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Not gonna lie, I was a bit skeptical when it was announced that Cloverworks was going to handle this adaptation. Mostly because I was a bit disappointed with their adaptation of the Promised Neverland anime at that time and the studio being formerly a part of A-1 pictures did not feel like a good sign. Hence, I was mentally prepared to write off this anime as a not-so great adaptation and feel satisfaction in the fact that at least the source material was great and I managed to enjoy that.

But when Episode 0 dropped, I was proven wrong. It showed that the studio understood ... the source material really well as they did a fantastic job in showcasing the themes of the first arc of FGO within a single episode so well. It got my hopes up and Cloverworks didn't disappoint for the most part.

Now the best part for me in this anime is how characterization is handled. And for a Fate or Nasuverse entry, you know how that matters as characters are always the core of the story. Instead of focusing of face value entertainment like flashy fights, Cloverworks put a lot of effort in making the characters stand out with their personality and internal struggles in some cases like "Enkidu" and Ereshkigal. The way they handled Fujimaru deserves praise as he was a problematic character in the game itself and there was every chance to screw up. Luckily, he actually feels quite human (still boring if you expect him to be like a central main character driving everything, which he never was within a singularity.) and is far better written than Sieg from Fate/Apocrypha who was a Gary Stu that reeked of wish fulfillment power fantasy through self insert of the audience.

Art and animation was pretty great with CGI being somewhat problematic in certain scenes but overall the visuals are good. The fights were well choreographed and fluid. One praiseworthy aspect of this is how the fighting style of characters reflect their personality in many cases like with Quetz. Not Ufotable level but probably the best Non-Ufotable Fate adaptation in terms of art and animation.

As for sound design, it wasn't as good as the visuals but still not bad at all. The soundtrack was pretty good and made many of the scenes look better, be it action or emotional. But some of the explosion sounds were kinda earrape but not like Apocrypha due to less frequency and how other sounds were added to make stuff feel less bad.

Now there were still some issues with this adaptation that held it back from making it really great such as Kodachi screwing up lore in one episode, few deleted/removed scenes and how First Hassan fighting Tiamat was a bit of a letdown.

But despite the flaws, the anime is a pretty solid 8/10 adaptation if you really appreciate the story of Fate/Grand Order. But as a standalone 5/10 at best. I am just relieved this is not a low quality cash grab using Fate name like Apocrypha and ended up doing some good stuff.