Resonance of Fate review (Xbox 360)

It takes a long time to figure out the intricacies of battle, but Resonance is a blast even before you piece every tantalizing element together. This game simply exudes style. The cinematography used during hero actions is so over-the-top and exciting to watch that it makes battles a joy to take part in, even when you're getting beaten down by a goblin in a drum barrel for the fifth straight time. The camera pans around your character as you sprint headlong toward your enemy, setting up an angle low to the ground so you feel the pounding footsteps as you near your prey. In a flash, you begin to slide, reaching behind your back to nab your gun as you contort your body to line up a deadly blast. You can knock your enemy high into the air with a few concussive blows, and seeing him dangle above the earth as his rag-doll limbs flop pitifully around is sickly satisfying. If you decide to jump, your character performs twists and flips with ease. Once airborne, you can slam your enemy into the turf, causing him to rise and fall with such force that the screen shakes and armor sheds from his crippled body. Resonance revels in the majesty of flight and never shies away from the intense pain your bullets are capable of, making fights mimic the sadistic thrills most commonly found in pure action games.

The deeply rewarding combat and high-flying style erupt in bouts of pure awesomeness during the intense boss battles. In a game in which losing to a random foe in an ordinary encounter is an all-too-common occurrence, you can expect to have your butt handed to you again and again when you face off against gigantic beasts that tower over your heroes. You need to use every trick you have learned, and a few you may not have even realized yet, to tackle these treacherous monsters, but there is nothing quite as sweet as toppling something that has tormented you for so long. Your techniques have to be refined to perfection in these grueling duels, forcing you to make sure every grenade throw, every machine-gun blast, and every hero leap is performed with care and precision. Every one of the boss battles pushes you to the edge of your abilities before you finally take a deep breath and figure out the best way to succeed, which means that every boss battle is intensely satisfying when you finally win. Nothing in Resonance is handed to you without a fight, which makes it so much more fulfilling when you grab hold of victory with your own two hands.

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Because so much of the combat is open to you from the very beginning, there is little distinction between your fights at the start of your adventure and those that happen toward the end. However, although you do not gain access to a wider variety of moves, the game still manages to stay challenging and engaging. The most noticeable change is to your available weapons. As you get deeper into your quest, you earn a variety of bullets and grenades that have a powerful impact on combat. From being able to infect a small group of masked bandits with poison to knocking them all out with an explosive blast, these small changes have a big effect on your tactics. The weapon upgrade system puts a unique spin on traditional standards. Although you do earn the occasional new gun, you spend more time enhancing your current firearm. This is done in a grid-based puzzle game and requires a fair bit of thought to maximize your bullet-spraying power. But you aren't the only one learning new tricks. Your enemies come equipped with dangerous weapons and seemingly impenetrable shields, and figuring out how to defeat them requires a good deal of strategy.

Resonance is a difficult game no matter how you tackle it, but things become much more manageable if you take your time progressing through this adventure. There are 16 chapters total, and each contains one story mission as well as a handful of optional side quests. If you rush to the next story segment, you'll find yourself underpowered and overmatched against the unrelenting forces that stand in your path. These formidable barriers can be frustrating, repeatedly punishing you for trying to progress before you have earned that honor. However, if you do the side missions first, as well as clear out danger zones and compete in arena challenges, you'll have the skills and equipment to tackle anything. Unfortunately, there is little variety among the side missions. The objectives may be different--perform a reconnaissance mission in an abandoned building or clear out the monsters roaming near the waterless bridge--but they boil down to the same combat that's in the story missions. The occasional fetch quest isn't exactly riveting either. The combat is deep enough to remain interesting throughout the adventure, but a little more variety would have gone a long way.

This lack of variety is most noticeable in the visuals. The tower of Basel, which you call home, is stark and suffocating. The view changes little from one area to the next, so you are repeatedly greeted by a bland color palette and predictable architecture in every place you visit. Without foliage or wildlife to inject some diversity, things quickly become monotonous as you trudge from one bleak zone to the next. The industrialized theme is certainly consistent, and makes sense given the tower you call home, but it does weigh on you after a few hours of traipsing through similar sections. Thankfully, the unexciting visuals do not extend to the characters or to the enemies you fight. The starring party members have distinct personalities, and you can even change their clothes to inject your own taste into the proceedings. The enemies are even more striking, taking a variety of interesting forms, which makes it fun just to gun them down. With a little more style in the environments, Resonance could have provided the visual charm to match its impressive combat, but in its current form, the dreary atmosphere is one of the few dark spots in this great adventure.

Exploration does not provide any visual treats, but it's an interesting spin-off from traditional progression. The tower of Basel is made up of 12 floors, each covered by hexagonal spaces. You earn different shapes by emerging victorious in battle and lay these twisted pieces on the floor to carve a path to your next area. The sparsely detailed overhead view gives the impression of a board game, and you need to employ a puzzle-game mind-set to effectively use your limited pieces to clear the appropriate number of tiles. It's an interesting way to open up new places to explore, and it even ties in to the combat. Each level has terminals that, once activated, provide a boost for you in battle. Getting these to function requires colored hexes that are hard to come by, so maximizing your map skills goes a long way toward achieving ultimate success on your quest. You do have to walk across the same ground over and over because you never leave this civilization-saving tower, but it's a neat mechanic nonetheless and an interesting diversion from the combat.

There is a lot of content in Resonance of Fate. It can take more than 60 hours to play through the entire adventure, and if you do every side quest along the way, you can push that number much higher. But it doesn't matter how long a game is if you aren't consistently engaged along the way. Thankfully, the exciting combat and quirky story make this game incredibly difficult to put down once you get sucked in, and there is always a new challenge waiting for you around the corner. Resonance of Fate is a challenging and deeply satisfying adventure that will keep you hooked until the very end.