Hand of Fate 2
PLAY YOUR CARDS RIGHT. $38 | PC, PS4, XO | www.defiantdev.com
THIS CARD-BASED CAPER provides all the nuances of an authentic real-world tabletop gaming experience, complete with decision making, dice rolling and deck building. The ace up its sleeve is that you don’t have to imagine the epic battles taking place, you actually play them out.
Your adventure is laid out with cards played from your customised deck. These range from battle-focused objectives, to shops where you can buy new weapons and supplies. Scenarios are varied and generally offer options as to how to proceed. Attempt an objective and you’ll regularly be faced with challenges that ultimately rely on good fortune, such as reaching a certain number on the dice, or overturning the correct card. Failure can be costly to your health and rations, making this an intricate game of carefully balancing your resources and boldly trying your luck. Roll a high enough number to aid a distressed damsel, for example, and she’ll reward you with food and coin. Fail and she’ll doublecross you, calling her bandit friends to rob you — initiating a battle sequence. Here, the tabletop setting is exchanged for a far more traditional virtual experience that sees you go toe-to-toe with enemies directly. Picking the appropriate tactic for each opponent helps; you’ll find yourself using cutlasses to strike at swift and agile thieves, and besting hardy northerners with a blend of carefully timed sword strikes and ripostes. Enemy blows inflict significant damage, and health doesn’t regenerate automatically. This makes combat a challenging endeavour, one that’s made more treacherous by very deliberate controls. Battles feel weighty and significant, and brilliantly break up the text-based narrative — even if enemy types are reshuffled a little too often.
Whether it be through bad decisions or just bad luck, the game’s demanding nature routinely makes you feel like you’re trying to build a house of cards during a hurricane. This canny combination of gaming media provides a deep and satisfying virtual penand-paper RPG-esque adventure that’s certainly worth taking a gamble on.