Where Hand of Fate steps away from its peers is in the way it animates actions like combat, trap avoidance, and even shopping. If you’ve sat around playing a game of any tabletop or card based RPG, the visualization of events is done with the imagination. Hand of Fate however turns these activities into fully animated and three dimensional escapades with full control being afforded to you. The notion is unique and its execution novel. Trap rooms are a challenge for any who aren’t familiar with the obstacles laid before them. Arenas of combat nurture significant threats to your future. Shopping… Well okay shopping doesn’t but this isn’t some Black Friday Simulator now is it.
When engaging in combat one might expect something along the lines of a Diablo-esque trip through cavernous caves to achieve victory, or a win-or-lose battle that even Shovel Knight could be proud of. That really isn’t the case here, with the melee of combat resembling nothing more than a fairly wet example of the combat in Ryse or Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. You wander around small environments with whatever weapons you had, taking down your opponents until there are none left. Counters, stuns, and special abilities all rear their heads in what is promised as a glorious display of warfare.
What you’re actually treated to is something along the lines of Bop-It. Press this button when there’s a green icon. Press that button when there’s a red icon. Flail wildly when there are no icons. That’s it for the most part. Admittedly, the boss fights against cards like the Jack of Scales or King of Dust do bring interesting mechanics into the arena. It is, however, a crying shame that these were not used more. It’s not bad, per-say. Hand of Fate‘s live action combat just struggles to live up to the implied tension born of the card game element.
Credit does have to go to developers Defiant Development in their execution though. Visually, Hand of Fate is so beautiful at times you’ll be biting the back of your hand. Spell effects and motion blurring add color to what could have easily become a game of staring at beige pieces of card and text. The wealth of cards on offer and the limitless amount of possibilities brings something to the gaming world that’s rarely been seen in an already interesting mixture of two game systems that could themselves have made for gratifying rides.
There are two places where shame comes in Hand of Fate. Its almost complete lack of desire to actually challenge the player is a little concerning. An illusion of fear can only last so long. You need to throw a cat among the pigeons every so often to keep them on their toes. Hand of Fate‘s difficulty feels like it was only made to simulate a battle of wits rather than create one. That isn’t to say gameplay isn’t compelling. It just starts to lose its shine after 10 or 15 hours. For the price though, that’s actually a pretty damn good package when you think about it.
The second is in that packaging. You know when you open up a big box of those random chocolates? Everyone goes for the tasty strawberry creams and the white chocolate truffle things with what tastes like angelic fluff inside them, only to ignore those toffees that could rip teeth from the gums of any person with the efficiency of a dentist’s drill. Well Hand of Fate is just like that. The card game and most of its other elements make up those great bits that everyone goes for first, while its combat leaves you feeling like you got the bad end of a bargain.
Hand of Fate has been made to appeal to many players quickly, and that it does. The only concern that sticks between your teeth is one that this desire to make people feel like their being forced to work hard without actually pulling any work out of them will hamper Hand of Fate‘s scale for replayability.
