Let's Play Fate/Extra CCC

This is the umu thread, where we post umu every time we think of Red Saber (White), and not an LP of fate/extra ccc

Fate/Extra CCC is the fourth game in the Fate/ series. It's a follow-up to Fate/Extra set in a parallel timeline that diverges 5/7 of the way through. It is to Fate/Extra what Heaven's Feel was to the Fate route in Fate/Stay Night. It is the series at its least restrained, for better and worse. Fate/Extra CCC has parts of its writing that are unmatched in anything else (positive) (also derogatory). It's a bit hard to describe because it's a series of extended character studies and the story and escalation in the conflict come in understanding the different facets of each of the heroines and the central conflict revolves around a superficial understanding of a person versus an actual one that grapples with the warts that come with understanding them, and it's doing that while also telling a story about a bunch of cyber moon wizards and rogue AI fighting for control of the ultimate supercomputer (the moon itself) to take over control of the timeline with the help of time-traveling heroes and villains from the cool parts of the history books. It is dense with things to ruminate over if I were the analytical video essayist type. I'm not, though, and I'm just here to show it off.

Table of Contents

how’d this get here

i don’t want to go and spend the four minutes it would take to find a save for fate/extra online and put it into wherever ppsspp puts its save games, so i will not be importing a save from fate/extra

oh so se.ra.ph stands for serial phantasm i was wondering why it was called that

i’ll go with girl hakuno since boy hakuno looks worse

i’ll give you two guesses which servant i’ll pick. here’s a hint: there’s no swerve here

straight into the AI stuff, huh

public morals awareness month huh i wonder what that’s about

my memory’s bad, i’m going to just do this to remind myself looks like it’s at the end of the left hallway from the entrance

umu

i tried playing it with mtl a couple times but I couldn’t get the hooker to output text consistently enough and my japanese is very bad

i know its aftereffects from fgo

and i played nero’s route in extra

so i know roughly things like “jinako is paired with karna” and “the sak pak will be involved at some point” and “kiara is around somewhere”

otherwise i’m flying pretty blind

probably. what’s broken this time?

looks normal to me? image uploading seems like it’s been fixed

other than seeming like you haven’t been hit by the latest A/B test

bizarre

i wonder who the nurse could be (be)

:wow: this one has a jump button

huh, how weird

i mean, back when i was in high school we didn’t have anything of the sort. we’d just go and tie an onion to our belt, as was the style at the time, and…

oh this is different from extra

i wonder if i should be worried that a command seal just got used up

probably nothing to worry about though. i’ve gotta head over to the storeroom

the location of this storeroom sure does seem familiar from extra

this sounds familiar. i will guess this is jinako

jinako you can’t just laze your way through a grail war

ah, so it is jinako

huh how weird, there’s nothing there. guess it was just my imagination

looks like there’s a fightstick and a gaming pc in the corner. i wonder what’s on it

looks like it’s just melty blood. not really feeling like playing that solo right now, guess I’ll go and put this computer away in that locker. it’s pretty messy in here

hey you, get out already

nothing to do but try and cram this door closed and pretend like i didn’t see anything in here

rip

jinako what are you talking about, ‘flab’ you’re a stick

damn she’s just like the girl reading this fr fr

how is this hiding are you just assuming that nobody would ever check the storage room

how does she know hakuno’s name is the grail war ongoing or something already

jinako that’s a terrible lie

if you’re a substitute teacher how are you a neet substitute teacher implies employment

jinako breasted boobily

well, i guess she’s harmless

goonspeed, jinako

yep. see you on discord jinako

this is probably going to lead to a bad end, now that i think about it

wow you’ve really gotta work to tell jinako she’s not weird

yeah i’m pretty occult, like a ghost in a machine

gotcha

umu

DANGER

die

:rip:

yes

it’s fine, i also can’t remember fate/extra

nothing like a little spot of murder to bring the gang closer together

is that like the holy grill war, the most devastating cook-off of all time?

you’re not beating jinako lol

where’s taiga

oh well i guess she’s right there

shinji’s right hakuno, you shouldn’t fuck your teacher

say do you think that anime has some weird framing dot jpeg

rani gets mad at hakuno in the hallway and compares the situation to waiting for godot, for some reason

and then hakuno goes back to forgetting what’s going on again

visiting the courtyard makes hakuno dizzy and lose another command seal. in the courtyard there’s a brief conversation with rin before hakuno forgets that this is the middle of a grail war

probably

it could be anyone

who :onegaisenpai: could :bbpoker: it :bbroll: be

down, girl

ah, so it is. the red ribbon was throwing me off

hm what a weird graphical effect that i’m sure is just a problem with the emulator

sakura seems really happy that hakuno helped her out

that’s right, asking zero questions is the way to go

i don’t think that happened but i’ve only been writing down the things i’ve seen with images to accompany them. there’s just no way i could go back and check

how do i “scroll up”

hm

that guy doesn’t look like he’s doing too good

maybe we should take him to the infirmary

oh hey i recognize those things from the ccc event

i wonder who this rider person is

you doing okay there buddy

sounds like he’s got this covered

the school’s flooded in an ocean of black void and hakuno reasons that we shouldn’t try to touch it

i feel like i recognize this laugh from the ost i downloaded

one of these laughs BGM_BB_VOICE_01.mp3

well, i’m sure it’s nothing

forget what i don’t even remember what a servant is

the voice that probably isn’t BB is telling hakuno to just give up and accept a victory by default

hakuno is deciding to resist

welcome back to dangeresque this time it looks like we’s gonna have to jUuUuUump

and then hakuno died

good lp everyone, see you next time

dammit someone’s making some noise

nero

oh i guess it’s just :seba: just kidding, of course it is the one, the only,

:umu:

there’s a storybook sequence right now

that sounds like a sakura

it looks like an infirmary

oh good, they’re rapidly glossing over a bunch of big reveals from the back half of extra

gotta catch people up so that the game can really go off the rails

and then they explain the basic idea of what a servant is

then sakura asks if hakuno remembers anything about the grail war up to this point and hakuno cannot

our favorite school nurse francis xavier then asks us if we can remember her name

what a funny coincidence

i don’t understand why francis is so mad

anyway, back onto the more correct path

second floor, hang a left. got it

second floor, hang a right. got it

?

oh huh, the hallway’s different

:umu:

i wouldn’t call that outfit restrained

it looks like nero bride’s outfit, whoever that is

nero bride is happy to be wearing a wedding dress

this cleaning AI is going on about some weird stuff

there’s some cherry blossoms blooming on the other side of the the hallway

moon cell has no control on the moon?

what?

huh.

leo’s dressed in black instead of red, huh

i mean we gotta choose the first one

we’re what

i can’t remember, who did julius have again?

was it li shuwen?

it’s weird that julius doesn’t have his servant, the li shuwen fight was pretty deep into extra iirc

no 👌

gonna take a crack and guess: 1) it’s gone. it was swallowed by the black noise. 2) you’re an AI and got reverted back to your initial specs when the data transfer happened 3) a server on the far side of the moon. they just said this, try to keep up

re: memory loss

i wonder if this sequence would be different if I’d imported a save

the “what happened to the first building” question explains the bit about the preliminaries from fate/extra

“where are we” is summed up with

this is gibberish

i wonder what happened to that sick sakura in the infirmary

is this the same sakura?

that framing is hm

to be blunt, you look like a nazi, leo

hygiene is important

i don’t remember this weirdo from extra

i don’t think i ever fought arc, so maybe that’d explain it

i think i fought vlad instead

lu bu, apparently

i guess i did the rin route

there sure are a lot of masters who lost their servants

did we get chucked to the far side of the moon at the finals?

right now i’ve only seen gawain and nero, and i’m pretty sure the fight with li shuwen was part of the semis

and he’s gone

slacking off again, huh jinako

nero can’t stand jinako

down, girl

kiara was…

failed the prelims but made it through huh

gotta set those danger flags up early then huh

she mentions andersen guess he’s her servant here?

:gamerhans:

hm

i too will pretend like i know nothing about kiara

hans is probably right even if he sounds like he’s holding back a slur

we report back to the student council. nobody but gatou would join, and they’re annoyed that he’s here

sakura found a portal near the sakura tree huh

the sakura labyrinth huh

dang if i didn’t know better i’d think there’s some kind of sakura theme going on here, what with that and the part of the menu that’s gone and spelled sacrament like sakurament

why, do you have some kind of problem with us going on a maiden voyage into the sakura

also there’s the sakurament that i caught sight of in the bottom right of the menu there

it looks like it’s going to be a currency

whose domain

no comment huh

i guess that’s what mash and the control room do in fgo as well

i think i remember the fextra combat

rock paper scissors, enemies have set patterns

savescum to write down the patterns and solve fights

i always did like the visuals in the fate/extra dungeons

I guess rin won in this timeline?

i wonder who this girl could be, i say, with an even deader pan than i usually wear

it’s fine she’s not even singing

how rare, a serious liz

ironically, berserker is the one class liz hasn’t been

:lizcry:

i made a savestate before the choice. seems like if i try to fight them here i just lose

after escaping the labyrinth, sakura gives hakuno a call and says that she’s prepared a My Room

saber’s figured out that hakuno’s lost her memories

it’s getting late and this seems like a decent place to stop so I’ll pick back up later

we’ll leave off at night in the my room

yeah but doing it this way means i take no damage most of the time

and it exposes the pattern faster

good morning. umu morning

the student council summarizes what happened last time

they found a weird locked door in the sakura labyrinth. they have no idea how to open it, even with their top hackers on the job. they’re calling it a Shield.

Rin was also there. she seems to be the Rin that everyone knows, though she seems more cruel than usual. she’s calling herself queen of the moon. she tried to capture hakuno. she’s saying that the people in the school on the far side are “survivors”. i am just repeating what gawain is saying

absolutely on point there gawain. i too will not think too hard about all the sakura motifs

how rude :lizangry:

leo says to hand over some information on the shield to kiara because there’s some rumors about her

i can’t imagine what they might be, she seems like a perfectly normal nun with a vacuum-sealed habit

i wonder why the ultimate syncretist would know about sessyoin kiara. oh well, won’t think too hard about it

haha, you must be mistaken kiara. i said sakura labyrinth, not sakura’s labyrinth

well thank god there’s not any extremely blunt metaphors going on here or i’d think this was about sex

kiara agrees to help us unravel this mental block

they ramble on in this vein for a bit. the short of it seems to be that this is the method we’ll be using to try and delve into rin’s psyche

how daring

pseudoscience babble to justify “hakuno has gained the power of empathy”

sakura then objects

and asks for the program to be installed in her instead

i dunno, sakura seems about as human as hakuno

well obviously that’s just how you install programs

leo…

damn, if only i could understand metaphors, or innuendo

talking to leo after the cutscene ends has hakuno wondering if she should get a uniform for sakura from the commissary

and then sakura thanks hakuno for reasons she can’t remember as hakuno is leaving

looks like a sailor uniform costs 98000 sakurament, and i have 400

heading back into the sakura labyrinth, we find a building a bit past the place where rin emerged last time

and now an intermission as i go and run my dailies since rollover just hit

now where were we

after looking at that, the support crew asks if we think this is rin’s secret. it is not, it is liz’s

running a bit further in, rin’s fretting about how embarassing it was to let hakuno see such a disgraceful sight, and then she tsuns a bit about how she’s not going easy on hakuno or anything and then goes away

heading back to where we ran into rin and lancer the first time we see lancer about to torture a girl

lancer asks why we aren’t speaking, and i have hakuno reply in the sort of way liz usually gets treated in fgo, by saying “well, you asked us not to talk”

this short-circuits liz for a good minute

well which is it, do you want us to talk or not

whoever this is :saxyliz: starts going off about who she is after a forced loss

and then rin comes out and chides lancer for nearly revealing her true name

tsun tsun

i guess we’re about to learn about secret gardens then

apparently this rin was just a quarter of the whole

this then opens up the SG menu in the main menu

back in game design class they told us to take a look through the menus to see what sorts of things the designers wanted to emphasize

there’s a lot to unpack here

and then the first SG is a huge block of text to say “she’s tsundere”

the information matrix is helpfully telling me that andersen will be boss 7

this has unlocked after returning from the dungeon and heading back to My Room

talking with saber, hakuno wonders if she has a secret garden too

hakuno puts the question to saber and saber says she’s full of secrets, nothing but secrets, well there’s three secrets

this then unlocks saber’s SG

now it’s back to the student council room to report in

they speculate a bit about this fragment of a rin we found. rin must be really strong for her fragment to be that strong, that fragment’s kind of like some kind of digital cyber demon, they say

then they talk about the torture room hakuno found

would she really be the type to do that, they wonder

(she would not, rin’s too prideful to resort to a tactic like that)

there’s an option to say “there’s a chance she would throw away her pride like that” but lol, lmao

that first SG was about how much she cares about how she appears to others

maybe this is more of a mystery if you don’t know that lancer is elisabeth bathory

unfortunately, i’ve played a halloween event before

anyway it continues in this manner for a bit

then hakuno goes “i sure wish there were another master with a servant around”, and sakura goes “doesn’t jinako have one”

and then hakuno is sent over to try and get jinako to come out of the closet

the layup there is “phrasing”, but everything else in this game is an extremely unsubtle metaphor so maybe this is too

saber then breaks down the locks on the closet door

saber that’s rude, she’s not ready yet

karna then appears and tells saber not to make any moves on his master

oh right servant identities are supposed to be a secret mysterious servant of jinako’s, then

this feels like a bit i’d run

i’ve spent years studying the blade but that pales in comparison to your posting prowess m’lady

were we to duke it out in a contest of skill i would surely die from posts before a could land a hit with my blade, because air travel is expensive and posting is cheap

that sort of bit

karna is low-key incredible at posting

it’s not criticism, karna’s being completely sincere

yes officer, this woman right here

karna then apologizes for jinako and then politely asks hakuno and saber to leave

after this back-and-forth jinako agrees to talk in the meetings instead of just listening in

and then we head back into the dungeon

rin shows up pretty much immediately

all the treasure chests seem to be empty

this rin’s all about money

that’s rich coming from the guys who made fgo

yeah

what of it

rin tries calling in lancer to fight, but she’s busy taking a bath

rin doesn’t seem to be aware of liz’s torture chamber

and thought liz was talking in metaphor

after that, it’s a return to the My Room, though Saber doesn’t have anything new to say and the SG is just that rin likes money

in the morning there’s no student council meeting, it’s just time to head straight to the dungeon

passing by the student council room, shinji’s trying to peep in

he’s also a tsundere, hakuno notes

i stop by the closet jinako hangs out in to say hello, and she says she’s asleep

heading into the dungeon, there are two shields this time instead of just the one

in the third floor rin’s acting weird

she’s talking something about duty and not really noticing that hakuno’s there

the map went around both shields and took us over here

getting closer it looks like lancer is berating tohsaka

and there’s some imagery happening in the background but i don’t know what being stuck in a bed of rose thorns could signify

rin’s trying to make up for all the blood she’s not getting from torture but isn’t managing it. liz is throwing a fit

after finding out rin’s secret fetish leo says to come back to the student council room. we’ll need to get kiara’s help

kiara says we’re going to need to delve into rin’s psyche

giant girl count: 1

that’s a lot of ruby text

punish game start

and then hakuno calls rin a capitalist bitch

after explaining everything to rin, a voice comes from nowhere

she says she’ll come visit

i wonder who this purple-haired kouhai could be (be)

the observation team forcibly ejects rin and hakuno from the labyrinth

bb continues taunting them as they leave

and then it plays an opening movie

i recorded it in a few parts since i wasn’t sure how much space it would take up

and i wasn’t sure how long it would be

start of chapter 2

guess shion’s here

time to head to the student council room

shinji and kiara are here as well this time

ah, i’ve gone quiet

right now they’re just talking about what just happened

jinako and shinji sniped at each other a bit

shinji was real haughty until he found out that jinako was insanely hardcore about gaming

BB told rin she’d grant a wish for her if she maintained the labyrinth

it came up at some point in the last ten minutes or so that BB was responsible for consuming nearly all of the 128 servants from the near side grail war

and now leo’s talking about the incredibly-named dark AI

sakura explains that BB is the same model of AI as her

they talk a bit about the implications of what BB is

how she assimilates people and servants into herself and uses that to augment her processing power

the three laws of robotics AI don’t apply on the moon

i dunno, it sounds like bb’s acting within the scope of the two laws

i mean i assume there’s a reason to it she’s the same model AI as sakura, she’s just trying to help

oh wait i’m not supposed to use future knowledge about what bb’s like from fgo

darn this dastardly ai (deadpan)

they talk about council affairs and positions a bit to get to the point of explaining that hakuno is a gofer. this will probably unlock sidequests

there’s some more suspicion thrown at sakura but everyone decides it’s not worth fighting on

and then bb hacks in

and then the rest of the bb channel segment

i realized i made a mistake recording all of it a couple lines in but i was committed by that point

leo asks if kiara knew who BB was already

kiara says she made a non-interference pact with BB

there’s a bit more idle chatter. rin says she’d like somewhere to be alone to die of embarrassment in peace

gatou calls in and says some shit i can’t parse

maybe you’ll be able to understand it

gatou’s in the labyrinth

time to go back to the labyrinth

the new zone’s a bit more blue than the last one, and the castles look a bit more dilapidated

is that liz over there? i thought we beat her

hi liz

there’s some talk between hakuno and rani. she’s acting emotionless and calculating

rani explains that the people she’s draining for liz would’ve been deleted in another instant anyway, so what’s the problem with prolonging their life by dragging their last moment out into an eternity of suffering

realized i’ve been going for eight hours i think i’ll take a break for a bit

leo, i’ve got some questions i’m going to need to check your bookmarks

gatou was spirited away by rani and i lost a bunch of rani points when i clicked the option to stop exploring and take gatou back to school

rin says just keep telling rani no

heading further into the floor, i run into rani again

liz threatens to start singing, but rani stops her

rani’s going on about clearing out inefficiencies and unnecessary things like feelings

another purple-haired kouhai huh

don’t tell bb

we then go through the sequence and deny rani’s rationalizations and get her first secret garden

hakuno wonders if liz is being made to fight against her will, and she responds like this:

oh no, not ronnie

what’s the problem with aging carmilla looks great

!portrait 3 rider carm

oh no, she might grow up and look like this

how horrifying

after this the day’s exploration is done and it’s time to head back to My Room

looks like rani’s first SG is that she loves micromanagement

factorio would probably destroy her

it notes that the polar opposite of this tendency is rin’s submission desire

in the morning, we get an email saying that club is canceled

but we head there anyway to see if we can do anything about that lock on saber’s outfit

sakura offers to make some clothes for nero

one of the npcs has been getting some funny ideas, and bb is having none of it

caren’s around too, huh

asking andersen about nero

asking about andersen unlocks his matrix information

he speculates that kiara might have deliberately summoned him in child form

checking the secret garden menu, it appears like there are going to be nine options in the menu in total by the end, and we’re currently at 3

it seems like the 98000 sakurament sailor uniform disappeared from the shop at some point

guess that’s a new game+ only feature

rani is boring, i think

maybe this is why i never finished reading ordeal call 1

there’s a giant safe door at the start of the dungeon today

there’s a dress code on this floor

this is going to be a long game

after the rating board told nasu he couldn’t just make them go naked, rani agrees to compromise if hakuno removes one mystic code

don’t like the sound of that

happy-very-merry good evening!~

i got nothing, sorry

i’d tell you the one about the ai but i can’t remember that far back

another one of these huh

maybe if i just take the other mystic code off i can skip the comedy routine

is this rani’s second SG

i do not believe her

anyway i got rani’s second SG

liz showed up on the way out

i wonder what this mysterious eli’s true name could be

then there’s a fight with liz. she uses a defensive skill, guards four times, and then does an attack

after the fight liz goes ‘no fair’ and then runs off.

getting back from the dungeon we’re told to get the new outfit

saber gets her red outfit back afterward

i think i’ll take a break there for today. there’s only so much rani i can handle in a day

umu

alright that’s a long enough break, back to the mines

frame 1: giant woman

giant woman count: 2

rani insists she has no more secrets, so hakuno won’t find anything

bb interrupts this program

bb channel~

:o7: rip robin hood

she did 100 million damage to robin and then revived him

no longer allowed to talk with saber

there seem to be some landmines on the ground

it poisons hakuno and saber on contact, and jumping over it doesn’t work

a savestate screwed up and put me back a few minutes, maybe i’ll take another break

after this we find a chess set in that item box back there and BB gives hakuno and Nero speaking privileges back

At this point I go on hiatus for about ten months. I bump the thread periodically

umu

umu

umu

umu

i’ve forgotten what ccc’s like so i feel like getting back to playing it

let’s see, where were we

yes

jinako's NP in fgo is falling on people because she's fat

there’s little picture frames up

I’ve got rani’s SG punishment game recorded but I think i’ll skip posting it. it’s rude to reveal a maiden’s secrets and those images are close enough to NSFW that it’s probably more prudent to skip over it anyway

it’s mostly just confronting rani and telling her she has emotions and likes things

rip to eli. surely this time she’s actually dead for real and won’t just pop back up next time again

the crew says this is the exit to the outside but the transmission starts cutting out

👉 :onegaisenpai: 👈 :blank: ☝️

:wow: :melt:

i’m kind of surprised lip’s walking around normally like that to be honest

plip is going to be the next one to get through

after this BB blows hakuno and umu back to the entrance and the student council goes over what happened

then we’re sent back to My Room

START OF CHAPTER 3

I’m doing the rounds talking to the NPCs and this one says to remember to talk to :fgo_neroumu: a lot

over in My Room, Nero’s wishing hakuno remembered a bit more

going to the commisary kotomine says hakuno’s the only one who uses it

one of the items lets me wear glasses, at the cost of most of my sakurament

that’s important, naturally, so i buy it without a second thought

don’t lie gawain, we know you can make mashed potatoes

rani’s joining the club as treasurer. they crack some jokes about scrapping the cafeteria plan

they talk a bit and then BB interrupts

my video ended up over 100MB so I’ve gotta go and run it through handbrake

after that episode of BB Channel, the student council started talking about how their memories must be lying around somewhere since AIs can’t delete memories in the moon cell or something

there was also some chatter about how in imaginary numbers space distance is defined more by relations and concepts than actual distance or something

they conclude the meeting saying that the goal now is memory recovery and also whatever is happening with lip

looks like saber added some pillows to My Room

:spray:

nero continues in this manner. there’s a dialog option to say whether or not hakuno thinks she’d be in nero’s harem and nero gets a lot more flustered if hakuno says she is

the conversation continues on and it unlocks saber’s first SG

now to start floor 7

this zone looks a lot like one of the midgame ones from the first extra game

I think drake’s floor looked like this?

there’s some highly compressed data on the ground and then lip shows up to explain her trash and crush ability

there’s an option to fight her, and i opt not to. we wait a few seconds and then

don’t be like that sakura

the student council analyzes the data and then we’re told to visit kiara, who asks us what we think of lip

eh, those are just her arms. no need to worry much

kiara talks a bit more, saying it should be easier to get lip’s secrets than rani or rin, but to be wary because lip is actually a servant and not just a master

heading back into the labyrinth, we hear a sound

someone who looks a bit familiar

i found a pickaxe in one of the treasure chests. I should remember to give that to taiga

lip’s getting bullied by rhyme

we tell them to knock it off and then unlock lip’s first SG, about her trash compactor

nah lip’s not like that. she’s a good kid

i think i’ll take a break here before I go and sit through another student council scene since I’ve been at it for about 4 hours now

bullying is wrong. rhyme needs to go to sensitivity training

back to the game for a bit. the student council’s talking about how their memories are probably hidden inside of lip

i remembered to give taiga the thing i found

gatou’s making a scene outside of jinako’s room

that’s not really what i’m seeing so far. maybe it’ll change as i go deeper into learning about lip’s SGs

so far lip seems more or less the same as she is in fgo

the fetch quest continued for a bit with gatou rambling on about how jinako has conceptually sealed herself in. karna rewards us with his matrix info

the room has curtains now, courtest of taiga

i’ll take another break here and pick up either in the morning or sometime in the afternoon tomorrow

picking back up. we enter floor 8 and robin’s there

bb sent him to hide some things

there’s four hidden data things. passionlip’s watching secretly

finished gathering the data bits, now it’s back to the student council room

oh so this is where gawain’s mashed potatoes comes from

back to the maze

found a barrier before I was supposed to, I think

please stop bullying lip

so that’s lip’s second SG, huh

after that rest it’s back to the student council room

chotto a minute

this is one of those lines that makes me go “wait a minute, summer ereshkigal has something to do with OC3, which is about moon cancers”

i really doubt that

oh, i see. passionlip’s worried that hakuno might hate her if she gets her memories back or something

heading into the labyrinth there’s not much of note on the 9th floor aside from some gas that makes enemies deal more damage

at the end of the floor, we see BB and lip

bb asks if lip destroyed the robot

bb’s like “i worked so hard on that, do you know how long it took”

we start talking with passionlip and she asks what hakuno’s looking for in a lover. hakuno can’t remember so she lists off some household chores

and then asks what passionlip’s good at

lip runs away in shame and we head back to the student council

going back into the labyrinth we get into a fight with lip

we fight and she thinks about using her NP before getting hungry and leaving

going back to the student council room, we’re told we need to go and convince jinako

it’s like six dialogue options before this

gotta take a break now. whenever I get back I’ll finish out lip’s part

she spends all day on forums. I’m just glad it’s not a slur

entering the labyrinth with jinako, passionlip starts acting like an idol fan. ironically she’d probably get on great with jinako

passionlip chases jinako a bit and then hakuno grabs her

more talking with lip happens, though trying to hold her hand ends with hakuno getting cut

either option leads to lip turning into a monument so i went with the one trying to be nicer

afterwards jinako runs off a bit and finds the memory folder

she takes a peek inside and comes to the conclusion that it’s all pointless and we’re doomed

presumably whatever force would delete BB will also delete everyone else

and then it’s back to the student council room again

sakura’s sick, this has all been taking a toll on her

my capture card’s starting to act up, it’s running a bit hot

gonna chuck it on the fan for a minute

it’s cooled down a bit, that should help

nope

gonna check the splitters and unplug them for a bit. they’re also running hot

alright that seems like it’s helping

anyway the student council agrees to only look at the memories when everyone’s present

they tell hakuno to get some rest

passionlip’s SG on hypersensitivity is available to read now. the background image is too spicy but the gist of it is that everything passionlip feels gets accentuated. it’s mostly pain because nobody touched her without trying to hurt her before hakuno did today

after going to My Room we cut over to jinako. she talks about how she was holed up the whole time and never went into the arena once, and then

julius is a spy, and then jinako gets spirited away

now it’s time to face lip

after this is the punishment game where hakuno denies what lip thinks of as love to straighten her out a bit

saber says to go and check out floor ten and julius appears to say yeah sure go for it

and then jinako blows us out of the floor

END OF CHAPTER 3

START OF CHAPTER 4

saber and hakuno talk about what happened a minute ago before it’s back to the student council room again

everyone regains their memories up to the fifth round of the holy grail war. shinji got owned in round 1 so he’s in shock

then BB chimes in

oh i see, it’s echoing because i forgot to mute the desktop audio after something the other day. oh well

after the student council meeting it turns out gatou ran into the labyrinth

exiting the room saber starts asking about memories

heading back to My Room, nero has a new dialogue

nero wants to learn hakuno’s secrets but hakuno doesn’t have any

i say none of the above and then exit

gonna stop here, I think. it’s getting late for me. I’ll pick back up in the morning

i still think lip’s depiction was mostly a good kid who had some wrong ideas. she needed a couple delusions straightened out but otherwise she was really helpful the whole way through

maybe a little bit yandere

running around and chatting with the npcs

the commissary has new outfits. stockings for hakuno, ‘crimson modern clothes’ for nero

ah right, that outfit

alright, I think I’ll enter floor 10 now

oh right also one of the npcs said “only women can become sentinels right? then we should almost be done” basically foreshadowing a few floors for kiara

jinako’s left a bunch of signs in the maze that just lie

oof

she said it in red, even

getting back to My Room, hakuno starts moping about what if she’s actually a bad person

the student council meeting is brief. they talk about tea and then think they should reexamine everything jinako’s said to this point in light of her being a compulsive liar

the next floor’s a giant empty square with a single hidden wall. Jinako runs off to the corners to be a shutin a couple of times, and then enemies appear. I check the hidden corner and find a model house

and then jinako asks what she is to us

exiting My Room, gawain says to go to the student council room

getting there, they talk about finding out where jinako was in the Near Side Grail War

the conversation continues in this vein. Jinako’s worried about escaping because it means instant death for her

hakuno wonders if she could have done something if she’d known

after that scene there’s a blue dialog box above rin, and they talk about kiara a bit

she made a bunch of people kill themselves

lots of lore, and then

naturally kiara has a dialog after this

she says, in so many words, it’s all true

entering the maze again, we get this

gatou interrupts and says he’s got a great idea

we return to the entrance and gatou says to go back to the school and do some preparations

I give taiga an item I found and get a lamp for My Room

there’s the lamp

he doesn’t actually have a plan

jinako and gatou start talking of god

looks like this is gatou’s plan. die in place of someone else

jinako says the SG is curse of death but I assume it’s going to turn out to be something like fear of death since she’s a serial liar

and with that gatou dies

and with that it’s time to return to the school

the audio glitched out during this. possibly a bug in the patch

back to the student council room again

they’re talking about how this time for sure we’ve definitely cleared the labyrinth (lol)

everyone in the council room talks about how bb’s eventually going to hit on the idea of taking over the moon cell

i don’t know why they’re doing this when they know BB listens in

this one even says last mission, wow

anyway i’m definitely getting near the end and won’t pay attention to those three empty slots in the SG menu

i check jinako’s weight in the menu and find out that she’s a whopping 180 pounds. that’s a lot since she’s an even 5’0” but still: lol. lmao

now it’s time to go into her mind

i normally skip over posting the punishment games but this line’s funny

truly terrifying, this curse that faces all that lock people in their room

listen jinako that’s just not true. the person i saw yelling “wife! WIFE!” when you were brought up in another server would say otherwise

jinako’s punishment game ends and it’s time to go see BB at the end of the labyrinth again

I’ll record the start of chapter 5 and then go take a break to read today’s nodes in fgo

hey dumb-dumb why’d you make gawain fight inside

she starts absorbing gawain

and then leo disappears

hakuno has hope that the people in the student council room will help, and then BB tells Julius to take them out

julius asks what they should do with the NPCs who surrendered

there’s been a loud heartbeat thumping SFX for the last few images

END OF CHAPTER 4

START OF CHAPTER 🌸

but first, a quick break to catch up with story on jp

alright, back to this

they then summarize the situation of the moon cell grail war and masters and servants and hackers and all that

now there’s some spots of light

it’s looping bb’s laugh now

after the fight we get a tutorial on how to use NPs

END OF CHAPTER 🌸

START OF CHAPTER 5

so now it’s back to My Room

and now it’s back to the student council room again

but before that I want to check in on the NPCs

the pair here is mostly alright. Blonde ponytail girl is glad that the black-haired girl with a crush on Leo is alive. Black-haired girl is crushed that Leo is gone

this NPC by the window gets disappeared

first year classroom NPCs

guy by the window near the third-year classroom is depressed

third-year classroom

the pair that was planning to defect to BB didn’t work out as expected. the date pair is doing okay.

commisary-watching NPC saw something

the library NPCs aren’t doing great. something happened with the genki girl and the depressed girl. A different pair that was planning to surrender got a rude awakening

the other student hanging around the comissary got out fine

kotomine escaped unscathed

taiga’s got a new quest. look for someone who can help her

I assume she avoided the whole raid because she was out swimming

npc who hangs out by jinako’s room was freaked out

visiting jinako’s room we can see karna hanging around even though he was defeated

npc who hangs out by the tree

there’s a new accessory in the comissary. looks like it lets you wear slippers

finding an NPC for taiga, I got more room ornaments

the new decoration is a heart mirror

and now that I’m just clicking every search icon I can

okay now i’ll stop fucking around and get to the student council room

there’s only one possible option

oh i guess i was jumping the gun. there was another option

ah okay, so that’s the interesting master bb mentioned for liz round 3

after this we get the president’s armband as a mystic code

it seems extremely good

but before I go into the labyrinth again it’s time to talk with nero

it’s just a little motivational speech

checking in with the NPCs, the black-hair girl is talking again, and the girl who likes her is a bit saddened

because she’s only talking about leo

ah okay so that’s what happened with the library pair there

the other girl is completely silent

the rest of the NPCs seem to be doing better

well, not the girl who had half of herself ripped out. but the rest are fine

alright, back to the maze now

nero challenges liz to a singing contest

this section is going to give me a headache

oh no hakuno’s been infected by the disease too

her master is probably shinji yeah. just probe about for the SG

asking that third one brings out shinji

though asking the second one got me some hints of an SG so I might go back to that

ah okay this takes me to the same cutscene

but shinji, you lost in round 1

they squawk at each other for a bit more

yelling “baka baka” at each other

everyone seems to be a bit annoyed by all this

lord give me a break

they summon some monsters and this manzai routine finally ends

shinji sets up some gimmick and we fight three monsters to clear it

liz is acting all starry-eyed

a treasure chest on the way to the next cutscene has a code cast to show the full map

getting to the next cutscene liz and shinji are bickering again

shinji sends his tank out

so this is where that “forbidden love” screenshot comes from

:melty: :meltdance:

i dunno, melt’s pretty useful

though i’d still probably rather have nero in a grail war. that three time guts is crazy good

and then they manage to escape

rin asks sakura to look and see if saber or hakuno have any weird injuries

nothing wrong with either of them

the student council crew then talks about increasing security to make it harder for bb or melt to find hakuno

once again, you’re all saying this out in the open where BB can just hear you

they then ask what about liz. they say she’s not a threat and then liz sneezes somewhere in audible range

melt’s SG image is pretty yabai even at only one SG unlocked. the flowers are only covering her legs

getting out of the SG menu, nero starts sulking

wh- damn that’s a brutal comparison to make

gonna take a break here for the day, i think

it’s getting pretty late for me and there’s only so much liz I can take in one go

let’s see, how much progress was that anyway. basically all of chapter 4, the interlude, and about a third of chapter 5. that’s pretty decent for one day

woke up late today and then got distracted by posts for a few hours. guess i’ll be making a bit less progress today

hakuno leaves My Room and immediately there’s something on the ground

it’s an obvious trap. time to head to the student council room

they talk about the next floor a bit and then show what’s happening on floor 14 on the camera

hakuno…

over in the corner of the first floor andersen’s standing alone. nero and he exchange some banter

terrifying

alright I’ll go and enter floor 14 now

but before that I remember seeing some treasure chests behind some barriers on floor 13 so I want to grab those

and maybe check the other floors before this as well since I’ve got that “reveal full map” code cast now

short version seems to be: no

i didn’t grab a remedy on one of the floors and i missed a couple of shortcuts in jinako’s dungeon

back to the 14th floor i’ve reached the first course

i accidentally clicked a dialogue option before i could see what it said, but it seemed to be the right one

rest in peace

:rip:

all of these screenshots are ending up as like 2MB. maybe i’ll swap them to webp">s so they upload faster

hmm. no. i can’t put my finger on it but the compression looks bad

looking at like five formats side-by-side webp"> just looks the worst and jxl is about as good as webp">

but i don’t like the way the ones that discord supports look so i’ll go back to overly-large lossless images for now

anyway where was i? watching a bad gag scene?

find a recipe and then stick to the recipe liz

it’s not that hard

they then say hakuno lost some HP

with the map code cast active i think i can see a way to bypass some of liz’s events

or not. it’s all blocked off by gates

back to the gag dimension then

hakuno says it looks fine

the student council says they’ll send over some more software

oh so that’s where it came from

liz fidgets and asks how it is

oh no, marugoshi shinji is dying

oh no this one’s a full course. rip to hakuno

hakuno’s started having death flag flashbacks

this opens up her second SG

time to head back to My Room

melt doesn’t ambush us this time

saber has new lines

she says something to the effect of “emperors shouldn’t cook. i envy elizabeth. i wish i could cook for you. maybe there’s something bridal i could do…”

liz’s second SG is [Bridal Desire]

she sees it like feeding an animal

hakuno’s about ready to die from all that food

on to the next SG

there’s a cutscene before we leave My Room

a highlight from it

heading to the student council room regardless, I get a bento from sakura

i check in with andersen, and he has information on the alter egos

now let’s see what floor 15 has in store

they speculate about if liz and shinji are hiding and then ask to return to the student council room

they talk a bit about accessing the sixteenth floor to try finding out more

sakura says it should be about as hard as monitoring hakuno in the maze, which is why they asked to return

she developed a code cast to heal herself and that’s why interpol’s after her

there’s some talk with kiara. she doesn’t want to give up her code cast because she’s selfish by nature and wants something in return or something

nero says they’re probably in the bottom layer

kiara goes ‘i’m horny’

back to the student council room again

gonna head into sakura’s mind

imagine me rubbing my temples here

now it’s a maze puzzle

is this why there hasn’t been a berserker liz in fgo

nero asks about madness enhancement

liz talks about her next puzzle

she talks about her requirements for girls

answering 20 makes liz frantic

they say they can fix him and he says he’ll manage his way back to the entrance without a servant

third puzzle

and then she runs off

they go “but kiara’s dead” and then rin says that doesn’t matter, just enter it

time to face off with liz

she’s screaming the whole fight. by the end she’s screaming about how she doesn’t want to lose – doesn’t want to be locked up

liz’s punishment game was pretty long. it was like double the length of what rani’s was

debated posting it since it managed to come in under 100MB even though it’s like 14 minutes long but I think I won’t for the same reasons as before

after the fight, the relief disappears. Nero says there’s one more virus to deal with

making my way back to the entrance, there’s another scene

the student council welcomes us back. shinji’s back as well

then it’s time to get to sleep

hakuno reminisces bitterly about the fight with elizabeth. her fate, worse than death, haunts hakuno

then there’s a scene with BB

i think i’ll call it there for tonight and pick back up in the morning

START OF CHAPTER 6

in the student council room, everyone is tired and frustrated

rin’s going to be taking the place of kiara when it comes to getting hakuno into the SG punishment game dimension

time for this chapter’s bb channel

bb’s just trying to help, hakuno

melt is too

they conclude that BB probably hasn’t taken control of the moon cell yet and that it should be fine to go back into the maze

the banter continues on like this. rin is a bad influence, they say

the commissary now has ultra spice mapo tofu and thighhighs in stock

I should remember to check in with nero

they say to grab something from the tree that runs through the labyrinth

and the chapter’s taiga quest is to find a lucky item

I think that’s all the NPCs talked to so I’m gonna head back to the labyrinth now

they say to stock up on items

I’ll try checking floor 16, see if that’s where the place is

the student council talks about it a bit. the first shield disappears because we got her first SG a few floors back

sakura’s trying something and it turns out we can’t use healing items here. a little practical joke from nasu

rin asks if we went back to buy any items and i say no, i just wanted to buy the mapo tofu to have it

it’s only now while going back to the other floors to check for some stuff for saber’s accessory that i notice the autobattle command

looks like the thing for saber is down on 16f, and also I’m probably missing a bunch of flags for the true end or whatever

another bb channel appears while I’m going down 16f

melt dissolved them permanently

in a different part of the maze, i find another bb channel

it’s just a short one saying there’s a swimsuit ahead

getting to the end bb says she’s going to show up

after beating the enemy bb summons, she still can’t remember anything. rin asks about melt’s invulnerability skill

bb says rin should be able to figure it out from that

getting back to my room it looks like that’s less of a bikini and more of a V-sling

nero blusters a bit before admitting that wearing a slingshot bikini is embarrassing

i put her back in a normal costume and get back to the 16th floor

there’s some footprints back on the normal path

nero senses a “servant-class pressure”

she says there’s only one person it could be, and it’s probably archer

he goes “here, catch” and gives us this

and then he says “time to fight”

returning to the school, we hand BB’s data over to the student council

shinji’s waiting in front of the door to My Room

shinji’s speech is mostly that he’s scared and he can’t understand why we’d even try fighting melt

she talks of some of her past, how she became an emperor in her teenage years

this unlocks a CG for nero

before the H-scene can start, there’s a phone call

now I’ll head to the student council room

the plan is to have hakuno clones running around the other floors to make it harder for melt to tell which is the real one

something else happened before hakuno got there. Hakuno asks if they saw a roach

he took a sample of the virus

checking My Room after clearing taiga’s quest, rose petals have been added to the bed

I think I’ll take a break here before plugging away at floor 17

is a girl not allowed to play with dolls and fairy tales

bloodborne-ass framing

it drops some doll parts

heading to the shield, we’re interrupted

well let’s not go that far, saber. melt’s pretty cute

:galpants:

melt’s gone from murder to posting in two seconds flat

melt’s talking like the gas pump from barkley

after that it’s time to go to bed and repeat the cycle again

rin and rani figured out how melt cheated. she changed the world settings, not her own

they say we’ll need to go to the central core and fix it. if the school uses all its resources it can break one shield

once again melt is helping. seemingly inadvertently, but things like that don’t matter in mysteries

on to floor 18

after this melt starts chasing us. there’s a fork in the road

they just give us the SG

and then it’s a fight with melt

back to the chase

and then the council says to go back and help shinji

shinji dies and then it’s back to the student council room

and then they say to get back in there

time for melt’s end

after this melt disappears

time to head to the core

there’s a blue filter over the school

all the NPCs are gone

jinako’s still in the closet

returning to the student council room

END OF CHAPTER 6

START OF CHAPTER 7

rani and rin are in the council room, dejected

hakuno asks rani about the nature of AIs resetting, and rin about some nasu concept of time that I can’t remember the name of

sakura is in the infirmary, and we’re able to visit it for the first time

sakura makes some tea

sakura says she’ll dispell the wall if we can do something about BB’s skills

they talk of adding a similar power that BB has to saber. to do this we need to dive into her

they say we need to convince jinako to lend us karna

jinako’s in her room playing divekick. she says sure we can borrow karna. karna says no they can’t.

I think i’ll take a break here

alright, let’s get back to it. I thought about getting back to it yesterday but I was sick and something in the deck’s electron->x11->xwayland->gamescope stack had an issue. I’ve gotten it working by playing in desktop mode, thereby bypassing most of the jenga tower the steam deck’s big picture mode relies on

oh right i have to close steam to get the input working right on desktop mode

let’s see, where did we leave off here. We were about to go into nero

nero asked sakura what it was like, and then left to go take a shower and clean herself up a bit

nero asks if there’s any way to avoid fighting

rani says no

there’s nobody to protect hakuno, and the familiar rin said she’d send is missing

can you guess what song is playing

that’s right it’s liz’s theme

:clap:

b-buddy? wow that’s at least bond 4

liz has some decent stats. I think those are about the same as Nero’s, maybe a bit better

continuing down saber, she bickers with liz a bit

getting to a waiting point, liz asks hakuno why she’s doing all this

the council talks a bit about all the things they’ve gone over before, and then says hakuno should get some rest first

time to head into the labyrinth once more

floor 20 is a grinding zone. there’s a portal to somewhere else where it’s a fight with emiya and rin

the fight’s kind of a pain. I end up using a couple elixirs on it

i get a base red mystic code out of it

the east portal is a fight with cu and kotomine

the north rift is a fight with twice and tamamo

tamamo fight was a pain in the ass

doing some grinding got me this cutscene

taiga’s last present is a nero doll

the bonus bosses have some good mystic codes

tamamo has a mystic code that lets you revive a servant once, though that’s not as necessary since Nero has that on a skill

rin’s mystic code heals HP and cures status effects

and kotomine’s nullifies an attack

but I think I’ve done enough grinding, probably

let’s clear out the end now

jinako’s last bit

now to wonder if I should do the CCC route or not

maybe I’ll take a break before jumping back into rock paper scissors

gonna start the CCC route now

I left the servant to democracy and gil won out

i also went and figured out how to get an Extra save imported. seems like the patched version works with US saves

I loaded a JP save I downloaded into the save folder and then changed the folder name to the right US one

and that seemed to work

I’m mostly skipping over the cutscenes. gil’s banter is fun and all but I’d rather get to the new stuff

alright here’s the start of the CCC route

chapter 2

guide says to visit sakura before heading into rani’s labyrinth

floor 5 has a new option

on the way to fight rani, sakura stops us in the courtyard and asks why we’re fighting

ah okay, this is part of gil’s backstory

sakura collapsed and went to the infirmary

I’ll take a break here, i think

something different happens after the end of passionlip’s second floor

on returning to My Room gil asks why hakuno didn’t sever the contract

at the end of lip’s fight there’s a new option

lip gets a short scene before hakuno enters jinako’s section

at the start of the second day of jinako’s labyrinth hakuno has a dream about the normal life before the start of this, and she remembers sakura

there’s a scene with sakura at the infirmary after the customary student council meeting

ah okay, there’s some more hints about bb’s real nature going on there

the “at this rate, I’ll also–” line is probably the one that’s meant to be the most telling

that’s some decent progress for today. I’ll go and pick back up in the morning

I’ve been skipping over a lot of the servant stories and gil’s banter because i just want to focus on sakura’s storyline here

i wonder if the welfare for OC3 will end up being health management AI Sakura after she’s made her peace with all her different egos

gotta get a moon doctor to deal with this moon cancer

oh so that’s how gil reveals liz’s third SG

sakura collapsed and they started arguing

gotta head to the infirmary to check in on her

robin gives us a second file on BB this time. I don’t think he did on the common route

yeah I’m not seeing it in my screenshots of the first playthrough

there’s a scene at the janitor’s closet

they talk about the near side war a bit

before entering 18f it’s time to check out those memories. Sakura has some issues with it but i assume it’s hakuno’s so it’s fine

and then here’s a lot of the truth about BB and sakura

sakura calls briefly and says please don’t spare melt (i will spare melt)

after getting gil’s origin forme, there’s a scene in the infirmary

there’s a new scene before starting the last chapter

sakura’s hair is fully white now

I’ve collected all of BB’s SGs this time so there’s no need for sakura to dissolve the wall herself, probably

there’s a new option this time