So I've bought a ps3. Resonance of Fate, yay or nay?
Interesting combat system. You need to combo enemies in a very unique way -- you need to first hit enemies with machine guns to do 'scratch damage' which is effectively 'potential' damage and then use another character to hit them with a handgun for 'direct damage' that finalizes the scratch damage into real damage. Some enemies have different parts that you need to attack in various orders for the best effects (and for rare drops).
If that makes little sense, well... yeah, it doesn't. But don't let that scare you away.
Now, the amount of damage you do is based on the distance you, your combo partner, and your enemy are from each other. You're basically creating a triangle with the three characters, and they sort of all run at each other, so the longer they run, the more damage is done. This is sort of a simplified version of it. There are lots of things in each arena that can be used for cover (but also block running so can get in your way). There's also jumping high in the air for better shots.
If that makes little sense, well... yeah, it doesn't. But don't let that scare you away.
Guns are modifiable. Scopes, grips, everything. As you get new parts, you add them onto your gun in a tetris like grid. This means your guns can be ridiculous, with multiple things stuck to them in odd ways. Like, super weird -- you don't just have one slot for each modifier, it's all about glomming them together willy nilly.
If that makes little sense, well... yeah, it doesn't. But don't let that scare you away.
The overworld is a huge hex map. You can add these colored items you find to each hex to change it to a certain color, and as you make each color a bigger swath you get various combat bonuses. So there's this whole overworld game that has you optimizing the hex grid to maximize how big your bonuses are.
If that makes little sense, well... yeah, it doesn't. But don't let that scare you away.
The plot is paper thin in my opinion.
Anyway, the combat system is very odd. Everything about the game is odd, really. You'll find yourself grinding for hexes to use in the overworld because filling up the overworld is oddly addicting.
However, underneath all that, it's an interesting, solid game. The one thing I really didn't like about it is that everything was so 'odd' that it threw me off a bit... 'scratch' and 'direct' damage made no sense to me... why wouldn't hitting someone with submachine bullets do real damage? Why do i need to 'seal' that with a handgun? Why does modifying guns make you have surreal guns with 3 scopes, 4 grips, and look ridiculous?
I'd been waiting on the game and just wanted something a bit more... realistic? It didn't need to be super realistic (no game is), but this is a bit surreal at times. Still, as a game, and as a combat system, it's actually quite good, if complex at times.
It's actually more complex, imo, than Natural Doctrine, which people seem to find complex. For me, ND makes tactical sense whereas RoF never did. Both have you joining combos in various multi-character triangles, etc.
Final verdict - yay. It's odd, but it's interesting in it's odd and worth playing.