The combat of Resonance of Fate employs the "tri-Attack Battle system", which involves a mixture of real-time and turn-based controls. During each character's turn, the player can move around and perform actions, limited by the number of action points. The turn ends when the player attacks or all action points are exhausted. Initiating an attack employs a charging system; once a target is selected, the attack charges up until the meter is full and the attack is unleashed. Players can also choose to charge up the attack multiple times, for a more powerful attack. The time needed to charge depends on the proximity of the enemy. Closer enemies require less charge time but it renders the player more vulnerable to attack. Enemies also require charge to attack and battle strategy involves interrupting their charges. There are two damage types in the game. The first is "scratch damage", which is only dealt by sub-machine guns. Scratch damage accumulates quickly, but cannot kill an opponent. Scratch damage must be converted into "direct damage", using pistols and grenades on an enemy with scratch damage to defeat it.
Players are able to move around the battlefield freely, but they have the option to create predefined paths for the character to follow. While moving along these paths, characters gain access to Hero actions, which make them immune to damage and speed up charge times. However, the use of these Hero actions requires the use of Bezels; these items are an essential element in battle and are recharged through a variety of methods, such as destroying portions of an enemy's weapons and armor, or killing an enemy. Characters using Hero actions can attack while jumping in the air, and are also able to unleash special attacks which manifest as stylish firearm maneuvers. Enemies are only able to move while the player's current character is moving and will usually attack only that character.
In addition to fueling Hero actions, Bezels act as a safeguard to character defeat. Characters will not receive any direct damage as long as there is at least one Bezel. If there are enough Bezels remaining, receiving damage that would otherwise defeat the character instead causes the character to be knocked into the air and the Bezel is shattered into shards that scatter across the battlefield. If the player does not have any Bezels remaining, the characters go into critical mode. Critical mode causes the characters to become extremely scared, leaving them unable to shoot quickly, unable to use Hero actions, and taking direct damage from every attack. Four Bezel Shards must be collected by the characters in order to restore a Bezel and replenish their power, and enemies can even pick up Bezel Shards to regenerate health and shields. The game ends if any character is killed and there are no intact Bezels to protect them.
The player may suspend and save the game at any time. Upon completion of the game, the player may start a New Game Plus, which restarts the game with certain features carried over and unlocks a harder mode. With each successful completion of a new difficulty level, further difficulty levels will become available in which enemy health and damage is multiplied. There are ten difficulty settings in Resonance of Fate.
Synopsis
Setting
Resonance of Fate takes place on Earth in the distant future. The levels of pollution in the atmosphere trigger massive environmental changes, making the world hostile to human life. On the brink of extinction, humanity creates Basel, a giant air purification module controlled by the Zenith System. As conditions worsened in the land surrounding Basel, the remnants of humanity gathered around it and built a great city at the base of Zenith's tower. While Basel and the Zenith System control the surrounding environment to make it habitable for humans, it also controls the human population: each person has their social status determined at birth, and their exact lifespan is controlled through quartz crystals programmed by Zenith. Basel evolves for countless years into a class-driven society, the populace forgets everything about Basel's past: those at the top of the tower are the city's leaders, dubbed Cardinals, and indoctrinate the people into a religion deifying the Zenith System.
Plot
The game opens with Vashyron doing battle with a berserk Zephyr. Despite Zephyr being shot twice in the head, he does not die. Vashyron decides to take him in as a partner in his Hunter group. Some time later, Zephyr sees and attempts to save Leanne as she jumps from a bridge, and both miraculously survive their resultant fall. The story skips forward two years—Zephyr and Vashyron are running their group with Leanne, taking on odd jobs across the city. Among their clients are the ruling Cardinals and people from lower strata of the tower. During their missions, they encounter instances of people's fates changing unexpectedly, going against the pre-determined path set by Zenith. They also have run-ins with Rebecca, a superhuman, mentally unstable woman from beyond Basel's borders. It is revealed that Vashyron himself faced Rebecca when she first arrived in Basel. He was fatally wounded, but was saved by Zenith, and its resultant retaliation on Rebecca broke her mind.
As they continue taking missions, the three learn that the city's ruling Cardinals are directly responsible for the crisis. Over twenty years before, Prelate Frieda envisioned a world where people were free of Zenith's control. While she was popular among the Cardinals, with her closest ally being Cardinal Rowen, her ideals led to her being killed by extremists. Rowen was thrown into despair by her death, and when shown the truth about Zenith by Cardinal Sullivan, he is convinced to work with the other Cardinals to fulfill Frieda's vision. Rowen and Sullivan create test subjects programmed to die at specific times: Leanne was #20, designed to die on her 20th birthday. A sympathetic scientist named Juris freed Leanne, and when she learned the truth, she tried to commit suicide before being saved by Zephyr. At the same time, Sullivan studied Rebecca, who had developed natural immunity to the poisons beyond Basel's borders, and sought a way of imprinting her powers onto others. Zephyr was one of his test subjects, along with Zephyr's sister, who was killed by Zephyr during his rampage.
