Resonance of Fate Review

By Simon Parkin Published 16 March, 2010

A towering achievement?

Version tested:

Released within weeks of one another, Final Fantasy XIII and Resonance of Fate present two fiercely independent visions of the contemporary Japanese role-playing game. The former is a retreat into the formative traditions of the genre, a linear trek along narrow interactive lines that link endless CG cut-scene pitstops.

Its orthodoxy may be cloaked by an advance into dazzling new technological stomping grounds, but with character designs focus-tested to within an inch of their personality and a celebrity endorsement from Leona Lewis, Final Fantasy XIII's populist approach is a concerted attempt to appeal to the everyman gamer.

Gone is that lilting arpeggio signature theme that soundtracked every preceding game in the series, a shrugging off of the trappings of convention, despite the fact that the underpinning mechanics are often as old as videogame time.

Tri-Ace's latest, by contrast, appears orthodox at a glance, with towns filled with jabbering NPCs, eager merchants, and fetch-quest assignments and an overworld peppered with random battles, dungeons, treasure chests and boss battles.

But beneath the surface, Resonance of Fate eschews convention at every turn, withholding the basic structure of its lineage but changing almost every one of its details to create a radical, fascinating departure from the norm.

'Resonance of Fate' Screenshot 1

Later in the game you begin to access Terminals in the world map, hexes that produce a special effect, such as increasing the item drop rates in that area.

In this world magic and swords are discarded in favour of Victorian firearms and John Woo-esque acrobatics. Characters wheel and dive in kinetic, semi-real-time gun duels overlaid by all manner of tickers, timers and statistical readouts.

Meanwhile, cut-scenes are pared back to the bone, the world primarily revealed through expressive character and environment design rather than reams of dialogue and supplementary encyclopedic text.

Even the geography of the traditional role-playing game is upturned, the traditional hero's journey from pastoral village out to the ends of a troubled earth rotated to a vertical climb up a decaying steampunk tower of Babel.

Likewise, while Square-Enix's refined blockbuster reveals its battle system in painfully small increments, tri-Ace presses almost every one of its mechanical complexities into your palms from the off. Not only this, but the game demands prompt mastery, punishing any gap in its players' understanding in no uncertain terms.

For gamers mollycoddled by gaming's general trend towards lenience in recent years, and the specific tendency of RPGs to demand perseverance over proficiency, it's a rude awakening. Indeed, this is one of those few games in which you must pay in-game credits to continue from a Game Over screen, with tiered payment plans depending on how much of your party's energy you wish to restore.

The story focuses on a group of three housemates, Leanne, Zephyr and Vashyron (voiced by the ubiquitous Nolan North, best known for his turn as Uncharted's Nathan Drake). The trio work together as 'hunters', freelance mercenaries who carry out odd jobs for the tower's aristocracy, who are housebound thanks to the bandits and rogue robots who roam the overworld.

'Resonance of Fate' Screenshot 2

While battles in the game are technically random, they only occur on certain types of hexes and at an extremely low encounter rate, so players put off by capricious interruptions needn't be put off.

Towns, built on the various tiers of the game's gargantuan tower (an air purifier upon which entire communities have sprung up), are explored in a similar style to those in tri-Ace's Valkyrie Profile series. While built in intricate 3D, your character generally moves along a 2D horizontal plane, perspective on the rusty walkways and Elizabethan-style houses shifting as you move left and right.

A world of cogs, candles and clockwork, the aesthetic is one of steampunk precision, all dainty streetlamps, nostalgic frocks and cobblestones rounded by decades of footfall. A John Williams-esque orchestral score swashes through the streets, combining with the de-saturated colours to create a haunting effect of second-hand nostalgia.

The world map is composed of hexes, the vast majority of which are closed off at the beginning of the game. To unlock frozen hexes you must rotate and lay 'Energy hexes' on top of the area you want to unfreeze, rather like laying Tetris blocks onto a gridded map. These come in various shapes and configurations and are won by defeating enemies.

As you unfreeze new areas of the map, so new locations are opened up to your team. Some areas can only be unlocked with special coloured hexes, won from NPCs or by taking on key missions. This mechanic allows the game's designers to stagger access to the tower, while still allowing the player some freedom to explore those parts of the world they want to explore.

It's a neat system and, with bonuses for clearing all of the hexes on a tier of the tower, introduces a gentle puzzle dynamic in trying to find the correct shaped energy hexes to unlock those hard to reach corners.

Despite its strengths, the hex system plays second fiddle to the game's most innovative and idiosyncratic feature: its battle system. Complex and with many rules and quirks, this has you controlling your three characters in sequence in a semi real-time tussle.

As with SEGA's Valkyria Chronicles, moving and attacking share an action point gauge. A character's turn ends when either the action gauge depletes or they attack. In the game there are two types of damage that the player can inflict on opponents: direct damage and scratch damage.

The type of damage inflicted is dictated by the type of weapon they have equipped, 'direct' from handguns and thrown weapons and 'scratch' from machineguns. Direct damage drains an enemy's health irrevocably, while scratch damage deals a greater amount of injury, but recovers with time and does not destroy the enemy when reduced to zero.

Much of the game balance comes from inflicting a large amount of scratch damage with one character, and then turning it into direct damage with another before it has chance to replenish.

Attacks can be dealt in one of two ways. Standard attacks simply require you to lock on to a specific target and charge up a standing attack. Hero Actions, by contrast, allow you to plot a course across the battlefield, before running along that line while repeatedly attacking enemies, only stopping if you collide with an obstacle or reach the edge of the play area.

'Resonance of Fate' Screenshot 3

There's a day and night cycle as you traverse the world map too, with townsperson behaviour and enemy conditions changing by day and night.

Hero Actions use up what quickly reveals itself to be the most important resource on the game: Bezels. Initially you have three bezels with a Hero Action costing one bezel per use. Run out of bezels and your team is critically wounded, with hugely scaled-back abilities. In most cases, you won't recover from this state and it's game over.

Bezels are replenished every time you defeat an enemy or part of an enemy (an arm, leg or shield, for example). The strategy then comes in balancing those crucial Hero Actions with how close you are to defeating an enemy or enemy part.

Be too conservative in your use of Hero Actions and you won't take enemies down quick enough. But conversely, be overeager and you'll find you'll find yourself in a critical condition before time. Learning when to push forward and when to hold back takes time, but when you nail to balance, is extremely satisfying.

The system is granted a final tier of complexity by way of the Tri-Attack, a combination attack that can be triggered under certain conditions. Running between the other two characters during as Hero Action earns a Resonance point, which can then be spent on activating a Tri-Attack during your next character's turn. During this attack the three characters race along the sides of the triangle their positions form, each character blasting away at the targeting enemy and dealing dizzying amounts of damage.

The battle system has a steep learning curve and, while it's possible to bluff your way through encounters with standard grunts, as soon as you face a boss character with multiple armour segments you'll need a good handle on how everything works if you're to have any chance of success.

'Resonance of Fate' Screenshot 4

The game's broken into chapters. Advance a chapter without clearing side quests and those side quests will be lost.

Yet more time is to be sunk into customising the game's weaponry, which, rather like piecing together guns in Resident Evil 4, has you attaching scopes, new barrels and all manner of add-ons and mods to create ever more fanciful weaponry.

Again, this is an ingenious upgrade to the rote-RPG system of purchasing new and better weapons to match the tougher enemies you face as you progress, increasing the sense of player agency and introducing just the right amount of non-linearity to your characters' progression.

At times you'll have no doubts that this is the best JRPG of the generation, a fast-paced, interesting and creative detour from a stagnant mainstream. At other moments, usually when facing the tenth Game Over screen during a difficult boss battle, you'll wonder whether the game suffers from poor balance, born from its developer's stubborn insistence on novelty for the sake of it.

Either way, by the end of the adventure you'll be certain that Resonance of Fate's approach is a one-time affair, unlikely to inspire any copycats. Its ideas are simply too leftfield, and too fully realised to be closely imitated.

Nevertheless, this is a hugely interesting game, as fascinating as it is frequently frustrating, as engaging as it is eccentric and, for those who are hooked by its quirky charms, it will provide one of the most inspired approaches to the JRPG seen in a decade.

8 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Simon.

About Simon Parkin

Simon Parkin is an author and journalist on video games. A regular contributor to Eurogamer since 2005, his work has also appeared in Edge, The Telegraph, Gamasutra and Boing Boing.

Read more articles from Simon by visiting the Simon Parkin archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (67) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • RedSparrows #1 2 years ago

    ooooooooo

    (a good oooooo)
    Edited by 1 at 16/03/10 @ 00:05

  • MuppetThumper #2 2 years ago

    No time for this! No time for far too many worthy games!

  • cozeny #3 2 years ago

    Ja, buying this.

  • JediMasterMalik #4 2 years ago

    Certainly not what I was expecting, and it actually does sound very good, the review certainly reads more like a 9, but as we all know scores don't really matter one you've read the review. :p

  • K8_Truth #5 2 years ago

    Aika ostaa konsoli

    I think there are enough good rpgs for me to consider buying a new console now

  • Oldest_Ancient #6 2 years ago

    Was unsure about this but it sounds like it's definately worth a shot. The Valkyria style battle system sold me on it.

    Probably going to leave it until the summer drought though, to much else to finish first.

  • Cappy #7 2 years ago

    Of all the big releases so far this year, this is the one I've been waiting for. Nice to see that it's a quality game.

  • StrafeMcgee #8 2 years ago

    Wow. Will definately be investing in this. Especially since FFXII is currently slowly driving me insane with it's linearity, thus sounds like the ideal remedy.

    One question though Simon, is the story any good? You give brief details bur don't really give it a yay or nay...

  • Charlie_Miso #9 2 years ago

    Works for me.

  • andywilkie35 #10 2 years ago

    Great stuff. Had this on preorder for absolutely ages as it sounded great, this review confirms it for me. Now to finish the frankly excellent FFXIII in the next two weeks so I can start this

  • harhol #11 2 years ago

    I'm glad this got a high score but I don't think the reviewer should be passing comment on FF13 when he clearly hasn't finished (played?) it.

  • Fernando #12 2 years ago

    will get, waiting for the inevitable bargain bin price of £25 though :)

  • Instinct #13 2 years ago

    Sounds brilliant, had been crossing two fingers that this would be good. Not much comment on story or graphics, probably because you're trying to explain to the reader the battle system, but good review nonetheless!

    Not sure where I am going to get the money to buy all of these games coming out. =/ Hope this gets sales at least, love it when somebody attempts to refresh the JRPG genre.

  • sfp_noodle #14 2 years ago

    its probably a better game than ff13 but will be lucky to reach even a third of the sales. i will deffo be picking it up once i manage to get god of war and heavy rain completed :)

  • craigm #15 2 years ago

    wasn't interested in this before i am now

  • balflear_pkt #16 2 years ago

    Huh, really hard to be better game than FFXIII overall, but this looks like a good game :)

  • ShiroBen #17 2 years ago

    Now THIS sounds interesting.

  • NegativeZero #18 2 years ago

    Before FFXIII launched I thought that Sega were absolutely insane to have scheduled this to come out so close to it, since I've seen other reasonably solid JRPGs get completely passed over because of their proximity to the FF monster (Tales of the Abyss being one such). Now though it seems that with the latest Squenix offering being such a polarising game, Sega have actually positioned this incredibly well as an alternative for people disappointed with elements of the bigger game.

    Knowing Sega's marketing and sales, this is probably a happy coincidence rather than anything they actually planned, though. :p

  • timberwolf #19 2 years ago

    RIP FF XIII

  • Eraysor #20 2 years ago

    I wish I had time to actually buy and play this. I'll have to wait until it ends up in the bargain bins I think, it does look delicious.

    Also, is there a Metro 2033 review coming, oh EG gods?

  • BBIAJ #21 2 years ago

    I've got this on pre-order with ShopTo for less than £30 (Xbox 360 version, although the price seems to have gone up now!), and I absolutely cannot wait to play the full game. I've played the Japanese demo, End of Eternity, to death, and as I don't do Final Fantasy (apart from Dissidia on PSP), this looks like being a great JRPG to spend some quality time on.

  • Grayvern #22 2 years ago

    Dammit why no concurrent digital foundry to tell me what console to buy it on. I was trying to save for a panasonic GF1 (the one that's like the ep1 to complement my A700 but looks like it'll be this Metro 2033 and possibly alpha protocall and bust. Bloody developers.
    Edited by 1 at 16/03/10 @ 04:20

  • karooo #23 2 years ago

    I wanna play this game so bad, FFXIII is awesome too btw.

  • lavalant #24 2 years ago

    I'd like to try out the battle system before i buy, There's a demo on the jap marketplaces (xbox and PS3)

  • Dizzy #25 2 years ago

    Hmm I am interested now. A jrpg for those of us who can't be bothered with FF?

  • MichaelDesloover #26 2 years ago

    @StrafeMcGee: The styory is nowhere near the level of say FF XIII, Mass Effect or any other recent RPG's. The 'lack' of cutscenes made me feel a bit detached from the overall storyline and often you're plunged in a mission without truly knowing who or what it's about (or why you even got that mission, basically there's a lot of lore but it's hard to take in. The game lets you choose your playstyle and hardly ever takes you by the hand to guide you trough. However the three protagonists are carefully displayed with a clear attitude. It made me smile occassionally...I still haven't finished the game so it's of course a limited answer.

  • Scimarad #27 2 years ago

    "The Valkyria style battle system sold me on it."

    It really hasn't got a Valkyria style battle system!

    In other news, some guy just got minused for saying "I wasn't interested in this before but I am now" wtF?
    Edited by 1 at 16/03/10 @ 07:58

  • Kevf #28 2 years ago

    Normally I wouldn't say this: but this REALLY reads like a 9.....

  • MrTeatime #29 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:59:18 03-01-2012

  • menage #30 2 years ago

    Sold!

    In a month or 3

  • Quint2020 #31 2 years ago

    Oh Japanese RPGs how I wish I still had the time to play you...

  • UKwoods #32 2 years ago

    Is this xbox or ps3? It doesn't say on iPhone Eurogamer app î

  • TruSmiles #33 2 years ago

    Really interested in this, but I'll be completing FFXIII first, which is a superb game on its own right.

  • mr_shoe_uk #34 2 years ago

    As was also requested earlier, which is the version to go for? PS3 or 360?

  • Cafuddled #35 2 years ago

    Never even heard of this game until now, but sold as I have been dry of JRPG's since that old 360 exclusive about a year or two ago that I can never remember the name of. In fact do I even need JRPG's anymore?... Who am I kidding of course I do.
    Edited by 1 at 16/03/10 @ 10:04

  • RandomTerrain #36 2 years ago

    Nice to see another good RPG on the market, always a good thing. :o)

  • Raziel #37 2 years ago

    Wasn't sure about this, might have skipped it since I've already got FFXIII, but I'll be sure to pick this up later after I finish FFXIII and Yakuza 3.
    Still have to get White Knight Chronicles too...

  • geeza2020 #38 2 years ago

    sounds like it could be a viable alternative to FF. Which is what i need, because i am not going near that Leona Lewis soundtracked rubbish.

  • RedPanda #39 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • NonniR #40 2 years ago

    I've been interested in this for awhile but was sort of torn between this and FF. After reading through the review, I've decided to buy this instead of FF. This sounds far more interesting + the art style is pretty awesome.

  • GamesConnoisseur #41 2 years ago

    Cool!! Loved the End of Eternity Demo when it's came out in Japan store last year, now called Resonance of Fate for us and a must buy on first day for me!! Just as well as in chapter 12 and one before the end of FFXIII at the mom.

    Had Jan to Mar BEEN ever this busy with back to back games that we can't miss?!! Too many!

  • Beano #42 2 years ago

    What's the word on the street - PS3 version or 360 version?

  • neonxaos #43 2 years ago

    Been eying this game for a long time, and now I want it really, really bad.

  • butler` #44 2 years ago

    be a nice ying to ff13's yang tbh

  • chrisola #45 2 years ago

    compared to Last Rebellion, which is Wang.

  • telboy007 #46 2 years ago

    Forgot about this one, have now pre-ordered. JPRGs have had a wobbly start this gen on the 360 (except lost odyssey which was quite good until I got stuck on that bit with the 4 dinosaur thingies approaching the city, grr!).

  • Rubarack #47 2 years ago

    Interesting, though I'm left wondering if the battle system is deep and strategic or just pointlessly complex. I suspect the only way to find out is to play it.

  • PinkSpider #48 2 years ago

    Bloody hell, 5 new games in two months. I'm skinnt as it is :(

  • crazyhorse174 #49 2 years ago

    Daft question, but whens this out? Dont see anything in the review.

    On a side note: EG, any chance youse could start putting the release dates for these games at the top of the review or something? Thank you please!

  • glaeken #50 2 years ago

    This actually sounds pretty good. I am not a massive JRPG fan but have been know to dabble so may well pick this up once it gets cheap. It's certainly nice to see a bit of imagination in the setting as well.

  • phimister #51 2 years ago

    Really interested, but no Leona = no sale

  • groovychainsaw #52 2 years ago

    Pre-ordered already - fancy a bit of complexity and FFXIII just doesnt sound that interesting to me ATM...

  • kirby2096 #53 2 years ago

    Have preordered this a month ago on ebuyer when it was at £20.43 inc vat, it was at this price for 2-3 weeks and it only garnered 2 more preorders!?! Sure, it won't be coming to me on release day as I chose free delivery but I have FFXIII to keep me going until it does.

  • wanderingkid #54 2 years ago

    On visuals alone this impressed me far more than FF13, reviewer sounds geniunely impressed, I'm pretty much sold on it now even within the tsunami of great games we have out this quarter. Oh & LOVE steampunk !

  • Matthew_Hornet #55 2 years ago

    Quite frankly, based on the Eurogamer reviews, this sounds better than FFXIII in almost every way. Resonance of Fate decided to take all the risks, while Final Fantasy retreated into simplistic, focus-tested blandness. How could I possibly be interested in that over this? And that's not even mentioning garish vs subdued visual aesthetics, and pop vs John Williams (-esque).

  • darc #56 2 years ago

    Oops, just bought FFXIII on impulse, even though every review clearly indicated it wasn't for me. This looks far more interesting, but will have to wait.

    Machine guns, "just a scratch" LOL.

  • darc #57 2 years ago

    BTW, I'd be curious to hear about the XBox version vs. the PS3 version on this one. It probably won't warrant a face-off, so has anyone heard anything elsewhere?

  • Velios #58 2 years ago

    is this better on PS3 or on XBOX?

  • NonniR #59 2 years ago

    @darc and Velios. You can see comparison shots here: http://ww w.n4g.com/ClickOut.aspx?ObjID=4... They are almost identical.
    The X360 has slightly better textures and depth of field wheras the Ps3 has better lighting and that's only because of the differences within the hardware of the consoles.

    Personally I'm going with the X360 version.
    Edited by 4 at 16/03/10 @ 19:18

  • Bander #60 2 years ago

    360/PS3 screenshot comparison, so you can play Spot the Difference:

    <a href="http://d.hatena.ne.jp /yoda-dip-jp/20100202
    ">http://d.hatena.ne.jp /yoda-dip-jp/20100202
    </a>

    The first two shots are FMV. In the others, there's tiny differences in lighting, shadow quality, texture sharpness, depth of field effects, and a few missing objects. But I can't say if one set really looks any better or more detailed than the other. I'd choose the 360, based on the final Rainbell shots.

    Not sure about frame rate, but it's the last thing I'd worry about for a turn-based RPG, as it's not as if input lag is critical to the gameplay. FFVII was an incredibly jerky game, but nobody remembers this.

    Perhaps the best version is the one with the shortest load times. Whichever that is. Buy both!

    Edit: Took too long, nevermind!
    Edited by 1 at 16/03/10 @ 19:32

  • KDR_11k #61 2 years ago

    Well, it sounds interesting, I'll look into it once the price drops.

  • 43n1m4 #62 2 years ago

    FF XIII is driving me nuts with its cliché story and unconvincing characters... this sounds more interesting and perhaps even worth playing. And I don't mind if they cut down on CG cutscenes - in fact, I'll applaud that. I'm playing the game, not watching it.

  • Velios #63 2 years ago

    will get this just to see how it compares to FFXIII

  • Sevens #64 2 years ago

    Great. Maybe in the next review of an RPG, whoever writes it will even talk about its story!

  • telboy007 #65 2 years ago

    My copy arrives tomorrow! \o/

  • Exarch #66 2 years ago

    I'm under the impression that this is to FFXIII what Shadow Hearts II was to FFX. A far superior, but vastly underappreciated game.

  • Laythe_AD #67 2 years ago

    I think I'll pick this up. Especially as FFXIII wound up being a monstrously horrible backwards step from XII, which I loved.