OXCGN – Breathing Life Into Gaming

by belgavion

© 2010 Gav Ross

Japanese development company Tri-Ace haven’t really hit their stride yet with this generation of consoles.

The fourth installment in the Star Ocean series, released early in 2009, was an ambitious sci-fi odyssey that failed to live up to the lofty expectations gamers held for the franchise, while their new IP a year before that – Infinite Undiscovery – was about as vague and bland as its title suggested.

So it’s with well-guarded high hopes that JRPG fans have approached Resonance Of Fate – another entirely new creation that drops traditional weapons and magic in place of firearms.

Released in Japan earlier in the year under the name End Of Eternity, Sega made the ballsy move of releasing Resonance Of Fate to North American and European markets mere days after Final Fantasy XIII hit the shelves.

• Resonance Of Fate Release Trailer

It’s easy to dismiss this as a foolish decision, but Resonance Of Fate is such a refreshing and different beast to FFXIII that it could be viewed almost as a palate-cleanser for those wanting a break from Final Fantasy’s paradigm-shifting and endlessly-gorgeous cut-scenes.

One aspect of Resonance Of Fate that’s no different from every other JRPG is that the background story is expansive and requires some attention to get your head around it.

Earth has fallen victim to a bout of gas poisoning that has forced those still living to build a mammoth device in the ground called the Basel; within this environment a civilization is formed within layers and, much like in the real life, the rich and powerful reside at the top while the lower classes slum it down in the base areas.

When the life-preserving Basel complex begins to malfunction we are introduced to the three main characters that lead gamers through the rest of the story: a teenage boy named Zephyr, a slightly older blonde girl named Leanne and a late-20’s ex-soldier known as Vashyron.

They all possess the typical china doll look of characters from other JRPG titles and their personalities aren’t much different. Cut-scenes aren’t as prevalent as in similar games and when they do occur they’re mostly a bore, apart from the odd bit of humour.

The world map takes place within different levels of the Basel and is made up of hexagonal-shaped boxes named ‘Hexes’. These blocks form different patterns and players need to acquire new blocks during battles to continue to ‘build’ paths to new areas.

From the very start, players can view almost the entire Basel, but all the blocks are shaded, showing there’s a lot of unlocking work to be done.

Especially being read in a review, this type of map no doubt sounds tiresome, and at first it certainly feels like a chore having to grind and collect hexes. However, after only a short while it becomes strangely addictive and there’s enough variety in the hexes themselves (some areas are blocked off by certain hex colours and there are some block ‘patterns’ that don’t become available until later in the game) to keep things fresh.

If anything, it’s a nice change to be unlocking the map with this method rather than running through a linear set of levels or traversing a huge landscape and discovering enemies who are way out of your league in terms of strength.

Resonance Of Fate nicely balances important story progression battles with random encounters on the map to ensure players are never really out of their depth. Unless you don’t know what you’re doing….

And therein lies a problem, particularly for gamers who lack patience.

Resonance Of Fate is most definitely not a game you can jump into, start having random battles and have a blast. The game makes the mistake of giving you a choice from the outset whether to start going to explore the map or go to the ‘Arena’ for tutorials and practice.

When thrown into your first random battle it becomes apparent that going to the Arena first should have been mandatory. Once there, it is advisable to read through and play the 15 or so tutorial parts – which take about 40 minutes – otherwise you’re not going to get very far.

The real testing point of whether the player has been through the tutorials or not comes at the introduction of a boss at the end of the first chapter. Unless you’ve really begun to perfect your movement strategy and use of combo moves such as the ‘Tri-Attack’, you’ll soon be demolished and sent sulking straight back to the Arena for some lessons.

The game’s battle system is an intriguing mix of real-time and turn-based that encompasses the use of all three core characters.

During a battle it becomes vital to position each character in accordance to where the enemies are and use some logical strategy.

There’s incredible depth to the battle system and this only increases and gets more impressive as the story progresses.

RoF is the kind of game that will reward those with fortitude who’re willing to experiment with different strategies and test the full gamut of what’s possible on the battle map. The rewarding feeling of running rings around a group of enemies once you have your strategies down pat makes all the arduous learning all the more worth it.

Although there are a small amount of melee weapons available, the main focus remains on guns, and lots of them! Characters can switch between pistols, machine guns and even some dual-wielding capabilities depending on what level they’re on.

The weapons themselves can be upgraded through your typical RPG skill screen and some other extras (such as grenades) help along the way.

If Resonance Of Fate comes up trumps in terms of depth and complexity of the battles, it falls short in character and environment design.

The ‘dungeons’ of the game are almost always small city areas that are eventually unlocked by your hexes on the map, and once you’re in there there’s not much pretty scenery to look at.

There’s a bland industrial renaissance look to everything and unless you’re keeping your eye on the mini-map in the corner as you progress through a dungeon it’s easy to lose track of where you are, since it all looks the same.

The characters themselves are stiff and unremarkable, but the voice acting is above-average and there are some entertaining conversations, even if you don’t fully understand the universe and its story.

With around 40+ hours to devour just during the main journey, Resonance Of Fate is a game veteran JRPG lovers can joyously sink their teeth into.

It took a few years but Tri-Ace has delivered a game that won’t be forgotten in 6 months or whenever the next JRPG comes along.

When something like this and Final Fantasy XIII are released within the same month it’s clear we’re all completely spoiled.

“8.5/10

[ED: Then they have to go and spoil it - What do Japanese game companies think most gamers are - ? This is just one of several excerpts from segments of the game that really do not do the game justice, but drop the quality of it, rather than lift it. Smutty sure, and fun - sometimes, but they seem to have cornered the ,market of what has become known as 'jiggle-physics' . .]

The Dance – Oh dear me . . . yes ma’ dam

© 2010 Gav Ross

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Filed under: PS3 Reviews, Xbox 360 Game Reviews, Xbox 360 News Tagged: | Basel, bouncing boobie, End Of Eternity, final fantasy 13, Final Fantasy XIII, infinite undiscovery, Japanese Role Playing Games, JRPG, Leanne, Resonance of Fate, Resonance of Fate Review, Sega, Star Ocean, Tri-Ace, Tri-Attack, Vashyron, Vashyron dance, Zephyr