I am the bone of my sword.
Steel is my body, and fire is my blood.
I have created over a thousand blades.
Unknown to Death,
nor known to Life.
Have withstood pain to create many weapons.
Yet, those hands will never hold anything.
So as I pray, UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS.

Finished the first ending in 20 hours, I have not touched the other 2 major story arcs. It's pretty good. There's a bunch of filler scenes but you can just skip through them. My main problem was that in general there's a LOT of detail in the world and magic that don't really make sense or come together in any coherent complete way, in fact there seem to be multiple contradictions when following the games text too closely (as I did). It provides texture and facilitates character growth but you can't pin it down or make future predictions. The logic of the servants is also pretty gameified with each of them having stat and skill sheets. Stuff like "why didn't saber die after being pierced by Gae Bolg?" is succinctly explained in the stat sheet as "Gae Bolg can be avoided with atleast A rank luck." This doesn't happen in the actual game mind you, so if you just watched the anime or didn't find that part in the servant data it just doesn't make sense. . And this method of storytelling I think is the original sin of the Fate franchise. For me it ruins the sense of a fully realized coherent world. I used to loathe the franchise for this. And I can't say that I'm totally over it, but minus this fault there's still lots to like here (and in Fate in general):

As a product it's very solid. It features sort of wiki pages for the characters and abilities that get filled out as you play the game. The artwork and music are very good. There are some minor technical issues like half the letters being rendered 1px lower or auto-text being broken. for me it randomly seemed to fully reveal all text. But those didn't bother me that much.

The characters and general flow of the story is really good. Although Shirou, the main character, for the most part starts off quite annoying, the other characters more than make up for it with the main highlight imo being Saber. Her character development from a complete stoic warrior to a heartfelt maiden in love was executed brilliantly.

As a visual novel it's very interesting due to its heavy use of choices. I think for the most part those lead to dead ends but that in of itself turns it into a more immersive experience, because now you're (hopefully) trying to reach the best outcome for the characters and it makes you consider each choice a bit more. Of course there are also several endings that afaik branch into completely different stories early on. That in of itself I think is one of the main appeals of this game.

Fate is one of those franchises where people insist on "correct" orders for experiencing the stories because they spoil each other. Most specifically, the excellent anime adaption Fate/Zero is a prequel to this visual novel and it reveals many things that stay unknown until the end of the vn story as I have experienced it. That in of itself I don't think is a problem, because Fate/Stay Night absolutely reveals all the major details about the ending of Fate/Zero as the endings are deeply entwined. The problem is that Fate/Zero's last like 25% don't make any ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sense if you're not in the know, and this visual novel will give a more rounded satisfying explanation. So yeah if you have the 20 hours and care enough, you should play this visual novel first.

Fate is a mixed cocktail of texture and moral battlefields between characters in order to facilitate epic fights, powerful story twists, pulling back the curtain to reveal the cruelties and and horrors of mankind, with a sprinkle of honour love and kindness, using real world mythology as a source for many of its characters, all poured from the mind of one crazy japanese person. It's really cool and also really stupid, often both at the same time.

crazy stupid person played the entire game with shirou muted only to find out when achievement hunting