Hand of Fate by Defiant Development is a game that tries to tie together an action-brawler adventure with a collectible card game with a deep narrative. All these ingredients make for an interesting cake that you wouldn’t think would rise, but rises to occasion it does.
At first, I had difficulty wrapping my head around how a card game can tell a story and have action, as playing cards do not typing invoke soldiers fighting unless they are working for the Queen of Hearts. As you play, your pawn moves from card to card laid out like tiles on a game board. Each card is an “Encounter,” a memory from your past that may or may not have a token attached. Each token represent further memories (cards) to explore (collect). As you explore these memories, you will encounter story elements or action sequences (monsters). A typical playing card deck has four suits, and in Hand of Fate, you fight four suits of creatures: Dust (bandits), Skulls (undead), Plague (Ratmen) and Scales (Lizardmen).
In the action sequences, the cards materialize into a brawler where the equipment cards you’ve collected arm your warrior to fight the type of enemies you’ve drawn along with the number of enemies based on the card (i.e. a 6 of Plague means you fight 6 Ratmen). The environments also add an interesting twist as mechanized weapons, traps and pitfalls in the environment can and will injure all on the screen. The combat is not overly complex, sometimes is to its determent, but enemy and environment variety help greatly.
Personally, I like the story and where it goes and the elements of choice placed in the non-action-sequence cards give the game some nice pacing. I do wish some of the story elements were a little less about luck and more about using my own cleverness and pluck to get myself out of trouble. The use “three card monty”-style card switch and choice sometimes doesn’t really give you a fighting chance and other times is so easy it’s bore some. Also, there is a strange ramp-up in difficulty during game six when the Lizardmen are introduced that really took me by surprise.
Overall, Hand of Fate is a fun, interesting, and sometimes perplexing experience. Its blend of action-adventure bits and narrative flow inexplicably (at times) work. There are some pacing issues that could be worked out and the fluctuating difficulty can confound you, but if you enjoy quirky story-based games with some action sprinkled in, this is the confection you are looking to try.
Hand of Fate is available now on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.
Hand of Fate Gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx_TAToVXq8