Saber Wars: The Caliburn Awakens（Rerun）

Plot Summary

The MC and Mash are having a training session with Artoria Pendragon Lily, as the two girls felt that they are not confident enough to be a good servant. Out of a sudden, a spaceship drops from the sky, revealing a sword-wielding Servant attacking Lily. She introduces herself as Mysterious Heroine X from the Servant-verse. Seeing that Lily wishes to become stronger; she decides to train Lily to become an A-rank Saber. As an exchange, the MC is requested to collect super-particles known as 'Altrium', a new energy particle that could activate her spaceship.

(Lily)

However, the spaceship attracts many visitors and opportunists who wish to steal the metals and devices. There are either chased away by X and Lily, or they join the training program. X reveals that the future is overrun by Sabers and her mission is to go back to the past (the present day for the FGO timeline) to cut down the number of Sabers. As she thought she would exterminate Lily, but she could not do so.

Then, an X doppelgänger arrived and called herself Z, who is more ruthless than her original self. She is ordered to assassinate X for being weak and incompetent to fulfill her duty. During their battle, Z knocks out X and belittles Lily for being a tool for X to repair her spaceship. However, Lily argues that she is X's trainee, Mash, and the MC are the ones who repair the spaceship. Z begins to duplicate herself and attacks Lily, who eventually defeats her with her sword Caliburn.

(Multiple MHZ)

After X wakes up, she admits that she is using Lily. One thing that changes her mind is Lily's kindness. X makes her decision to stay and continue Lily's training until her spaceship is fixed

(X decides to stay)

Storytelling & gameplay

From the title, it looked like a parody of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. When I played it, it's not really what I expected. I was looking for a battle royale between the Saber-class servants and decided who is the best Saber, or something like Into the Spider-verse. In the story, we have one Assassin-class Servant training a Saber-class Servant. Not to forget that they completely set Artoria Pendragon (OG Saber) aside. Otherwise, the plot has a simple structure, easy to comprehend and a clear motive.

This event is Saber-oriented, which means Saber-class Servants has extra attack points and drops on Altrium. What I find annoying is the low drop rates on the materials and there is no CE to have additional drops on the Altrium, especially when the new players are required to farm in order to get their NP5 Saber Lily.

Same with the Kara No Kyoukai event, the sequencing of the rerun might confuse new players. The story would be more linear if they made Saber Wars > Kara no Kyoukai > Dantes.

Characters

Artoria Pendragon (Lily)

The younger form of Artoria Pendragon who is more innocent and optimistic than her older counterpart. She talks straightforwardly, but mostly she would talk of words of positivity and praises. Lily is graceful and charismatic but lacks the experience and maturity in ruling her country. As a young king, she has many to learn to become a powerful leader to protect her people. Hence, she believes that an adequate amount of training would shape her to become a better king and Servant.

As a big Artoria fan, Lily is a wonderful addition to my Chaldea. I love how the dress is designed with a white lily motif, highlighting her innocence and youth. Look how she blushes when she becomes self-conscious. I just wanna hug her and kiss those rosy cheeks! (FBI please don't take me away.)

(I wanna dance with somebody who loves me)

Her signature move is the crotch-damaging NP which the beam that shoots out from her sword aimed at the lower region of the enemy. At first, I thought it was an animation bug, then it turned out that the beam is actually intentional. An excellent move to fend off the Pedos (especially Blackbeard).

Mysterious Heroine X (MHX)

Wielding a sword, she must be a Saber- Wait, she isn't?

She is an Assassin-class servant who bears a grudge on Saber-class Servants. A zealous girl who comes from the Servant-verse where it is overrun by Saber-class Heroic Spirits. She is an alternate-self of Artoria but refuses to identify as her original counterpart. Her task is to go back to the 21st century to reduce the number of Servants.

MHX's Excalibur and third ascension have a cyberpunk motif which indicates her futuristic identity. Unlike most Artorias, she can wield Excalibur and Excalibur Morgan at the same time which is shown in her NP animation.

Personally, she is my least favorite of the Artoria series. I am not particularly fond of the Saber-eliminating obsessed setting. Instead, her alter-self MHXA is cuter than her.

The ironic thing was I look forward to her Foreigner-variant who is more mature than the current self.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

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Author's Note:

The Shinjuku review or Anastasia would be coming up next, hopefully I finish the former before the quarantine ends.

In the meantime, please check out the newly published FGO: Babylonia anime review.