Destiny or Fate
- September 5, 2019
- GameNet
- 20h median play time
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Get on itch.io Store"Destiny or Fate" is a deck-building roguelike game where players choose from a variety of heroes, each with unique abilities, and embark on adventures. Tactics and playstyles matter as encounters with creatures can result in defeat or recruitment. Permadeath requires starting over when a hero dies, adding to the game's challenge.
Mac OS
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Windows
Linux
Reviews
- The art style and animations are solid, with unique designs for monsters and characters.
- The game features a variety of characters with different abilities, adding depth to gameplay.
- The monster capture mechanic adds an interesting twist to the traditional card-battler format.
- The game is plagued by balance issues, with many cards being ineffective or too costly for their benefits.
- There are significant bugs, including crashes and save corruption, which can lead to frustrating gameplay experiences.
- The user interface is clunky and inconsistent, making it difficult to navigate and understand game mechanics.
- gameplay64 mentions
- 31 % positive mentions
- 59 % neutral mentions
- 9 % negative mentions
The gameplay of "Destiny or Fate" features a mix of card-battling and roguelike mechanics, offering some interesting ideas and unique features like monster capturing. However, many players find the execution lacking, citing issues with balance, clunky UI, and insufficient explanations of mechanics, which can lead to a frustrating experience. While the core gameplay loop is engaging for some, the overall design feels underdeveloped and repetitive, with a steep learning curve that may deter new players.
“The gameplay is fun; I really like the recruit monster mechanic and the combo that you have to achieve to get the 'special move.'”
“There's a lot of intertwined mechanics that only reveal themselves through exploration and experimentation, and its roguelike structure means only this knowledge is ever carried forward.”
“This is an easy to pick-up but hard to master deck-building game mixed with roguelite mechanics.”
“The UI is clunky and inconsistent, and there’s often little explanation for gameplay elements, like status effects.”
“In terms of gameplay, there are many ideas that could be interesting for the genre, but none of them are properly developed or executed well.”
“The main problem with all these mechanics and the gameplay as a whole is balance.”
- graphics43 mentions
- 67 % positive mentions
- 26 % neutral mentions
- 7 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game are generally praised for their solid art style and unique character designs, reminiscent of the golden era of flash games. While many reviewers appreciate the beautiful artwork and visual effects, some note issues with glitches and a lack of polish in certain areas. Overall, the graphics are considered the standout feature, though opinions on their originality and execution vary.
“The art style and animations are solid, with monsters and characters having unique designs.”
“The graphics and customization make for a lot of fun.”
“The art style appears to be digital hand drawings that look superb.”
“Marked as dead on the map and when I tried to go into a fight thinking it was just a graphical glitch, it insta-killed him and my run.”
“The game has passable graphics, if rudimentary.”
“- bosses are clunky mechanically and graphically.”
- music17 mentions
- 24 % positive mentions
- 41 % neutral mentions
- 35 % negative mentions
The music in the game has received mixed reviews, with many players finding it repetitive and monotonous, often criticizing the lack of variety across different zones. While some appreciate the thematic elements of the music, others describe it as annoying and poorly integrated, with sound effects that can be overwhelming. Overall, the audio experience is seen as a weak point, detracting from the game's otherwise appealing art style and mechanics.
“Amazing art style and good music.”
“The music is fun and thematic.”
“On the main menu screen, you’ll find the settings, where you can change the volume of the music and effects (0-100), language (English/Korean/Chinese I believe so far), progress speed (normal/fast), fullscreen on/off and resolution.”
“Unfortunately, the mind-numbing music and sound effects are things I could do without.”
“One con, however, is that the music here is terrible and repetitive; every 'zone' has the same music even though there are roughly five or six zones, which to me would be a small enough number to get them unique pieces.”
“The sound design is mediocre at best; sound effects and music are only here to fill a void, and even when the sound is at 10% in settings and 1% in Windows' volume mixer, some sounds will still blast your ears.”
- story13 mentions
- 23 % positive mentions
- 54 % neutral mentions
- 23 % negative mentions
The game's story is largely considered minimal and underdeveloped, with only brief character blurbs for each hero and a fleeting introduction that quickly fades from relevance. Players note that the narrative lacks depth and continuity, making it feel almost non-existent throughout the gameplay. Overall, the storytelling aspect is seen as a significant weakness, typical of many games in this genre.
“Each of the 15 heroes has a two-sentence blurb describing their identity and backstory.”
“When selecting a hero the first time you start the game, there appears to be a story as a mysterious figure speaks to the player about portals and crystals.”
“So usually an RPG has a story.”
“Don’t let the RPG section above mislead you into thinking there’s a story here.”
“In addition, the game has a near non-existent story, and endings for heroes are wrapped up quickly indeed.”
“The story is borderline non-existent, but it's usually the case for such games.”
- replayability10 mentions
- 40 % positive mentions
- 30 % neutral mentions
- 30 % negative mentions
Overall, the game offers solid replayability, with many players noting its unique gameplay mechanics, diverse character options, and various ways to achieve victory. While some players may not invest more than 15 hours, the potential for customization and unlockable content keeps the experience engaging for those willing to navigate its initial flaws.
“While no one would say it's a masterpiece or worth going out of your way for, the game has a very solid core to it, and if you're prepared to work past the teething issues, poor design of some interfaces and translation flaws, there is a game very worthy of some attention hiding underneath them - and the gameplay will make up for the hassle involved in getting to it with a great deal of replayability.”
“Each one is unique and being able to build a party of monsters allows for a lot of customization and replayability.”
“This definitely has replay value, but I don't think most people will play it more than 15 hours.”
“Decent replayability due to unlocks and different heroes.”
“There are tons of classes and perks to unlock, so the replay value is pretty high.”
- grinding9 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players consistently find the grinding aspect of the game to be excessive and tedious, with many noting a lack of variety and a cumbersome user interface that complicates progress. While some grinding is necessary to unlock permanent bonuses and heroes, it often feels monotonous and detracts from the overall enjoyment of the game. The repetitive nature of resource gathering and backtracking further contributes to a sense of frustration among users.
“Good ideas are hampered by poor variety and endless grinding.”
“The play itself feels very grindy with the tiny pool of card choices never feeling like it expands.”
“It feels like every aspect of the game's UI, every button you click, was designed to be clicked and adjusted in the most tedious way possible.”
- stability7 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The game suffers from significant stability issues, with frequent bugs causing screen freezes, disappearing cards, and incorrect card effects. Players report that these glitches disrupt gameplay and require restarts, detracting from the overall experience. While the graphics are generally appealing, the persistent bugs highlight a pressing need for developer attention and fixes.
“But overall the biggest issues are both how extremely buggy the game is and how half the cards' text don't function correctly or do what they claim they will.”
“A few of the ones I've seen: cards can disappear during a battle; battle freezes before rewards (just reload); several descriptions/effects on upgrades are backwards.”
“The screen freezes regularly and requires a forced restart of the game; some card effects are broken and do weird stuff like deal 99% damage to one of your characters, leaving you with 1 HP.”
- character development3 mentions
- 33 % positive mentions
- 33 % neutral mentions
- 33 % negative mentions
Character development in the game receives mixed reviews, with some players appreciating the character designs and art direction for their appeal and replayability, while others criticize the aesthetics as resembling low-quality anime or hentai-inspired visuals.
“The game is good, with tons of replayability, different ways to win, nice artwork, and character design.”
“The art direction and character design are horrible; it looks like a hentai Naruto game advertisement on streaming sites, except it has a few discrete sparkle sprites here and there.”
- optimization3 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 33 % neutral mentions
- 67 % negative mentions
The game's optimization has been criticized for its technical issues and lack of polish, leading to frequent crashes and gameplay disruptions, such as cards disappearing from the player's hand. This has created a frustrating experience, overshadowing any enjoyment players might find in the game.
“But with the technical issues and lack of performance and polish dedicated to the game, while it no longer receives updates, it's difficult to find joy when one's primary concern when playing the game is being anxious about the game itself not crashing or just ruining your run by, for example, just removing cards out of your hand.”
“I’m not sure if this is the graphic hitboxes or the general performance.”
- monetization2 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 50 % negative mentions
The game is praised for its lack of microtransactions, which is a positive aspect for players. However, the overall art direction and character design received negative feedback, being compared unfavorably to low-quality advertisements.
“Thankfully, there are no microtransactions in the game.”
- humor1 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Users express that the humor in the game is overshadowed by significant bugs, which they find frustrating and detrimental to the overall experience.
