Resonance of Fate - First Look Preview

For those of you who are reading this with absolutely no prior Resonance of Fate knowledge, this trailer should wet your whistle a bit:

We're sure you'll agree that it looks pretty good but, as we all know, lavish CG cut-scenes are one thing in a JRPG and engaging gameplay is often quite another. Much of this comes from the opening cinematic of what was originally revealed as End of Eternity in Japan, although the game has now been renamed as Resonance of Fate for the Western market due to some boring trademark issues. Having taken a good first look at SEGA and tri-Ace's new collaboration, we can confidently tell you that Resonance of Fate not only has the cinematic flair of a great JRPG, but also the innovative gameplay to match.

Set in a steam fiction world that resembles Lando Calrissian's Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back (you can see a glimpse of it at the end of the trailer), Resonance of Fate is nothing if not well imagined. The almost gyroscopic looking city literally runs like clockwork, in the sense that it's actually built from cogs and springs that are all part of one big timekeeper. This clock decides the fate of the world's citizens - when they're born; when they die; what cereal they eat [ed. confirm cereal]. However, only the city's upper-classes, who live at the top of the needle, are aware of this as the poorer dwellers are intensely religious and therefore believe in the superior judgement of the gods. In other words, it's all one clever flip on William Paley's watchmaker analogy.

Visually speaking, this needle in the clouds is not only stunning in the CG sequences but also while being freely roamed between battles and missions. Pendulums, pulleys, weights, and cogs protrude from the environment in every direction, maintaining the theme of fate and time around every corner, and there's even a day/night cycle to boot. Within this setting, gamers play the role of three Hunters, who are essentially guns for hire that are employed by members of high society to do dangerous work. There are three playable characters in the game - Zephyr, Vashyron, and Reanbell - who are not, despite their names, a type of French cheese or a mild breeze.

Instead, they form the typical cast of a JRPG: one young and impulsive male, a slightly older and wiser male, and an attractive young female. Having said that, early indications are that Resonance of Fate's characters may not be overly constrained by traits, which will open up a broader range of customisations as a result. SEGA has indicated to us that characters can be levelled-up symmetrically across the board, so if there is a sub-machine gun dual-wielding skill available, then it can be assigned to any of the three main characters in the game.

As far as we could tell from our first look, gamers explore the world as one character and can seamlessly switch between skins of Zephyr, Vashyron, and Reanbell as they go. The party then splits into three for battles. Whether this setup will negatively affect the amount of depth each character has is a question that can only be answered with more hands on time, but it does seem to suggest a more blank slate approach towards characters than a typical JRPG. Nonetheless, we're hopeful that each character will retain certain strengths and weaknesses in areas such as agility and strength etc.

As far as the battle system is concerned, SEGA was keen to underline that Resonance of Fate's combat is not turn-based. However, as is so often the case with JRPGs that innovate in the battle arena a bit, the system is grounded in turn-based attacks but also fluid enough to incorporate elements of real-time play. Players have options at their disposal such as drawing lines of attack for each character, which will then run down that line and perform a Matrix-style, acrobatic manoeuvre combined with a volley of gunfire at selected enemies.

Gamers can also determine when these attacks are unleashed in real-time by pressing the required button at any moment across the designated line of attack. These attack lines are pretty useful for strategy as well. In some of the more complex battle arenas, it's possible to draw a line that will put the character into cover behind a wall once they've completed their allotted guncrobatics (N.B. we're not going to coin that term as a Google search reveals that at least one other person has used it previously). SEGA is even promising interactive objects in the environments such as explosive barrels, so there will certainly be a lot more going on in the battle arenas than your average JRPG.

Resonance of Fate's health system adds an additional layer of strategy to the combat, with both 'scratch' and 'actual' damage meters to negotiate. Simply explained, 'scratch' damage is recoverable whereas 'actual' damage is not, so it's best to finish off an enemy as quickly as possible once their 'scratch' damage is depleted. Enemy groups will also have ringleaders that are harder to kill, although taking them out first is likely to cause their underlings to flee from a fight.

On top of all this, invincibility power-ups offer an interesting balancing act for gamers to tussle with. The demo we saw had three of these power-ups displayed on the HUD, although we understand that players can upgrade to more slots as the game progresses. Using the power-ups offers obvious benefits although, on the other hand, having less power-ups in your inventory will affect a character's strength and confidence, so a constant balancing act must be negotiated by players between more potent attacks and the lure of invincibility.

I'll Have A JRPG Please, Bob

Our sneak peek at Resonance of Fate also included a look at the game's map interface. We were taken around a small area of the world called Abel City and, given the overlay for the map, it looked a bit like something out of Blockbusters. All of the paths through the city were represented by conjoined, hexagonal slabs. As player's progress through this world, they will unlock various configurations of these hexagonal slabs to use by doing jobs for NPCs or defeating a certain boss etc. Almost like a jigsaw puzzle, players then lay down these differently shaped configurations onto the map to unlock new areas. The system is then vivified by rarer hexagonal slabs of different colours. These are harder to find and are often needed to unlock the passageways between new sections of map, which we felt added an element of intrigue to the exploration.

Resonance of Fate really is one of the most exciting RPGs to emerge from Japan in quite a while and a welcome addition to the 2010 calendar (which is, of course, a Final Fantasy year). While it may not better the main JRPG event of next year, Resonance of Fate will be one of the best supporting bands you could find for the headlining FFXIII.