Game of Fate 2 Review

It starts when you enter a time machine and travel back to 1925 to meet a young woman, Fang Zhilian, who wants to kill a corrupt military leader to avenge her father. With the time machine broken, the two of you make a pact to meet back in 10 years, hopefully with both problems solved. 10 years later, you discover that Fang Zhilian died in an assassination attempt. So you use the communicator to undo her death and help her get revenge. Something else goes wrong and so you keep trying until the assassination is successful.

Framing the game around an assassination works better than the serial killer in the first game. Since the pivotal moment is an actual event, changing the past has more tangible and direct results. It helps greatly that the first two chapters introduce characters and conflicts concisely. So when the time-travel comes into play, there is a strong foundation to work off.

Fang Zhilian is the heroine and just as important as the player-character to the story. She has a close connection to most characters, including the potential admirers. This is different from most dating games, which are more competitive. It allows the game to create scenes that player’s can watch but still feel connected to. There is more of a family dynamic, which suits the themes well.

The story is an emotional rollercoaster, with highs and lows, but it is less jarring compared to the original. It does not feel like a dating game and thriller mashed together into something that gets neither quite right. Instead, it is a good thriller with appropriate romantic undertones. While it has some joyful moments, the deepest and most prominent emotion is sadness. Due to circumstances and tragic history, things can get quite gloomy. This somberness is not bad, and it generally just helps build depth.

While Game of Fate 2 is mostly a thriller (60:40), it does allow players to build a romantic connection with five admirers. Fang Zhilian is ostensibly the main romance choice, being a mirror of the main character and the one you make the original pact with. The others include the sultry tavern boss, a quiet student from Japan, a righteous protestor / singer, and a young mysterious flower girl. Like dating games, you can choose to accompany them during story branches, which raises their affinity and teaches you more about them. At the end, whoever has the highest affinity is automatically chosen as the romance option. Unlocking some endings might require keeping others at low affinity, which is tedious. Getting full affinity is slightly tricky too, as you might need to go down specific paths.

While the story is good, the endings are underwhelming. Each admirer only has two short romance scenes. The full-affinity bonus endings are complete nonsense, with one breaking the fourth wall and the others seemingly hinting at the developer’s upcoming game(s). These are not rewarding and it is a bit like the developers are trying to create their own multiverse. The game will take five hours to play through the first time, which is great value, and another six to unlock all scenes.

The production quality is high. Acting is strong for the main cast, with lots of extras and good set locations. Two of the admirers have been in these games before, and all the others do a fine job. Fang Zhilian was in Love is All Around, as the obsessed and scary love interest; her character is different this time, headstrong but also caring, and this allows the actress to showcase her skills. Having said that, a few scenes probably needed to be reshot or edited, due to some mistakes, but it is not a big issue.

Video quality is excellent and that is before taking into account the free 4k option that will require 273GB of extra space. Audio is thankfully nearly entirely live recorded, addressing one problem with the original, although the volume is sometimes uneven for side characters. Translation is still a sticking point for the developers. None of the text is translated but at least most are read out, so that means subtitles. Subtitles could be better and there are even random ones that seem to be leftovers from the first game.

It is clear the developers know what they are doing with the genre, after three good games. Their storytelling and characters are a strongpoint and they are ticking a lot of boxes with the sundries. If they clean up some issues and keep things simple, they can build something amazing.