Gameplay

In Fate/Grand Order, the core gameplay revolves around Battles, where the player, as a Master, can make various decisions in order to eliminate all enemies. A quest consists of 1 to 5 stages of battle.

There are 3 types of stages: normal, Fatal Battle, and Grand Battle:

• Normal Battle stages are the most common and have enemies of average difficulty, compared to the other stage types.
• Fatal Battle stages usually contain at least 1 boss enemy that has a significantly higher level than the normal enemies, which means it has much higher HP and deals more damage. Frequently, the boss will be a Servant, though this is not a hard-and-fast rule.
• Grand Battle stages typically feature a unique boss of the highest difficulty. Grand Battles tend to only take place in the final quests of a Main Quest zone and offer unique, one-time rewards.

Battle Screen

A stage always begins with the player's turn, where they are presented with battle information and possible actions.

• Top left: Enemy information: name, class & rank (gold/silver/bronze), level, HP, and the Charge Gauge, which is the enemy NP Gauge. Any Status Effects will appear as icons underneath the enemy information.
  • Unlike the player's Servants' NP Gauges, the enemy Charge Gauge increases by one each turn, though enemy skills can increase this further. Once full, that enemy will use its Noble Phantasm on its next action, which drains the Charge Gauge.
• Top right: Battle stage, number of enemies remaining in the stage, current turn in the battle, number of chests obtained, Command Spells, player avatar, game menu, Master Skills.
• Bottom left: Servant information: Portrait, HP, NP gauge, and Active Skills. Any Status Effects will appear above the skills.
• Bottom right: Attack button, Command Cards for this turn, and Critical Star counter.

Battle Preparation

In the Battle Screen, the player can perform various actions before tapping the Attack button.

• Servant status: Tapping a Servant's portrait brings up a window that shows information about that Servant's Noble Phantasm, current Status Effects and how many turns remaining until they wear off.
• Servant Active Skills: Servant skills are displayed above their HP/NP bars. Tapping a skill will immediately activate that skill if Quick Cast is enabled, otherwise it will bring up a confirmation box. After using a skill, the icon will deactivate and the number of turns left until it can be activated again will appear. Selecting a skill while it is deactivated will bring up the skill's information window.
• Command Spells: Tapping the Command Spell icon brings up a menu of 3 options for using Command Seals. The first option uses 1 seal to fully charge a Servant's NP to maximum, the second uses 3 seals to completely revive all of your Party with max HP and NP Gauge, while the third uses 1 seal to fully recover a Servant's HP.

This menu also shows up when the player is defeated and allows to revive the party. If the player does not have enough Command Seals available, full revival is also possible by using 1 Saint Quartz.

• Master Skills: Tapping this icon brings up the player's Master Skills based on their equipped Mystic Code. Like Servant skills, when used, they will be deactivated and display remaining cooldown turns.
• Menu:
  • Displays the Servant Class Triangle.
  • Quick Cast ON/OFF toggle. When OFF, tapping an Active Skill will activate it immediately. Otherwise, a confirmation window will be shown.
  • Normal Speed NP ON/OFF toggle. When ON, Noble Phantasm animations will still play at normal speed even if fast battle animation speed is selected.
  • Speed Up Death Animation ON/OFF toggle. When ON, enemy death animations will be faster than usual (mainly for Servant and Large Enemies).
  • Quit button: Allows the player to leave the quest and return to the main screen. Any used Command Spells will remain used, any items earned will be lost, and all AP spent to enter the quest will be lost.
  • Items gained: Shows the items earned so far. When checking in the middle of a quest, the items will be ordered based on when they dropped. After the quest has been cleared, the items may be sorted.
• Targeting: Selecting the enemy's battle sprite or its icon will target it, which will cause Servants will attack that enemy first. If the enemy dies, but there are still enemies and queued Command Cards remaining, the game will automatically target the rightmost enemy to continue. Holding down and releasing on the icon of a target will bring up a menu displaying its current Status Effects and remaining turns until they expire. Enemies with the taunt status effect will prohibit the player from targeting other enemies without taunt.
• Attack: Initiates Command Phase.

Command Phase

Once the Attack button is tapped, the Command Phase begins, and the player cannot return to the Battle Preparation screen. Any Critical Stars are randomly distributed among the 5 Command Cards, excluding Noble Phantasms, with each Star adding 10% Critical Chance to that Command Card.

At this point, Active Skills can no longer be used, but targets can still be changed. The battle animation speed can now also be changed with a button in the top right.

JP only: the player has the option to return to the Battle Preparation screen.

• Card Selection: The player must choose 3 out of the 5 available Command Cards. If a Servant's NP Gauge is at least 100%, there will be extra command cards for their Noble Phantasms. A Command Card can be deselected by tapping on it again. Once the third Command Card is selected, the Command Phase ends and the attack is executed.
• Chains and Attacks: There are various ways of combining Command Cards:
  • Brave Chains: Selecting 3 Cards for the same Servant will add an Extra attack.
  • Art Chains: Selecting 3 Arts cards will generate 20% NP Gauge for Servants whose cards were selected.
  • Quick Chains: Selecting 3 Quick Cards will generate 10 Critical Stars.
  • Buster Chains: Selecting 3 Buster Cards will cause all attacks to deal 50% increased damage.
  • First card is Arts: All cards generate additional NP Gauge.
  • First card is Quick: All cards generate additional Critical Stars.
  • First card is Buster: All cards deal increased damage.
  • Card Order: The second and third cards will have their effects increased.

For more information on Chains and Attacks: see Command Cards.

Attacking

Once the third Command Card is selected, the Servants will execute their orders.

• Normal attacks: All Command Cards during a battle will target the same enemy until they die. If there are any remaining Command Cards, these will automatically target the next enemy. If no other enemies remain, the turn will end.
• Overkill: A Servant will continue attacking an enemy even after reducing them to 0 HP, until the Command Card's Servant changes, or no Command Cards remain. This will grant additional NP Gauge and Critical Stars. However, if an enemy is reduced to 0 HP with a Noble Phantasm, they will die, and any remaining Command Cards (even if they are for the same Servant) will target the next enemy.
• Critical Hits: Successful critical hits cause any damage and secondary effects to be doubled. Player Servants can score critical attacks only through Critical Stars.

Notes

• When the game crashes, disconnects, or shuts down, it is possible to resume the quest from the title screen. The game will load at the last known Battle Preparation screen. However, any skills or Command Spells used will remain used.