The Guided Fate Paradox is a rogue-like RPG, being the spiritual successor to the PSP game Z.H.P. Unlosing Ranger VS Darkdeath Evilman. The gameplay in each chapter involves exploring a randomly generated dungeon consisting of 10 floors. It is turn-based, therefore enemies will only do something when you do something, with the whole dungeon comprised of a grid. Your character, Renya, can attack, wait, use items, special attacks and throw items. You can swap equipment on the fly at any time with no penalty. Enemies roam in the open, however, and as you have to reveal each piece of the map at a time, coupled with the high angled camera, they can end up sneaking up on your. You can only rotate the camera or angle it even higher, you cannot level it to see further int he distance, which is really annoying. Your character has a HP bar, a SP bar for special attacks, and an EN bar. EN is used for all actions including walking, therefore you have to keep a close eye on EN and refill it where necessary as once it depletes, it eats into your HP. HP and SP restore every turn and you can speed up turns but this is dangerous as an enemy might get up to you and get in a few hits before you realize it.
Renya can equip headgear, two weapons, leg gear and miscellaneous gear. The game is unique in that each gear has its own special attack when you equip it. These attacks are useful as they can provide ranged attack or area attacks. Unfortunately, most of the stat boosts are provided by the equipment. Equipment gains power through usage, until they Burst, in which case, they are then capped and loses a significant amount of power. You then have to spend money at the blacksmith to strengthen it, allowing it to gain power again up to a higher cap. You then repeat the process. As you have no access to the blacksmith during a dungeon, and that the most significant power gain is just before the equipment Bursts, it is a really annoying gimmick and is basically just inventory management. You have limited inventory space while in a dungeon meaning you will constantly have to chuck items and equipment away. You can eventually increase your inventory space but by that point, you're expected to trek through more floors of a dungeon in one go so it doesn't solve the problem at all.
Being a rogue-like, The Guided Fate Paradox is extremely cheap and unfair. If you die in a dungeon, you lose all the items in your inventory and half your money. That being said, there is permanent storage for your items and money in the Hub World so the losses aren't as heavy hitting but considering you're probably using your best equipment to Burst it and strengthen it later on, you'll end up reloading a previous save as you can only quick save in a dungeon (whereby you can only load the save once, although there is a workaround). Every time you enter a dungeon, your characters' levels are reset to 1. Once you clear a dungeon, they will gain permanent boosts to their base stats so that even when you start at level 1 the next time, you are stronger. Therefore, even if you die, it isn't all for nothing but the stat boosts are so little you're better off reloading your save anyway. It is extremely annoying in the second half of the game where dungeons easily take over two hours to grind to a suitable level, only for you to get blindsided by the boss. You'll lose all progress and have to spend another two hours grinding from level 1 again up to that point. Furthermore, if you stay too long in a level while inside a dungeon to try and grind, the game forces you to go up to the next level!
It would have been much better to have a traditional leveling up system as the current system of improved base stats doesn't reflect the amount of effort that got you to the point of dying. Leveling all the way up again when you reattempt a dungeon is just shamelessly padding the game out. Another dungeon gimmick is moving floors or different heights. This presents a huge problem in certain areas since the angled view means you can accidentally move into the wrong direction when you don't expect it and can't get back up to that spot immediately. There are traps in random floor tiles; these are cheap because each tile has a random chance of being a trap whenever you step on it. This means if you step on one with no issues before, it can suddenly turn into a trap when you backtrack and step on it again. The game eases you in during the earlier chapters but you will soon be expected to trek ten floors in one run, with a tough boss on the tenth floor. There are no checkpoints which make it frustrating when the bosses are cheap and you can't even reconnaissance as there is a high risk of dying before you can use an item to warp out.
Enemy levels scale up really high really quickly between each floor, which makes grinding a pain when you exit and go back in at level 1. While these cheap mechanics are trademarks of the genre, it is still annoying as hell when you've spent an hour grinding carefully to the boss only for it to surprise attack you with its cheapness and you die. If that is not enough, certain dungeons have small surfaces and you'll likely spawn right in the middle of a cluster of high leveled enemies. The one movement one turn turns against you when you have swarms of enemies, or when the enemy has ranged attacks, since you cannot get to them in time before you die. They'll crowd around you and you'll die before you've had one turn. The later chapters of the game skew it more towards frustrating and less towards enjoyment, leaving too many things to chance and ends up being terrible, destroying any goodwill from earlier chapters. You'll notice a significant difficulty spike from Chapter 4 onwards.
You get a partner in most dungeons. You can send simple orders such as following you or doing their own thing. However, because they are usually right behind you, the type of gear you equip them, and consequently, the type of special attacks that they can use, is very important. That being said, the AI doesn't always follow you exactly which is annoying during gimmick dungeons when they end up being split apart, go berserk on high level enemies and end up dying as a result. The characters can also gain base stats via the Divinigram. This is a grid-like structure where you place Holy Icons to boost their attack, defense, hit ratio and speed. The equipment Burst mechanic plays into this system as every time you Burst an equipment, you get one Holy icon to use. This is the core way to improve your character's powers. The story is told in a visual novel-esque style, the game is rendered using 2D sprites which holds it own charms.
We are introduced to Renya, who never wins anything from lotteries. Therefore, naturally, only day he wins the grand prize... of being a god. He gets transported to another world and is then tasked with fulfilling the wishes of people's prayers. The twist is that it covers all beings: magical, aliens, fairy tales etc. There are heaps of cutscenes, at least one per floor and most of your first playthrough will be spent watching these cutscenes. They can be skipped though, which is a boon in second playthroughs. Renya enters the Fate Revolution Circuit, a type of machine that allows him to interact with the person that made the prayer in a sort of Copy World. In there, Renya defeats the monsters and this is the basis for the dungeons and the gameplay. The last chapter requires quite a bit of grinding due to the insane enemy level scaling per floor, which makes it all the more annoying when the final boss has an even bigger level gap. It gets to the point where it requires you to one-hit KO all normal enemies of the dungeon in order to be at a comfortable position to defeat the final boss. However, the story segments in the final chapter were pretty good and of course, you have the blossoming relationship between Renya and his angle helper, Lilliel.
When you do defeat the final boss though, the resulting ending is anticlimactic, making it seem almost not worthwhile. Once you finish the game, you enter New Game Plus where you keep your Total Level and equipment, and unlock various postgame dungeons. The story is only around 50% of the game, you have so much postgame content although they all boil down to overlong dungeons, getting better gear and defeating overpowered bosses. It gets dull real quick. You're expected to trek hundreds of floors in one go, preparing really well beforehand and at least a few deaths in order to know the patterns of the bosses to devise a proper strategy. One of the best things about the game is the music, which is catchy and quite unique. The story is at least 30 hours long, with plenty more if you end up dying in a dungeon and having to redo them. Overall, The Guided Fate Paradox has a lot of great moments and can be very addictive in its gameplay. Unfortunately, it is hampered in the rules of its genre with cheap gimmicks, overpowered bosses and unforgiving penalties for losing. The story isn't too bad and the aesthetics are charming. Recommended if you're keen in this genre but otherwise, avoid.
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