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The student news site of Milwaukee Area Technical College

MATC Times

The student news site of Milwaukee Area Technical College

MATC Times

Guns and hand grenades

LOCO’S Gaming Update

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. For this special Summer issue, I figured why not do a special review on an older game.

Review: Resonance of Fate

Release Date: Out Now

Developer: tri-Ace

Publisher: SEGA

Console(s): PS3/Xbox 360

Format: Xbox 360 DVD / Blu-Ray disc

ESRB rating: T

Price: Less than $29.99

Disclaimer: Only the PS3 version was reviewed. Unlike many RPGs where the game world is a medieval fantasy, this game is set in a post-apocalyptic, steam punk world. You won’t be using magic or melee weapons during combat, instead you’ll be using guns and grenades.

The game starts off with three hunters (they’re like mercenaries) just trying to get by making money when they can. The actual story doesn’t kick in until the last few chapters of the game. The “story” missions focus more on character development. Without giving any spoilers, the meat of the story is no epic, but at the same time it avoids the “must-save-the-world-from-impending-doom” sort of motivation that is seen in many Japanese RPGs.

It should be mentioned that for the story and side missions, (most of the time) you’re given very clear directions how you go about completing a mission and where you need to go to complete each mission.

Gameplay is one of RoF’s greatest strengths. There are two main types of damage you can deliver to your foes: scratch damage from sub-machine guns and direct damage from pistols. Scratch damage delivers a lot of damage, but can’t kill enemies by itself nor does permanently hurt them.

While direct damage delivers a small amount of damage, but can turn the scratch damage into permanent damage and it can kill enemies. In terms of its battle system, it’s sort of a turn-based real-time hybrid where you select a target and after you’ve made at least one “charge” you can attack.

Charging your gun attack is kind of like winding up for a powerful punch. The longer you charge, the more powerful your gun attack will be.

Hero Run is a running version of the normal attack with one major difference: you can do multiple attacks during a single Hero Run and that just scratches the surface about the combat mechanics.

If you’re concerned about the complex nature of the battle system, the game does have an in-depth tutorial about the gameplay mechanics. Unfortunately, finding the said tutorial area—which is area called “Arena”—isn’t made obvious to the player unless you look in the manual. You can customize each of the three playable characters’ looks with different shirts, pants, and glasses. You can even dye their hair a different color. You can also customize your guns with scopes, extra barrels and grips.

While there are no cosmetic changes to your guns, your customized guns will be more powerful. And you’re going need every last trick you’ve learned because the game sometimes offer some fairly brutal difficultly spikes. At one moment you can be having no trouble clear a “dungeon” and you come across an overpowered boss.

This is particularly problematic for the final boss for the game.

The graphics are not bad. They won’t put you in a visual awe, but they’re not hideous either. The voice acting is pretty good, with most of the characters sound appropriate depending on the situation. The game’s battle music, while I didn’t mind it, might be a bit too cheesy for some.

This can be easily fixed by taking advantage of the game’s custom soundtrack support for both the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Overall, this is a very good title and RPG fans should definitely go out and buy this game.

4.25/5.0 (VERY GOOD)

+ Excellent combat mechanics

+ Avoids JRPG story clichés

+ Great looking 2D models

+ (Mostly) clear mission objectives

+ Absurd weapon customization

+ PS3 version supports custom soundtrack playback

– Uneven difficulty spikes- Some cheap bosses

– Some online lag and matchmaking issues

– Doesn’t guide the player to the tutorial area

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