The Awakened Fate Ultimatum - Gameplay

The Awakened Fate Ultimatum is a dungeon-crawler with rogue-like elements, which makes up the bulk of its gameplay. The dungeons are randomly generated, apart from the tutorial ones (which you cannot revisit anyways), so your experience going through them will never be the same.

General Gameflow

The main story in the game follows a general pattern throughout it. Each chapter in the game usually begins with a cutscene, then you will either need to choose "Next Event" to get more cutscenes or you can choose to dive into a dungeon. That's much pretty the entire flow to each chapter in the main story: cutscene, Next Event, more cutscenes, dungeon, cutscenes galore, end of chapter. The only break in between them is when you have to make choices.

Dungeons

As a dungeon crawler, you will be spending a lot of time inside of the dungeons in the game. While the layout, treasures and actual enemies are randomly generated, the number of floors and types of enemies you encounter will always stay the same. It should be noted that no good dungeon is complete without some traps, which are hidden from your view unless you step on them, swing your weapon while next to them (like hitting the square the trap is on) or use an Insight/Clairvoyant Leaf.

Although most traps are negative, there are some traps that are actually beneficial to your well-being. These traps come in a variety of flavors, such as inflicting you with a status ailment, buff/debuffing one of your stats, damaging your character and even revealing/hiding your map from you.

One last thing to keep track of inside of dungeons is AC, which is kind of like a stamina system. This will gradually decrease as you explore/act in the dungeons and once it reaches zero, then your HP will start decreasing. You can replenish AC a little by using most items, with the Apple set of items increasing it a lot.

Battle System

As a dungeon-crawling rogue-like, the battle system in The Awakened Fate Ultimatum is similar to games in that genre, where your movements are tied to enemy ones. Basically, every time you take an action, whether it's by moving, attacking or using a skill, then enemies will also do one of the same. You have the X button to swing your sword, which is pretty much all you can do, besides pressing to L1 use your skills.

Apart from your regular attack and skills, you also have access to your Angel and Devil Forms. Pressing either L2 (Angel Form) or R2 (Devil Form) will change you into that form, where you can do more damage or take less from enemies of the opposite alignment. However, you can't stay indefinitely in these forms, as each action while in them will consume 2 SP. Should your SP run out, then you will no longer be able to switch to a form or even use skills.

There is one aspect of battles that carries over from rogue-like games, which is the penalty for dying. If you lose all of your HP in a dungeon, then your character will faint and return to Celestia. You will lose every single item that is equipped and in your inventory, so you will have to start with nothing, unless you have things in storage.

Ultimate Choice & Customization

The theme of the game is to make the ultimate choice and you will have to do this throughout the story. These choices are reflected as being part angel and part devil, with them affecting the overall storyline. Besides offering different sides to the overall storyline, these choices will also get you Crystal Points (CP).

Crystal Points will allow you to enhance your Angel/Devil Forms by making them stronger. You will be able to increase that form's HP, Attack and Defense, as well as learn some skills that are specific to that form. The customization screen is separated into an Angel side and a Devil side, with the choices giving you Angel CP and Devil CP. These CP can only be used on their respective sides, while the CP you earn from leveling can be used on either side.

Item Boost & Gems

This option is the bottom one on the first page of your in-game menu, where you can strength your weapons/armor by using other weapons and armor. However, you can't simply combine any two weapons/armors, as they need to be in a specific way. There is a base, which can be any weapon/armor, but the ingredient needs to be boosted already (means a +1 or other number after it).

Combining them will result in your base weapon/armor increasing in "level," which can actually increase its attack/defense. Note that the maximum is +99 (there's a trophy for doing this with a weapon and another for an armor) and it will cost some EC each time you do an upgrade.

Besides boosting your weapons/armor this way, you can also find gems from chests, as well as enemy drops. When you look at the armor/weapon, you will notice little circles underneath the icon for the sword/shield. These are the gem slots and determine how many gems you can equip. Choose the Equip option on the menu in Celestia and press Triangle to go to a screen where you can attach gems to weapons/armor. Some gems take up one slot (yellow), while others take even two (blue) or three slots (red). The maximum number of slots any weapon or armor can have is three slots.

Status Ailments

No RPG is without being afflicted with status ailments, which can certainly hinder your progress in the game. Of course, you can inflict these ailments on enemies, either by tossing certain items at them, or setting gems into your weapon.