Explaining the combat system fully would take several pages so I’ll try to summarise. There are only two types of weapon in the game: handguns and machine guns. Handguns cause normal, direct damage, and machine guns cause what is called scratch damage. Direct damage works in the manner you would expect. Scratch damage also drains the enemy’s HP, but to make it take effect you have to convert it to direct damage by using a direct damage weapon. The key here is, scratch damage is much easier to inflict in large quantities, and a single shot from a direct damage weapon will convert it into direct damage, so there is strategy in choosing the order in which to use your weapons.
Combat is turn-based and weapons and items (such as heals) must be charged before use. As you level, you can charge a weapon multiple times before firing, and if you can charge enough, your character’s learned skills have a higher chance of proc’ing. Charge rate is directly proportional to the distance from your enemy. You can move around in real-time when it is your go; your enemies charge their weapons too which is indicated by a little bar above their head, and if one becomes full, you will be shot at and lose your turn, so timing your shots well is key to your success or failure.
Interestingly, the game also features a cover system which works well. Position your characters behind boxes or bunkers and they will be immune from enemy fire – however like everything else, the cover objects also have an HP gauge so will be eventually destroyed. Using cover appropriately is also absolutely vital to winning tougher battles.
At the bottom of the screen you have a number of so-called bezels. As long as you have at least one bezel remaining, your party will only take scratch damage. When a character’s HP reaches zero, they are healed by 1000 HP and one bezel is expended.
Bezels can be used in other ways. A tap of square will pause the game and initiate a Hero Action. In this mode, you can position a marker to indicate where you want the character to go, then activate it. During Hero Actions you are immune from enemy retaliation so you can swing by them with a multiply-charged weapon and deal massive amounts of damage, but it costs one bezel.
And therein lies a big part of the strategy: if you run out of bezels, you enter “critical condition”. In this situation, you can no longer perform Hero Actions, your attack speed is slowed dramatically, the enemies inflict direct damage and your scratch damage gets converted, making you extremely vulnerable. Bezels can be recollected by destroying enemies or enemy parts, and also by performing a variety of special moves, but as an added twist, they go into slots which can be broken by enemy fire. When this happens, the bezel slot shatters into four pieces on the ground and you will have to guide your characters deftly to pick them up again, as without slots, you can’t re-gain bezels and get out of critical condition. The enemies can also pick up the bezel shards to heal.
When a Hero Action intersects the position of your other two characters, you gain a resonance point. Any other action causes a resonance point to be lost (the colour of the anchor indicates this, fortunately). Collect enough resonance points and you can perform a tri-attack, where all three characters move and attack simultaneously around the triangular area created between their positions.
Resonance of Fate has an excellent body part / shield system. Each body part or shield portion is shown in an arc around the character, so line of sight is what determines which portion you are attacking – ie. whichever portion is facing you is the one that will take damage when you fire. The twist is, when you shoot from the air during a Hero Action, your fire targets the main body and the shields or body parts randomly with each shot. This leads to strategising: take one of your characters on a flyby of the baddie, take down some of his shields with scratch damage, then approach from the ground with another character, orient yourself to be facing a depleted part, then shoot and you will go right through to the main body.
