Great Video Games

Battle in fantastic cinematic action as your characters wield firearms in a semi-real time gameplay system. Pull spectacular moves and precision attacks through this special mode designed to chain enemy attacks together. This unique story is built around a gigantic clock tower like machine delving deep into fate and the machinery that controls it. Masterfully crafted environments illustrate the deep tapestry of this dystopian world. Customize your characters and give them a unique look within the game and cutscenes. Extensive weapon customization allows your character to have specialized weapons from parts unlocked or bought throughout the game. Customize and change the look of your character by unlocking costumes along the way.

Storyline
Civilization on earth has long been forgotten with the previously lush world now a burned out remnant of its former self. Originally built as an experimental life support system, Basel is now the only place on Earth where mankind can sustain their lives. As their role their PMF (Private Military Firm) the group (Vashyron, Zephyr and Leanne) must seek out and complete quests for their clients leading them on a journey that will reveal the truth of Basel.

About the Developer
Experienced RPG development team, Tri-Ace, behind this entirely new vision of fate within a steam punk world. The Tri-Ace development team has had a hand in developing some of gaming’s most celebrated RPG franchises from Star Ocean to Valkyrie Profile. Sega and Tri-Ace now introduce Resonance of Fate, which adds a new spin to the genre with a new cinematic action gameplay system centred around gun play and a steam punk styled world.

User Reviews about Resonance of Fate

Overall, Resonance of Fate is one of the most innovative and enjoyable games in the RPG genre to be released in a long time. This game is an absolute masterpiece, even from a developer as accomplished as Tri-Ace.
Gameplay - combines aspects of turn based RPG's and real-time action games for a unique combat experience. Although the learning curve is steep at the beginning and the difficulty overall is rather high, battles are always rewarding and exciting. Positioning seems to be just as important as attack strategy. Some of the more difficult battles can become frustrating, but mastering the combat system provides endless entertainment.
Visuals - the game is set in a steam-punk environment. The colors are dull, but everything is beautifully modeled and textured. The graphics are not necessarily cutting-edge, but they are immersive nonetheless.
Sound - the soundtrack is excellent. Battle music changes periodically to avoid monotony, and all music fits well with the environment being portrayed.
Overall presentation - the story is dark and mysterious, again meshing well with the steam-punk style. There are some elements of cheesy JRPG humor, but they won't make you cringe like in many other games of the same genre. Some of the humor is actually legitimately funny, and will catch you off guard.

In summary, if you are already a Tri-Ace fan, this game is a must-buy. Otherwise, if you enjoy a challenging, strategic, action-packed game, this is still a must-buy. In my opinion, Resonance of Fate puts every Square-Enix published RPG in the last 5 years to shame. Buy it. -- Another Tri-Ace Masterpiece

Resonance of Fate does all the things Tri-Ace has been trying to accomplish for years. It succeeds in the areas their other games had failed in, topped off with what I believe to be their best combat system on the 360.

Eternal Sonata had a creative battle system and decent characters, but failed in premise, pacing, and (most of the) story.

Star Ocean: TLH had a great battle system, nice visuals, and interesting crafting but had abominable characters, the worst pacing I've ever seen, and a confusing, boring, and unnecessarily long story.

Infinite Undiscovery... Well, frankly it sucked. It was close to broken as far as gameplay, the story was a long string of coincidences with a vague "dumbass saves the world" plot, an unmanageable party system, and one-dimensional characters. I guess if there was anything positive... It looked nice and had nice music. That's really all I got out of it.

Resonance of Fate gets all these things right. I recognize the good aspects of all of their previous titles in this game.

The atmosphere and world they've created in Basel is a new take on the apocalyptic settings found in most FPS as of late, with a creative puzzle-style game mechanic on the world map. The mythos behind the world is slowly revealed, intermixed with the personal day-to-day experiences of your party.

The group of three bounty hunters are together at the beginning, and for the most part they stay together throughout the game. They are all complex characters, complete with reasonable responses to every situation. There is some over-the-top humor, but honestly it doesn't bother me that much. The game also delves into very interesting philosophical and religious questions, focus on fate (topical!) and personal choice vs predestination. The characters might look like your average JRPG characters, but they might surprise you in how they act.

The combat system, which is the core of the game, is very complicated and has been explained extensively in other reviews. I believe it's Tri-Ace's best work to date. In order to get into though, taking all the tutorials and investing in a lot a lot of arena practice is a necessity. Once you get into it (Which is not nearly as long or as difficult as some have said), the combat is fun, deep, and strategic. There are numerous strategies, a variety of weapons, and many useful and/or fun items.

The menus are clear and easy to navigate, the graphics, although not awe inspiring, look average to good for this generation.

My favorite part about this game is its value. I'm well over 50 hours (over halfway through in chapter 10) and it only gets better. There's a lot of content to get through, a lot of excellent story, and a lot of good times to be had. -- Best Non-traditional JRPG on 360

I'm not going to list anything about plot here. Odds are, if you're the one buying this, you've already read the wikipedia page and looked up about a dozen other reviews. Relatives who are considering buying this for their 14 or older son, if he's into this kind of thing, he'll love it.

So, there's a lot of people comparing this to FFXIII, aka Final Fantasy 13, which is unsurprising, as they are both Japanese RPG games released within a week from each other. This is where the comparisons end. This is not a FFXIII review(read my review of that, though). This game stands alone and does (almost) everything right. It uses a battle system which is turn based, involving moving your characters independently towards enemies, charging up your weapons, and unloading an entire gun clip into them. It's violent, but only in the sense that there are guns. There's no blood or gore that I was able to observe, but there's a lot of gunshots, and let me tell you, after strategically placing your characters and attacking the enemy, it is incredibly satisfying hearing those shells drop in surround sound. It's really hard to explain how this game works--you have to play it to really experience it. What really keeps this game from shining is that it provides you no tutorial. I spent an hour just walking around the beautifully rendered city in the game, observing the amount of detail put into the steampunk monstrosity. The characters are drawn in a Korean fashion, with exaggerated expressions, gray eyes, and dull clothing, but I can tell you that I found their designs instantly more appealing than most of the ones I've seen in anime style games as of late. The expressions are realistic without trying to acheive that kind of hyper-realism that comes off as just plain creepy. Fans who have seen Final Fantasy 7 Advent Children know what I'm talking about here.
I get that I'm rambling, but here's what I'll tell you: the soundtrack is beautifully composed. The characters look great, as do the environments. Be warned, this is not a super duper high budget game: it is not Bayonetta, which had tons of money poured into it for advertising alone(whereas this game had none, at least in North America). That having been said, it is still very good looking, and if you own an xbox, I can guarantee it looks nicer than Halo 3.

The combat system is actually very intuitive once you get into it and learn it, but it takes a good couple hours to understand it. If you don't have the patience to learn, and are looking for some instant satisfaction, you're missing out on this. But not giving players an instant tutorial is actually kind of refreshing. In an otherwise linear game, it gave me a sense of freedom, and it was immensely satisfying figuring it out and thinking "Ah, so that's how it works".

Bottom Line: If you or anyone you know is into anime, rpgs, or gun blazing games, this is a must get. Anime watchers will catch references to Innocent Venus, Burst Angel, Appleseed, as well as Isaac Asimov's book End of Eternity. If you liked FFXIII, you'll like this better, guaranteed. -- One of the best RPGS I've ever played