Publisher: Sega
Developer: Tri-Ace
Platform: PC, PS3, XB360, PS4
Genre: Tactical JRPG
Preface: Am going to share some GIFs from the net, this is because Peakd is making it difficult to embed my own GIFs
A few of my friends kept mentioning this game, it's quite under the radar but pretty prominent in the "games that nobody mentions" community. Nothing actually escapes these days, especially from me since I've started playing this. One thing after the other, I grew quite frustrated with this, where was I wrong, what mistakes did I make? Is this that penultimate difficult game that nobody could play. Well answer to that in today's mainstay is not quite. It's just a learning curve issue.
Resonance of Fate is a very interesting game, made by the made devs behind Star Ocean which is pretty niche and so this game felt victim to such niche-er category. Once I've gotten passed its issues, I don't, something kept me going and as the gameplay unfolded and I easily started getting the grasp of it, this game wasn't that tough after all.
Despites some of the early 7th gen issues, this was seriously one of the most underrated games out there from Sega and it goes to show to this how both Sega and Atlus came to being one of the most prestigious JRPG makers of current time. While it soars in the sky, at times some of the old mechanical issues, old-school color palette and dated UI tend to hamper a great game.
< Story >
In this game, you play as Vashyron, Zephyr and Leanne. 3 of the main characters who go out doing out jobs known as hunting where you collect items, secure an area, go on a scavenge, take out targets, etc. Most of these jobs seem to require professional help of different unique individuals and all these 3 stands out quite mostly against the norms. That of course is for good reasons as these characters don't mess about, the story in this game is packed with a lot of different characters, politic intrigues, strife, war, allegories to eugenics and so on.
Image from the Interweb
While the entire game with its color palette maintains this grim outlook, there's a lot of offbeat moments like characters exchanging witty banter often resulting in humorous situations, wacky stuff that goes off the wall, throwing consistency out of the window and great dialogue writings that'll get you in a pinch. Of course, the writing is good as long as you're playing the English dub, the Jab dub is...only doable.
With the multi-layered story and characters, you're sucked into this world caring. Of course there's a weird dissonance I feel with the open-world, the NPCs and all the character stories but this of course pertains to old design choices of early games and it's something only small for me to pick. Nonetheless, the story is powerful enough, like this is some high-class anime kind of narrative that really is going all in large cylinders. I mean how bad-ass would you want a game with targets being shot in mid-air above them in hyper stylized fashion? Speaking of though.
< ʎɐldǝɯɐפ >
Image from the Interweb
Legend has it if you can read it with your head upside down, you'll know exactly how your foes felt when you dash mid-air bullet timing your shots. This game is high octane action ceiling levels of fun. While it seems all no-brainer. Bear in mind, this game is a thinking man's entertainment. Not only do you get to riddle them with bullets but ballistics can also shoot a guy up in the air, that's how impactful they are, shoot enough you either smackdown enoughs, rip apart their gauges to subdue them or pull a bonus shot round. Pulling these off requires a lot of practice and mastering. So much style requires so much to learn.
Of course, there's the difficult learning curve as notorious as it can get that several users online had to create thesis level of charts, guides and walkthroughs to help figure everything out. This game doesn't kid around when it comes to turn based combat. Best way to describe it is like playing Valkyria Chronicles except you're doing trigonometry.
There's the tutorial for it which lets you practice first hand and again just to familiarize and learn of the mechanics, there's even a manual on the pause menu but even that barely describes these concuction of mechanics.
The best way to play it is using weapons that do scratch damages, these weakens the enemy but of course they fade in time or if they manage to sustain damage towards you. Direct damage are the ones that do serious damage on scratched enemies. Another aspect is Resonance points, all you have to do is cross the line between your two teammates to create a tangent, more you do, the more you increase. Then you triangulate and do a revolution with all your teammates attacking together at once, each revolution around the triangle costs a resonance point.
Of course, there's RPG stats. Weapons can be switched, each party member particularly holds either explosives, magazine case for different kind of rounds, and usable items. Sometimes they can hold two different weapons or dual wield the same ones. Weapons can also hold attachments installed for increase stats. Accessories upto two can be wore for passives like reduced damage or ice damage.
What I've written only scratches the surface, there's so much you can do in this game. Even set different attires for your characters, least that spices up the visual variety a bit. This game will mostly take you from 40-50hrs to complete. Also, how could I forget these weird, unique puzzle sections during exploration? They're crazy. It involves you using hexes to navigate through untapped territories by spending them, though you'll need to earn through various means to get through other areas. After chapter 3, it gets really open-ended.
The boss battles in this game is also quite challenging, sometimes going the difficult route like the switches are all flipped out of nowhere. But they're fair to approach and since I've lacked experience tackling them head-on. I would go to arenas and do duals for cash and tokens before levelling up my crew members, these can be done repeatedly and increases allotment of rewards based on ranking.
Big issue, is everything is so complex, not even the tutorials understand deep facets of the gameplay. There's a lot going on and as for the trigonometry part, just practice and maybe learn how to pull the sick moves and in no time, you'll be beating out bosses like cooking ready-made noodles.
< Presentation >
Visually, this game looks damp and that's thanks to the color and art style. The former is a serious grievance to deal with. Though, for a 7th gen game, the details are pretty good and would have accomodated well in 2013. Though the remaster arrived in 2018 and you have to tolerate this stuff especially since so many JPRGs these days even visual novels look stunning in detail and that's without this weird hue all over. It looks really muted.
Thankfully, the voice acting, good sound design and bombastic musictrack keeps this game afloat and it shows that if you can get Ghost Stories anime level of voice acting dub for something like this, makes a whole lot of difference.
< Score >
Am glad I played this game, am also frustrated with its inconsistencies mostly around the learning part. I had to do a good bit of research elseworld and figure out how to properly play it but once it's grasped, it's a really fun tactical based RPG that emboldens a lot of these hardcore anime shootout types with so much rigor.
The good:
- Game is silly fun with lot of depth
- Great story and charming characters to boot
- Weapons customization and character progression adds to the experience
- Nice puzzle sections
- Exploration gets interesting
The bad:
- Muted color palette
- Difficult learning curve