Fate

"Can you say rip off?"

This game is Diablo 1.

Stat system? Exactly like Diablo.
Item system and inventory system? Exactly like Diablo.
Concept of only having a town where you buy items and one huge multilevel dungeon where the entire game takes place? Exactly like Diablo.
Controls? Exactly like Diablo.

The only new things are pets, which were implemented in Diablo 2 and really aren't that special anyway, and fishing, which is exactly like fishing in any number of MMORPGS and we all know how boring fishing is in MMORPGS. Oh and now instead of getting quests that are important to the storyline, you have 5 or so characters standing around waiting to give you quests. Yes, there are more quests than in Diablo but you really only have 4 kinds: Kill a boss, kill a boss and his minions, get back a certain magical item that a boss is holding and you have to kill him to get, and kill a certain number of a certain monster. So really more like...2 kinds of quests. None of these quests have jack to do with the storyline. Oh yeah, and the spell system changed a little bit. You can only learn 15 spells instead of the 24 that Diablo offered. Big improvement huh?

Basically Fate takes a game that came out 6 years before, removes the hand drawn graphics and replaces them with crappy polygonal graphics, removes the storyline, removes the difficulty, takes the dark atmosphere and replaces it with flowers and bunnies, adds a few minor tweaks that actually make the game worse and tries to sell it to you for 20 bucks.

Say it with me. Rip. Off.

Concept - 1/10
Completely copied. There is no originality here.

Graphics - 3/10
Really pretty lame. N64 quality polygons.

Sound - 5/10
In the dungeon, it isn't bad. The monster noises and crackling of torches is great. However, the music in town and in the pick character screen is sooooo annoying.

Gameplay - 6/10
Not terrible but why bother when Diablo was so much better? Also, the loading times are horrendous, even when compared to games that are much newer.

Difficulty - 2/10
Practically nonexistent. Occasionally, you'll fight a boss that gives you a hard time.


Bottom line
If you don't mind paying twice as much for a highly inferior game or if your kid just has to have an action RPG, this game would be worth getting. Otherwise, spend 5 bucks on the original Diablo and use the remaining 15 to buy ice cream. You'll be much happier.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 04/28/08

Game Release: Fate (US, 05/18/05)