Hand of Fate 2 is a single player card game, with action role-playing elements developed by Defiant Development. Now to be honest, I’m not a huge card game player, unless it’s playing UNO with my kids but after playing Hand of Fate 2 it was actually pretty fun, not slow and boring like I assumed.

Hand of Fate 2 is the follow up game to Hand of Fate, and is suppose to be much more improved now, however I can’t comment on this as I have never played the first game.

Now that both Xbox and PS4 have their high end consoles, it’s always up for debate which current console plays games best. I’m no fanboy but since the Xbox One X launched it has run games better with higher resolutions compared to the PS4 Pro, and this is the case for Hand of Fate 2. On Xbox One X the game can run Native 4K (2160p) or (1620p) depending on settings but on the PS4 Pro the highest resolution will be (1620p). Lucky for me, I got my review copy on Xbox and I have to say the game looks real neat in 4K, but not everything was good. There is some stuttering present when going to and from the card table, and the frame rate can have issues depending what options you have selected. Settings which include weather you want the game to be played with unlocked frame rate (45-60fps) or if you favour frame rate over resolution (30fps) I personally turned off the unlocked frame rate, and didn’t choose frame rate over resolution and the game ran smooth with minimal stutters when the transition from table to the third person battles.

This is a card game, but gameplay isn’t just with cards, it also involves third person battles. These battles take place in very small areas and the amount of enemies differ. There is a large number of enemies from humans to creatures and while some can shoot weapons, others can throw ball on chains that’ll trap you. How difficult enemies can be comes down to a couple of factors, first difficulty setting for the game, and pure luck at times, as you’re dealt cards that reduce your health. The battle will be harder as you haven’t got much health to rely on. The third person battles can be repetitive, and due to the fact cards are mostly face down you won’t know what your getting into until you’ve chosen whatever card.

The card playing side is played between yourself and the dealer. He’ll be talking a lot, but he tells the story good, as well as explaining what is going on or if your taking too long to make your move. Being a card game, 98% of the time is playing cards, prior to each mission/challenge you’ll pick your deck from cards you have, a companion card, then a number of equipment, supplies and encounter cards to choose, some cards with have icons next to them that’ll mean something, others will have nothing but a question mark next to them. When playing you’ll have a health card, money card, fame card and a food card.

Now, you can lose health so you’ll need to purchase food or the outcome is dyer. Another thing included in the gameplay is using dice, you’ll have three to use, but this isn’t every card that’ll have you using them. When using the dice, your given a number that’s the target, you must be successful by either rolling that exact number or higher. If your first roll isn’t the desired number you’ll get another shot either by re-rolling all dice, one or just two dice to see if you can get a better number total.

When playing cards you’ll use the left stick along with pressing A and X and a few others. When doing the third person side of the game you can move around freely, you can also attack, block, evade and bash enemies, there is also times you can use your finisher and weapon ability. There are three styles of weapons, one handed, two handed and heavy.

Weapons are received by getting cards, no surprise there. Though that would be considered a good card, some cards you won’t be happy to receive are health or food lose. Weapons and armour both have a stat system, the higher the number the better, but you’ll need to consider if defence or damage is more important.

Count yourself as a master card player? This won’t help you all the time, you’ll need lady luck on your side. You’ll need to conquer 22 missions across a map full of many bosses so you’ll die a fair bit, and when you do you’ll need to restart which ever mission you were doing or move onto another and come back later.

Like I said earlier, I’m not a big card player, unless I’m playing UNO with my kids, so Hand of Fate 2 didn’t peek my interest but after playing I had an appreciation for the genre and the game.

Written by: MKAU Gaming