Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Website: https://www.fatesofort.com/
Price: $4.49 (Gog sale) and $7.99(Steam)
Blurb: “Fates of Ort is a retro fantasy RPG focused on strategic action, in a land where time is frozen when you stand still. Cast powerful spells - but beware, they will cost you your life.“
Time flies when you’re having fun and it seems that Fates of Ort has gone from pre-release to post-release since we last had a look at it. I totally missed the 1.0, and I have 1.4.1 here. I am happy to report that the game has improved since then. There is still an issue from the pre-release, where enemies spawn every time you leave a screen and enter it again, but with the rest of the mechanics now working so smoothly, one could easily forgive that issue.
If you missed our first look at the game, Fates of Ort is an adventure game where you better be prepared to drop hours into it. It is *huge. It is truly open-world; usually, if you can see it, you can go there. (That does not mean you can just walk in a straight line, there are mountains and rivers and forests and swamps and deserts!). I will add a screenshot of the over-world here, but do not be fooled by it, each area has buildings you can enter, as well as underground locations not shown on the map, like caves and more! Only the very big towns are represented on the map.
There is the main quest, where you hunt your killer, and there are side quests everywhere.
Though the game is turn based, with an ‘I go, you go’ system, it mostly feels like real time, due to the way it was programmed; for instance, you can just walk, you don’t have to wait for other characters on the screen to take a step after you take a step, it just make the game feel more fluid. The game is 2D isometric, reminding me of the Ultima games, with a weird pixel art style for the characters. Again, they are faceless (what is it with artists and this impersonal style?), so I don’t really care for it. It makes the game feel a bit lifeless. With that said, navigating the world is easy and feels quite natural. I am a fan of isometric games, but I also know how easy it is to mess that up with characters going behind other objects. Here, that is kept to the bare minimum; the only time I lost my character was trying to go under the arch at the academy where you are killed, where it is blocked off at the other side, but you don’t know that until your character does not appear.
I seem to recall that the magic system was weird the last time I played it, but now, it is rather straightforward, I pick my spell and right-click; no more combining things to cast spells. The spells themselves are not just combat spells, there is a nice variety that you will use in other aspects of the game. Let’s talk about the magic system in the game quickly. There is no “mana” here, spells come off your life directly. This is a clever way to stop you from simply spamming the right-click or you will drain your health. When casting the same spell over and over, it does start to increase in blood cost, so the game almost forces you to diversify your spell types. The health pool is generous though, so don’t be disheartened. (He says as the Duke hits him for 900 damage and kills him instantly…).
The story also seems to have gotten the oil-change treatment, as small changes here and there feel like rather large changes, and things feel a bit more “together”. There is still the annoying repeat issue, where you get the same stuff repeated when talking to characters, which, in my humble opinion, needs a clean up, but other than that, the game is a lot more fun to play than it was, what, like five years ago!?? Man, I cannot believe it has been that long since the last time I played this. Thus, a lot of things may feel a bit fuzzy and I may recall wrong, but bear with me.
Because the world does not move unless you do, you can take an action, like swinging your sword, to make time pass. This mechanism can be used to your advantage if you are smart, letting you get hits off without riposte. It also comes into play with slower spells, and you can lead enemies or influence their path. Later on, when you get the big boy spells, like meteor swarm, you need to take time into account as the spell needs a long time for the meteors to fall from the sky.
I have to mention the music, though it is not ear-gasmic; it does serve its purpose, and it does not play the same tune all the time ad nauseam; there are breaks and you can even set the length of these. It leans into the retro aesthetic, sounding like music from early adventure games, maybe something like Chrono Trigger? So even if it is not farmer quality, (you know, outstanding in his field; yes, I know, exit stage left), the quality of the music is still top notch and very soothing, and it feels like there are a lot of tracks, so I cannot complain. (There are no OST or music files in the game folder, so I cannot say for sure how many tracks there are).
I think that it is the open world and the freedom you have to go anywhere that attracts me to this game, even though the featureless characters put me off. I mean, everything in the world has been given detail, but my character is a lump of clay. I’m not even joking here about the freedom you have, you can go straight to the end game from the start, bypassing everything else in the game. Is it a good idea? No, but you have that option open to you. Though the game is 2D isometric, it also feels a lot like Skyrim, where you cannot go a hundred steps without encountering “something”, be it a house or a cave or an enemy or a side quest.
While my thoughts on this game are all over the place, the game itself is rather organised. Something I do not recall from the early access was the indication above other characters' heads, like the purple blobs indicating that they have had too much of the grape bubblegum that is popping up everywhere and will be hostile.
The game is made in the defold engine, which inspired me to download defold and install it.