nature. Buying in bulk does not result in any sort of discount.
The first problem with either method is that the gashapon is not restricted to just servants, you can do a 10 roll and get only EXP or equippable items.
The second issue is once again related to distribution (that's the drinking game), Friend Point rolls only allow you to get Servants ranke 1-3 and Quartz will net you 3-5, what sounds simple in theory results in you wasting absurd amounts of either currency and quite possibly landing nothing useful.

Basically, outside of the broken wheel you will be stuck with very little selection, and if you still think that's salvageable (you innocent soul, so full of hope) let me introduce you to strike 3, the enemy distribution.

Grand Order is exclusively PvE, your party fights various waves of enemies in each area, and all of them also fall into the Servant categories, so they can be super ffective against you and viceversa, but the problem falls in the way each area handles it's enemies, they all favor one given class over the others, Fuyuki is crowded with Assassins, making Casters invaluable and Riders useless, Rome mostly uses units belonging to the first triangle, but at least that's one full set, making it manageable, the area where everything goes to hell is France, which feaures hordes of Wyverns with absurd amounts of health that are only vulnerable to Assassins, that guy up there? He's your best bet.

For the icing on the cake, while enemie seem to use the Buster/Quick/Arts configuration too, their NP is not dependant on a gauge, but rather turns, that means that the only way to avoid them is through speed, making Buster Chains the ideal method and taking away from the deck building aspect.

The Result

Man, this thing is broken, it's fun on it's good days (basically whenever you aren't on France) but it suffers from awful balancing, idiotic enemy distribution and an impossibly hard gashapon system than will keep you from getting anything good.

When it was announced I was expecting a really cheap game with no redeeming feature but the Fate IP, ironically enough, we got a well thought out game with clever mechanics that is completely ruined fot trying to fit the Fate rules in it.

One way or another it doesn't change the conclusion, in it's current status this is just a game for Fate fanboys (hi guys), getting new Servants and raising your waifu/husbando will play the biggest role in your enjoyment of the game.

That said, if they ever find a way to balance the game or release it in English and you are mildly interested, it might be a fun time waster, the core mechanics are okay, and it is free after all, there's just no real reason to be an early adopter.


TL;DR

THIS THING IS BROKEN.
But the fanboy in me keeps me glued.

Plus it has a young Iskandar teaming up with adult Waver, you know that's awesome.