Fate: Undiscovered Realms

"More of the same"

Undiscovered Realms is a ‘sequel' of sorts to the original Fate, that boasts two separate dungeons, more levels for your character and a couple of new surprises. Although the game is essentially the same as the original Fate and that title is a carbon copy of Diablo and game of the same type, it offers several more hours of mindless exploration and monster slaying. With the addition of a relic system {which is the best explanation of it}, Undiscovered Realms is a decent addition to the tried and true dungeon crawler genre.

UR picks up just after the original Fate leaves off in which you have slain the evil monster within the dungeons beneath Grove and the mysterious quest giver turns out to be an evil demon. Portals are opened into a different world and you are thrown into a new world to continue your quest. To be honest, I remember this essentially being the story basis for Diablo into Diablo 2 and it made me frown slightly. While I'm all for quests of epic proportions, to be given the same story in a different game makes me a little wary to the creators of this series.

This time around, you pick your way through two separate dungeons, although you only need to travel to a certain level and kill a certain named monster in each in order to fulfill the primary quest. There are several quest givers outside the portals that will give you more quests to gain fame, money and items, so it lengthens the game significantly, although the fame system is still lacking in depth. The level cap has been increased from 99 to 199, so you'll be able to build a character that eventually becomes insanely powerful over time. Your pet remains with you to take on the extra items that you find along the way and UR is pretty much the same game that you played with the original, so there isn't anything new that you have to learn.

More items and armor have been added along with cards that you'll find throughout your adventures which can then be turned in for different items. While the effects are interesting at first, you'll find that the sheer amount of time that you spend looking for certain cards to turn in can be a time-waster as the item isn't all that great. As before, the fame system allows you to use better armor and weapons, but can either be bought or gained through doing the multitude of quests available. The quests themselves as a general rule haven't changed much from the go here, kill this, come back variety and you might find yourself doing those for hours on end.

One of the new surprises, is the introduction of protecting certain areas against onslaughts of monsters from NPC avatars within the dungeon and the hunting down of different monsters as though you're a bounty hunter. It's a nice diversion from time to time, but the points where you find these side-quests are few and far between within the dungeons. As before, all of the dungeons are randomly generated for a ‘unique experience' each time, through you'll find that the dungeon layouts are pretty much repeated every fourth or fifth level. The other nifty surprise is the fact that you can transfer your character from the original Fate in order to continue on with the journeys in this strange new world.

Provided that you didn't retire the character in the first game!

Moving your character and selecting different items to use hasn't changed and is still done with the point and click interface. Traveling through the dungeons takes little more than holding down the mouse button and using the arrow keys in order to turn your character in a different direction. As before, the pet is controlled by the computer and is set to an auto-attack so you won't have to pay attention to it other than to send it back to town. The spell system can be set to the F hot-keys, so it makes using the different spells fluid without having to move through clumsy menus to find the spell that you want to use.

Visually, the game hasn't changed much, with your armor and weapons providing a different view of your character and the weapons and magic effects remaining as flowing with glow as they did in the first game. Some of the levels of the dungeons aren't as dark as they were in the first game, but you'll find plenty of dank areas to explore through. More creature models have been added with some interesting detail, but once again, the creatures are recycled throughout the game in both sets of dungeons, so once you've seen them a couple of times, you'll be seeing them dozens of more times.

The audio hasn't changed much either, in which you have a few more voices added to the NPC townsfolk in an attempt to give a better immersion into the world of Fate. However, the voices come up short and sound more like something that you'll hear on Sesame Street, especially when you talk to the vampire for quests. The same grating voice that tells you that you're running low on health, mana or that your pack is full is still there and once again, I turned off the sound effects after the first twenty minutes of playing because it was giving me a headache.

Undiscovered Realms is the same game that you played with Fate and honestly, the only reason I played through was because it was packed with the original Fate. While the game attempts to give you some different things to do, the differences are few and far between with the extra side-quests being too sporadic to really give you a feeling that you're playing a new game. Two dungeons instead of one is a good idea, but the fact that you simple have to go to a certain level and kill a certain monster in each to complete the primary quest leaves plenty to be desired. As with the first, this is a perfect way to keep the kids busy, but has no real depth that would keep die-hard dungeon crawlers bust for more than a few hours at best.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/23/08

Game Release: Fate: Undiscovered Realms (US, 05/14/08)