Fate/Samurai Remnant

Fate/Samurai Remnant was provided by Koei Tecmo for review. Thank you!

Ever since I can remember, Koei Tecmo has been great at creating some fun and addicting experiences that come from plowing through thousands of enemies on a battlefield. It's something I have personally enjoyed with their Musou series in games like Dynasty Warriors and One Piece Pirate Warriors. While these games do have some RPG elements, I did have a longing for a more in-depth RPG experience that feels more refined in those elements than before. What I didn't know is that I would have that game in Fate/Samurai Remnant.

Like other Musou games, the general combat systems are very similar. You will run around a field and battle groups of enemies with large swinging attacks. You have regular and strong attacks, which you can combine into different flashy combos. Then, we have the differences. Fate/Samurai Remnant isn't as grand, instead opting for smaller areas with around 15-20 enemies at a time, with more combat options. There is more emphasis on dodging, using magic, and utilizing your partner (Servant).

Outside combat, you will travel to different villages, completing quests, leveling up you and your servants, filling out skill trees, maintaining your weapons for extra experience, and customizing your weapon's components to increase stats. There is a much tighter focus on the RPG elements and making your character, Miyamoto Iori, as powerful as possible. You will also have a chance to upgrade different elements of the game through the workshop, including reducing shop prices and unlocking new features.

Fate/Samurai Remnant is a wonderful balance of the Musou gameplay with a more focused RPG experience and an interesting story along with it. You are forced to participate in a ritual that pits you and 6 others against each other, and the winner will get their wish granted. And experiencing this all on the Steam Deck is quite wonderful overall.

Fate/Samurai Remnant - Steam Deck Performance

Fate/Samurai Remnant is an interesting game when it comes to performance. Upon opening the game for the first time, you have an option to choose Performance or Graphics when it comes to the game's settings. You will need to choose Graphics here since choosing Performance will slow the game down if it runs anywhere under 120 FPS.

First, the game, at higher quality settings, can slow down in a lot of areas. The framerate on MangoHUD shows it is consistent, but it is clear there are slowdowns. Oddly enough, the Low-quality preset fixes this and keeps the game looking really nice, especially with the shadows.

Recommended Build

Then, I wanted to see how low I could push the battery while the game still felt smooth and enjoyable to play. I ended up with a 40 FPS limit and TDP limit of 8. Both of these kept the game feeling smoother than 30 while retaining as much battery as it possibly could. I also felt this was the best way to play, finding a balance between smoothness and battery while still being stable and enjoyable.

Framerate Build

After my testing, I came to the conclusion that, while it can get close, the game can't hit 60 FPS stable. There are too many moments where the game will dip a bit, and the battery drain will spike. But, with a TDP limit of 11, we can have a framerate limit of 50. Throughout fights, the framerate will stay consistent with battery drain below 20W. The only times I have seen it dip a little below would be during some intense cutscenes, but otherwise, there was no issue!

Accessibility

With Fate/Samurai Remnant, we have many different settings to change. We can toggle vibration and control assist, change display and subtitle elements, turn on/off blood, increase text speed, change sound settings, and configure camera movement and whether it's inverted or not.

The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions but has controller and cloud save support. If you have SteamOS 3.5, you can set the Window mode to "Windowed" and stretch the screen so it fills the entirety of the Deck's real-estate:

Conclusion

Fate/Samurai Remnant is a wonderful combination of a Musou game with RPG elements. It takes the great combat and action from the Warriors games and sprinkles in some nice progression elements with an interesting story. I fell in love with the game the more I played, making it extremely hard to put down as I found myself consistently getting stronger. And playing this on the Steam Deck is quite easy to do with the low preset, while it still looked great. This is definitely a wonderful game to play on-the-go!

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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