Of Resonance of Fate...

By Rob Hamilton · July 22, 2011

Very impressive, through the first chapter or so. I'm in Chapter 2 where I still have to do the main dungeon and one sidequest which involves collecting three of an item dropped by a specific monster in said dungeon.

The battle system is a lot of fun. I think the most trouble I had with a fight so far was the one before the boss in the chapter 1 dungeon. One drum carrier (blows up when blasted with handguns), three dwellers (have to blow up their barrel before you can damage them) and three fat gunners who are on an elevated platform. Died about three times before beating that one. A couple fights killed me once (early random battle when I was stupid, a L3 arena fight because I was stupid, the stray cur quest fight in C1 because I was still L3 and made one little tactical error and my first attempt at the king goblin quest fight in C2...after which I switched weapons on characters to get a few quick levels and then destroyed it easily), but that one was particularly tricky.

So far, one of the better new-era RPGs I've played. Easily. Nothing fancy as far as graphics go, but the battle system is very addictive.

Comments 17

Suskie Jul 22, 2011

The only thing I don't like about RoF's battle system is that you can either win because you strategized poorly or because you're flat-out outmatched, and it can be difficult to tell which is the case when you lose a fight. One time I wasted about an hour and a half restarting an encounter over and over until I finally realized that I just wasn't in any position to win in the first place. The difficulty does occasionally spike in random spots and it's easy to stumble into areas you shouldn't be entering yet. And the infrequent checkpoints make it tempting to just restart battles rather than losing a lot of progress.

But yeah, it's otherwise a great, underappreciated game.

overdrive Blogger Jul 22, 2011

I do know that I'll be pissed when switching between weapon types no longer is sufficient to "grind" levels to be tougher. Just doing arena levels 2-5 in Chapter 2 got my party from L6 to L9. Or was it 5 to 8? Either way, it worked nicely!

honestgamer Staff Jul 22, 2011

There are other ways to be tougher, like assembling better weapons with the pieces that you find. The game is genius.

Genj Jul 22, 2011

RoF is awesome mainly because of its really unique and addicting battle system. But other than that, it's kinda lacking. Thankfully it carries the game really well. I recall having a tough time near the beginning of the game but other than that I tended to blow everything away unless it was an optional fight to get another Beezel Shard, and then I just went back to it after completing more of the story (the final chapter did give me some trouble at times).

Venter's right that the gun parts are really important to kicking a lot of ass. There's actually really easy exploit where you can build some gun part from early in the game and then sell it profit. I did that and I ended up with way more money than I ever needed. It helps for stocking up on resources for gun parts, but you'll still need to find a lot.

Definitely my favorite HD -RPG, but I guess that's not saying a whole lot. The genre seems to be moving to portables these days.

honestgamer Staff Jul 22, 2011

I went pretty far into the game before I realized just how much gun construction can affect your performance in battle. If you have the right guns on the right people and you know how to set up those triangle attacks, things become much easier. The standard "levels" aren't really all that important until right near the end of the game (the last area can be a bit of a pain and the final boss battle is a mess unless you really have your gear and strategies together).

Genj Jul 22, 2011

Special ammo is really important too. I synthesized a lot of metal and hallow point bullets and usually gave the ammo case to my best machine gunner.

fleinn Jul 22, 2011

..after a while you need to go for the breaks too. Split the life-bars, get more rubies back, keep the tri-attacks going. Some of the bosses basically have one single weak point.. It's possible to critically hit and kill them with direct damage as well. The giants, some of the golems with the huge eye, for example.

You should be able to get past the difficulty spike if you grind a bit in the arena. ..should be possible to get through the game without it as well.

overdrive Blogger Jul 23, 2011

Fleinn, that ties into one of the things I like about the game. When you mentioned splitting the life bar or whatnot, I had no idea what you were talking about because (I don't think) the instruction book mentions that and the arena's combat tutorial definitely doesn't. Then I fought Tesla Tortoise (Chapter 2 boss) last night and noticed that as the fight went on, its lifebar split into two and then three segments. I really don't know what that accomplished, other than that it seemed to weaken (took forever to actually damage it, but as the fight went on, its life dwindled quickly) and attack less often as it lost life. I love playing a game "blind" where I don't automatically know the best tactics for a situation either because the game walks me through them or because I've played a dozen games like it and simply know what to do from them.

threetimes Jul 23, 2011

Interestingly the thing about gauge-breaking does appear in the tutorial, (combat 13!) but it doesn't point out all the ramifications of that.I was totally bemused by tutorial at first, there's so much to take in and I didn't. But the way you learn by doing, slowly accumulating more and more battle wisdom until the whole things slots into place and becomes so elegant, was fantastic fun. Battles never got stale for me. And I loved the structure of the game, the chapters, and the missions, and the hexes stuff. Not to mention the dressing up, the backchat in battles, and cut scenes.It was also refreshing not be beaten over the head with the story.

fleinn Jul 23, 2011

:) yeah. Short and simple..

But the way the fighting actually changes and becomes more and more interesting, all the way through the game, that's really well done.. Suddenly finding out that the grenade pouches some of the monsters carry around blow up when you shoot them, that kind of thing :D

Suskie Jul 25, 2011

I started playing this game again.

YOU'RE GONNA HAVE MORE HOLES THAN A BEEHIVE

fleinn Jul 25, 2011

>_< directly translated Japanese insult-puns for the win..

"Shooting someone full of holes" can apparently mean to have sex. So I guess she says "I'm going to f' you up".

overdrive Blogger Jul 25, 2011

Suskie
LOL...the gangsters and their lines.

Last night, I beat the Dolled Up Dwellest. It might have been the toughest thing I ever have done in my life. I failed about a dozen times during Chapter 3 before giving up and then it took about 5-6 more tries in Chapter 4. And when I won, it seemed like pure luck, as my machine gunner somehow scratch damaged it about 50 times more than usual on one turn.

fleinn Jul 26, 2011

:) yeah.. there's extra multiplers for scratch-damage as you level up. If you can focus to level 100, there's "full scratch damage" as an ability to about 50% chance, or something like that. But it doesn't work on all the enemies.

But before that, and before you get to Neverland, there's no real need to go for the full scratch. The multiplers are more than high enough once you charge a bit, or just focus on one angle.

threetimes Aug 13, 2011

Did you finish this? Was expecting to see your review. I wrote one for GFs but it's WAY too long to post here. I rambled. A lot.

EmP Staff Aug 13, 2011

Don't say that! I've made a career on rambling.

overdrive Blogger Aug 15, 2011

Haven't played it in a week or so. Like most games I play that take over 3 hours to complete, I've entered an unexpected hiatus. Had the urge to play Baldur's Gate II on my computer and try to actually complete it this time. And have been playing Call of Duty 3 on my PS2 when not playing that.

I'm sure I'll get back to it soon, but as of now, I've just entered Chapter 7 and seen the hilarious video of the crazy guy screaming about being blessed while trying to shoot himself in the head.