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Welcome to the Shimosa Edition of the review. I have a paper about Antonio Salieri due in a week and am going to a tournament tomorrow, so I hope to have this shit done before the end of the day. We'll see how that pans out, usually not well.

Without further ado, this character I've avoided writing a review for for 10 months.


Miyamoto Musashi
Saber
5*/Limited to the New Years 2017 & 2018 (2019 and 2020 for NA), first Shimosa, and Lucky Bag Banners
Debuts in Fate/Grand Order
Originates from 16th Century Japan

Cards: Quick/Arts/Buster/Buster/Buster

ATK: 1,860/12,037
HP: 1,999/13,365

Skills
1. Fifth Force A: Double hit count on cards for 1 turn, the power is reduced by 50% you get a damage buff for each skill level by 0/30% (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)
2. Heavenly Eye A: Buff own buster cards by 30/50% and apply a pierce to self for 1 turn (7/5 Turns)
3. Emptiness A: Raise own stargen by 10/30% for 3 turns, cleanses debuffs, and applies invincible for a turn (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)

Passives
1. Magic Resistance A: Raise debuff resistance by 20%

Noble Phantasm
Rikudo Gorin - Kurikara Tensho (Buster): Single-target attack, buff strips the target, and buffs NP damage for 1 turn before damage is applied (Overcharge: NP damage buff raises by 20/60%)

PROS
+5th Highest attack stat of the Saber class and only 400 attack under the highest (Sigurd). She has a very meaty attack stat when combined with everything she does leads to big damage.
+Gorilla Buster Deck creates consistency in getting her larger damage combos off especially when you want them for turns you've set up and are ready to pop off on a motherfucker.
+Very strong burst character, all of her skills lean in very hard on enabling her to just blow something the fuck up then and there.
+Fifth Force is wacky as hell, but surprisingly very good. This turns Musashi's cards into NP charge generators and in even more gross cases of silly shit happening let her do this. Note this is not super real, but it is funny and she can absolutely go from 0-100 against even berserkers thanks to fifth force.
+Heavenly Eye is a pretty huge ass buster buff combined with the support she already gets that will let her further shit out damage. Having the pierce is insanely nice too as it means Musashi will not be stopped from running over anything in front of her.
+I should not need to tell you that having a full turn of invincibility is good as is the ability to cleanse debuffs off of yourself.
+Bond CE is actually probably one of the better ones offering both more NP damage and debuff immunity up to 3 times.
+Has a stand
+Final Battle in Shimosa is genuinely really cool
+Eyepatch

CONS
-Very 1 turn burst heavy. The character isn't terrible after you blow through her shit, but she definitely feels a lot more flaccid to use especially considering you are going to spend the next few turns trying to get NP with her again and her cards just aren't good for it unless they are under fifth force.
-Due to her 1 arts card, she is gonna rely a lot on support to get her NP. Fifth Force is only ever going to be applied in two scenarios. The first one is to shoot you up to NP from the second the fight starts and the second is to be used in conjunction with an NP starter to refund back to 100%. The latter of which requires a bit more setup and can be inconsistent depending on who you are fighting. Her gorilla deck really hurts her on consistent NP gain due to the cooldown on Fifth Force being six turns long and in any fight with something that has more than 2 health bars you are gonna be hurting for NP. God forbid you do one of the few CQs that they drop your NP charge to 0 on break.
-A very limited servant, in both senses of the word. Musashi's gameplan is straightforward, but she has no real wiggle room out of that niche. In extensive fights she will struggle really doing anything to gain NP or build stars for her combos and while your support Merlins can definitely do a lot to offset that, it's not so much speaking towards her strengths as it is Merlin's who can do that for anybody. On the other hand of being limited, despite being available three fucking times in the span of a year, the geniuses who decide the FGO servant releases then decided after her third rateup she will never be featured again. She has her summer version as of this writing in the game and still has not seen a fourth rateup in what's going on two years now.
-Oh my fucking god, why are these mat requirements
-Eyepatch still not a costume you can use outside of the last parts of Shimosa
-Idk who is in love with this character at Type-Moon but they sure decided Musashi needed 22 pages of stuff about her in FGO Materials V when most servants have like 5 or 6 and that's kinda dumb.

Overall Opinion: Musashi was a very strong burst character in the short month and a half she was able to show her stuff at its fullest before the Break mechanic was introduced. After that mechanic she maintained relevancy and was still a pretty damn good Saber to use, but as the game has kept going and going she's mostly just fallen to being pretty okay. The main issue with Musashi is she doesn't do anything other than hit shit really hard and while that's a perfectly fine thing for 2017 FGO, as soon as CQs became more complex and harder stuff required more than just hitting a thing hard, she really showed a lot of rust. She's very gimmicky at times, relies a lot on other servants getting stars for her, and really has no wiggle room into being anything other than a super bursty dps character. I've personally never liked using this character, but I also just don't find the character herself that interesting to be completely honest so that may play a factor into it. Regardless of that, she's still overall pretty decent and if you can pop off with her she goes off pretty hard.
Score: 7/10


Tomoe Gozen (Archer of Inferno)
Archer
4*
Debuts in Fate/Grand Order
Originates from 12th Century Japan

Cards: Quick/Arts/Arts/Buster/Buster

ATK: 1,657/9,946
HP: 1,728/10,804

Skills
1. Demonic Nature of Oni B: Buff party's attack by 9/19% and buff own NP strength by 18/28%; both for three turns (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
2. Knowledge of Chaotic Battle B: Raise own star weight by 300/600% and party's stargen by 30/50%, both for 3 turns (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)
3. Adrenaline Rush A: Applies a 1-time guts to self that revives at 1000/2000 HP and raises max hp by 1000/3000 HP, both for 5 turns (Cooldown: 9/7 Turns)

Passives
1. Magic Resistance B: Raise debuff resistance by 17.5%
2. Independent Action A: Buff crit damage by 10%
3. Madness Enhancement E: Buff Buster cards by 2%

Noble Phantasm
Oṃ ālolik svāhā (Buster): Single-target attack, reduces crit chance of target by 20% for 3 turns, and burns for 5 turns (Overcharge: Burn damages for 1000/3000 HP per turn)

PROS
+Very steady character. This is a weird thing to compliment, but it should be noted that a character like Tomoe with skills that while not unique, are certainly good and solid can help bring a team together and don't rely on gimmicks to do the things they want.
+Demonic Nature is Charisma, but better as it opens up Tomoe's own damage more while supplementing the party's as well. It's a pretty damn nice NP damage buff too for that matter for 3 turns.
+Chaotic Battle is probably Tomoe's best skill. Not that the Archer desperately needs more star weight, but she can ensure any crits she does combined with enabling the entire party to drop more stars. This allows the team to not need things like 2030s to build stars for the important turns you want them or in the case of double Merlin you don't need to go that overkill and can give the Merlins other CEs to diversify strategy more.
+Adrenaline Rush is a guts, but Tomoe can use it to self heal as well. 3k HP at max level ain't nothing to turn away from and both abilities last 5 turns which is a significant amount of time in this game.
+NP's good, but the most important aspect of it is the crit chance reduction. Tomoe's ability to pull a team together can really shine, because of something like this. Random crits aren't liable to tear ass through your team as easily and its active time enables the possibility of it stacking upon itself or reapplying should Tomoe achieve NP again in under three turns which creates more consistency in random deaths not happen. An ability like this is invaluable on some CQs.
+Doesn't require an insane investment from mats. Most of what she wants is like 11 or 12 of a certain silver mat and 8 of a gold. Most of these can be obtained from a single event.
+Her NP is funny as hell when used on unconventional enemies (Spoiler for Lostbelt 2 in that second vid btw)
+A Gamer

CONS
-NP is limited to cards and support pretty much. Not that Tomoe's cards are bad, but with no NP charge and gain buff she's pretty much just left to the elements on that. At least she can somewhat consistently arts chain on certain teams.
-Damage is somewhat modest. She can hit solid highs, but she is not some insane burst character. Her crits are limited entirely to what her support can supply.
-Is somewhat simple, which can be a negative in and of itself. The character doesn't particularly excel at anything, she's just kind of a pretty easy to use archer that enables her teammates which also enables her. As a DPS character she works alright, but she is not the sexy damage heights of other higher end 4* servants like Kintoki, Astraea, and Saberlot.
-There really isn't a lot to say. This is a character that is very preference based on if you enjoy somewhat steady servants compared to more unwieldy servants that see higher highs.
-Nuked my fucking phone on her last fight Shimosa

Overall Opinion: Tomoe's such a... bizarre character to me. Not because she's like unconventional, but because she just feels so fucking vanilla. It's like when I wrote the Beowulf review, to really say anything about him since he's just so straightforward. What I'm saying is Tomoe is the Archer Beowulf. A perfectly serviceable servant with solid strengths that don't really reach the heights of the actual good shit. She even has the incredible upper body strength that Beowulf does.
Score: 7/10


Chiyome Mochizuki (Assassin of Paraiso)
Assassin
4*
Debuts in Fate/Grand Order
Originates from 16th Century Japan

Cards: Quick/Quick/Arts/Arts/Buster

ATK: 1,418/8,510
HP: 1,862/11,637

Skills
1. Witchcraft (Oracle) C: 80/100% chance to NP seal an enemy for a turn (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
2. Serpent's Curse B: Buffs own arts cards by 10/30% and 200% chance to inflict a 500 damage curse on a normal attack; All for 3 turns (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
3. Koga-ryu A: Charge own NP by 20/30% and applies an evade for 1 turn (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)

Passives
1. Presence Concealment A+: Raise critgen by 10.5%

Noble Phantasm
Kuchiyose - Ibuki Daimyōjin Engi
(Arts): Single-target attack, seals skills for 1 turn, and reduces crit chance for 3 turns (Overcharge:: Crit chance reduces by 10/30%)

PROS
+Sabotage based servant. Chiyome is strong in being able to run interference on the things her target does making her an interesting tech choice for some fights.
+Arts-focused gives Chiyome access to the arts support toolkit which vary her options on what she can potentially focus.
+NP charge, arts buffs, and arts chains give Chiyome pretty solid NP building capabilities over the course of a fight.
+Damage negation on evade lets Chiyome take an NP without risk of dying
+Between her skills, cooldowns, and card specialization, Chiyome suits longer fights and CQs pretty well. When paired with someone like Tamamo Chiyome can see consistent use of her skills throughout turns and pretty handily deal with enemies that want to get to NP and then kill you with that.

CONS
-Second lowest attack stat of the gold assassins and assassin tax making it worse. Chiyome does not do a lot of damage outside of NP at best and even then she could use a strengthening. Her crits also end up lower on the scale of damage overall and heavily limit her damage ceiling.
-Need to go all in on skill investment for her to see her strengths and this asks for 30 stingers and 40 dust per skill, so have fun with that.
-Does not do well at all in fights where the enemy is firing on all cylinders from go. Berserkers especially will just completely fuck Chiyome and any fight that is remotely crit damage focused will annihilate her unless you start her with kaleido so she can reduce crit chance.
-Cards overall are just kind of average. You're going to use her quicks and buster to gen NP more than anything else, but she will not be doing much with any of her cards that aren't the quicks.
-Very specialized. Chiyome is more likely to see use as a character that can stop the opponent from seeing their buffs during a key moment in the fight, than she is going to be a legitimate damage option that can also do these things. This hurts her general usability in a lot of things and only sees her as a servant for CQs and extended bosses.
-Also tanked my fucking phone on her last boss fight, what the hell Shimosa

Overall Opinion: If it comes off like I'm bullying the Shimosa servants, I'm really not trying to. Chiyome's one of the more unique servants in the game in that she fights more through disabling the opponent's options than she does actually hurting them. While this is a good thing, it is usually good for a character to have these while being able to hurt the opponent, rather than only being able to have these. It definitely gives Chiyome some niche uses in specific fights, but overall the character's just not gonna see a lot of use on a team outside of popping her skills and tagging her out for your actual DPS.
Score: 6/10


Hozoin Inshun (Lancer of Purgatorio)
Lancer
3*
Debuts in Fate/Grand Order
Originates from 17th Century Japan

Cards: Quick/Quick/Quick/Arts/Buster

ATK: 1,261/6,791
HP: 1,799/9,996

Skills
1. Knowledge of the Sowa B: Raise own stargen by 10/30% and applies sure hit; both for 3 turns (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
2. Seeking the Truth of Martial Arts B: Buff own quick cards by 30/50% for 1 turn and raise debuff resistance by 100% for 3 turns (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
3. Sen no Sen B+: Seal an enemy's NP for 1 turn and reduce their defense by 10/20% for 3 turns (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)

Passives
1. Magic Resistance D+: Raise debuff resistance by 13%

Noble Phantasm
Oboro-Ura-Zusa Juuichishiki (Arts): Self-buff that applies an attack buff for 3 turns, a crit damage buff for 100% for 3 turns, a 1-hit evade, immunity to instant kill for a turn, and increases critgen for 3 turns; Note: NP levels effect the attack buff boosting Hozoin's attack by 30/50% (Overcharge: Stargen raises by 100/200%)

PROS
+Quick specialization makes Hozoin's star output pretty nuts when combined with his buffs
+Has a long lasting sure hit enabling him to continue pushing offense even if the opponent has multiple dodges
+Seals enemy NP which is good to slow momentum especially for someone who wants to maintain his as much as Hozoin does
+NP makes Hozoin incredibly strong. The attack buff is powerful as hell at NP5 and lasts a while, he gets to guarantee 1 hit of no damage, and the crit damage buff makes his attacks hit hard as hell. It's also arts based, which normally not great, in this situations makes Hozoin's follow up cards push him closer to NP again so he can stack buffs.
+Synergizes well with Skadi, but in a more unconventional way.
+Due to his nature of requiring his quick cards for pretty much everything he does, Hozoin wants quick buffs. However, he performs at his best when his quick cards are guaranteed, so servants like Summer BB who can lock the hand or Chenggong who can destroy his team to bring more buffs/shake up the hand/bring the team to only him are incredibly valuable and make Hozoin something of a monster that can do damage comparable to 5* servants off of critical hits.
+Incredible value for a 3* and he's permanent
+Daisuke Namikawa
+This man is a youtube star

CONS
-Insanely momentum-based. Hozoin lives and dies by his NP being active. On off turns without his NP he is every other 3* servant with lesser stats and decent skills. Maintaining this balance requires a lot of supporting him or outright leaving him to 1v1 his enemy which is incredibly risky.
-You better get ready to shell out 48 bones per skill for this man's skills because you want all of these skills max leveled. You also definitely want him at NP5 even moreso than you already would.
-Starts slow. You need to build to the point where Hozoin is going to become a monster and if you can't ever get started he just flounders and dies.
-Placing a 3* as the core of your team can be an issue given their health.
-This character is high-risk high-reward, you either go all in on him or go home.
-Not for beginners, Hozoin requires you to dump a lot of what you know about FGO out of the window for a character who asks you to throw caution to the wind and embrace death. You will probably fuck up with this character a lot before you get down what exactly you are supposed to do with him.
-It's a shame his final sprite isn't him from his final ascension art

Overall Opinion: Hozoin's a very underrated fun servant to use. As far as servants with dumb gimmicks go, he's absolutely up there as a different way to approach fighting in FGO that still reaches the same result. You obviously can't throw him at everything and he requires you to shoot for NP every time you are pushing forward with him, but when he goes off he does not stop until you fuck up or the game deals you a bad hand. His stats make it so he's not very impressive on off turns when NP isn't up, but god does this dude just go in with damage especially now that Skadi is in the game.
Score: 8/10


Yagyu Munenori (Saber of Empireo)
Saber
4*/Story locked, unlocks after clearing Shimosa
Debuts in Fate/Grand Order
Originates from 16th Century Japan

Cards: Quick/Arts/Arts/Buster/Buster

ATK: 1,666/9,999
HP: 1,781/11,135

Skills
1. Shinkage-ryu A++: Buff own arts cards by 30/50%, raise star weight on arts cards by 300/500%, and raise debuff resistance by 100%; all for 1 turn (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
2. Suigetsu B: Buff own attack by 10/20% and apply evade; both for 1 turn (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)
3. Bladeless State A: Reduce enemy's attack by 30/50% and increase NP gain by 30/50%; both for 1 turn (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)

Passives
1. Magic Resistance C: Raise debuff resistance by 15%
2. Riding B: Buff quick cards by 8%

Noble Phantasm
Kenjutsu Muso - Kenzen Ichinyo
(Arts): Single-target attack that decreases the target's attack for 3 Turns (Overcharge: Attack reduces by 20/60%)

PROS
+Arts cards are obscenely powerful under the effects of his skills. Beyond just the ridiculous NP gain he gets from buffing them and the NP gain skill, he can increase his own attack and specifically have those cards absorb crit stars guaranteeing them crits.
+Attack reduction on both his third skill and his NP allow Yagyu to debilitate an enemy's damage to almost nothing. If you use a significantly OC'd NP combined with Bladeless State it can even reduce NP damage to a minuscule amount.
+Combined with the above he also has a dodge just to ensure he doesn't get killed by getting hit by an NP.
+Single-target arts NP makes his NP pretty strong on its own from the multiplier, but any further NP levels even moreso.
+Arts support toolkit favors him heavily. Not only does the character already reduce the enemy's NP to nothing, but Tamamos can reduce the cooldown on his skills, Andersen can give him stars and NP, Mozart buffs every facet of the character that is already good into being even stronger, and even Caster Gil can buff his damage alongside star generation. He works well with a ton of servants.
+Quick-card is actually really damn strong, there's only one though so you can't lean on it for stars. You're gonna want a 2030 or Andersen for that.
+NP animation is simple and clean, it's so good
+This might be just me, but in a game where every swordsman throws some beam, does stupid bullshit acrobatics, or in Musashi's case summons a stand, it's nice to have a samurai that is just a samurai ass samurai. He doesn't do anything fancy, he's just really good at traditional swordsmanship and fucks up any of his opponents through that.
+He sits
+Kazuhiro Yamaji also known as the voice of HIT

CONS
-All of his skills only last a turn. This makes him a very flash in the pan character on how effective he can be on off turns, but at the very minimum his cooldowns aren't that bad so Tamamo can help get the skills back in a reasonable amount of time to be used again.
-Servants with debuff resistance can be really be a pain in the ass for him as his attack debuff might bounce off of them by chance.
-Double buster feels like a way to balance him, because if this character had three arts cards he'd be insane.
-Crit damage is lacking somewhat so it limits his damage ceiling a bit, though you can compensate for that to some extent as servants like Andersen work pretty well with him.
-Bronze mat hungry, get ready to feed him 24 dust and 36 proofs per skills
-Scarce on banners. Aside from his first rateup, he's not featured on banners too much. He's had two banners since his initial rateup, but one of those was almost a year after his release and the other was another half a year later. Thankfully he's had a few chances now so it's not too bad, but man it's rough on these story locks.
-Looks goofy when he has the armor on doing his normal ass samurai shit

Overall Opinion: Samurai Shodown's a good ass game. 9/10






For real though, Yagyu is far and away the standout character from this bunch of characters. I don't know what it is about arts sabers, but DW really likes these guys as some of the best Sabers in the game are Arts based (Saberlot, Yagyu, Bride, and Benienma). Anyways it should not surprise you the old man who hits like a fucking truck and refunds assloads of NP while debilitating the opponent's ability to hurt you at the same time is considered really fucking good. The only place he's genuinely lacking is staying power on his skills and crit damage and if he had the latter there would be 0 reason to ever use Saberlot again. I love my sword grandpa voiced by Makoto Date.
Score: 9/10


Kato Danzo
Assassin
4*/Story locked, unlocks after clearing Shimosa
Debuts in Fate/Grand Order
Originates from 16th Century Japan

Cards: Quick/Quick/Arts/Buster/Buster

ATK: 1,489/8,935
HP: 1,768/11,055

Skills
1. Synthetic Limbs (Device) A++: Buff own quick and buster cards by 20/30% for 3 turns (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
2. Ninjutsu A: Raise an ally's critgen by 25/45% and apply an evade to them; both for one turn (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)
3. Mechanical Illusion B+: Raise an ally's critgen by 25%/45% and apply an invincibility to them; both for one turns (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)

Passives
1. Presence Concealment A: Buffs crit damage by 10%


Noble Phantasm
Karakuri Genpo - Dongyu (Buster): AOE attack that does extra damage to demonic enemies (Overcharge: Extra damage to demonic enemies by 150/200%)

PROS
+Solid defensive support with two separate damage negation skills
+Stargen with quick cards is pretty incredible especially if using the two critgen buff skills with her
+Speaking of which with stargen buffs her NP can gen some too as it is a 3 hit aoe np
+Extra damage against demonic enemies gives Danzo a niche against a certain type of enemy
+Synthetic Limbs is a pretty good fucking cards buff lasting 3 turns on both sides and covering 4/5 of her cards
+NP gain is pretty okay too due to how much every one of her cards friggin' hits
+There are a solid amount of demonic trash mobs so she can put out quite a bit of damage against those
+Ninja Cyborg Mom
+Really good fucking art and character design

CONS
-Man, I really wanted to be nice about three servants in a row
-Why is this character a split between DPS and defensive support?
-Danzo's damage capabilities are very limited unless you wish to dedicate a Merlin and Skadi to her, but let's be real about this...
-NP is specialized against demons, however there are very few demon servants in this game and none of them are riders, one is a berserker and one is even a caster. So Danzo will not really have very many instances to show off her power due to the fact she already suffers a deficit in damage due to assassin tax and the best she can hope for is like Ibaraki and some scrubs. The trash mobs are fine, but trash mobs basically anyone can handle and you're using damage buff to basically flex at that point. (This is also ignoring the most consistent demonic enemies tend to be caster class)
-Stacking the stargen buffs means effectively blowing two damage negations for a team that has a character on it that does it well on her own. Why are neither of these 2 or 3 turns?
-Oh my god why does she need so many bronze mats, DW! 36 spinal fluids just to fully ascend. 36 Chains and 40 dust per skill. Holy fuck, she needs 20 of the magatama per skill too! THAT'S A NEW MAT FOR SHIMOSA WHAT THE ABSOLUTE HELL!
-Has had a single-rate up in almost two years. Like yeah she's been on the class campaigns and any Shimosa based ones, but she hasn't had a rateup to herself at all since Shimosa. It's kind of depressing and I actually got this character trying to get Rider Davinci on the Shimosa rateups, lol.

Overall Opinion: Man, I really like this character. She hits so many of the checkmarks in my head for characters I tend to like through either design or silly aesthetics, but they made it really hard to want to use her sometimes. So Danzo isn't complete shit nor would I even say she's really bad moreso I just think she's not really just kinda there. The decision to split her skills down the middle is an interesting one, but she isn't given anything to compensate for her problems making a really half-hearted attempt at an assassin support for what is like the third fucking time now. Don't worry, this halloween NA's getting another one of those! Regardless, Danzo is a likeable character in her own right but a rather unremarkable unit to really roll for especially given the rarity of limited servants on banners sometimes.
Score: 5/10