I appreciate your honesty. Fight scenes continue to be a work in progress, but for that particular critique I did try to incorporate some of what you had said before.
I guess it boils down to a difference in writing styles? Nasu is great at writing action setpieces where each character stands out and shines, while I struggle with fight scenes from the start, and find things easier as a natural progression with multiple moving parts that blend together. Also he's just plain better at writing than I am, and Fate and Type-Moon properties are his baby to start with. It's called the Nasuverse for a reason, after all.
And as for other fics, I'll admit that I haven't followed as many Fate fics as I have, say, Worm and the like. Beyond that I don't really hold my work up in comparison to other authors' because either I feel bad about myself or I feel slimy for looking down on others. So drawing comparisons is a bit rough for me.
I agree with Saiyajin here, and actually, I'll just take this as an opportunity to air my problems with the story so far as a whole. The reason why I haven't done so sooner is because things were starting to look better with this chapter but, well, it didn't live up to my hopes.
The amount of unnecessary characters you brought into the story is bringing it down not just in fights but also in all other aspects. You should really focus on what you
already have rather than go for the cool factor and bring in more characters, leading to a boring, predictable downwards spiral of necessary escalation if you want to keep the story at least somewhat interesting. Medea is the first victim of this that comes to mind, an age of the gods caster servant who has
incredible utility and skill, as well as a noble phantasm that opens up a lot of interesting tactical options, relegated to somewhat contributing to the creation of one (1) mystic code and then being forgotten for the rest of the story. You end up underdeveloping the cast (if at all) and this also affects the antagonists, with the only exception so far being La Voslin (or whatever her name was) and even there I'm getting the feeling that it's because she is going to be switching sides.
Then you have the number one offender, the council of the goddesses.
You have made a group of literal god-level characters, or in other words, a nice, pretty little collection of deus ex machinas to be pulled out the sleeve at your leisure. This dramatically lowers the stakes in the story (and they are low enough as is) or just removes them outright. In all honesty, I feel like you wrote yourself into a corner here, seeing as you always have a handy goddess to throw at a problem and pull of the impossible whenever you feel like it. You have already committed to utilizing them so you're forced to escalate in order to keep the story interesting, but that level of power ultimately makes the protagonists have to rely on the aforementioned deus ex machinas, ultimately undermining any of their achievements and feats.
I'm gonna guess that that's what you've committed to in regards to the progression of the story, and it is possible to pull it off by buffing the protagonists, but as of right now I am not all that trusting of your capability to pull it off and have it be satisfying.
Your fight scenes aren't bad and I'm honestly not the best person to judge them, seeing as I'm not all that interested in them, but the utilization of noble phantasms is grating. You usually just use them as glorified fireworks rather than the trump cards of heroic spirits that they are. Another thing is how you portray the servants themselves in fights, with the most recent example being Ceaser and Boudica. On one side you have the Queen of Victory, on the other, you have
fucking Ceaser. You could have had an epic strategic battle between two armies, but you chose to go with the pretty fireworks option instead and wasted a perfectly good opportunity.
Then there's Matthew, who has so far checked a depressing amount of the Mary Sue boxes. Despite his trauma and (supposed) misanthropy, I have yet to see him mistrust someone and vice versa. His little rebellion when it comes to studying history has also yet to bite him in the ass, and even when it should Morgan is right there to hold his hand and save him from his immaturity. He has so far had an answer to every situation, was able to avert any major catastrophe, fix every tragedy and has had a strange amount of skill when it comes to things that he should have no prior experience with. You can justify that with Morgan helping him with them, but by that admission what is he worth without Morgan doing everything for him? Though this is more of a personal problem with the character itself rather than a critique, so take it as you will.
I guess I should apologize in case I came off as a bit too aggressive, this isn't meant to insult or anything like that, but I'm aware that it could look like that.
