Fate review

This review is for the Microsoft Windows version of Fate.

The more RPGs I play, the more the loot-driven Diablo flavour sticks out as a variety that must be an uphill battle to get to a state of ‘basically okay’, and no game exemplifies this better than 2005’s Fate. At best this subgenre feels like a single-player MMO, with all the repetition and grind of a game that’s trying to extract more money from you, but without any of the socially awkward faux-interaction, but Fate goes a step further by actually removing any reason a casual player could have for sticking it through to the end by procedurally generating not only the dungeon layout, but also every single quest. This means that when you start up the game for the first time, you will be tasked with taking on the legendary challenge of slaying X and retrieving Y to bring honour and glory back to Z. I understand that nobody would play these games for the story, but with gameplay this repetitive it feels like a big mistake to rob that grind of any meaningful context.

If these games are just addiction machines designed to keep you endlessly playing the same game with slight variations until the end of time, the good news is it has succeeded. If you are genuinely into this style of game and aren’t looking for something with artistic or creative merit, or even especially fun gameplay, then Fate is the perfect choice. The random quests and (presumably) endless central dungeon mean that you could technically play this until you die, increasing your character’s power by increments until you ‘retire’ them and start it all over again with a descendant who will start out their own epic (random) quest with slightly better attributes as the fruits of your former incarnation’s labour.

If that sounds like fun to you, then I can’t recommend Fate enough. That’s not a criticism – a lot of people are just looking to zone out, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t one of them from time to time. However, I do think there are better games that could serve as equally satisfactory black holes for your time and that also have the slightest amount more variety to keep your brain from rusting over the course of years upon years – games that have more interesting world and character design, better aesthetics and a wider variety of playstyles to make sure your eternal torment at least has nice wallpaper.