Resonance of Fate Official Strategy Guide

Resonance of Fate is a new RPG and an original property developed by tri-Ace and published by SEGA. The official strategy guide for Resonance of Fate written by Casey Loe and myself comes out in stores today.

The game takes place in a multi-level construction called Basel that has been built above the atmospheric layer of a poisoned, decaying, uninhabitable Earth. The survivors built Basel to purify the atmosphere and normalize the environment. The limited space around Basel was the only place people could continue living, so humanity had to entrust its survival to the grinding gears of Basel’s machinery. Civilization gradually began to grow around Basel, with people eventually moving inside the machine itself and building up the core, raising it high above the planet’s surface. As centuries went on, people built levels around the core and established various towns, cities, and even theme parks and landmarks for the survivors to enjoy themselves. However, Basel has now existed so long that people have forgotten why they live there, or that there is even a world outside Basel. Many parts of Basel have become eroded and filled with monsters. No one knows where the monsters came from. This neglect and forgetfulness may be the fault of the Cardinals, who are the political/religious leaders that foster a worship of Basel and it’s machinery. The Cardinals built their mansions in the uppermost layers of Basel, in the monster-free “Chandelier.” The recent death of the Prelate Frieda provokes a long-lasting depression in ranking Cardinal Rowen, who then calls upon freelance bounty hunters to reactivate the lower levels of Basel, restore the machinery, and defeat the most powerful monsters.

Cardinal Rowen mourns the passing of Prelate Frieda.

…Or so I make of it. The story line is somewhat shrouded in mysticism and secrecy, so you might play the game and take away a different back-story than I did. But whatever the case may be your job is to manage a party of three Hunters: the experienced Vashyron, the hotheaded Zephyr, and the beautiful but mysterious Leanne. Each character can be equipped with a firearm and an item box. Depending on the type, item boxes can be loaded with curatives, special ammunition, or grenades. A character can also dual-wield two weapons and double their attack power, provided their weight capacity allows. Each character also gets to wear two accessories to improve defense or prevent status ailments. Items can be bought at stores, or specialists called “Tinkerers” can combine many parts to form new weapons and weapon parts, ammunition and grenades, and accessories.

Steampunk meets Tokyo runway in "Resonance of Fate."

While visiting towns you can explore and interact with the citizens of Basel. In certain towns there are Hunter Guilds where clients post missions. By viewing these missions on the bulletin board, you can then go and speak to the client to sign up for the mission. Completing missions usually involves going out in the field to explore a dungeon or other location, defeating a powerful enemy, or finding an important item. There are also “Story Missions” that the party signs up for automatically. Completing Story Missions usually requires defeating a powerful boss enemy. Beating these creatures advances the “Chapter.” The game is divided into seventeen Chapters, during each of which new information comes to light and the situation in Basel changes.

Basel's world map is presented as twelve hexagonal grids. Reactivating hexes allows access.

After signing up for missions you can then exit to the world map, which consists of twelve levels mapped out in hex grids. Many hexes are inactive and therefore impassable. Laying down Energy Hex items on the map can reactivate these hexes. Energy Hexes are acquired by defeating enemies in combat, and using them to reactivate hexes can cause the party to find hidden treasures.

Combat in "Resonance" is both strategic and action-packed.

The combat system is complex, action-packed and highly strategic. I laughed to read Stephen Tolito’s blog post over at Kotaku.com, wherein he attempted to explain the combat system of Resonance of Fate. This is not to say that combat in the game is too complex for a person to understand, but even I must admit there is a lot to it. Fully explaining the combat system takes up several pages in the official strategy guide, so I’ll only try to give you the basic gist of it herein:

1. Each character gets a turn.
2. On a character’s turn, he or she may move, attack, use items, perform a Hero Action, or a combination of all of the above.
3. A Hero Action allows the character to run a pre-charted course through the battlefield, attacking continuously. Hero Actions allow a character to inflict greater damage.
4. Each Hero Action costs one bezel in the Hero Gauge displayed at the bottom of the screen. If the Hero Gauge reaches zero, the party enters Critical Condition (explained below).
5. Defeating enemies or blowing off their body parts restores bezels in the Hero Gauge.
6. During character turns, enemies have their own gauges that charge. When fully charged, enemies then get a turn to attack.
7. The party is invincible to damage while the Hero Gauge is active, and all damage is sustained as “scratch damage.” But if a character suffers 100% scratch damage then bezels are subtracted from the Hero Gauge to replenish their HP, at a rate of 1000 HP per bezel.
8. When the Hero Gauge is reduced to zero bezels, Condition Critical occurs. The characters cower in fear and cannot perform Hero Actions or use items. Attack and accuracy are greatly reduced. All damage sustained is subtracted from the characters’ HP. Only defeating an enemy or blowing off a body part to restore a Hero Gauge bezel can avert Condition Critical.

…And that’s only describing combat in the simplest way. So as you can see, battle in Resonance of Fate is quite entertaining and deep, requiring a lot of strategy. Luckily the guide contains a full explanation of the combat system and all its features, along with some basic strategies that you should probably read before plunging into the game. The mission walkthrough also features tested strategies that work against each boss. In the game, an Arena just outside the characters’ hometown offers dozens of active tutorials, and going through them all can also catch you up to speed. The Arena also allows you to re-fight previously defeated foes in order to level up, acquire items and improve your wealth.

I admit the Resonance of Fate guide was challenging to write, not only for the need to explain the deep, gun-blazing combat system but also because we really wanted to cover every aspect of the game. Included is coverage of all bonus dungeons, extra costumes, side missions, and the other extras tri-Ace likes to throw into their RPGs. I was glad for my previous work on titles like Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile, which only barely prepared me for the task at hand in Resonance. And yeah, having a great author like Casey Loe to work with certainly helped too. The Resonance of Fate Official Strategy Guide is available in stores today. Let me know if you have any questions on the game or guide in the comments:

Share on Twitter

Tags: Resonance of Fate, strategy guide