Fate/Grand Order: Shinsei Entaku Ryouiki Camelot 1 - Wandering; Agateram

Hi. This time I’m actually reviewing something FGO related, so I’m gonna get this out of the way at the very start. Fate/Grand Order is a really deep and riveting story of journey to find and take back the future of humanity. I find the game’s narrative as a whole to be rather moving, so I genuinely believe that you are doing yourself and this franchise a huge disservice if you have watched or plan to watch this movie or the Babylonia anime without having at least played the game up to that point in the story. People wouldn’t suggest to others to watch the ... Half Blood Prince movie as an introduction to the entirety of Harry Potter, or to watch the Force Awakens as one’s first Star Wars movie, or to start watching The Office from season 7. It’s no different for Fate/Grand Order. Camelot is the 6th singularity of the first arc of FGO, and Babylonia is the 7th. There is no good reason to watch these adaptations without having played the game up to that point. If you haven’t played Fate/Grand Order, then leave; and if you don’t ever intend to, then don’t come back.

This is the final warning for those who haven’t played FGO. I will be assuming from this point forward that you’ve completed the first arc of FGO, because as I already previously stated, there is no point in watching these adaptations without having played the game in full. Thus, there is no reason to continue reading this review if you have no intention of playing FGO; so, either get lost, or go install the game and get grinding.

Alright, now it’s just us cultured Masters. At first, I didn’t know what to think of this movie after finishing it for the first time. Honestly, I was just a little confused because a lot of events that happened in the movie didn’t line up with what I remembered from Camelot. So, I went over to My Room and delved into the Materials section and reread the entirety of Camelot up to the point the movie ended. And then I rewatched the whole movie again. This is the reason for the whole rant in the first paragraph, because simply put, if an FGO player like me needed to revisit the original Camelot story to digest the movie, how lost would someone be if they had no idea what FGO was in the first place?

On a side note, if you wanna add me, I have Skadi and Waver available as supports and I’ve grailed Nero, caster Nero, Ereshkigal, Illya, Kuro, and Miyu to lvl 100 for those that want to use them. You can add me (and feed me friend points): 917580838

Okay that’s enough account shilling, time to get to the review. After rereading the Camelot story and rewatching the movie, I conclude that this first Camelot movie was underwhelming because it deviated too much from the original story, and because it was far less entertaining and less impressive than the Babylonia anime. This doesn’t mean it was an awful or bad movie, but it simply didn’t live up to my expectations as an avid fan of FGO who witnessed the raw production value put into the Babylonia anime and who wanted the same type of passion to be put into the other contender the for the most interesting singularity of the first arc, Camelot.

I’ll first talk about how the movie differed from the in-game story and why I feel those differences are problematic. During the in-game story, we rayshift into the desert where we very quickly run into Hundred Face Hassan and her group of mountain people abducting Nitocris. After saving Nitocris, she misinterprets the situation thinking that we are the kidnappers and she attacks us with a sphinx. Bedivere happens to be in the area and saves us, before going off into the desert again. After working through the misunderstandings with Nitocris, we are led to Ramesseum Tentyris and have an audience with Ozymandias. Ozy really isn’t pleased with how little awareness we have of this singularity and essentially exiles us from his domain, telling us to go see the Holy City for ourselves. Using the resources Ozy gave us, Da Vinci creates the desert vehicle and we go off to the Holy City where the “haha funny buster gorilla man at the wailing wall” happens and we flee to the mountain villages. During the movie story, we are already riding the desert vehicle. Then, we suddenly cut to this shot in a village where Arash and Bedivere are chatting and Da Vinci joins in to learn about the Holy City. Bedivere quickly leaves after being told what he wants to know and runs into the Master with Mash when he has an altercation with Rushd’s mom. This is where we go off to the Holy City for the “haha funny buster gorilla man at the wailing wall” and instead flee back towards the desert into Ozy’s domain. We’re intercepted by Nitocris and escorted to Ramesseum Tentyris (why would she escort us when we have two people dressed like Knights of the Round Table with us and we have done nothing to gain her trust?) to have an audience with Ozymandias. Ozy once again banishes us from his Egypt, but orders Sanzang (who for some reason is serving him when that doesn’t happen at all in the game?) to go with us. By some random stroke of luck we find a map etched in the gem from the pendant Rushd gives us and somehow understand that we should go into the mountains. After this part, not much differs between the game’s story and the movie’s story other than that the movie’s story omits a bunch of other (important) stuff. So the main difference at this point between the game’s story and the movie’s story is that the movie has us go to Camelot before Egypt. This really skews a lot of the interactions we’re supposed to have with some characters and really makes the narrative proceed unnaturally. By going to Egypt first, our correspondence with Ozy makes more sense because we just arrived at the singularity and don’t have much of an idea of what is going on. But since we are guests to his temple because we saved his subordinate Nitocris from the bandits, we are able to interact with him more boldly and coax him to share information about the singularity. With the movie, the interaction with Ozy is placed under a different light. We’re refugees hunted by the knights of the Holy City, forced to grovel and plead for shelter in his domain. It also just doesn’t make sense why Nitocris escorted us to Ozy’s temple in the first place, because we didn’t save her like we did in the game, and we have Bedivere with us in the movie who unmistakably is dressed as a Knight of the Round Table. At that point we already understand that the Lion King is the source of the singularity, yet for some reason Ritsuka tells Ozy that “he doesn’t know what to do.” This ignorance is excusable in the game’s version of events because we just arrived in the singularity and don’t understand the situation yet, but in the movie’s version of events this just makes Ritsuka look really cowardly and dumb. There is a similar discrepancy when it comes to Bedivere, since we first meet him in the desert when he saves us from the sphinx according to the game. But with the movie we’re somehow already zooming through the desert in Da Vinci’s vehicle (that we didn’t procure any resources to make), so don’t have a chance to encounter Bedivere in the desert. The thing is, though, we must meet Bedivere at least once before the encounter with Gawain because the narrative needs to establish that he recognizes Mash’s armor. So the movie kinda puts in this really distasteful scene where Bedivere shoves aside Rushd’s mother after she begs to him for food, and we catch her before she is slammed into the ground. Bedivere is probably lore-wise the most loyal, benevolent, and kind-hearted knight of any of King Arthur’s subordinates, so the movie storywriter forcing this scene in to cover their asses for reversing the Egypt/Camelot order really gets on my nerves. Of all the ways to introduce Bedivere to the Master and Mash, they chose something like this. It doesn’t even make sense either because as the movie goes on everyone is talking about how Bedivere is so kindhearted and loyal, not even batting an eye about how he shoved aside a homeless widow when we first meet him. And then there’s Sanzang, where they don’t even cover how she used to serve the Round Table and parted ways, but in the movie they still keep in that scene about Agravain inviting her to return to them even though they never discussed how she left in the first place. For whatever reason Sanzang ends up serving Ozy which absolutely doesn’t happen in the game and since Ozy has her accompany you, she joins way earlier than in the game. This usually shouldn’t be a problem, except Sanzang is really out of character because, since she’s not supposed to be with you yet, there’s really nothing for her to do. Instead of improvising new scenarios to ease her into the group as a companion and have her contribute, the storywriter for the movie just had her kinda stand there like a scarecrow. Sanzang pretty much does absolutely nothing until we reach the prison to rescue Serenity which, go figure, is ACTUALLY when she’s supposed to join the party. If this is the case, it really bewilders me why the movie writer went out of their way to change the script from the game if they’re just gonna have Sanzang tag along so unnaturally by having her join super early. Going to Camelot before Egypt also means that Da Vinci "dies" way earlier in the narrative. She’s supposed to accompany us when we meet Ozy, and this opens up the amusing interaction where Ozy declares that he desires her as his concubine but the movie’s scenario doesn’t allow for that. Da Vinci only ever accompanies us in person for the Camelot singularity, so I really don’t understand the thought process behind changing the story in a way that makes her die earlier and gives her even less spotlight. We’ve talked about Ozymandias, Bedivere, Sanzang, and Da Vinci so far, so now let’s address the two elephants in the room. The two characters most affected by the movie’s changes from the game are Hundred Face and Touta, because THEY’RE NOT IN THE MOVIE. We missed out on Hundred Face at the beginning of the narrative because the movie reversed the order in which we went to Egypt and Camelot, but when the west mountain village is attacked, it’s too late to go help them and Serenity is the leader of that village instead of Hundred Face. This means the movie skips out on the legendary scene where Arash shoots us from his bow to go save west village and Hundred Face is just cut out entirely. The movie also skips Touta, which is an absolute travesty, because his master-pupil interactions with Sanzang and archer-bro-moments with Arash are some of the best scenes in the entire singularity. Touta’s absence honestly caused both Sanzang and Arash’s characters to fall apart because their relationship to Touta was just so essential to the role they played during the singularity. I was so excited to see Sanzang blast through the walls of Camelot with her buddha palm, but now that I know that Touta won’t be there, I’m already aware that I’ll be disappointed by that part before it even airs. Let’s not forget to mention that all of the mountain villages are impoverished and would’ve otherwise starved without Touta’s Noble Phantasm. There is one final difference this whole “going to Camelot before Egypt” scenario creates that really gets on my nerves, and that’s how we end up going to the mountain village. In the game, we go to Egypt first and get exiled by Ozy, then go to Camelot and get chased away by Gawain, and then we flee to the mountains at the suggestion of some of the refugees we saved. Since the movie has us go to Camelot first, we end up fleeing to Egypt next where we are denied refuge by Ozymandias, and we end up in the desert with no place to go. This point in the movie is really awkward, because with how the narrative proceeded in the movie, the group really has no leads on where to go and what to do. So the movie director pulls some scenario out of his ass where Rushd HAPPENS to give you some pendant and the sun HAPPENS to shine in just the right way such that it reveals a pattern engraved in the pendant and it HAPPENS to be a readable map with directions to the mountain villages. Instead of, you know, contacting Chaldea which has Romani to consult with, the Trismegistus Spiritron Calculation Engine, and the Near-Future Observation Lens Sheba, it makes soooooooooo much more sense to rely on this kid and some random pendant. If it wasn’t already blatantly obvious, I think the writing in this movie is awful, and it is made even worse considering there was already a parent story to simply copy into movie format. Instead, they took the liberty of making changes to the game’s story and miraculously only made the narrative worse with every change they made.

That section took a whole lot longer than I thought it would, but that simply shows how much worse the movie’s narrative was than the original game’s. This section will discuss the Camelot movie’s differences with the Babylonia anime, comparing them both as adaptations of FGO’s two most exciting singularities. If the previous section was mostly about the poor writing in the Camelot movie, this section will address the subpar animation quality of the movie. The entire reason that we, as fans of Fate/Grand Order, want to see anime adaptations of the game’s story chapters is mainly to see the majesty of the game’s story come to life on screen. For example, the first thing I thought about back when the Babylonia anime was announced was that I wanted to see Merlin get attacked by Fou. It’s a completely silly scene with no narrative significance, but that’s the kind of thing that we look forward to in these anime adaptations. We want see our favorite interactions and Noble Phantasms fully played out, as grand as it was in our imaginations. I don’t think the Camelot movie delivered on that. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the animation was bad. But this is the Fate franchise we’re talking about here. Every single anime adaptation from this series is filled to the brim with stunning scenes and dynamic shots... until now. It’s a shame to say this, but the Camelot movie had BY FAR the worst animation of anything Fate related, period. I’ve read some other reviews here saying that the animation was gorgeous or whatever, and all I can say is, do you have eyes? Did you watch the Babylonia anime, or even anything Fate related ever? I don’t know how anyone can watch the likes of Unlimited Blade Works, any of the Heaven’s Feel movies, and the Babylonia anime, and still say that Camelot with its CGI villagers looks good. Within the first 10 minutes of the movie we see this horrendous rendering of CGI townspeople that looked like they came straight out of the 2016 Berserk anime adaptation to burn holes into my eyes at 5 frames per second. Just simply comparing Uruk in the Babylonia anime to the desert city in the Camelot movie is enough to demonstrate the raw difference in animation quality. The low quality, robotic CGI in Camelot made me feel like the city was overrun by zombies that consistently moved at 5 frames per second. Let me remind everyone that this is a movie, which typically means the animation quality should be more impressive than an anime that airs on television. “Should” being the key word here, because it’s not just the horrendous CG during the initial segment at the desert city that stands out. The combat scenes in the Camelot movie were really lackluster, which is an absolute shame considering the notoriety of Camelot’s difficulty spike for FGO’s gameplay. The problem with nearly every fight in the movie was that it felt like it was all staged, as if the characters were only pretending to fight with each other. This is because the studio doing the animation abused screen cuts, which means they’d animate the start of a certain action, and then cut to the result of said action, having our brains fill in the gap. For example, the majority of the time a sword is swung in this movie, we’d see the swordsman wind up for the swing and then cut straight to where the sword made impact at the end of the swing. We barely ever see an entire sword swing animated from start to finish, which is really dishonest of the studio because the very reason why we want chapters of the game animated is to see these things in full motion. This kind of cheap technique is frequently used when the animators are either untalented, underfunded, or both. Although even the best works of animation use screen cuts occasionally, abusing it for every single fight scene is a clear sign of lazy animation. Screen cuts make attacks feel like they have less weight behind them, and constantly changing perspective in the middle of a fight scene takes away a lot of the tension. Plus, a lot of the fights are shot from super zoomed in perspectives so we don’t get a good view of what’s going on. This is yet another effort by the studio to cut animation expenditure because if the screen is more zoomed in, then there’s less to animate (conversely there’s also less for us to see). I’ve just simply never seen any other Fate animation make this many obvious efforts to try and skimp on animation quality, and it really makes the Camelot movie stand out as subpar compared to every other Fate animation. The best animated fight scene in this movie was probably Mordred vs Bedivere, but even then the fight was full of screen cuts and any fight involving Mordred in the Apocrypha animation was still better animated than Camelot. It’s just really such a letdown with all the wasted potential, because the boss fights in Camelot were so difficult and the game’s narrative made them look so powerful. The Fate franchise is so good at hyping up the power of their characters by animating a beautiful Noble Phantasm or orchestrating a battle scene that’ll make your hair stand on end, but instead we get stuff like Tristan standing in place plucking at his bow as Mash slowly marches toward him and Mordred letting Bedivere jog towards her and hit her point blank with Airgetlam. The animation as a whole in this Camelot movie just lacked so much impact compared to when Ushiwakamaru used her Noble Phantasm against Gorgon, or when Ishtar used her’s against Tiamat. Even outside of the battle scenes, a lot of the Camelot movie were just panning still shots of backgrounds. These shots felt out of place the entire movie because the backgrounds they showed weren’t even that pretty, and it’s not like they used the downtime for any narrating exposition explaining what was going on. Exposition would be so easy to do in this context because a lot of the game is simply Romani explaining something through the comms for the player, but they simply let these still shots play out with music in the background. Sometimes these still shots are really oddly framed, like there’s a shot when we’re climbing up to Ozy’s throne room where most of the background is blocked by the walls on either side of the stairs and there’s another shot that oddly lingers on a mountainside with no music or movement whatsoever. It took me 3 rewatches to finally notice three heads (Ritsuka, Mash, and Bedivere) bobbing up over part of the mountain as the party reaches the top, but the shot lasts for so long and nothing happens for the majority of it that it feels just so awkward.

Most of the Camelot movie is exactly like this, where there’s just something off about the story, or the animation, or the characters in every single scene that it felt like the complete opposite of why I wanted a Camelot adaptation in the first place. The movie wasn’t necessarily bad, but there was absolutely nothing about it that was super enjoyable or impressive. It felt like less of a celebration of the fandom like the Babylonia anime was, and more like a scheme to produce something that can pass as the Camelot adaptation in the quickest, cheapest way possible in order to sell the movie tickets. One thing that I have not addressed is the time constraints, given that the entirety of the Camelot singularity needed to fit into two 1.5 hour movies which is equivalent to roughly 9 anime episodes. For reference, the Babylonia anime was 21 episodes long. While this is a valid defense for the movie, this doesn’t excuse the weird things like switching the order of the events and having lazy animation. Plus, as I mentioned before, the Camelot movie had plenty of these panning background shots with music playing over it that really served no purpose whatsoever other than filling up time. Cutting all of these scenes out would create up to 10-20 minutes of screen time that could then be used to include more important things, maybe like ACTUALLY putting all the Camelot servants in the movie. Ultimately, it doesn’t even come down to the time they had to work with, or how much money they had to throw at a pretty fight scene. It comes down to the passion put into producing the anime, which the movie obviously lacked. The single best example I can provide for this is the 40 second cameo of the Camelot singularity that was featured in episode 0 of the Babylonia anime. Sanzang’s short narration during that clip was more in line with her character than anything she did during the entire Camelot movie, and additionally that clip managed to show off ALL of the characters from the singularity (including Hundred Face and Touta) in the infamous village feast scene that the movie ever so kindly left out. Those 40 seconds were more genuine of an adaptation of Camelot than this entire movie was, which perfectly tops off how I feel about Fate/Grand Order: Shinsei Entaku Ryouiki Camelot 1 - Wandering; Agateram.

I don't know what to say. It is a very disappointing film.
It's both bad as a movie and as an adaptation.

The story is very rush yet slow at the same time. The dialogues of the characters aren't fleshed out and they talk as if they've already have years of friendship when they all just met for awhile.
In the game, the character interactions is one of the best things and easily one of the game's highlights. Here, they butchered it with superficial dialogues that doesn't contribute to sh*t.
With the slow parts, I'm talking about the dead spaces in the movie where it can be easily removed ... and get replaced by more fleshed out conversations.
The plot itself is great, just the execution and the way the adaptation handles it makes it pretty bad.

The characters for me is pretty hard to rate, because as a FGO player, I am biased to them. I love all of the cast, but do I think they were handled well in this film? Absolutely not. Hence the low score.

The animation is good. It isn't exceptional by any means. There are times where the animation doesn't portray what the game is supposed to be. Like Mordred for example. To give you an insight on what is she supposed to be based on the game, she's supposed to be like Saber Alter from Heaven's Feel who spams laser beams every strike she makes.
Also, the art isn't really consistent enough. It's unfortunate since this is one of the best-looking NON-UFOTABLE movies that I've seen.

The music is pretty good. The OST and the ED theme is surprisingly decent, just the way they are implemented in each scenes that makes them not stand out imo.

Overall, it's a mix-bag of a movie. If you're a diehard fan of Fate like me, then you'd be disappointed. Or even if you're just an anime-only Fate fan, you wouldn't be satisfied by this movie.

*Please note that this review will have minor spoilers for the FGO game in Camelot, not the movie for the first part of the review.

"This was the most 6/10 movie I've ever watched in my life lol" was the first thought I had when leaving the Cinema, and it basically summarizes my entire review in the simplest manner.

'Fate / Grand Order: Shinsei Entaku Ryouiki Camelot 1' is the first part of a two-part movie featuring our 'Master' Fujimaru Ritsuka with his companions or 'servants' like Mash Kyrielight, and their journey to restore the world from the 'King of mages', Solomon. In which, they find themselves ... in the 'Holy Land' located around Jerusalem as their sixth mission to save humanity.

Art – 8/10
It was actually quite nice, way better than what I had originally expected after looking at the trailers and overall score of Camelot which was at the time "6.80", so it gave me quite a positive surprise when watching the film. An example of this would be during reminiscence scenes, the art style changes to a more "Painting-esque" style. Almost like looking at a series of historical art depicting actual history played in a smooth and seamless manner. I personally thought that those scenes were quite cool.

Animation – 7.3/10
For the most part the animation was pretty nice, nothing overtly worth mentioning, so nothing amazing and nothing eye rotting. However, one of the reasons being that a lot of scenes of conflict were cut out, like the battles with Cursed arm, the infamous sphinx fight, the fight with Ozymandias etc. So a little bit of cop out, but I can kind of understand since time restraint and all but can't help feeling a bit of disappointment. However, there are certain time where the animation is pretty "hmmm" which I will go into more detail in the spoiler part of the review.

Sound and Music – 9.4/10
The sound effects and background music of this film are actually very good, capable of making the viewer quite immersed in the film. If the situation called for a more dramatic track it does so and if a more melodramatic track is needed, it does so again appropriately. One particular thing I would like to especially point out, from my experience, during a 'rain scene'. For a moment, I actually thought that it was raining outside, but then the thought of "Wait, I'm in a cinema inside a big mall, how can I hear rain?" Then it hit me. That was a pleasant realisation. Next, we have another amazing song from DAVINCI CHAN. 独白 or "Dokuhaku/Monologue" by Sakamoto Maaya which arguably can be said to be the best part of the film not going to lie, in my opinion that is.

Characters – 7/10
As I am an active FGO player, I love the seeing the characters from the game finally being animated seeing them moving, living and breathing is a great feeling. That being said however, because they are in a movie, they're not being used to their fullest potential I feel, with either some characters being outright cut out, like Tawara Touta and Hundred Personas. Some characters are just in and out, showing themselves for brief moments at a time and then focus on them is lost, which was quite a bit of a disappointment once again.

Story – 4.7/10
To be perfectly honest, the story is the Achilles heel of this movie, a lot of scenes were pretty rushed and quite a bit was removed, so any build up and all that good stuff is just kind of eh. Instead of a journey, it just feels like a linear path instead. The order of events was also shuffled around for kind of no reason, guess they wanted their own personal touches, but to me it was just a bit confusing since I completed Camelot in the game a year ago. It also ends in a very weird and anticlimactic way that leaves the audience with a thought of "Eh? That's it?", so that's quite a big negative point there.

Overall – 6/10
Honestly, because my country wasn't the first to receive this film, I had an insight on how the overall film would be from seeing the reactions of people who watched it before me, of which were pretty negative, so I went in with like a 5/10 mindset, but because of that, I actually quite enjoyed myself to a certain extent as it wasn't as bad as I had originally thought it would be, so that was nice. Can't say the same for the other two people I was with tho xD.

THE FOLLOWING WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE GAME UP TO SOLOMON AND THE MOVIE









still here? Aight, here we go.




Firstly, the scene with Gawain was actually pretty cool, seeing him using his blessing of the sun and overpowering absolutely everyone, especially when he turns that part of the world sunny even though it's in the middle of the night but the murder of the boy's mother could have done with a bit more impact, it was like partly forgotten almost, mash's "Lord Chaldeas" was pretty cool tho as well as Davinci fisting the door down and the burning corpses of the people not chosen.

Secondly, they could've shown Davinci more, seeing that it's her first time out in a Singularity she just kind of upped and left to "Die" which was again kind of a disappointment.

Thirdly, they didn't fight Nitocris, the sphinx or Oxymandias, here I was waiting for a "Dajaku! Dajaku!" but Nito and Mash bath scene ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) very nais. But I'm still salty lol.

Fourth, considering that Cursed arm was supposed to protect this settlement he was very trusting of the "Outsiders" extremely quickly contrary to him in the game which made more sense, considering his heavy responsibility.

Fifth, the fight with Tristan was very anticlimactic, with Tristan being like a stationary aim-bot, not moving a single step and being taken down with a single strike that he could've most likely avoided. That was a bit kind of a turn off for me.

Sixth, "STELLAAAAAA!!!!" Was extremely disappointing, probably my most anticipated part of this film, was seeing Arash's NP. I was expecting an epic shot of an archer's last desperation, but what we got was a melodramatic normal shot that blew up…. a bit… yep a small bit. That was f****** anticlimactic as f***. I get that they were probably trying to make it seem like a sad moment but god damn, they didn't even accomplish that, that arrow was the embodiment of disappointment. It was akin to "I fart in your general direction". This was a massive disappointment especially since after the animation update, it looks so good in the game. It didn't even show him die, he just got forgotten and Rhongominiad went "Welp guess I'll go home." And then the movie ends.

Lastly, a lot of interaction between the characters were cut out which is a bit understandable but damn. It really made the characters kind of mediocre which is sad, since I love Fate servants.

Tl;dr:
It's fine. Visuals aren't great for being a movie, (Aside from literally the last few scenes of it.) but the VA cast is amazing.
I haven't read/played FGO and with that in mind, the story and characters were meh.
If you want to know a summary of what happens in this arc of the FGO story, then it's an alright watch; otherwise just play the game or a playthrough if you're really that interested.

Story: 6/10
Very interesting and seems cool... BUT the movie felt very rushed and it shows with how fast the story was progressing.
You've barely seen/experienced an area or event and before you know it, the ... movie's already in the next. Other than that, it's cool, as is par with Fate/ in general, so if you like Fate/ it's casually good enough.

Art: 6/10
Just alright, like, it's okay. Not as good as I hoped it would be.
If I could compare it to something, it's like the Deen movie adaptation of UBW but more modern.
Definitely missing that 'movie quality' feel EXCEPT the last few scenes; that actually caught my eye and deserves some praise. It was beautiful.

Sound: 5/10
Let's start with the best of the sound side which is the VA cast and their work execution. The movie is filled with a good number of VAs you know and love which did all their work exceptionally. I can personally say they're the best part of the movie in general.
Now, on everything else; tbh, I don't even remember most of the soundtrack. Sfx were fine, worked as intended, nothing wrong but that's it. Nothing to write home about.

Character: 4/10
The worst part of the movie. You see most of the cast for 3 minutes and that's all the development they get. Basically nothing. Benivere's the main focus and even he didn't get nearly enough development for me to care much. In the end, it's just enough to for me to see their character designs at least and know in general what they're about.

Enjoyment: 6/10
As an avid Fate fan, it was fine. There was nothing spectacular about it but it's... something. At the very least I enjoyed it enough to not just dismiss it.

Overall: 6/10
Seriously, all I can say is it's good enough to scratch that Fate/ itch.
If I would rank it vs all the Fate/ Anime, it'd definitely be ranked on the lower half. Not visual enough vs Apocrypha or even Kaleid but not as mediocre as Deen F/SN.

Well gonna summarize the feelings, thoughts and overall experience that i had after watched this movie, and this goes without actually know the original material in which its adapted (like i always do i only watch the animated adaptations), so this its coming from the prespective of someone who doesnt knows how far this adaptations its faithful to the original source material.

Even then the series could or not being completly truthful to the original (which i dont know) , that its not excuse to actually have an decent animated series with good characters and story overall. and there are more than enought examples of ... this in another series.

In this case i dont gonna to separate the good and bad things that under my opinion were of this movie just because its gonna be really an really short explanation of it.

Now one of the firts problems with not being the case only of this movie but in general of anime movies its that duration itselft its too short to actually give us an compelling and well narrated story, this format on most of the cases that i can think (with some exceptions) are one of the main problems of poor adaptations and really rushed and fast paced development with many plot holes in it and ending with characters that we cannot symphatize or even undertand the intentions or ambitoins of them because of how bad are portrayed. Even knowing that this its one of the two part of the movies that conform this story , the total of both of them combined its just 3 hours which in most of the cases its not enought deliver and decent and emotive story well narrated, this should have been released (like most of the movies adaptation that i watched ) in an format of tv series, so in that way they could have more time to actually expand on the characters and their ambitions as well as the story, because this actually its standout from the begginig with how actually unfold the events and the actions of the characters like with bedivere in a way really erratic and hurried.
The animation look really good and the scenaries are beautiful, the settings are freaking awesome and have an good ost with one or two track that to me at least were exceling from the rest, really well despicted the backgrounds overall.
The problem here is there are two or three events in the movie as we move forward were our protagonist with bedivere face the knights of the round table and these moments felt really rushed and take us out of context with dont even showing us all the battle as well as actually taking us from a second to another to another setting or objective without actually being closing the previous one that was taking place just a couple of second before, there is this kind of lack of conexion and cohesion with the differents events and also an really dissapointing waste of many characters that would be insteresting to deeph in that were dischardged too fast just for the sake to actually fit in those hour an half of the movie.
Leaving maybe the protagonist and the girl (which to me at least dont seem nothign outstading and are just the cclasic architype that we haves seen many times) there were many interesting characters that with how actually begings the movie it get us excited us wanting to know more about them, bedivere,gawaiin,ozymandias,etc but the movie didn make justice to what could end up being really good and interesting characters.
It had one or two moments that were pretty good but this format its not good to adapt this kind of stories, it bassicly impossible to fit everything in just mere hour an half, it did make some things good from my perspective in how realated some past of bedivere for example or how actually started, or how well depicted the settings were, but many things wasted.


RESUME

The movie follows an structure a little to convenient for the sake of being an movie which actually its gonna make us in early stages of the movie realize that were many things bad executed or wasted , i mean not everything was bad, but i keep insisting that if this could turned up being an series could be in the level of something really close to fate/zero and possibly at the same lv of fate unlimited blade works. If you can forget many of the things that sins and enjoy the overall the few things that had its could reccomend it to you, this its just my review for the part 1 , for what i could see the second part looks more promising so althought this might not be really good, you could give this one the go pass so it might redeem in the second part possibly giving us an decent ending.

quick summary as a fgo player:

for ppl who played the game: its cutting and altering too much to be enjoyable.

for ppl who havent played the game: its cutting too quick from scene to scene to keep up with the already meh story and the lack of exposition isnt helping much either.

all in all its a watchable movie, but nothing to really look forward to. its pretty much evident that the movie is too short with its 1hr and smth runtime and being split into only 2 parts. there are some very obv not so good cgi scenes in the movie as well but all in ... all its visually pretty acceptable.

I want to get a few things out of the way before I give my review of this movie.

a) I've watched every anime release up to this point in the Fate series;
b) I have never played the game and it's not really in my plans to do so.


Having said that, let's begin the review!

Animation:
1) the visuals are pretty
... 2) I like the character design
3) comparing the action/fight scenes of previous fate series, I feel this movie didn't have the same treatment. If you compare them to "regular" shows, you'll notice this movie had superior animation but other Fate films have way better looking fights.


Sound:
1) the soundtrack is very Fate-like so if you have enjoyed it so far, you'll have no complaints
2) I don't think the new characters fit their seiyuus. I'm not saying the voice actors are bad (in fact I like them and their work), I'm saying that different voices would fit them better
3) sometimes the soundtrack and sound effects are too loud compared to dialog


Story and characters:
1) This movie doesn't offer many chances for Ritsuka and Mash to develop their bond. In fact, this film is all about the plot and nothing else except the plot
2) I find the new characters incredibly generic and not very engaging. The story itself didn't grab me either.


In conclusion, it's one of those movies where as a Fate fan, you will tell yourself to watch it but then again it's also something to watch when you're bored because if you go into this expecting something with the quality of Unlimited Blade Works, you're going to be extremely disappointed.

It's a 6/10 from me.

As I sit down to write a review of this movie, the first thought that popped into my head is that the weirdly off-kilter and extreme reaction of what I would presume to be the Fate community is perhaps more fascinating and noteworthy than the movie itself. I could offer a tl;dr version of a review by just saying, eh, it's fine, but a notable step down from Babylonia. However, a lot of what I've seen out there prompted me to write something more substantial.

Outside of Carnival Phantasm and Zero, Babylonia was interestingly enough one of my favorite Fate anime entries in spite of not ... being as familiar with the gacha's story as many when I first saw it. So I went into this movie with higher expectations than I probably should have for a movie based off a gacha story. Babylonia perhaps benefited from being in a longer television format and thus being able to drop more action sequences early on to break up long stretches of plot development. But with that said, I don't necessarily find that to be Camelot's problem.

Rather, Camelot feels like it suffers from its incredibly brief 90 minute runtime. The movie drops a lot of plot on the viewer in a pretty rapid fashion, and while it's not impossible for a newcomer to follow, it's certainly not the easiest. That said, again I don't feel it's any worse than just about any other Fate entry in this regard, but it certainly needed at least another 15 minutes worth of runtime to better pace itself and to let certain sequences breath. In addition, it was always going to suffer with viewers coming to it from outside the gacha since sequentially it comes before Babylonia, which in turn tried to summarize 5 Singularities worth of story in under ten minutes. I would definitely recommend starting with Babylonia before seeing this for those unfamiliar with the gacha's story.

One can particularly observe this effect on the movie's incredibly brief action sequences. For a series many look to for creative big-budget action sequences, there really isn't much of note in this movie that will scratch that particular itch. In addition, while I won't say the animation looks cheap, it definitely lacks a certain fluidity, especially while in motion, compared to Babylonia. I think in part they wanted the action to feel weightier than Babylonia due to the more serious tone of the story, but there are ways to do this without making it feel so slow and lifeless.

Perhaps the general complaint that can be placed on the movie is it feels like the first half of a longer movie rather than having a natural break-point. The overall story will largely require the second movie to judge, but with that being said, this movie doesn't stand the best on its own like many movies would in a 2-3 part series. The climax suffers in particular, though it ends on a good story beat. But with that said, I think the rather mediocre fight sequences leading into this moment are what drag down the finale.

The highlight of the movie by far was two what I would call "dream sequences," produced in part by a particularly noteworthy animator if one is familiar with the Monogotari series. Flat out, these two sequences are the two single best works of animation in the entire Fate franchise, and I would go whale the gacha to get a full movie made in this style.

The cast of the movie was a mixed bag, though that in part feels like a by-product of the rushed pace. My two favorites ended up being Bedivere and Da Vinci. The movie does a good job of starting to convey to the audience just how much Bedivere has suffered throughout his journey, and I appreciate they didn't just make him a one-note "good guy" even though I have seen complaints about a certain moment in particular. Meanwhile, Da Vinci just brings a life to every scene that she's focused on. Fujimaru and Mash remain kind of nondescript gacha MCs, although there is some promise of Mash finally getting some character development in this storyline compared to Babylonia. I truly am intrigued by the Lion King and look forward to her development in the next film.

Now to address a few things I had heard going into the movie that I simply didn't agree with after seeing it. First off, I've seen many complain the movie has pacing issues/fails to explain elements of the plot properly. Here's the thing: that's pretty much every Fate anime. I question if these same people saw the dozens of Reddit threads on the FSN subreddit of viewers unable to understand the ending of the third Heaven's Feel movie. Did they also agree that movie has equally as many pacing problems/lore explanation problems before rushing to award it a 9 or a 10, or is it just an issue now all of a sudden? If there's one expectation I have of every Fate anime, it's issues relating to how obtuse and needlessly complex the series' lore is and how they always struggle converting their stories from other mediums. I didn't particularly find Camelot movie 1 more egregious than say the first half of Zero or the HF movies. You will naturally have an easier time understanding it if you've played FGO before of course. This is just par for the course with the Fate franchise at this point.

Second, look, not every Fate anime is going to be produced by Ufotable. With that said, I would like to think anyone who saw Babylonia can't possibly say other studios can't produce Fate anime that looks as good or roughly as good as Ufotable's work (I'll go so far as to say Babylonia has the best directed fight sequences in the franchise IMO). Rather, I would endorse others to differentiate complaints about the animation/direction related to specific scenes or sequences from those simply unhappy Ufotable didn't produce this movie.

And finally, and perhaps more noteworthy, this whole "two characters were replaced by a bath scene" controversy is the silliest damn mountain of salt I've seen in some time. It's pure malarkey. For starters, it is a scene in a bath where you will see less cheek from Mash than her normal armor presents. It lasts a whopping 40 seconds, and is there to quickly establish a singular plot point. If anyone seriously believes that two characters could be established in said 40 seconds of screen time, they weren't noteworthy enough characters to worry about to begin with. Cuts happen when you move between formats. I'm sorry two characters who were favorites of some in the original story were removed, but relating it to this scene is disingenuous at best.

All together, this movie is functional, though unremarkable. I don't think it will wow anyone, but it serviceable enough to set up the next film, which looks more promising. I would highly endorse seeing this one with an open-mind and lowered expectations while ignoring the zeitgeist surrounding it.

THIS REVIEW IS SPOILER-FREE!

Before I get further into this review, let me just mention that I had not played FGO before so this review is coming from the perspective of someone who has only watched the various anime adaptations of the fate franchise. I don't really want to waste your time so I'll make this review as short as possible.

Art/Animation: 7
Coming from a subsidiary of Production IG, the anime doesn't look bad with rather consistent and downright beautiful art from time to time. While Artoria looks different in this adaptation, it looks alright since she is supposed to be an older version compared to ... the FS/N series. However, the animation is another...story. There are very few fights in the anime and the animation, in general, is a bit lacking, filled with mostly dialogue-heavy scenes. Whenever there are fight scenes, it looks decent but unlike something out of Ufotable, the camera itself is very stiff and static throughout with some weird scenes that just look..off. While it won't blow your socks off, the animation is "decent" paired with stellar art. As you'll read in a bit, the animation and art is not even the Achilles' heel of this movie.

Music/Sound: 7
The actual soundtracks have lots of potential which isn't really anything surprising. They sound good, amazing, and quite bombastic at times. So why is it only a 7? A few of the soundtracks are often...misused, conveying a different emotion when what you're seeing would tell you otherwise. Imagine an epic scene with sad music playing in the background. Same with the art/animation, this isn't really what I call a negative, just criticisms I have for the film. It's not unbearable, just perhaps a missed opportunity if the soundtracks were used in a better way.

Story: 4
This is where everything falls apart for me. I had re-watched the film another 2-3 times to get a better idea of what it was all about and even then, I was still lost. Simply put, the story is terrible. You are only given snippets of information through short "flashback" sequences and out of context dialogue.

The result was that the audience was pretty confused throughout the movie. While there's nothing wrong with dropping small hints regarding the narrative, there is something wrong when you don't drop ENOUGH of them. Characters are also sort of introduced on the fly and you barely feel any attachment to them so if/when they die, the whole thing becomes a joke. The movie tries to make you care for characters but because of the lack of development and/or screentime, it fails terribly at that. While the story might feel slow-paced for some people, the lack of development, context, and abrupt scene changes make this movie feel rushed but at least we got that Nictoris bath scene 👀.

CONCLUSION: 5
The end result is a confusing, rushed, and barely developed story that fails to entertain and hook the audience. Most characters introduced end up being really one-dimensional and since you barely know who they are or what they are like, you end up not giving a shit so whenever there are emotional scenes, it's a damn joke that feels comical. With stellar art and decent but sparse animation, it really isn't enough to carry the clusterfuck of a story that this movie is. This isn't a Ufotable film and the lack of dynamic and fluid camera movement really shows. It's decent animation but not good or great like what Ufotable would usually do and because of the garbage plot, the movie overall is mediocre, not something that I would recommend.