Alright so I have zero knowledge about the Fate/Stay series.

I am so confused what you're asking.

A lot of fans were disappointed with the original anime series because the choice of routes wasn't what everyone wanted. Can't please everyone all the time. I enjoyed it.

To make more fans happy they did another route last year. My suggestion is skip the VNs and watch the anime. That way you won't be disappointed with it. Then read the VNs if you enjoyed the anime.

Or not, you know, whatever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ5dSwqSv3s

It's the Fate series. Fate/Stay is short for Fate/Stay Night which is the flagship title of the franchise. The only word they have in common is "Fate" which is the first word of every title. E.g. Fate/Zero, Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, Fate/Strange Fake, Fate/Unlimited Codes etc.

If you're looking for an ideal starting point in the series, it's Fate/Stay Night's visual novel. The reason the game is recommended is because it's never been fully adapted into anime, specifically it's third and final story route, Heaven's Feel, which is the one with the most twists and which reveals a lot of the crucial setting information that the various spin-offs and AUs reference constantly. Without having played through Heaven's Feel, a lot of the other titles will go over your head. But once you've played F/SN you will be able to understand virtually any other title in the franchise, because they're all based off of F/SN somehow.

With regard to Fate/Zero though, it's often a favorite of people who have no interest in the Fate franchise because it's very accessible even if you don't know anything about Fate. This is despite the fact that it spoils some very major twists in F/SN and also references a lot of Heaven's Feel material that will go over your head. Because the bulk of the story is focused on character drama and doesn't really go into the meat of the Fate universe, it just jumps from perspective to perspective, making it a very shallow story from a world building perspective. If you want drama and tragedy in an urban fantasy setting and don't really have any intention of getting into Fate, then Fate/Zero is fine to watch by itself.

But since you want to get into Fate, starting with it would be a poor choice because it ruins the experience of reading Fate/Stay Night, which is the absolute must-see title of the franchise.

>>161919
If you want story about Archer and Tohsaka, watch the recent anime airing of Unlimited Blade Works. Its the route that focuses them the most.

>>161935
Thanks! That makes sense.
I was wondering what was with all of the different titles...
I don't really have time for games nowadays, so when I do play games, I normally have to put anime on hold.
Probably going to break your heart, anon but I mostly just want to watch stuff with Rin and Archer. Do you still recommend playing the VN even with that info?

>>161945
Well I guess you can start with Ufotable's 2014 anime adaptation of UBW (Unlimited Blade Works) which is the second route of Fate/Stay Night. It focuses on Shirou and Archer, and Rin is the main heroine (love interest) of the route. UBW is sorta similar to F/Z in that it doesn't delve too deeply into the meat of the story. The first route of Fate/Stay Night, simply called the Fate Route, is very simple and straight forward, but lays down a lot of basic information about how everything works, taking you step by step through the Grail War. In UBW they sorta assume you already know that, since it's the second route of the game, and they forgo a lot of the exposition and just dive into the conflicts, which is how it's similar to F/Z.

I believe the anime adaptation by Ufotable did keep a bit more exposition in the story though so as not to turn off new viewers, after all they did bother to animate the prologue in an hour-long episode called "Episode 00" (be sure not to skip that by the way, it follows Rin's perspective of the first 3 nights of the story). So I don't think you'll have much problems starting with UBW.

The issue is where to go after that. You could wait for Ufotable to eventually release all 3 planned Heaven's Feel movies, which I pray to god will be decent enough that I can just recommend people watch them because expecting people to play a 50+ hour VN as their intro to this franchise is pretty steep considering most newbies probably never played a VN before, let alone one that has no official English translation.

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>>161919
There's also this