Fate US Boxart
Hello, readers! I give you a break from the gloom I generally bring to review another video game! This game is a personal favorite of mine called Fate. Fate is a dungeon crawler developed by WildTangent and published by WildTangent and Encore Software. Fate is an attempt to create a casual game with a lighthearted atmosphere. Character, item, and environment designs are vibrant and colorful, as opposed to the dark hues and dismal themes that tend to characterize dungeon crawlers.
Fate plays very similarly to the iconic dungeon crawler Diablo. Your character starts without any skill points and can use a variety of weapons, including bows and crossbows, daggers, spears, staves, and shields. There are skills to increase the effectiveness of weapon use, shield blocking, spell casting speed, and the potency of the three spell types: Charm, Attack, and Defense. Defense spells include healing and buffing spells. Defense magic skill points affect the amount of HP recovered by healing spells and the duration of buffs on the player. Attack spells include spells like Fireball, Slow, and Shocking Burst. Attack skill points affect the amount of damage that attacking spells inflict and the duration of debuffs that the player casts on enemies. Charm spells, arguably the most important, include a spell to identify items, a spell to create a portal into town from the dungeon, and spells to summon monsters to assist the player. Charm skill points affect the items that the player can identify, the level of the dungeon from which the player can teleport, and the level of monsters the player can summon. A player can have up to 6 summoned monsters at a time.
The player also starts the game with a pet; they can choose either a cat or a dog. A dog begins with a high strength stat, which increases its damage. A cat begins with a high dexterity stat, which increases its defensive rating and chance to hit enemies. The player’s pet can be transformed by feeding it fish. Different fish turn the pet into different creatures, from a spider to a gryphon. Different qualities of fish can turn the pet into those creatures for longer periods of time. Flawless fish transform a pet permanently, unless the pet is fed a different fish. The pet is also able to equip items. The pet can equip two rings and a necklace. The player can equip two rings, a necklace, a two-handed weapon or two one-handed weapons, a chestpiece, boots, gloves, and a hat. Some items are magical and some are nonmagical. In town there is a person who can enchant items, both magical and nonmagical, with new abilities, for a price. Some items have sockets in them. Gems can be placed into socketed items in order to imbue them with special powers. It is fairly easy for a player to gain money through questing and dungeon crawling and thus be able to afford good equipment. The game’s story is fairly short, only a couple of hours long, but the player does not have to stop after defeating the dungeon boss that they are told about in the beginning of the game. They can continue on to lower and lower dungeon levels until they are satisfied. When the player defeats the game’s boss, they can retire their character and have that character pass on an item to a new character as an inheritance.
The game somehow manages to both look dark, and also vibrant and colorful.
The game is very easy to play. The player’s character moves to places that the character clicks on and fires on enemies that the player clicks on. The player can right click to cast spells or consume items. The player’s pet consumes items that the player right clicks on while holding down the shift key. The ease with which this game can be played is very inviting; the player does not need to learn a complicated control scheme. Character customization is similarly easy. Magic is helpful, but not necessary. The only problem that the game has is its lack of multiplayer. Because the game does not have multiplayer, it is not quite as entertaining as Diablo, but it can still be very fun.
Plot is the one thing that Fate does not have. There is a brief introduction where the player is told that the village town of Grove is being plagued by some monster on a specific floor of the dungeon outside town. The monster type, name, and dungeon floor are all randomized each time a new character is created. It is the player’s job to reach that level of the dungeon and defeat the monster; beyond that, there is no real story.
All in all, Fate is a fun and addicting casual dungeon crawler at a fairly reasonable price. I would recommend it to people who enjoy casual games, but I would not recommend it to people who enjoy hardcore dungeon games such as Diablo.
