The Game Fate/Grand Order came out in 2015 on mobile devices as one of the most successful on the platform. However, it does not do well to draw on its gameplay aspects and leads to story inconsistencies.
It's one of those games where the gameplay aspects are completely separate entities from what's going on in the pre-written script. This causes some major bleed over as character over exposition turns into an internal mess. Many of the mistakes lie in the way the story is told as a "tell," and not shown medium. So here are 10 things that make no sense in Fate/Grand Order for your reading pleasure.
10 The Gacha System
The Gacha system on the game is broken and over complicated. It takes forever to upgrade and it only gets worse as the story goes on, but it's very easy to be over-leveled at the same time. It seems though at every step there is a points-based wall that will eventually lead back to the in-game currency that requires a buy-in.
It is even broken in a story sense because they require you to get a second servant withing the first 3 levels as a part of the tutorial then act as though you don't have it. Almost like whatever fight and game aspect is completely non-canon to the story and it makes each fight completely unsatisfying.
9 Translation Issues
Chapter 1 abounds with odd phrases and grammatically horrendous sentences that completely mess with the meaning. They will literally leave you scratching your head as you try to convince yourself, "It must mean something else! That can't be it, what does that even mean?"
When your story is completely dialogue-based, a good translation is a must or else you turn an okay story to a bad experience.
8 Hiding True Names
Hiding true names of servants is a pretty big part of the Fate/ series, except when you have broken Gacha system. All their stories can be accessed pretty early on by just playing the upgrade metagame which completely takes away the story-importance of hiding their identity.
Much like, "Oh you want to keep your identity of you a secret? You SOB, I already have 12 different card versions of you detailing your life events down to every special personal flavor and I'm the king of flavortown!"
7 Literal Plot Device
The time travel machine has so much detail into how it works with not enough detail on how it came to be and how those mechanisms and processes were thought of and formed. Just about anytime it's brought up or on-screen it is the literal plot device for the story the characters are going through because it has no natural or logical explanation.
Not even how the concept of it was thought of and why it was so necessary to build it in the first place, two very important answers compared to the exposition given.
6 Secret Government Royal Blood System
The headmaster of this sort of training military sorcerer school inherited it from her father... as a student of the school who was about to fail at becoming a summoner. There are three big issues with this concept. Chaldea, the very system that everyone works with and lives, is actually owned by other governments like Britain that has a democratic system in place with lineage and other democratic countries also taking ownership. Now it's understandable tradition and lineage if her family line was known as the best, but the third point entirely defeats her viability as being appointed headmaster by the council. They already knew she was unviable and appointed her anyway.
Now that leads to the second point, they gave her the whole system to manage as a student with no completed education. There could have easily been someone who was more qualified, and it's well known in the story that the council isn't afraid to fire people, they could have easily gotten someone with an extremely important trait like experience in managing and magic. Looking at all the facts, the council did the equivalent move of telling their grade-schooler child to go fix their electrical box. So the only explanation is that there is a Royal blood lineage in a position equivalent to special ops commander-general.
5 She's Evil
The story wants to really let you know Olga, the headmaster, is evil, but she's really nice inside, but she's really really evil, but you should like and forgive her. But since she's serious and does evil things like firing people on the spot because she doesn't like them, she is completely un-holistically evil. This inconsistency goes on, and on, and on with no end when in reality she acts spoiled and entitled.
This could be a huge translation error with no thought put into it, but it sticks out like a sore thumb because whenever Olga is brought up this whole divide comes up and it isn't two characters with different points of view. This divide in opinion comes from every character close to Olga in chapter 1, they don't hold that she is good or evil, they just outright contradict themselves in the same sentence.
4 Wrong Time to Teach a Class
A lot of the game is exposition then a fight, then more exposition. Don't forget the flashbacks to more exposition interrupting more exposition before looping back around to more exposition then a fight happens. It is so illogical it is painful because it will come at the most inappropriate times. It is constant explaining to the "Master MC," right in the middle of a warzone as though the backstory is really important. Now imagine getting a high school history lecture in full detail as you are in the trenches of World War 3 and you are constantly hearing grenades go off in the distance and worried about enemies just jumping in your trench to fight and/or kill you.
That is what's going on here, the MC doesn't need this information because his job isn't to fight, it's to let others fight and for him to not die. the MC doesn't need to know how a time travel machine works and the way they've used it for a century, they just need to know how to solve the puzzle and where to hide.
3 Constant Bad Guys
There is a very consistent formula that is too obvious that it's to break up long dragged out conversations, much like the studio had trouble fitting a game in and shoehorned it at quiet points.
With how much the characters ramble it wouldn't be a surprise the bad guys just heard them bantering at each other each time they stopped or hid.
2 No Sense of Urgency
There is no sense of urgency anywhere, especially where it should be. Characters stop to go on long exposition dumps after every fight, yes every fight, even if it's well known that if they stand around they will get attacked again. In a burning city, there is no sense of shock or dread from anyone, or a sense of efficiency so they wouldn't have to stay there.
None of them bothered at all by constant attacks from what are essentially zombies. They will just have a long conversation after each fight which will lead to them getting surprise-attacked again leading to another fight. It kills any motivation to play the game.
1 Defective Servant
Mash, the girl who combined with a servent for he sake of saving the player, seems to have a major god complex. She is absolutely disappointed that she isn't able to perform a super move, immediately after obtaining her powers and calls her self defective constantly even though it's a fact that not all heroes obtain it immediately.
She literally gave up being human and expected that she would be this super figure all the sudden. She can fight just fine and mow through enemies, but that isn't enough.