Preview: Resonance of Fate

Resonance of Fate

Platform: Playstation 3/Xbox 360

Genre: Role-Playing

Publisher: Sega

Release Date: Spring 2010

Resonance of Fate (or End of Eternity as it is named in Japan) is a lesser known upcoming release that I've decided to share with all of you. The first time I had heard of this game was in a recent issue of Gameinformer magazine where they included a great preview of the game and got me interested.

The back story behind the game takes place on a massive tower that serves as the final inhabitable place on Earth due to widespread air pollution. The stories main character is a lad names Vashyron, who runs his own Private Military service where he does mercenary work for pay. At the beginning of the game, all goes wrong when the purifying tower tasked to attempt to purify the air below ceases to work, and Vashyron and his gang are thrown into a plot conspiracy involving the State and Church.

The gameplay of Resonance of Fate differs from previous JRPG's created by game developer Tri-Ace such as Infinite Undiscovery and Star Ocean: The Last Hope. Gameplay mixes elements of turn-based and real time battling. All three characters (Vashyron, Zephyr, and Leanne) wield guns and explosives rather than traditional weaponry. In battle, once one of your characters is ready, they can move around the battle environment freely until their "Fuel Gadge" runs dry at which point they may launch an attack. And each weapon has different characteristics, for example, Zephyr's twin sub machine guns dish out a lot of damage, but all of said damage is considered "scratch damage" and is progressively recovered over time, whereas Vashyron's hand guns deal permanent direct damage, and deal additional damage against foes that are already "scratched". This adds a bit of bonus strategy in the heat of battle.

Overworld movement is entirely hex-based. You earn tetris-esque shapes from battles and you may place them in front of you to form a path to a new area such as a town. Once in a town perspective transforms to 2.5D side-scrolling perspective. Inter-town backgrounds are vivid and contain full day-to-night cycles which alter their appearance in accordance to the time. Shops will also offer a great variety of customization options such as a great selection of guns and clothes. And clothing customizations also appear in cutscenes in which the character appears in instead of snapping back to their original costume.

All in all, I'm looking forward to checking out Resonance of Fate when it comes out this Spring. It looks like Sega might have something good on their hands here.

Share your opinions: Does this game look like a Hit or Miss?