The Ordeal Stall—ahem, I mean, Ordeal Cash/Grab—ugh, still not right—Ordeal Call—yes yes, that’s right. Anyway, the Ordeal Call era is now officially here for NA. Meanwhile, the JP server is headed into the end-game for Part 2. What happens after that? Only Type-Moon knows.
⚠ Warning: Spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.
My interpretation: Ordeal Call I looked like a call-back to Fate/Stay night: Heaven’s Feel with a tossing of Fate/Zero thrown in for good measure. It was a combination of seeing Zokken’s wrinkly ass and those damned worms; the fight against Caster’s giant, creepy monster; Medusa, and finally the Sakurafaces.
Table of Contents
Thoughts on Story
This version of Caster is the actual Bluebeard from the fairytale by Charles Perrault, not Gilles de Rais from Fate/Zero. The only link between Bluebeard and de Rais is that his story may have served as inspiration for the Bluebeard fairytale. Apparently, that tenuous link is still enough for The Throne of Heroes to list Bluebeard as an Alter Ego of Gilles de Rais.
I brought out Jalter to crit his bug-eyed ass back to The Throne—though in hindsight, I did have better Servants suited for the job, and probably should have used them (Bazett, Sitonai, Draco, etc) instead. However, something about Caster pissed me off enough that I wanted to see him get impaled by Jalter’s Noble Phantasm 😂
Of course, he wasn’t gone even after that. We end up with a monster that looked like Lovecraftian horror with the color-scheme of the erect genitalia of a dog. I’m trying to eat my breakfast during the story chapters that featured that monster and had to stop because I lost my appetite a few times. When did I turn into such a wuss?
Second Fight: Saber Medusa
Saber Medusa may have been introduced as banner-bait (Mystic Eyes Symfony next month) but I do love some of the lightly hinted at origins as a monster—specifically the legend that involved Poseidon’s rape and Athena’s punishment, although it seems like the writers leaned more into the “punishment-as-protection” angle of the myth, instead of the darker variants.
After Saber was removed from the field is when the story started being its own story instead of a call-out to previous Fate works, and holy hell—I get people ripped on Durga[1] for being another Sakuraface but it looks to me like the writers really did their homework here. Durga—without the Kali enhancements—was pretty overpowered as a divinity. I used my trusty God-killer, Scathach, for those rounds. Later on, I brought in Draco with double-Castoria.
I had a lot more to say about this chapter but it was the first story chapter post Lostbelt 7 that I’ve played and to be honest, it was kind of underwhelming.