So I bought Resonance of Fate a few days ago, here's some impressions

[Discordian 6,013]

It's a pretty unique game in it's own right, that's for sure. The story seems either rushed or they seriously haven't told me what's going on yet and plan to later, until I get farther than the second chapter I'm not gonna say much but in every cutscene they don't take enough time to fully explain everything, they keep you in the dark about everything and it's a little frustrating for being that early in the game.

 

It's got a very unique battle system though and it's fun to play and strategize with it, like using specific weapons to do certain things to an enemy. Scratch damage them with machine guns to multiply the amount of normal damage you take off of them with handguns and such. As you use a weapon they level up which is actually pretty efficient cuz it depends on how much you use each weapon. Though it looks like it can become a bit of a pain in the ass later. As the weapons level up it upgrades your own stats as well as raises stats of your weapon and maximum carried weight.

 

The more weight you have, the more/better additions you can add to it. You can fully customize each weapon with accessories that raise it's stats just a little more that make battles easier.

 

On a side note, you can also fully customize the characters' clothing but...it doesn't really do anything as far as I can tell (correct me if I'm wrong) so it's just for fashion sense. But there are tons of different clothes to get so it's a pretty neat feature.

 

Speaking of that, the characters all have pretty cool designs anyway, I dunno if I wanna mess them up by putting on new clothes cuz they look pretty cool already. xD

 

This game has a unique world map where you have to place these puzzle pieces called Hexes down before you can advance to another area. Every Hex is shaped differently so you have to twist and turn it to get it to fit, and you can only put it down right next to areas you've already covered with hexes so you can't cover the entire map until you get to that area. There are also colored Hexes needed for getting into certain areas and without those you can't advance forward in some places.

 

Now as for dungeons, it does something somewhat unique, you fight battles in the battlefield as normal but then as the battle ends you can then explore the room you are in for treasure boxes. Once you've done that there isn't anything else to do and you move on to the next room where you will find new enemies to defeat. They aren't particularly difficult, especially when you have a minimap telling you what room you're in and such, but it's better than what I was expecting after the first hour of the game where I was just going around the world map as a cursor and getting into random battles and when the battle ends we went back to the world map.

 

About the battle system, basically it's like Valkyria Chronicles in a way because as you move your turn meter goes down but it also goes down when charging attacks so if the meter depletes before your attack is charged your turn ends and it goes to the enemy. Of course, they also have their own meters that are independant of your own so they can attack you as much as they want even if you never attack them. Of course, that's a bad idea because they will take you out.

 

There's one thing rather unique about the battle system though: There's two types of damage that I mentioned above. Scratch damage, which won't hurt your health but if added onto direct damage it will multiply how much your health takes directly. Same goes for the enemies.

 

There's also the Bezels, if you take too much scratch damage the Bezels are broken. You need those to perform "hero actions" which basically allows you to run to a specified area of the battlefield and as you go you can attack multiple times instead of just once. Doing a Hero Action depletes one Bezel but if they are broken thanks to Scratch Damage then it hurts you.

 

If you have no more full Bezels in your Hero Gauge then you go into Critical Condition, which is the worst part of the game imo. Basically, whether you run out by doing Hero Actions (replenished by various actions including killing an enemy) or if the enemy takes off too much scratch damage and breaks a Bezel, if you run out of Bezels your characters turn into chickens. They run around in a panic, they can't shoot as well and I think their defense is slightly lowered as well. I don't like this feature at all and feel it's a major handicap but then again, maybe I just need to get more Bezels and it won't be so bad.

 

The game is difficult, that's for sure, I die constantly. Good thing is that they allow you to restart any battle you lose...with a price out of your pocket.

 

The music is done by one of my favorite composers, Motoi Sakuraba, which is great cuz I love the game's music already.

 

Resonance of Fate was made by tri-Ace, the ones who developed the Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile so I had no doubts this game would be awesome yet it's still quite different from what I was expecting even after watching a gameplay video of it.

 

Bump

Edited December 22, 2011 by Raronetta