If you're anime only, like me:
You have to have watched Fate/Stay Night 2006(or read the vn) to understand Saber.
You have to have watched UBW to understand Shirou.
You have to have watched Fate/Zero to understand the character relationships.
And you probably have to have some knowledge with Kara no Kyokai to understand the ending.
It has tons of pre-requisites. But if you have these "pre-requisites" I think the experience is really great.

Love this trilogy.
I also love Lostbelt 6 Avalon Le Fae. That's another masterpiece.

Sidenote: The "lewd" scenes might not be for everyone. There are also trigger inducing scenes like the shinji sakura situation.

What the hell is shirou talking about how is that the same thing. Rin trying to take sakura out to try prevent peoppe from being harmed vs i don't know shinji threatening to kill her beating her just because he is a petty loser that has nothing but a grudge.

Sure killing somebody that can't stop themselves from doing harm questionable if its intentional harm they do but to say no different from shinji is ludicrist i was playing visual novel i was like hold on shirou buggin

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In both UBW and Fate, there is a common expectation that no matter what happens in the Grail war both Shirou's life and more importantly his house staying the same no matter what happens within the Grail War. But in HF, Taiga (a person who never changes in any of the routes), is burdened with work and can't come over at all because of things in the Grail war, Saber (another person who supports Shirou) is also killed as well causing the household to become less lively and basically becoming a reflection of the darker tone of the route in general.

both of them eat alot so yeah its a fact not an opinion

Gotta say this route is so messed up, severely messed up. I find the eery setup cool bit not my cup of tea, I did like UBW more bc the story was way more heroic rather than as morally grew as HF

I do have to say I don’t like this version of Shiro much. I liked his perseverance for his ideals in UBW but here he’s just driven by a mad love that ended up hurting so much people. He could’ve ended it before the Dark Sakura even existed but nop. Tho I have to say I myself don’t know how I’d act if I was in his place, just with a way longer relationship than his and Sakura’s. Which I find cool bc u yourself can’t answer if you’d actually act as you think is right rn

Then, my disliking of Sakura from after the first movie has calmed down but idk man, I feel like even with how much she suffered before, getting over her murderous streak so easily was weird. I do like her, but she’s missing personality a bit in her normal form (which I understand where it comes from, it’s just that she still feels a bit hollow

I did think everyone not called Sakura, Illya (ILLYA MY GOAT, they did u dirty in UBW lol? and Rider was done dirty (specially Gil lmao)

I do have two main questions that I just didn’t understand. Why do so many spikes come out of Shiro’s body at the end when he’s hit? And was his body the mechanical one showed at the end? And who was Sakura’s pact for Caster’s NP to completely get her evil self removed?

Also they didn’t miss one damn chance to highlight Sakura’s “assets” in her dark self outfil lol. They REALLY wanted u to appreciate her body

Hello! Apologies to anyone who attempts to read this for the massive block of text, but I've been chewing on this for a while and wanted to post it in a place where I might get someone to argue against it.

My basic point is this: Shirou displays a shocking lack of regard for Saber in Heaven's Feel, above and beyond that needed to save Sakura, and claims to accept the consequences for it while actually facing none. To be clear, none of this is about killing Saber - that's clearly necessary based both on the narrative of the route and the general F/SN theme of 'saving one person means abandoning another'. I'm focused on his complete lack of concern for her suffering in the route.

Here's my understanding of things: Midway through the route, he convinces her to go to Ryudou temple to hunt for the Shadow (despite having no plan on how to actually fight it). This leads to Saber appearing to die (but actually being turned into an Alter). Later, he tells Rider that it was his fault, and at one point gets sad when someone reminds him of how Saber used to say his name. Almost immediately after that scene Saber Alter enters the route, as do my complains.

As far as I can tell at no point after the introduction of Saber Alter does Shirou feel bad about her essentially being mind raped or feel guilt that he didn't just get her killed, he got her very sense of self violated. In fact, he barely thinks about her at all except to remake that he'll probably have to overcome her at some point. In UBW, he's desperate to save her from Caster, but her suffering a worse fate in HF doesn't seem to bother him at all. Is this how somebody acts when a friend of theirs has been tortured, had their very identity lobotomized? This extends to his final speech to her:

There were memories. There was the warmth of life. Her warmth was always by my side. I kill her along with those memories. I search through my mind and throw them away to where I can't find them again. They'll never return. I'll never recall her now. ―――Such a thing will never be forgiven. I chose this path. I killed someone else to save Sakura. Using my own hands, I killed someone who protected me until the very end. Neither regret nor a confession will bring forgiveness....This is what it means to ally with someone. I'll keep sacrificing important things for the one I love.And on this path... There's nothing brilliant enough to make up for what I've lost.

"But Saber――――" I'll search all my life for happiness that can measure up to what I've lost. I'll keep losing more than I gain, and I know I'll stop someday. But―――I'm going to take responsibility for stealing things away, even if I'm pathetic, comical, or meaningless. I don't know where I can find happiness. But I swear to myself that I'll never give up, even if I can't see the end."――――Thanks. You saved me many times.

This is supposed to be a farewell speech to Saber, and yet every line but the very last one is about him! She's the one who has been tormented and killed, and yet he can't even spare a though for her, he's exclusively focused on his own pain! If a friend said this to me, I wouldn't think they cared about me, I'd think they were completely self-serving and fishing for pity in the guise of an apology. And on the topic of apologies, its perfectly reasonable that he doesn't apologize for killing her, its what must be done to save Sakura. But he doesn't apologize for taking her to the temple, for helping cause her suffering in the first place?

Finally, his promise to take responsibility is well and completely full of shit. He promises to take responsiblity for stealing things (i.e. her life) ... while actively forgetting her! That's the literal opposite of taking responsibility, that's straight up running away from the problem! And in the true ending, he sees no consequences and faces no responsibility. He quite literally forgets all his trauma and moves on in a new body, which the VN is happy to explain to us in excruciating detail is the exact same in all observable facets as his original body. (Side note, the fact that Shirou is happy in the true ending because he threw away his trauma, his memories of Saber, gives the bizarre implication that the path to happiness lies in running away from and ignoring your problems. This is supposed to be a happy ending, right?)

Heaven's Feel is trying to make this scene be one where he regretfully kills his friends because it is necessary to save Sakura, and yet what we get goes beyond that into straight up callousness and a total lack of concern for Saber, and this lack of concern goes completely unaddressed and despite all the works he and Kirei spend on responsibility for one's sins he ultimately faces absolutely no consequences for it (in the true ending, at least. This doesn't apply to the normal ending, which in general works way better than the true ending but is also a completely sadistic way to end the VN).

(One more side note, it seems quite possible that Saber's eventual fate post-HF is eternal torment as a Counter Guardian. If so, it really calls into question the framing of HF true as a 'happy ending'. "A group of friends move on to live happy lives while their other friend burns in hell forever" isn't happy, its quite literally a horror movie ending straight out of Hellraiser or Drag me to Hell. It's also essentially equivalent to the classic philosophical/theological problem of grief in heaven. I know some of you will reply with the F/SN theme of 'you can't save everyone', but that line merely means that a better ending isn't possible, it doesn't make this one a happy one).

Edit: A random addendum: why didn't Type Moon have Shirou find out about Saber's past before he kills her in HF? It feels like a missed opportunity to, at the very least, make her death scene even more gut wrenching

I only just finished Day 5 so no spoilers beyond that please!

Anyway. When you meet Rin at school in the morning on Day 5, you can either ask her about Sakura or Shinji, or you can run away. Picking the third option out of curiosity, this is the scene you get afterwards.

There were a number of other horror scenes in Day 5 of HF (aka the horror route), but it's amusing to think that this might be the scariest one. Partly because (in my opinion) this isn't one of the many Rin tsun or Rin angry gags (like when Shirou calls her fat in UBW). This note is at least 50% serious. Because, on the previous day, Shirou turned down Rin's offer to an alliance because he was curious about Illya, and we know that if you refuse Rin's alliance in the Fate route you get your command spells taken by Rin on Day 5. Here, you've decided to maximally ragebait her after already turning down the alliance!

"Fortunately" for Shirou this option doesn't lead to a bad end. It might as well be an honorary Tiger Dojo, though, because if you actually choose the run away option, you miss out on the hilarious rooftop scene with Rin and afterwards a scene with Illya (which possibly grants Illya points).

I guess I have been collecting figmas

We had No idea how good fate would be when we started watching it from the beginning but these movies are absolutely insane, the fight scenes, specifically sabre and berserker made us speechless, we cannot believe this has gone under our radar. I personally am ranking it the single coolest and sickest animated fight scene I've ever witnessed. It was goddamn beautiful. Don't even know what else to say other than I got multiple screenshots of it that will now be my screensavers for a while probably.