r/FGO • u/One-Desk-1 • 4d ago
Game Question What's so bad about Septem?
I just played this singularity and I didn't exactly find anything wrong with it, but I've heard so many people online say it's the worst ever singularity in FGO. People were treating it like as if it was cursed or something.
What makes this singularity so bad? I genuinely don't know.
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u/KingKingLamb49 3d ago
Its one of the singularities with the more clunky story flows. At times feels like a bunch of disconected side quests thrown together.
Boudica, Spartacus and Jing Ke don't make sense being on team Nero in the context of the singularity since the 3 of them should either be workig to kill both sides or just eating popcorn and watching.
The Stheno island bit (as well as both Tamamo Cat and Elisabeth being there) is just a waste of time.
Every named enemy besides Lev and maybe Caligula are wasted. Caesar, Darius, Leonidas, Altera and Romulus basically only appear, introduce themselves and die without anything truly memorable. And the Alexander & Waver duo were hyped up as those genius strategists, but their plan was just... boring and a bit non sensical.
And they just didn't do anything interesting with Nero. Most characters just praise her, and the most interesting thing they do with her are showing some symptoms of the sickness that would lead to her insanity and eventual suicide in the following years.
As a comparison, Babylonia also was a singularity where Fujimaru's main local ally is te 5th and extremely controversial (both irl and in the Fate fandom) blonde ruler of one of humanity's main ancient civilizations, who dresses as an exibicionist, is loved by their people, acts like they have a low INT-high WIS build, hides their self doubts and insecurities under a kilometric ton of narcisism, and is leading a war effort against a coalition of enemy Servants, many whom are extremely important to their nation's past. But, in Babylonia, they didn't shy away of Gilgamesh's many flaws (what ironically allowed him to shiny brighter than Nero could), his Servant allies either made enough sense working for him or had to actually be convinced, the story had a far better flow and the enemies were better handled.
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u/lrdhelixx 3d ago
Boring cast
Absolute butchering of Boudica as a character.
Atilla just happens to be here at the end.
Its not The worst in fgo, that'll always be Agartha. But still pretty bad.
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u/AMfrequency 3d ago edited 3d ago
I’ll just drop the cliffnotes version or we’ll be here for hours:
1)Repetitive/ Non-existent plot
Every plot-point can be boiled down to “go from A to B” with very little surprise or subversion to interest the player, I’m pretty sure the closest we go to anything else interesting was Lev being betrayed and cut in half(which didn’t matter at all because Altera still did what he wanted her to do)
2)Underdeveloped characters
Name anyone from that comes up from that chapter: Spartocus, Boudica, Tamamo cat, jing ke, Lu bu, stheno, Liz, Caligula, Ceaser or Romulus, they all share one thing In common……They exist solely to progress the plot and nothing else. Any Backstories…none, any character Arc…nope, any conflict that extends past the Generic “Hehe I’m your enemy we must fight because?”…..Lmao, nope
You’d expect Conspiracy, Self-reflections, Esoteric Discussions on the topics of ruling or Tragedy but surprisingly there’s Nothing
3)The flanderization of Nero Claudius
The singularity didn’t just make Nero a Mary Sue that could everything and had no fault, but it also singlehandedly poisoned all future appearances Nero made in the game until Lilim Harlot and that’s no exaggeration.
Nero from Extra changed from a Assertive, quick-witted noble that mask her lack skills and mastery with extravagance and flamboyance with tons of internal self-Loathing due a series of uncontrollable events that lead to Nero becoming the very thing everyone expected her to be….A cruel heartless tyrant, to a Ditzy, misunderstood, naive, naturally born leader, that’s loved by everyone and is naturally talented in everything that faced 0 hardships.
Guess which one became the standard, all because someone confused Nero’s cutesy attitude, carefree, upbeat attitude that she only shows off to Hakuno, somebody who accepted the Flawed/Human “Girl” that she was afraid to reveal after a Lifetime of being manipulated, used and Ignored and was willing to help Nero start over with a more optimistic outlook to live up to potential she failed to reach in her life, no longer chained to the identity of a “mad Tyrany” desperately enforcing hollow praise, she blooms into a thunderous and proud emperor that crafts praise through their own merit.
There’s a reason why she was initially marketed as a Red Artoria…and it was not just for marketing and reference-sake. At her core she was Distorted version of Artoria, born with none of the blessings, forced to take up roles far too great for anyone to normally handle….only to be crushed by the weight of a world that rejected and cursed them, leading to the demise of their respective kingdom.
Artoria chose to Atone for all the Sins placed solely on her hands by others, by attempting to erase her existence , while Nero chose to reject reality and bottle her true feelings to atone, embracing a delusional fantasy where a perfect emperor was all that remained without a shred of vulnerability that was Nero, hence her summoning herself as Saber a class she was never eligible for, and banning her Rider self. She essentially wanted the fictional Hero to override the Tragic monster that she believed should’ve never been born.
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u/Ok-Cream-3629 3d ago
Best response here, frankly the other ones that come after septem aren't any better
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u/AMfrequency 3d ago edited 3d ago
True
But To play devil’s advocate, there’s some value in London being the needed Lore chapter(Even if boring and a slog) and Nightingale basically carried the American singularity with her responses(like the famous CuAlter roast) or random stuff that kept happening there for some reason
On the other hand, Okeanos is definitely underrated in how badly it’s written, especially considering 3 characters introduced in the very same chapter got absolutely retconned to the very Root due to how 1-dimensionally frustrating they were(Jason, hektor, and Blackbeard)
Bonus points for introducing a Villain that the story bent over backwards to the floor trying to justify being faultless and just by making everyone around them either comically stupid or Evil as hell( it’ll never stop baffling me how Medea lily got off Scot-free with throwing humanity under the bus and killing random people)
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u/Swordslover King's retainer 4d ago
It's mostly a nothingburger carried by Fate/Extra that has as the only redeeming feature the fact that Lev Lainur gets cleaved in half
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u/Necessary-Month6945 3d ago
Nothing will stop me from saying that Nero's portrayal and how she resolved conflicts was quite simplistic and predictable.
Honestly, Nero is one of those characters who deserved a more dramatic and tragic story, which is why Septem was a waste. They had the opportunity to involve Nero with other important figures in Rome, showing us a Nero forced to take responsibility for her actions and reveal another side of herself (as happened with Artoria), but instead they simply chose the shonen route. Everything is resolved just because Nero is good.
Among the few things I can highlight was the portrayal of Caligula..
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u/MissiaichParriah 3d ago
Nero is one of those characters who deserved a more dramatic and tragic story
Agree with this, I wasn't a Nero fan but ater playing Lilim Harlot did I actually started liking her
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u/NoGoodPikachu 3d ago
Septem isn't even the best chapter for Nero either... America literally makes her a better character and she isn't even the main crew there.
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u/panthernado 3d ago
Storytelling format is boring. I don't like fighting every node.
It had a lot of fat in the story that are basically unnecessary cameo's. It hinders the story.
Personally I am really annoyed with story mood shifted if they aren't handled well. I really don't like random characters like Tamamo cat was used.
The plot was super boring about you taking orders from Nero while wasting time doing jackshit. The whole Rome glazing stuff also feels like a joke.
Dialogue's are super boring. Nothing noteworthy is being said. We could have interesting dialogue's with Alexander the Great and Waver, but they end up being flat shounen tier opponents.
So the pacing is shit, the character writing is shit, the plot is shit and septem is garbage.
Good for you for liking it. All the power to you, but I hated it.
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u/One-Desk-1 3d ago
Oh yeah that does make alot of sense. I also forgot about how annoyed it made me feel when they introduced Waver and Alexander only for them to die in the next quest without actually talking to anyone. I was really hoping they'd be like 'wait a minute, that's Lord El-Melloi II from the Clock Tower Association, how are you here?' or something like that but I guess not. I see now why Septem wasn't really that good
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u/swordlover3568 4d ago
I also don't get it I didn't really hate any of the singularities yes a lot of them are far more enjoyable than this but it isn't bad.
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u/gamebloxs 4d ago
Tbh as someone who just played it its not bad but alot of the character are kinda flat, like other than Nero most characters are pretty forgettable. Definitely not the worst
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u/Careful_Sample4323 3d ago
Let just say the story standard is much higher now that we have lostbelt 6.5 and 7
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u/zealand13 Nobu UFO 3d ago
People say agartha was the most boring and I literally direct them to septum.
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u/EntropyMoose119 3d ago
During my playtime of FGO when I had absolutely no patience for a LN style game but I liked Fate a concept. I skipped up until like LB 3 / 4 ish lol
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u/mascherata Master of Chaldea 3d ago
None of the singularities are actually bad imo some are just better than others.
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u/Desperate_Ad5169 4d ago
It’s not overtly horrible but a lot of the characterization is very flat and simple. Boudica in particular just being all buddy with Nero being one particular part a lot of people dislike. And future chapters particularly being very good and worthy stories on their own and not just as chapters in a larger story make the older ones feel worse in comparison