Resonance of Fate, known as End of Eternity in Japan, was released in 2010 to decent reviews. It came and went fairly quickly, and despite getting a remaster in 2018 the game never received that much the attention. And it really should, because its strange, cinematic and acrobatic combat system is among the best I’ve played in a JRPG.
The game takes place in the grungy, steampunk structure known as the Basel. The Basel is essentially a giant air purifier humanity lives on as a result of years of rampant pollution, and your mercenary group of three has to battle through scrap-heap machines, mobsters, and gremlins just to make a living. This group, known as the Hunters, is armed to the teeth with firearms and consumables to combat these threats, and their unsubtle methods make this job a thrilling experience.
The Hunters' machine guns deal a large amount of “scratch damage,” which can’t land killing blows, while pistols deal a much smaller amount of direct damage. Grenades deal direct damage in an area and sometimes apply debuffs, while first aid is used to heal your party (duh). Each of your three party members can equip any of these choices, but only two at a time.
Most encounters with weaker enemies can be handled by building up scratch damage before finishing them off with a pistol, but more difficult fights require you to have at least one of each equipment type in your party.So, how exactly does the game expect you to use all this equipment? Why, in the most over-the-top way possible of course: running and jumping around the battlefield while doing cinematic flips and trick-shots. This is done using “hero actions,” by far the most entertaining feature of Resonance of Fate’s combat.
Hero actions allow you to perform multiple actions while dashing in a line at the cost of a resource called bezels, which can be acquired by defeating enemies or breaking barriers around them called gauges (let’s just call them shields, shall we?). Hero actions are extremely powerful sources of damage and mobility, but using bezels comes with risks as well: if even one of your three party members loses their health it’s game over, but lethal damage can be prevented by consuming a bezel instead.
You can jump to alter the effects of your attacks. For example, grounded attacks focus damage on shields from one angle, but jumping attacks hit all of a target’s shields at once while splitting the damage equally.
Jumping can be used to avoid obstacles, stall for time to perform more attacks, and even spike airborne enemies into the ground, but shouldn’t be used without thinking (even though it looks really cool). I’ve personally found myself jumping to enjoy the cinematic aerial attacks right before slamming my skull into a low ceiling more often than I’m proud to admit.If you direct a hero action perfectly between the other two party members, you will get to perform tri-attacks, which are essentially hero actions performed by each of the three party members in succession. The connections between the members of the Hunters are the crux of both the story and gameplay of Resonance of Fate, and tri-attacks represent this idea perfectly.
Each individual party member can perform multiple actions during a hero action, but during a tri-attack these multiple actions are much more impactful since the attacks are coming from different weapons and angles. I still remember how, during a tri-attack, I used a grenade to blow off all an enemy’s gauges at once, launched them into the air with scratch damage, and finished them with a jumping pistol attack to slam them into the ground.
Moments like these make the party feel like a true unit, and reward the player for planning out strategies. There’s a lot of nuance with this system, and the unique scenarios and strategies it enables deserve more recognition.
