The Awakened Fate Ultimatum is a rogueike JRPG by Nippon Icchi and the sequel to 2013’s The Guided Fate Paradox. It is, on paper, a game that sounds like it would greatly appeal to me. Roguelike game play, with a JRPG story? Sign me up, I love all of those things. When in top form Japanese media can offer great concepts and ideas that you would never see in their Western counterparts. But being “different” doesn’t stop Japanese media from having its own tropes, cliches, and trends, and while some works stand out of that group as great, many more are just badly done. Unfortunately despite its seemingly appealing design, Awakened Fate Ultimatum’s execution makes it fall short of leaving the “badly done” category.
The game puts you in the shoes of Shin Kamikaze. Shin starts off the game telling you that he hates all people because their agendas are evident right beneath the surface. At first I thought he was a psychic, like Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid, or that this was due to his powers. It turns out that he was just a high-school outcast. He is walking home from school when a group of mysterious assailants descend on him. A mysterious blonde woman arrives to save him, but not before his attackers kill him. Shin then wakes up in the presence of two women, Jupiel and Ariael, who inform him that they have saved him by installing something called a fate awakening crystal on him, which has caused him to become a God infused with the power to change fate. He is informed of the war between the angels and the demons, and that the angels are losing badly. As God you are expected to fight and help the angels win the conflict.
Don’t get too excited about the angels vs demons story. The games draws next to nothing from the mythology that is supposed to make up the source material. The sides could be players in any number of sci-fi conflicts. There isn’t really any difference between them, the angels have white wings and wear white clothing. The devils have black wings are wear purple clothing. The story does try to make it look like both sides are good and bad. The devils are shown to have families, and love each other, and could be considered nice and normal people until they talk about how they want to commit genocide. The angels on their part are desperate and are doing some very un-angel like things, like using child soldiers, kidnapping, and taking prisoners. This could have been a very interesting approach but the game is incredibly heavy handed with it, to the point that it wants to just hammer the ideas into your face. There is no room for subtlety in the writing. The game also throws the occasional choice at you, but save for one at the very end of the game that the trailers spoil, they have no bearing on the plot, they only give you angel or devil points (more on that later).
Characters are also handled badly. They don’t develop as much as they turn on as if someone is flipping a switch. Jupiel and Ariael go from cooperating to hating each other in seconds flat. Mr. Kamikaze himself goes from apathetic, to heroic, to insecure just as quickly. There doesn’t seem to be continuity in this. He seems to just change scene to scene as required by the plot. And don’t worry, you will always know Shin feels about anything that is going on, as he will tell you his feelings in excruciating details, even explaining to you obvious things that are right in front of you. The characters aren’t that interesting in the first place, if you’ve seen a bad anime you will get who these characters are immediately.
This is a problem because you will spend a lot of time with the characters going through the story. The game is essentially a visual novel with gameplay breaks to tackle the dungeons. In fact a lot of the visual novel sections are longer than the dungeon of the chapter, meaning that poorly written story and characters make up the bulk of the game. When you are not viewing a story event, you will be presented with a menu where you can go purchase new powers, equip your hero, and store your items. You can also visit old dungeons to grind, and go to the current dungeon. When you are in a dungeon you will face both angelic and demonic monsters. The game asks you to switch between a demonic and angelic form to fight them. Devils are weak to angel power, and angels to the devil form.
There are skills that can be learned in both sides, which are also effective against specific kinds of enemies. When you level up you will gain level points, which can be used to purchase these skills and make Shin stronger. You get a point every level, and one specific devil or angel point that is earned during situations in which you must make a choice. The choices do not make much of a difference in the plot and they might be for things as mundane as choosing who you will talk to after a specific event. This takes any impact the choices have, since you will end up picking whatever you need at that time. Need a point to get to the next skill? Choose that option. The choice itself feels of little consequence beyond that.
Like a true roguelike the dungeons are randomized, and you will come back to the beginning every time. You will lose all of your items, including your equipment, unless you put them in storage before you left. The floor plan will change every time. Unfortunately, the dungeons are boring. They are featureless and filled with traps, but there isn’t much to them. The art changes slightly, but they are mostly empty. There isn’t much loot either. The game does not encourage exploration, but it does expect you to grind, as enemies will go up in power dungeon to dungeon. It feels like a chore as the dungeon sections are so monotonous.
Combat is strange too, enemies move when you do, which sounds like it would make the game more tactical, but I found it only gave me two options to approach each situation: either I walked up to the enemy and traded blows, or I used a special move. Enemies also seem to spawn somewhat randomly, which can cause you to wander into already cleared sections filled with enemies. Fortunately, your HP regenerates, as does your SP, which is consumed when you take actions in the angel or demon forms. There is also AP, which slowly decreases as you walk around and can be replenished with food. Once Shin runs out of AP, he will start taking damage until you have to go back to the beginning of the dungeon. It is another one of the strange design choices that plague the game. It asks you to grind, but it also discourages exploration of the dungeons by limiting your AP and taking all of your equipment upon losing.
I am sure that there’s an audience that would love this game, but those people are in the minority. I personally love roguelikes, but The Awakened Fate completely misses what’s so great about them. The gameplay is plagued with curious design choices and the cliched plot ultimately doesn’t give the player much reason to put up with its mechanics. The Awakened Fate Ultimatum will be released on March 17th for $40. If you are a huge fan of these sorts of anime tropes or if you are a big fan of The Guided Fate Paradox, go ahead and pick it up, otherwise I’d recommend you skip this one.
This review was written on review code provided by the publisher.
