Review of Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel - II. Lost Butterfly

First off, this is the first accurate representation of Fate/Stay Night that an English person has access to. The UBW anime had a very bad director who could not convey accurate characterization, made much of the story and dialogue feel extremely repetitive, and in general made the show a waste of time because Shirou had nothing in common with his VN counterpart. Also, the translation was bad. In the case of the VN, it too has a very bad translation that you would basically have to "decipher" in order to get anything out of it. Lost Butterfly does not have a good translation either. So you'llmiss out on Sakura's incredible eloquence in the rain scene, and in general, the characters will feel far less natural than they should.

To comment on the characters, Shirou is finally understandable in this anime, but he still has far less depth than he does in any route of the VN. Every moment with Illya is good, but she has very little screentime. The same is true for Rin. This anime is pretty much Sakura's story and the director does a great job in conveying her psyche. There is a lot of really eloquent dialogue between Sakura and Shirou that the VN has but this anime lacks (due to the differences in the mediums). Yet the visual storytelling of this anime has its own appeal. Both iterations complement the other.

So when it comes to Fate/Stay Night, if you learn Japanese you should read the VN. If not, you should just google the background information on the characters and watch Heaven's Feel. I do not think any of the older adaptations are worth watching due to their poor scripting/directing.