Resonance of Fate would like you to believe that it’s a conventional roleplaying game. The exploration elements are there, and so is a degree of dungeon crawling; but a certain degree of freedom doesn’t change the fact that tri-Ace has apparently crafted a cleverly disguised tactical-roleplaying game. It certainly isn’t Final Fantasy Tactics, but I would say that it has more in common with the likes of Valkyria Chronicles than it does Final Fantasy XIII.
These feelings echo some of the sentiments I expressed after my last hands-on experience with Resonance of Fate during TGS 2009. At that time, I also expressed concern over what appeared to be bland art design and featureless dungeons. Following Sega and tri-Ace’s most recent visit to the 1UP offices though, I feel confident in saying that Resonance of Fate has established a unique identity for itself — in particular, it seems to have much more of a sense of style and humor than I was previously lead to believe.
Click the image above to check out all Resonance of Fate screens.
Resonance of Fate director Takayuki Suguro was on hand to take me through a few of the game’s areas, as well as to give me a fresh tour of the game’s battle system. He was pretty direct when I shared some of my thoughts on the gameplay with him, “Yes, I would definitely say that it plays like a strategy roleplaying game.”
Take the dungeons, for instance. Resonance of Fate eschews exploration in favor of turning each room into a series of battlefields, with progression dependent on clearing each room of monsters. In addition, much of the battle strategy is reliant on positioning. When attacking, a character is usually sent running in a certain direction to avoid being shot at while attacking. Crisscrossing the trajectory of the other characters builds up “resonance” points, which can eventually be unleashed in combination strikes.
The attention Resonance of Fate gives to battlefield tactics is a welcome distinction. It’s actually reminiscent of not just modern tactical RPGs, but of Valkyrie Profile 2, which was another Suguro game. Battlefield movement was a big part of the game as well, and both Resonance and Valkyrie Profile make it possible to attack and break various enemy body parts. Even some of the art design is similar; Leanne has quite a bit in common with Alicia, for instance
Where the similarities end is in Resonance of Fate’s general mood. To begin with, Resonance has a striking art style that contrasts with the more conservative Valkyrie Profile 2 — you can sort of describe it as, “gear punk.” The tower of Basel is divided by class, with the nobility dominating the upper sections, and the lower-classes filling out the bottom. Suguro says that the art follows a theme of, “steel, rust and gears,” and indeed, the further down the tower you get, the more those things begin to take over. By the time you get down to the lower classes, you’ll find that they’re a veritable rust heap; not much more than a junkyard really. And yet, for all the emphasis on trash, the overall look still manages to be fairly colorful. The battlefields themselves remain non-descript, but the tower at least seems interesting.
The areas that I saw were primarily in the very early part of the game. Exploration is accomplished by selecting a location on a 3D map of the tower, with certain areas being grayed out due to power outages. Accessing those sections of the map means collecting parts from enemies, and assembling them like a puzzle to restore power. Blackouts are actually fairly common in the story as well, electricity being as dodgy as it is. There’s an instance early on in which a monster knocks out the lights (and the television), forcing the heroes to find a fuse box. After making their way through one of the dungeons, they run headlong into a “Tesla Tortoise,” which can only really be attacked safely from cover.
Click the image above to check out all Resonance of Fate screens.
The heroes questing for a fuse box because they want to watch some, ahem, risqué television, is indicative of this game’s somewhat goofy spirit. Another scene features what Suguro calls the “Vashyron dance,” a fevered daydream in which the main character imagines himself pumping his fists and waggling his rear end in time to thoughts of wine and steak. Just for good measure, he also thinks about one female noble’s breasts — which are focused upon repeatedly. More amusing is that the voice acting in this section isn’t half bad, including the likes of Nolan North and Scott Menville (the latter having voiced Robin in Teen Titans). The fact that the acting is actually pretty good only makes scenes like this more surreal, and honestly, even funnier.
The other aspect of Resonance of Fate that characterizes its tone is the fact that its possible to dress up the characters in various outfits, which translates into the battles and cut scenes, “We weren’t planning this feature early on,” Suguro tells me. “But we were making a lot of different outfits to test out different looks for the characters, and we thought, ‘Why can’t we do this in the game?’”
And so we get scenes in which we see the main characters standing around looking like Japanese rock stars, with Leanne wearing cat ears for good measure. Some of the clothing is pretty silly (the aforementioned cat ears come to mind), but no one can accuse of Resonance of Fate of being “generic.” In any case, it’s completely optional, so you don’t have to worry about losing a sense of gravitas because Vashyron is wearing aviator glasses, if that’s something that worries you.
For my part, I’m mostly glad to see Resonance of Fate establishing a unique identity for itself thanks to its focus on tactical combat, solid art direction, and quirky sense of humor. I still have my doubts about this game — mostly regarding whether or not the battle system can remain interesting over the course of 50 some hours — but that skepticism has been mixed with a certain amount of optimism. I await Resonance of Fate’s final release with interest.
