Resonance of Fate was a pretty easily missed game, released in 2010 for PS3 and Xbox 360 – and lost among other games released at the time, such as Final Fantasy XIII. Nowadays, the characters can be seen in the massive crossover tactical-rpg game Project X Zone 1 and 2. It was also developed by tri-Ace, and published by Sega, hence their appearance in the crossover games.
Resonance of Fate boasts a fairly unique combat system and offered tons of playtime. It was also very unique, as your characters did not posses stuff like super special attacks, summons, magic, or any sort of extravagant attack. All you have are the characters’ impressive running and jumping, and guns and grenades. Nothing more, and nothing less. While I loved the gameplay, it’s understandable if you find the combat system overwhelming. In fact, it took me a long time to stop dying horribly, since the game will throw in new enemies or areas that demand new tactics.
And that’s what inspired me to make this list to help you out! Follow some of these tips and learn from experience, and you might just survive in the world of Basel!
5. Use Hero Action
While you might be hesitant to use this at first due to the risk of running out of bezel shards, you will need to go into this mode a lot to make quick work of enemies. Once you activate this mode and set the distance, you run towards the goal while being able to shoot enemies. If you are on the ground, you will only shoot whatever is in front of your aimed target. So say your enemy has armor, you will not get to their main health or other armor until that piece is destroyed. If you jump however, you can target everything, though the mode will end a bit sooner once you land.
There are important things to consider besides your foe. Areas are littered with obstacles at times, such as barriers against attacks that can be broken, simple walls or stairs, or even other enemies. Naturally, you don’t want to run right into a giant enemy or other boss, unless you like experiencing copious amounts of pain. So timing your jumps is all the more important, as you will only land once the mode is over, or hit something as you run into it.
Also, you don’t lose action points once a fight is done in a dungeon, which makes traversing much less of a pain in the ass. And if you are ever running low, just win a fight. You do not want to know what happens when you lose all of the shards early. Just make sure not to be in such a wide area surrounding by a ton of powerful enemies. They will all strike at once after all. And this segways into another big tip!
4. Know your area
While there isn’t a lot cover in the area, you can still take advantage of each stage as they offer different vantage points. There are barriers you can shoot from, sure, but those don’t work forever, and giant enemies are likely to make quick work of them. This is where using Hero Action matters once again – because if you can time your jumps, you can jump over small areas that cannot be destroyed, forcing enemies to move around or waste shots at nothing. Don’t forget explosive barrels! Those can indeed hurt enemies and make things so much easier. Hell, some enemies can even harm each other accidentally.
However, that’s not the only area to keep an eye out for. The world map has several floors where the are hexagons, and you have to break them apart to find new areas, and terminals that can grant you benefits depending on how you apply colored tiles to the area. You can also extend these effects into dungeons as well to make things easier. Just know that each terminal requires a set number on color panels to activate.
3. Be sure to balance levels out
Leveling up doesn’t improve the gun itself, but the higher the weapon skills are, the more skills and multipliers you gain. Also just as important, your health and weight capacity increases. While you don’t take actual damage until you are out of bezel shards, this does mean your character can soak up more scratch damage. Weight is also extremely important for being able to equip your guns and other stuff – such as extra weapons, like dual-wielding machine guns, grenades, or an item box.
Trying to focus on just one of these skill trees for each character is not a good idea. This isn’t just for the sake of levels, as there will be chapters where you must work with certain characters, even some boss fights too! So it’s best to have the three characters switch between the three weapon styles. Warm up an enemy with machinegun/scratch damage, and then wail with either a grenade or handgun. That way, your characters will be prepared just in case an enemy takes off way too much damage; it will happen eventually.
2. Do quests and arena fights
Maybe not the most important one on the list, but you may one day realize why the clothing shop is closed. The answer is simple: you never completed the clothing quest. These quests are meant to make sure the shop is still up.
Now, clothing doesn’t affect combat stats at all. But if you don’t wanna stay dressed in the same clothes and want to try something new, you will need this shop. Not that you can’t get clothes in other ways, but it’s much easier.
Moreover, doing quests in general during each chapter also build up your hunter rank. With each 100 points you gain, you can gain new items that might help in your journey. These can include gun parts, new ammo or grenades, healing items, and far more. You never know when these things can come in handy. Plus these quests can help in fighting off new creatures to gain your better materials to make more gun parts.
Arena fights work a bit this way as well, though with needing to win the same type of fight three times, it can get a bit boring. It’s a good idea if you want extra practice, and some really damn good items too, like new guns.
1. Know what to upgrade
Customizing your guns is the most important part in this game, next to Hero Action. After all, leveling up doesn’t increase the shot damage. Scopes increase your accuracy, ammo capacity is obvious, and then of course there’s probably the most important factor: barrels to increase acceleration speed. See, in combat, that circle of yours can slowly spin, but quickly grow so long as the acceleration speed is high. This is important for the multiplier to multiply your damage with machine-guns, and increase the gauge break for handguns. Gauge break is extremely important as it divides enemy health into segments, and once a segment is passed, you can gain more shards to do more Hero Action runs.
And yes, you might feel limited at first without adapters. It’s also easy to see the customization go absolutely crazy with multiple barrels, but that’s how it works. Though don’t worry, your gun won’t turn into something that Rob Liefeld gives comic characters…Or be disappointed if you are a fan of that. Just don’t forget to neglect the other areas of your guns as well, especially when you gain more guns later on, or if the character can’t use the gun due to the weight.
Need any help with Resonance of Fate? Are there are tips you feel I should have added? Be sure to tell me down below, and perhaps I can impart my knowledge…or wish you luck. Hey, even I had trouble with all of these tips!
