Fate/Grand Order: Lostbelt No. 6 – Avalon le Fae Review

Fae Round Table Domain, Avalon le Fae

The 6th Lostbelt of Fate/Grand Order is Avalon le Fae, in which we return to Britain. Of course, we’ve been to Camelot before, back in the 6th Singularity. But, the British Lostbelt and the Camelot Singularity are not the same place.

As the subtitle of this chapter implies, this is Fairy Britain. It’s Britain from a world in which humanity never became the dominant species. Instead, the Fairies, or Fae, are the ones who rule and humans are more like a livestock species. They’re raised on “farms” and used for various purposes.

But, why are we, Chaldea, entering the British Lostbelt? As we know from previous story chapters, this Lostbelt’s Tree of Emptiness is already dead. If left to its own devices, the Lostbelt will collapse. So, what’s the point of going there? Shouldn’t we be making our way to the South American Lostbelt?

Well, there are two reasons for entering this Lostbelt. The first is that we want to get our hands on Rhongomyniad, a Noble Phantasm of Fairy Britain’s Lostbelt King. With the power of that Noble Phantasm, Chaldea might stand a chance against the Foreign God.

The second reason for going to Fairy Britain is that its collapse threatens the rest of the world. Something’s not quite right about the way it’s collapsing. And unless it’s stopped, it will engulf the rest of the bleached Earth. If that happens, there’s no more Earth left for us to save from the Lostbelts.

Now, Lostbelt 6 is the longest Lostbelt (so far). As such, it was released in three parts. But, unlike Lostbelt 5, the multiple parts of Lostbelt 6 take place on the same map and with the same characters. There’s no split like there was for Atlantis and Olympus.

The Six (Seven) Fae Clans

The fae of Fairy Britain aren’t all one, cohesive group. There are actually six clans that all used to be at war before High Queen Morgan took over. These are the Wing, Fang, Wind, Earth, Mirror, and King clans. Oh, and there’s also a secret seventh clan.

The Wing clan is pretty straightforward because there’s only one member of it, Murian. In the past, there were more Wing clan fairies. However, the Fang clan massacred them in the past.

Speaking of the Fang clan, they’re the warrior clan. They’re the strongest fighters and serve High Queen Morgan as her personal army. Woodwose is the leader of the Fang clan.

Wind fairies are relatively peaceful, as far as fairies go. They’re led by Aurora, the (second) most beautiful fairy of them all. There are six bells the Child of Prophecy (more on her later) has to ring. And the bell held by the Wind clan is the first to be rung.

Of the existing clans, the Earth clan is the second most peaceful, after the Wind clan. Members of this clan tend to be craftsmen. And, their leader is Spriggan, who isn’t a Spriggan.

The Mirror clan is an extinct clan of fairies. They were wiped out by Tam Lin Lancelot on orders from High Queen Morgan. What made this clan special was their ability to see the future. Ansel was the leader of this clan and the one to prophesize Morgan’s downfall.

Finally, there’s the King clan, which, like the Wing clan, technically only has one member. That member is Cnoc na Riabh, the self-proclaimed true ruler of Fairy Britain.

However, I mentioned a secret seventh clan. That’s the Rain clan, which is also extinct. The King clan took the Rain clan’s place.

Oberon, King of the Fairies

Okay, it’s time to start actually talking about the characters. If you’ve read my review of Atlantis, you’ll know I hated the characters in it. Well, other than Mandricardo, of course. However, the opposite is true when it comes to Avalon le Fae.

The characters in this chapter are great. And the best of them all is Oberon. He’s one of the best characters in the entire story, so far. Though, I will say I’m not the biggest fan of the conclusion to his story. But, we’ll get to that later.

So, here’s the thing about Oberon. I didn’t think I would like him this much. I knew people were obsessed with him. But, there are people obsessed with every Fate character. And, even though he’s meta-defining, I wasn’t all that interested in rolling for him. But, I did (and got him), because I’m now fully on the Oberon bandwagon.

It’s kind of hard to explain what I like about Oberon. There are the things you can see, like his chibi form, which is awesome. And, you know, his character design comes from Chica Umino, mangaka of March comes in like a lion. (which you should watch).

But, what drew me to Oberon the most was his personality. And that’s what’s hard for me to explain. He’s like a best friend. He’s not always around to help. But, no matter how far away he is, we know he’s got our back. He’s always in our corner.

On top of that, I enjoyed his dynamic with Altria Caster. And, he’s a total bro for saying that Coral is more his type than Aurora. Coral’s my woman, but I’d share her with my best friend Oberon. Anyway, he’s a character you have to experience to understand the hype.

Tam Lin of Fairy Britain

Let’s move on to some of the antagonists from this story chapter. Obviously, at the top, there’s High Queen Morgan, the Lostbelt King. And, right up there with her is the Crypter Beryl Gut. I’ll get to them in time. But first, I want to cover the antagonists who serve under them.

The strongest fairies in all of Fairy Britain are known as the Tam Lin. There are originally three Tam Lin, though a fourth appears partway through the story. In this section, I want to focus on the original three, Tam Lin Gawain, Tam Lin Lancelot, and Tam Lin Tristan.

As you likely noticed, these Tam Lin share names with some of the Knights of the Round Table. But, they’re not the same characters. Morgan bestowed these names upon the Tam Lin. Their true names are Barghest, Melusine, and Baobhan Sith.

Barghest is the first of the Tam Lin we come into contact with. And, she’s also the one who gets the most character development. I almost want to say that she’s a more complex character than Morgan. Her storyline is all about trying to become a knight the true Gawain could be proud of, despite her nature.

Melusine is the strongest of the Tam Lin. But, she doesn’t play as big of a role in the story as Barghest does. We frequently come into contact with Barghest and fight her multiple times. Melusine is more of a background threat — she could always swoop in at any moment.

Baobhan Sith is Morgan’s favorite Tam Lin. Morgan adopted Baobhan Sith as her child and heir to the throne (as if Morgan would ever die). However, she’s also the cruelest of the Tam Lin and enjoys torturing and killing fairies. Because of this, the fairies hate her.

The Moment a Planet Is Born

Morgan is one of the more interesting Lostbelt Kings we’ve gotten. Some of the things she does are reminiscent of what we’ve seen other Lostbelt Kings do. But, her motives are completely unique. And, there’s a twist, which I’ll get to, that really lifts up her character.

So, what does Morgan want? Most of the other Lostbelt Kings were content with preserving their Lostbelts. They didn’t want proper human history coming in and destroying their world. Morgan, however, is a bit different. She wants to take the fight directly to proper human history.

Morgan’s motive isn’t to keep her Lostbelt alive; it’s to destroy the rest of the world. Despite the British Lostbelt collapsing on its own, Chaldea had to intervene. As I mentioned earlier, the collapse of this Lostbelt threatens the world. And, that’s not by coincidence or accident. It’s intentional on Morgan’s part.

If a Lostbelt survives long enough, it will take over as the new proper human history. But, Morgan realizes that there’s an alternative path. If she destroys proper human history and the other Lostbelts, she wins. That’s what makes Morgan so dangerous. She’s thinking like Chaldea.

But, there’s also something else about Morgan I need to mention, which is a major spoiler. It turns out that Morgan was the original Child of Prophecy before the Altria Caster we know. She was supposed to save Fairy Britain — and, to an extent, she did.

However, she grew to hate the fairies who inhabit Fairy Britain. And so, she decided that she was only going to save the land she loved, not the fairies. At her core, Morgan is a corrupted version of Altria Caster. She’s the Altria Caster who fell into despair and failed to bring salvation to the fairies.

To You, 2,419 Years From Now

Before I started playing through Lostbelt 6, I knew it was the longest chapter to date. I’m pretty sure Lostbelt 7 is longer. But, if we’re only counting the chapters released internationally, this is the longest.

I bring that up because it’s backed up by something I noticed early on. Avalon le Fae has its own timeline of Fairy Britain’s history that you can check between nodes. If a story chapter has to have a timeline for you to keep track of everything, you know it’s going to be long.

But, the timeline also doesn’t begin in 2019, when Chaldea enters the Lostbelt. It begins way back in 10,000 BC, or something like that. That’s the very beginning of Fairy Britain’s history. And boy, do we get a history lesson. This chapter doesn’t skimp out on the Lostbelt’s lore.

One of the more interesting things about this chapter, though, is that we get to experience some of the history firsthand. There are two timelines we jump between for a good chunk of the chapter. The present timeline is where we, the players, are. And the past timeline is where Mash was sent by Morgan.

Now, why this is cool is that it allows us to make connections between the timelines on our own. We’re not being told a story of the past and how it relates to the present. We’re experiencing both the past and present and can see the connections.

There are a lot of weird things about Fairy Britain, such as the giant pit in its center. And it’s cool that we can find the answers to a lot of the Lostbelt’s mysteries in the past. This is just something I liked about this chapter’s storytelling.

A Land of Two Queens

The giant pit is far from the only weird thing about the British Lostbelt. There’s also the fact that there’s not one, but two Lostbelt Kings (Queens). Of course, Morgan is one. Though, how she’s one is actually weird in its own right. And the other is Cnoc na Riabh.

Let’s start with Morgan. She’s the Lostbelt King, as you might expect. But, she’s also Beryl’s servant. How does that work? That’s one of the big questions for most of the chapter. And, the answer is something I wasn’t expecting.

Beryl summoned Morgan as a servant. Then, the servant Morgan used up her own spirit origin to recreate the Lostbelt from scratch. This new Lostbelt came with its own Morgan who’s the Lostbelt King. And yes, when Morgan recreated the Lostbelt, she recreated everything in it — even Beryl.

Where does Cnoc na Riabh come in, then? Well, she’s originally from a separate island off the northeastern coast. After the Rain clan was wiped out, Cnoc na Riabh took over their domain in the north of Fairy Britain. Like Morgan, Cnoc na Riabh claims to be the true ruler of the continent.

But, what claim does she have? I don’t remember all the details. But, she’s the reincarnation of a previous claimant to the throne, or something. Anyway, she’s also the only member of the King clan, which I mentioned earlier in this review.

The King clan is unique in that it only ever had a single member. But, fairies from other clans can swear allegiance to Cnoc na Riabh and become her clan members. The more followers Cnoc na Riabh gains in this way, the stronger she becomes. So, her goal is to amass a large army and march south toward Morgan.

Pepe and Beryl

At the start of Lostbelt 6, could anyone have predicted we’d lost two Crypters in this chapter? I certainly wasn’t expecting it. Beryl dying makes sense. He’s the main Crypter of the chapter and is a bad guy. But Pepe?

Scandinavia “Pepe” Peperoncino dying in this chapter is a huge loss for FGO. He was by far the best character among the Crypters. And, in case you’re wondering why I’m using male pronouns for Pepe, it’s because I’m guessing. I don’t remember what pronouns he uses. But, I feel like he used male pronouns. If he didn’t, sorry.

Anyway, Pepe gave his life to both save us and weaken Beryl before our final fight with him. Pepe took on a bunch of curses and then passed those curses onto Beryl. And even though he passed the curses to Beryl, the damage to Pepe’s body was already done.

Beryl, while not being as good as Pepe, was still an interesting character. Technically speaking this was the third time Beryl died. First, he died during the Foreign God’s attack. Second, he died when Morgan rewrote the Lostbelt to make herself queen. And third, he died when we had Mash bash his face in with her shield.

The number of times Beryl died isn’t what made him interesting, though. What made him interesting was how broken he was and how that made him different from the other Crypters. The others all have some redeemable qualities. Beryl doesn’t.

He doesn’t care about anyone. To an extent, he doesn’t even care about himself. Dying isn’t something he fears. Though, he doesn’t want to die because then he can’t continue to torture others for fun. That’s who Beryl is. So, of all the Crypters, defeating him is the most satisfying.

End of the Era of the High Queen

I was going to include a section of this review on the fall of Londinium. But, this review has been in progress for so long that I don’t remember what I was going to write about that. So, let’s jump into the good stuff, the boss battles.

It probably doesn’t surprise you that there was one boss battle in this chapter I had a bit of trouble with. But, what might surprise you is that it wasn’t Cernunnos. No, the hardest boss battle for me was against High Queen Morgan.

You can see my starting party composition in the image below. But, the full team was Enkidu, Koyanskaya of Light, Caster Altria (NPC), Himiko, Jack the Ripper, and Merlin. And even with this team of SSR servants, it took me three attempts to take down Morgan.

For the majority of boss battles in FGO, there’s usually an optimal servant or composition to use. I don’t know what that was for this fight against Morgan. I thought I had a pretty good game plan going into the fight. And yet, I needed RNG to go my way to win the fight.

I’m sure with enough time, I could have planned out a better team to use. After all, I haven’t heard others say this fight was overly hard. So, it must be a me issue and not an issue with the difficulty of the fight itself.

But, if you’ve completed Lostbelt 6, let me know if this fight gave you trouble. It could be that this fight does give a lot of people trouble, but that it gets overshadowed by Cernunnos. But, as you’ll see soon enough, I had a pretty solid team going into that high-difficulty battle.

Calamity of the Flame, Albion

The most unique boss battle in the chapter was against Calamity of the Flame, Albion. Unfortunately, this was also the easiest boss battle. And, as you’ll see in the image below, I used my tried and true invincible team of Himiko, Merlin, and Altria Caster.

So, what makes this boss battle unique? Well, it’s the only boss battle with a unique mechanic built in. The fight takes place on top of Chaldea’s ship (I forget the name), and you have to protect it from Albion’s NP attacks.

If the ship’s HP bar drops to 0, you lose. And the only way to protect the ship from taking damage is by using Altria Caster’s NP on the same turn Albion does. No using Merlin’s invincibility to save the ship. It has to be Altria Caster’s NP.

What if you don’t have Altria Caster? Well, you’re forced to use the NPC version of her for this fight. So, not having her isn’t an issue. The only issue you could run into is not having her NP available on the right turn. But, with the team I used, that’s never a problem.

If you use Himiko, Merlin, and Altria Caster, you’ll always have Altria Caster’s NP available when you need it. And, thanks to Himiko’s NP, Altria Caster’s NP will continue to protect the rest of your party. By the time her defenses go away, it’s time to fire off the next round of NPs.

Oh, and I guess I should briefly explain how this team works. Basically, every time you use your party’s NPs, you do so all together. Use Himiko’s, Merlin’s, and then Altria Caster’s. This will help you make the most of each of their NP effects.

Calamity of the Beast, Barghest

The fight against the Calamity of the Beast, Barghest, was a bit better than the Albion fight. It wasn’t as easy, which is good. But, it also severely limits your party formation. You have to bring an NPC Lancelot, NPC Gawain, and NPC Mash. Oh, and you only get 5 slots total.

I don’t remember if Mash has to be in your starting lineup (she was in mine). But, either way, you only get two other slots to work with. So, my lineup had Mash, Lancelot, and Altria Caster in the front and (Summer) Altria Archer and Gawain in the back.

If you have (Summer) Altria Archer, she makes this fight pretty simple. Chloe von Eisbern probably works well too since she fills the same niche. But, (Summer) Altria Archer has higher stats and some healing, which helps in longer fights.

I’m a fan of harder fights. So, the Barghest fight being harder than the Albion fight is good. But, there are good ways of making fights hard and there are bad ways. Restricting party formation with forced NPCs is a bad way of making fights hard.

That’s not to say that party restrictions are always bad, though. One of the Halloween events had a fun party-restriction formation mechanic. In some fights, you could only bring male, female, or servants with some other trait. That kind of restriction forces players to utilize servants they may typically neglect. It makes things more interesting.

Another way of making boss fights hard is to give them powerful buffs and debuffs. For example, the team I used against Albion hates frequent, party-wide buff removal. That team also can’t beat the Morgan fight (I tried). But, that’s good. A single team shouldn’t be able to win in every situation.

Calamity of the Curse, Cernunnos

Most players seem to agree that the hardest boss fight in the game (up to this point) is against Cernunnos. But, as I’ve already gone over, I don’t agree with that. Cernunnos wasn’t really that bad.

I beat Cernunnos on my first try and even had a turn or two to spare. But, I also had a bit of an advantage. You see, because Cernunnos was such a hard fight, it was popular for Japanese server players to make videos of it. And because of that, I already knew the gimmick of the fight before going into it.

Other than the Cernunnos fight, I only knew a few other story spoilers. That was the only battle I had prior knowledge of in this chapter. So, it’s no surprise that it was also a battle I was prepared for.

My party composition was Yang Guifei, Altria Caster (x2), Merlin, Mash, and Enkidu. That’s a pretty powerful team. But, it doesn’t stop there. There were other preparations I made for this fight.

One preparation was that all of Yang Guifei’s cards have burn or burn damage CCs attached. That lets me hit for special damage more consistently with her NP. Another was that I equipped her with a max-limit broken copy of Honey Lake. That increases her damage against burned enemies by an additional 40%.

My Altria Caster (NP3) had a max-limit broken (level 100) copy of Prisma Cosmos, which is standard for me. Merlin had a max-limit broken (level 100) copy of Kaleidoscope. And, Enkidu (NP2) had a max-limit broken (level 100) version of Aerial Drive.

Merlin also has debuff cleansing CCs on all of his cards, given to him as a joke for a previous CQ. But, they come in handy often.

Abyssal Worm, Oberon

One of the plot points I already knew going into this chapter was that Oberon was the true villain. But, I didn’t know how exactly that reveal would happen. Normally, I don’t care much about story chapter spoilers. But, in this case, I think it made a difference.

Because I knew Oberon would be revealed to be the bad guy, I was anticipating it happening for the whole chapter. I kept wondering, “When is the reveal going to happen?” And, all the while, the end of the chapter was getting closer and closer.

There are hints along the way, to be sure. But, the actual reveal doesn’t come until the final section of the story. So, if you didn’t know it was coming, I’m sure it would be a fun twist. Unfortunately, for someone like me who did know it was coming, the last-minute reveal felt rushed.

Not very much about Oberon being the bad guy was explained within the chapter. We know he’s the “Abyssal Worm” and his goal is to destroy everything. He hates Fairy Britain and wants to see it come to an end. And he hates the rest of the world, too.

But, from what I remember, it was never explained that Oberon is also Vortigern. Oberon mentioned Vortigern as an evil king pretty early on in the story. But, it’s not brought up again during his big reveal at the end. His true identity isn’t revealed unless you summon him (and level him up).

Anyway, what about the fight against Oberon? It wasn’t anything special. You’re forced to use NPC Altria Caster and NPC Mash. So, I brought along Merlin, as well, and didn’t have any trouble. Altria Caster and Mash are both great servants. Bring whoever else you want.

Cosmos Denial

In the end, Chaldea denies the British Lostbelt just like any other. Even the appearance of the Abyssal Worm doesn’t change that. Yes, it meant we had to jump through an extra hoop. But, the same could be said about Lostbelt 5 when Chaos showed up at the end.

At least this time around we weren’t denied any major boss fights. We actually got to fight all three Tam Lin, Morgan, Cernunnos, and Oberon. In Atlantis, we never got to fight Odysseus. And in Olympus, we never got to fight Chaos.

Anyway, after defeating Oberon we’re one step closer to saving proper human history. And, of everyone we’ve fought so far, Oberon was the most dangerous to humanity. All the Lostbelt kings wanted their own realities to take over. But, at least they wanted some version of human history to exist.

Oberon is different. He didn’t want Fairy Britain to take over as the new proper history. He wanted history as we know it to cease. In that sense, he’s even more dangerous to humanity than a force like Chaos is. At least humanity can technically exist alongside Chaos.

And, what about Koyanskaya and the Foreign God? Well, we’ll learn more about Koyanskaya’s motivations in the next story chapter. But, she doesn’t want the complete collapse of the world. She just hates humans in particular. And the Foreign God is still a bit of an unknown. However, the implication is that it needs humanity on some level to exist.

I wanted to mention all of this to lead into my main point, though. It’s weird that Oberon joins Chaldea. Like, some version of Oberon joining Chaldea via the Throne of Heroes makes sense. But, the version we get is Oberon Vortigern, the villain.

Conclusion

Everyone said that Lostbelt 6 – Avalon le Fae was the best story chapter up to this point. And, I’m going to have to agree with that sentiment. It really did everything right. It had the best story of the Lostbelts and also had some great (high-difficulty) battles.

Olympus had some better fights that required a bit more ingenuity to beat. But, at the same time, the servant pool was shallower back then. It’s not like we had a servant as broken as Altria Caster to bring to every fight, let alone being forced on us every fight.

Looking forward, I know very little about the next few story chapters. I haven’t been keeping up with things recently. So, hopefully, that will make reading and playing through the stories more fun. What I do know is that the next chapter is another .5 chapter, like Heian-kyo, that focuses on Koyanskaya.

And, my plan is to review that chapter much sooner after I complete it than I did for this one.

Anyway, if you enjoyed this review, remember to share it with everyone you know. Also, follow me on your social media of choice so you don’t miss out on any future articles — links are in the footer.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and JasonHK for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about supporting this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Tunguska Sanctuary is available now.