Hand of Fate 2 adds depth and variety to what was already a cool concept, which is encouraging given my grievances with the first game.

Water and lighting effects continue to dazzle, to the point where it’s a shame that you can only admire them while hacking away at undead. Although the area you’re able to move around isn’t very big, there were lots of small details like lampposts and abandoned shop stalls visible in the distance. In one encounter, I was dropped into the back alley of a vaguely Warhammer-esque city and it truly felt lived in, part of some larger urban sprawl I couldn’t see. A lot of care and detail has clearly gone into the level building. More positively, the gorgeous environments from the first game are very much back. The combat screen looks pretty much identical to the first game as of now. But I was never overly enamored with how Hand of Fate’s combat felt, and part of me wonders if a shift in style would have actually been welcome. Defiant told me that, at one point, Hand of Fate 2 had a combat system more like that of Dark Souls, and that it was eventually scrapped because it didn’t feel like Hand of Fate anymore.

Whether the combat becomes dull again will really come down to how much encounter and enemy variety has been added, which I didn’t get enough of a sense of during my demo. Combat encounters can now also feature objectives that aren’t just killing everything (I was pit against an infinite wave soldiers and had to survive for a certain amount of time) but the fights still played like the same aimless hacking and slashing I remember. Hand of Fate 2 has made the special ability system more interactive by tying it to your combo counter, which is a welcome but ultimately minor change. Fights are often just about spamming the attack button while occasionally adding a finisher, dodge roll, or counter to the mix. Silver cards promise better rewards, but you can only have a limited number in your deck.įor all that’s improved, some of the same problems that made me tire of the first game are still kicking around-namely, the combat, which hasn’t changed much.

Hand of fate 2 death