Fate/Grand Order Event: Fate/Apocrypha Inheritance of Glory Review

Fate/Grand Order Event: Fate/Apocrypha - Inheritance of Glory Review

Full disclosure: Whenever there's an event in a gacha game, I rarely ever decide to read the story. Typically, it's never as good as the main questline--if that's ever good at all--and just feels like a waste of time. It's not canon to the rest of the game, the arc it follows isn't going to matter in the long run, so who cares too much about what happens? The only exception I make for this, however, is for events in Fate/Grand Order. Fate has a way of creating stories that are captivating due to its interesting cast of characters (even if some of them tend to be a little one-note), tongue-in-cheek storytelling, and funny easter eggs referencing other products in the franchise. That isn't to say that every event story in the game is great (Saber Wars is proof enough of that), but sometimes the game has those moments where a one-off event can make me feel (see "The Little Santa Alter").

This latest event leaned more toward the latter, although my own lack of knowledge surrounding certain attributes of it means there were some aspects of the former. Fate/Grand Order's latest event "Fate/Apocrypha - Inheritance of Glory" read like an amusing love letter to fans of that part of the series. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them: I've neither read the Fate/Apocrypha light novels nor seen the anime adaptation. My knowledge of these servants and characters only comes from word-of-mouth or what I've seen in this game. Despite these setbacks, however, the Inheritance of Glory event told a well-delivered story that even from my lack of knowledge appears to be an entertaining follow-up to the original Fate/Apocrypha story.

The basic plot follows your protagonist (whose original name is "Ritsuka" before you change it at the start of the overall game) waking up in what is implied to be a dream-like world, being carried by the dragon Fafnir who previously appeared in the Orleans chapter of the main storyline. Except, no, it turns out this isn't actually Fafnir. Instead it's an "Evil Dragon" who is later revealed to be Sieg, the main protagonist from Fate/Apocrypha. Apparently after the events of the light novel, he became a sort of guardian for the Greater Holy Grail, which is now being used to wage an endless war between fourteen servants, mimicking the Holy Grail War that took place in Apocrypha. You and Sieg team up with Chiron and Achilles from Greek mythology (and presumably from Apocrypha as well) in order to bring the Holy Grail Wars to an end, breaking the servants involved out of their perpetual cycle.

 

The story is rather simple for the most part. You're tasked with running the gauntlet against the twelve still-remaining servants, three at a time, until you get to the guy in charge of creating their newly-established War. Along the way, you end up becoming best bros with Sieg, who seems a little too comfortable making another guy breakfast-in-bed (I mean, I won't judge, just not my thing). He seemed a little one-dimensional to me at first, especially near the beginning when he was using the dragon body as a vessel. But the more I got to know him, the more I kind of cared about him, even having not seen anything Apocrypha outside of this. There were some loose threads with his story, but I assume given the Apocrypha tie-in, fans are apt to know more than me. The story really made me care about Sieg, and to a lesser extent the servants.

 

I'd say Chiron stood out the most among the servants personality-wise, acting as the sagely member of the group and coming up with plans more often than not. Achilles had the potential for a little more development, but I'm not expecting master-tier writing from a one-off gacha game story. Even so, there were a lot of implications that Achilles was bull-headed or one to jump into danger a lot, but I don't feel like we ever really got to see much of that in action. Which is a shame, since if those traits are there, why weren't they displayed more often in the story? Barring that, none of the other servants really stood out for me in their respective roles. Sure, you had Jack calling you "mommy," which I always find adorable--if not a little heartbreaking--and Mordred is an entertaining hothead. But they came off as a little one-dimensional in this specific story. Not that I expected them to fully flesh out fourteen servants for an event mission; I just wish I got to spend more time getting to know them is all.

The necessary skill level to actually complete the event wasn't too high, but the final boss did give me a little trouble until I checked the class characteristics (Side Note: It's always nice to have an Avenger around). The only difficult part of the event was the grind, I suppose. There's a plethora of Fate/Grand Order events that involve grinding for millions of a certain item in order to get actually useful items. While I do enjoy it to some extent, I will be honest; sometimes Fate/Grand Order's grindfests can get really boring. Even with the reward of a Crystallized Lore or a full-level Welfare Waifu, sometimes it doesn't really feel worth it. This event especially, as I already sort of know I won't be using Seig. I have plenty of four-star Casters that mesh better with my other servants. Sorry bro. Either way, I did still grind up enough points to get his Ascension Materials and got his Noble Phantasm up to Level 5. So if I do decide to use him, at least he'll be there.

 

Overall, I had some fun with this event. I got some items I needed for some Skill leveling, maxed out a servant I may not use but will still be cool to have, and read a neat little story with some good pacing and a memorable secondary protagonist. If I won't remember this story when the re-run shows up in two years because if Sieg, then I'll at least remember it for the gorgeous final shot at the end of the event. It seems like Fate/Grand Order is starting to do a lot more to tell stories these days, especially given how short the battles this time around were compared to other events. Which is fine in my eyes: This whole franchise was based on a visual novel, so there's no reason not to embrace your roots. I do hope, though, that I'll have enough time to grind up to the end of the Coin Rewards when the event does re-run. Although I have no idea what I'm gonna do with all those leaves! One thing's for certain, though: Fate/Grand Order has some great stories, even in their events, and this one--while not the best--illustrates that sentiment well. Here's to more stories like it in the future.