I find J-RPGs to be curious beasts. From the outrageous story arcs, to overdramatic dialogue, to the over exaggerated proportions of the characters and their weapons, the games are bewildering. Often I think someone is playing a cruel joke on us Westerners, because even if there is something lost in translation, the Japanese can’t really be into this absolute craziness, could they? Yet time and again, J-RPGs appear with the same iconographic and defining characteristics I must simply concede I do not get them.

Let me give you an example from Resonance of Fate. There’s one cutscene where Vashyron, the game’s lead character, meets with Cardinal Barbarella. From her name, you simply know she’s lusty and well stacked. As she’s telling him she needs the gang to fetch a bottle of wine, he focuses on her heaving bosom and goes into this weird dream world. As he comes out of it he says something like “she’s got luscious grapes whilst we’ve just got raisins” whilst looking at Leanne, the female character of the game, who promptly kicks him in the nuts. All of this just to let you know you need to fetch a bottle of wine as a quest… It’s completely nuts!

As to the rest of the story, I honestly don’t know. It’s quite confusing and easily forgettable. From what I can gather, the world became poisonous, and to regulate living conditions Basel was built. A towering complex of clockwork contraptions, people moved to live around the tower, and the higher up in the tower you lived, the higher your social status. Tied to this is quartz, which allows the people to live free of cancer. However, through this, lives become limited. One of the heroes of the game, Leanne, is special because she didn’t die when she was meant to, and because of this she’s wanted by the Cardinals, the rulers of Basel. The other heroes, Vashyron and Zephyr somehow get caught up in all this.

However, what isn’t confusing nor forgettable is the gameplay. Unlike every other J-RPG, Resonance of Fate doesn’t involve swords, but is a world of guns and bullets. Obviously this makes the usual turn based menu fighting style of most other J-RPGs inadequate for combat, so for the first time in years, something has changed the J-RPG battle system and it will resonate through to other games.

Upon entering a fight, you are given options. You can move and shoot a magazine of bullets into an enemy. This is the basic move and weakest attack, and is used mostly to position your heroes. There is a meter for each character, and when the character moves like this, or takes damage when moving in this way, the meter depletes.

There’s scratch damage and direct damage. Scratch damage is generated by machine guns and certain types of explosives. Scratch damage is best seen as damage to armour. It makes an enemy’s healthbar turn blue, repairs over time, and will be removed by direct damage. Direct damage deals damage directly to a targets health. If a character does direct damage on top of scratch damage, the enemy takes more damage than just taking direct damage. You’ve also got enemies with different strength shields on different parts of their bodies. By positioning your characters properly, you can do the most damage to them.

Beyond this, there are Hero Moves. These moves, initiated with a simple press of a button, will be more familiar to J-RPGs, as you set off where you want to go and who you want to target, and launch into an over-the-top cinematic. This matrix style bullet time event sees round after round of bullet pumped into an enemy. Another meter fills as you move towards your mark, and the more it fills the more power your shots will have. It can be modified by more button presses – pressing X launches the character into the rain down bullets from above, bypassing most shields. Staying on the ground can sometimes work better as you can throw your enemies into the air, and another button press sees you do multiple hits to juggle airborne enemies.

On top of this are Resonance moves. When one character passes in between the other two characters, you get a Resonance Point. Each point allows you to move your characters as one in a Hero move. Moving in a triangular direction, the characters enter bullet time and lay down heavy fire against an enemy. This is often the best way to kill the bigger bosses, although if you want a fight to end quickly you can target the leader of a group and destroy him this way, and the other enemies flee.

All these moves take up Bezels, best described as health tokens. You lose them by being shot, and gain them by killing enemies and during certain Hero Moves. If you lose them by being shot, they shatter, and lie about the battlefield. It’s in your best interests to pick these shards up, otherwise the enemies will, restoring their health. Lose all of your Bezels, and you go into critical condition, where you can’t initiate Hero Moves, take more damage, and generally die and lose the game. You can flee, but if you flee into another fight, you’ll still be at critical condition until you rest.

There is also a destructible cover system, so walking up to a wall will flash an icon, which means you can shoot from this cover. You can be hit through the cover, and the cover itself takes damage and will eventually disappear. This is best used when you’re at critical condition.

In other respects, the game is like a traditional J-RPG. You get mission bites from notice boards, run around towns to see people to get whole missions, and venture onto the world map to complete the missions. It will be very familiar to J-RPG fans, who will probably plant their face in their hand and say “oh no, not this shit again!” Where RoF differs again the world map is made of a locked hexagons grid, meaning you can’t travel anywhere until you make a path across the world. As you play you’ll find or be given Energy Hexes to unlock the map. There are also coloured hexagons, usually surrounding buildings and Stations. Unlock a station, and you can link them and their bonuses to places where you travel and fight.

If it sounds confusing, it is until you play it for a few hours. The more you play, the more you get used to it, and the more it becomes apparent on what you should do in given situations against different enemies. There is a learning curve, but once you get over that, it’s quite an entertaining system. And unlike that other J-RPG to come out recently, Final Fantasy XIII, it won’t take over 25 hours before the game stops babysitting you and let you master the moves on your own.

However, like so many J-RPGs before it, you will have to grind your characters up levels to complete missions. This is my biggest gripe against the game. Why can’t the Japanese take note of RPGs like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, and realise when you unlock an area you should be able to complete those missions without having to grind your characters stats? Even if you play all the side missions in a chapter, there will always remain story missions which you will not be able to complete until you grind your skills up in the arena for 2 or so hours. The game will take about 40 or so hours to complete, but more than a quarter of that will be mindless grinding.

I can kind of understand grinding for weapons and upgrades, and RoF has a fine weapon upgrade system. You can scrap parts for cash or items, then rebuild items and then equip them to your guns. This gives you more damage, greater movement speed, higher rate of fire, and more. However, again I believe games should reward you this stuff for killing big bosses and completing missions, whereas in RoF the best weapons and items are to be found in the completely optional areas, which you have to grind though to get.

Visually the game is fine, but nowhere near as impressive as other J-RPGs on the Xbox. The world has an interesting steampunk vibe with gears and steam pistons and men in dapper hats and women in corsets, but the dungeons you’ll travel in suffer from looking the same drab backgrounds and all too familiar layouts. The character designs are ok, and the collectible and customisable clothing gives obsessives something to collect and dress up their characters. Again, to get the best stuff (and that depends on what you consider “best” in terms of optional clothing), you have to grind for it.

The music score is decent, full of guitars and electro sounds, quite typical for a J-RPG. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the dialogue. Like many other J-RPGs the barks at the end of the fights make little to no sense and are mind numbingly repetitive, and as I mentioned, the story itself is confusing so any speech is easily forgettable.

Conclusion:
Resonance of Fate’s complex and engaging combat system is refreshing in a universe of clones, and it will be memorable for this alone. The character and weapon customisation is cute, and the world map exploration is quite clever and engaging. However, none of this goes far enough to address the other negative aspects of the game, which are also found in many other J-RPGs. Its story is confusing, the characters trite, and the grinding unacceptable.

Pros:
Fantastic combat mechanic
Interesting map exploration
Cool gun and character customisation

Cons:
Confusing story
Too much grind
Poor characterisation
Repetitive looking world locations

75/100