Fate

Overview

Fate is a 2005 action-role playing game developed by Wild Tangent, Inc. Developed by many ex- Diablo, Diablo II and current Torchlight developers, it is no surprise that Fate is much along the same vein as Blizzard's classic franchise. A wildly popular game in its time, Fate has spawned three sequels ( Fate: Undiscovered Realms, Fate: The Traitor Soul and the latest entry Fate: The Cursed King), and introduced many core features that continue to influence dungeon crawlers years after its release.

Gameplay

As with most dungeon crawling action-RPGS, in Fate the player must progress through an ever-changing, randomizing dungeon to complete quests for NPC's, fight monsters, collect valuable items and gold (called loot) to buy better equipment, and distribute skill points as they get stronger. Everything about the dungeon floors in FATE is completly random. From the look and layout of each floor, to the items you find, and enemy types and numbers you encounter.

The Player Character

Perhaps the biggest difference Fate has in comparison to the other games in its genre, is the complete and total lack of specified character classes. The game offers up quite a large amount of customization options for the player to choose from. At every level up, the player gets five attribute points (which enable the equipping of better items and the use of more powerful magic spells), and two skill points to distribute in any of 15 skills. The skills increase one's proficiency with a certain type of action, like sword-swinging or dual-wielding, for example. Along with the standard " Experience Points", in Fate you are also awarded "Fame Points" for completing quests and killing harder enemies. With every Fame level increase, the player is given four extra skill points to spend as they choose.

The Pet

In Fate, as you are choosing your character's basic appearance, you also get to choose whether you want a cat or a dog as a pet, and what to name it. This pet accompanies you throughout the entire adventure, attacks enemies for you, and even has its own inventory.

The player's pet can even equip items to bolster its defenses. But perhaps best of all, is the beast's ability to go back to town for you, selling everything in its pack, saving you the trip. The player can also partake in a fishing mini-game, and feed the fish to their pets to transform it into a wide variety of powerful creatures and monsters, with some of the better fish providing a PERMANENT transformation effect. This pet system would later be re-used and refined in Torchlight.