Resonance of Fate Preview

You won't find magic or big swords here

Navigation is a cinch - every time you pick up a mission, where you need to go will be marked on the world map. You might not be able to get there straight away if you haven’t got the appropriate hexagons unlocked, but you’ll be able to see what kind of fragments you’ll need to piece together a path to your destination.

This is interesting. This is new. This is the kind of innovation we want to see from JRPGs. But then something happens, something that, in our mind, makes us scream “Nooooooooo!” in a very melodramatic Darth Vader kind of way. That something is random battles.

We thought they’d died out. Apparently not. If you’re moving about an unsafe zone from the world map view, you’re prone to random battles. The screen freezes, bullets crack it as if glass, the camera whooshes in and we’re back in 1997.

Just as we’re coming to terms with the existence of random encounters in a 2009 – wait, the game won’t be out over here till early next year, so 2010 – RPG, Resonance of Fate toys with our emotions yet again by displaying some innovative battle mechanics. At first it looks like traditional ‘three party members versus some mechanical beasties’ fare, but soon we spot some interesting stuff. Magic spells and huge swords are nowhere to be seen. All we can see are guns. Lots of guns. It’s an appropriate phrase – Resonance of Fate’s battle system is inspired by cult action films The Matrix and Equilibrium. Remember when Keanu Reeves dodges bullets in slow motion and kicks bad guys in the face with kung-fu-powered steel toe caps? Remember when Christian Bale threw himself about like a demented acrobat while unloading clip after clip into an army of leather clad enemies? That’s what tri-Ace is after – recreating that look in virtual form.

The way it works is this – once you’ve built up enough red points (by killing enemies) you’re able to pause the action and line up a path your character will take, represented by a dotted line. Then you sit back and enjoy the show – your character jumping about and firing off round after round into the face of any enemy silly enough to cross his or her path. It’s an impressive sight – stylish, action packed and cinematic.

Battles are inspired by films like The Matrix and Equilibrium

You won’t be able to trigger this special attack all of the time of course. For the most part you’ll be aiming a targeting reticule in real time at enemies, waiting for it to charge and then letting fly. Jun’s currently got two different types of weapons equipped – Zephyr has a machine gun, the other two have pistols. Both do different types of damage. The machine gun deals scratch damage, which rapidly reduces enemies’ outer layers, but they are able to recover from it over time. The idea is to finish them off by applying actual damage with the handguns. Think of it as blowing away armour – represented by a green bar – with scratch damage, then shooting with actual damage from a pistol to reduce the blue bar to nothing. Strategy comes from weapon equipping – who do you want to deal scratch damage? Who do you want to deal actual damage?

Jun says the battle system isn’t really turn based. Whenever you move the enemy can move, and you’re movement is limited by action points, so you can’t just run around freely. Levelling up is integrated into the battle system, too. As you level up your character and your weapons (both increase independently), the acrobatic attacks become more extravagant and do more damage. It’s up to you to decide what weapons you want to skill up in.

Our live gameplay demonstration leaves us with conflicting emotions. The random battles give us the fear, but the battles themselves look great. And you’ll only be interrupted by them while traversing the world map, not in towns or dungeons. The “upper class at the top and lower class at the bottom” structure gives us a bout of the mehs, but the steampunk art style and guns only approach makes us go yeah. Like we said, promising and troubling.

There's still loads we don’t know about the game of course, particularly with regards to the story. All Jun will say is that the general populace is unaware that the world they live on is being run by a machine. Only a select few elite right at the top of society know what’s really going on – that life is being determined by a machine. The mechanical enemies Jun was fighting are a by-product of the world people have created for themselves – the result of man-made pollution. However, there is another set of shady enemies that Jun can’t talk about, who you will encounter as you progress through the story. Somehow the three main characters get involved in unravelling and then exposing the truth.

We know enough to suggest a tentative answer to this question though: could Resonance of Fate be tri-Ace’s best game yet? To us, it looks like it’s got a good chance, and that’s enough to keep the faith.

Resonance of Fate is due out for Xbox 360 and PS3 early 2010.