Boredworkers.com

This week’s GotW is dedicated to all Computer Role Playing Game (CRPG) lovers out there. It took a while coming cause the game is not short and I don’t have much time. Plus the fact that my home PC is not working does not help. Without further ado, the GotW is Fate by WildTangent.

Those who have played Diablo and Diablo2 before this will be familiar with the game play of Fate. As I was playing it, I couldn’t help but compare the two games. Basically, Fate is a dumbed down version of Diablo2, minus the nifty story line and cutscenes. There are also some differences in terms of character development. More on that later.

In creating a new game, you start by selecting one of four difficulty levels. After that, you create and name your character. You get to select the gender, character name, and customise the avatar. There are no character classes in Fate. It is determined by the skills you learn. Once you’ve settled that, it is on to choosing your pet. Yup, that’s right, you have a pet. More on what it can do later. For now, you can choose between a cat or a Jack Russel Terrier. Name them Garfield and Odie if you like.

The Journey Begins
On creating the character, you will be taken to a brief cut scene which gives you some background and provides you with the main quest that you need to complete. The quest basically consists of defeating some boss monster at a given level. The type of monster, its name, and the level where it can be found is generated randomly every time you begin a new game.

The games begins in the town of Grove. There, you can interact with the townfolk, purchase items, weapons and armours, enchant items, heal yourself, and acquire subquests for each level of the dungeon that you are going through. Once you’ve explored the town and feel that you’re ready to get into the action, simply move towards the east side of town and you’ll be face to face with the Dungeon Gates (supposedly standing in the heart of the Old Wood). From then on out, it will be level after level of hack and slash action with occasional trips into town to stock up.

Character Development
As in any CRPG, your character is defined by a set of stats and skills. In terms of statistics, it is exactly the same as Diablo. You have four basic statistics (Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, and Magic). These four in turn influences other substats (Damage, Attack, Defence, Stamina, Life, and Mana). To grow your character, you earn experience points by killing monsters and completing subquests. Once you’ve gained a certain number of experience points, your character will level up. Doing so gives you 5 points to allocate between your main stats. Additionally, you’ll also be given 2 skill points.

Skills together with the main stats ultimately determines the type of “class” your character grows into. There are 15 skills in total where you can spend your skill points on. These includes a range of martial weapon types (sword, club and mace, hammer, axe, spear, staff, polearm, bow and crossbow). Raising skill points in martial weapons will increase the damage and accuracy when wielding these weapons. Other martial skills include critical strike (increases your chance of inflicting double damage), dual wielding (increases the effectiveness when wielding two weapons in either hands), and shield battle (increases your ability to block attacks when using a shield).

Four of the skills fall under the magic category. The first one is the spell casting skill which influences the time it takes to cast spells. A higher skill level will shorten the casting time. The other three skills each influences one of three magic classes (attack, defence, and charm magic) in the game. Increasing these will increase the potency of the spells in each class. Which brings us to the next topic.

Spell System
Spells in the game are divided into three categories, Attack spells, Defence spells, and Charm spells. Attack spells are battle spells that directly affects your enemies. This can be in the form of direct magical damage (fire, lightning, ice) or effects on the enemy’s ability (e.g. slowing movement, lowering attack and defence stats). Defence spells are spells that affects your own character, including spells that raise your character’s abilities and resistance (resist fire, haste, spectral armour), and restore your character’s health (heal, and group heal). Last but not least, Charm spells are spells that indirectly aids your character, and includes monster summons (rats, skeletons) and aids such as identify and town portal.

Unlike the Diablo series where you can learn all the spells available (D1 uses a spell book while D2 introduced the skill tree), Fate allows you to only learn up to six (6) spells in each spell class. You learn spells by either finding or purchasing spell scrolls and writing them to your spell book. Your magic stat influences the type of spells that you can learn, while mana influences the number of spells you can cast. As mentioned earlier, skill points spent on magic skills increases the potency of the spells cast. So if you want to play a magician type character, these are the skills and stats to focus on.

Movement, Combat, and Hotkeys
Those who have played other games of this genre will be familiar with the movement and combat system. You use the mouse to guide your character through the dungeons of Fate. Pointing and left clicking moves the character to the location. Holding down the mouse button continuosly moves the character in the pointed direction. You interact with items (pick up items, open chests or hack a barrel).

The combat system is easy to master. Left clicking on an enemy attacks it. Holding down the left mouse button will cause your character to attack it continuously. The right mouse button casts the currently selected spell. The F1 to F12 keys can be mapped to spells in your spell book and functions as hotkeys for quick access. Similarly, you can place potions and healing charms on your belt which are accessed using hotkeys 1 through 6.

Subquests
There are six quest givers in Grove, from whom you can acquire new subquests as you progress through each level. Quests generally come in three forms. Kill so and so number of creature type on a level, kill a mini boss, or retrieve an item (or a combination of the three). You can have up to a maximum of three quests at any one time. Additionally, once you’ve entered a level, no more quests will be given for that particular level. So make sure you choose your quests carefully prior to entering a level. Quests are generated randomly and the rewards vary. All quests will gain you some wealth, experience, and fame (more on that in a moment). Some quests will also gain you a magical item. In order to gain items that will aid you in the game, I suggest being selective about quests and try choosing those that will earn you a unique item or artifact. Alternatively, go for quests that require you to bring back an item. If you like the looks of the item, you can always cancel the quest and keep it for yourself.

Fame
Fame is something new in the game. It usually doesn’t account for much. However, gaining enough fame to progress to the next level earns you four skill points. That goes a long way to developing your character. Additionally, fame is often required for the more powerful weapons. Elite and legendary (better quality) items, weapons, armours, and artifacts all require varying degrees of fame. So build up your fame level by completing quests to put yourself in the position to wield said items.

Pet
And last but not least, your pet. I mentioned earlier that you have a pet that tags along with you through the game. The pet will help you battle enemies as well as act as a pack animal to carry out all those nifty trinkets that you pick up along the way. Probably the best feature of the pet is that you can command it to run into town to sell off extra (unequiped) items that are in its pack. That means that you don’t have to keep casting town portal everytime your pack is full and only need to go back once in a while to restock and get new quests. Cool feature.

Your pet can be fed with various types of fishes (these you can either catch by going fishing or buy from the fisherman in town. Depending on the type of fish that is fed, your pet will transform into different creatures which will greatly boost its stats and abilities. Play around with the combinations and see what works best for you. If you find a creature that you like, try and find a flawless fish which will permanently transform your pet.

Conclusion
To cut a very long story short, this is a good game to while away the hours. The game gets kind of repetitive after a while since it consists only of hack ‘n slash action, completing quests, advancing your character, and progressing another level. The various artifacts and items in the game do add a little spice as you try to find the best combination to boost your stats (when I say boost, I mean double or tripple your stats with the +40% items!). In additional to the standard installer, there is also a media pack that will greatly improve the graphics and sounds of the game. There is also an expansion pack which adds new enemy creatures and items.

To get some extra hours out of the game, refer to Boredworkers.com’s GotW for the recommended downloads and do the following:

• Download both the recommended files
• Install Fate
• Identify the location of Fate.exe in your installation folder (you can right click the desktop shortcut and use the ‘Find Target…’ function)
• Uncompress the contents of the crack archive to the directory, replacing Fate.exe
• Run up the game and happy RPGing

So now that you know how to do, dare you challenge the game and determine your fate?

Disclaimer:
The author does not condone piracy. If you find that you enjoy the game after playing it for a bit, do purchase the license. Good work should be given its due.