Yeah, if Path of the King handles the Saber summoning well, I think I'm going to put it up for review. Love that story right now. Honestly, it has what In Flight lacks, even though it's also a pretty long story. It has proper pacing and it each chapter actually feels meaningful.

 

I don't know if you've read the most recent chapter, but regarding Saber's summoning:

Spoiler

It happened...and then it didn't. She might come back in later chapters, but the way things stand right now, the Grail gave the contract to Caster instead of Saber who should have been chosen for it. Saber might be a masterless Servant wandering around, or she might not be in the war at all.

 

About that:

Spoiler

He confirmed on his forum that Rin will summon her, by basically 'picking up' and completing Shirou's half-summon of Saber.

 

Now that I think about it, the reason I still read the damn thing is because the fic deals with parts of the Nasuverse we rarely see in Fanfiction. The apostle ancestors are brought forth and are relatively accurate in their portrayal, and the clocktower and its politics are kinda sorta not really present (I'm giving extensive liberties to this point since I have always wanted to see the politics of it).

The problem is that any scene with Shirou in it is downright predictable and boring. The best parts of the story have been the interactions the other character do between each other and on their own. The last few battle chapters have been an interesting read because it wasn't shirou.

Edit: oh god I just read the spoilers on chap 38 of IF, two more arcs to go. God damn this is going to be one long story, could write a few books with the amount of words in it.

 

Shouldn't this discussion about From Fake Dreams be in, well, the From Fake Dreams thread?

 

Damn, this is still going? I'd of thought it'd be finished months and months ago.

Also, need more Ruinous.

 

Even though he stated that there are two more arcs to go, he also said that there are only 6 or 7 chapters left. So the story is thankfully somewhat close to completion. I'm really only still reading this because I'll be damned if I stop now after having already read over 600K words.

 

I don't know why Path of The King seems to be getting more love than In Flight right now. I just tried to get into it based off of the positive reviews here, and so far it is just terrible.

Granted I'm only on the 4th chapter but the grammar and spelling make me think that English is definitely not this guy's first language. It's also rife with poor plot points, irredeemably stupid cliches, and just all around sub-par writing.

At least Gabriel Blessing doesn't make me cringe almost every other sentence.

 

I agree with all of your points, but I still enjoy Path of the King more than In Flight recently just because things actually happen. There's no way Path of the King can compare to the first part of In Flight, but In Flight really lost steam with tens of thousands of words of filler. While the past few chapters have provided some much needed drive, it's not enough to keep me from dreading the 60k words of harem antics and general BS that I'm sure are coming.

So, is Path of the King good? Not really. Is it enjoyable to read and see where it's going next? Yes. And that's all I really want from fanfiction.

Though good writing certainly helps.

 

Path of the King has a really weak start, with all that Archer shit going on and the sudden pseudo crossover with Persona 4, but everything after Caster turning up is awesome. She's awesome, the fight with her master is pretty awesome, and sure it's a bit iffy how he's suddently finding all these swords so conviently. But well, point me to a better fic that has Shirou working with Caster, that Shirou/Sakura/Caster smut fic doesn't count because it hasn't been updated in years by the way ;p

 

What is this non-updated fic you talk about?

 

It updated. Slightly amusing when talking to Takami, got pissed when he kept repeating Path of the Bad Character Development, something, cliffhanger.

That is my review of the chapter.

 

Most of the chapter was filler-ish for the most part, although actually relevant to the plot. Unnecessary info-dumps about Kiritsugu though.

That ending though.
*evil cackle*

 

I actually can't bring myself to give a damn about Rin and Saber. GB's just killed my interest in pretty much every character through making them fairly flat at this point; I can but hope that the returning dream team is more than a plot device

 

I'm more interested in Rin and Saber than I thought possible. I don't care about them in this story, I just want to see how he writes them.

Them having such clear and powerful personalities, seeing how he writes them will show a lot about gabriel as a writer.

 

Will Booby!Tokyo survive!?

Find out next time, on Dragon Ball Z!!

And, I will admit, I am finally interested in this again, just because Rin and Saber are going to a tad bit peeved.

 

To be honest I was hoping for a Dead Apostle or maybe a heavily pregnant(or with baby) Rin being held hostage by MBI. Let Shiro's suffering commence in any event.

 

That sounds absolutely terrible.

 

I enjoyed most of this chapter.

I was worried his meeting with Takami would have ended up epic info dumps (like we have had in just about every other conversation) but it was done really well. Short, awkward and tense - exactly what it should be.

The scene with Yasaka was jarringly pointless. Like honestly, it had NO purpose. A failed attempt at comic relief.

Rin and Saber's appearance - this is what I've been waiting for since I started reading. Yay!


Edit: Also, while Tarnished Blade's idea is terrible, I do wonder if things will get a bit too easy with Rin and Saber here without the existence of any magic related enemies. Saber would be able to utterly smash any Sekirei - including Karasuba. And with Rin's magic added to the mix, they wouldn't really have any issues taking out MBI. I'm hoping GB introduces something else to give them more of a struggle. One idea I've been playing with for a while was the jinki being dangerous enough to humanity to force a certain Counter Guardian response.