Fate/Stay Night is a visual novel. By that, it’s not so much as a game you play as a game you read, pressing a single button every now and again to advance the text and watching pretty pictures go by in the background.

That said, this has easily been one of the more interesting games I’ve read. Rather than being a simple corny love story, as titles in the visual novel genre tend to be, Fate/Stay Night is the story of a war between seven Magi (singular “magus”) and their summoned Servants for the right to an artifact that can grant wishes. A little cliche, to be sure, but once the action picks up it grabs you and runs. It’s one of the more engaging, twisting plots I’ve seen and the game is much more enjoyable for it.

That said, I still can’t see myself sitting at a computer for hours reading a game, although if it were published in true book form I’d easily plop down $26 for a hardcover edition.

I’ve heard that Fate/Stay Night’s writer is pretty bad, but given the writing in Insani’s patch for the game’s demo, you wouldn’t know it. This was very well done in all respects. Two thumbs up!

Download can be found here: http://www.insani.org/fate.html

• DEMO VERSION ONLY