It starts off with what should have been the climax of the first season. I still don't know why ufotable decided to cut it into two seasons and bizarrely leave the first season with no real climax. Moreover I think it should have just been one season of 25 episodes, but I guess there might have been budget reasons. This is perhaps my biggest complaint about Fate/Zero.
By far the two biggest strengths that the 2nd season is that it has great battle sequences and a strong plot. It doesn't simply delve into a slasher flick where the characters don't really matter and that they need to be brutally murdered for shock value. Every character has a motivation for what they do. Whether they realize it or not is part of the story.
Fate/Zero is about a war that continues to happen and the winner gets to make a wish. The narrative, however, is that there are no winners in this brutal cycle of murder.
