I believe in omens and didn’t pay attention to those that stared me down in Fractals of Destiny. The ‘journey’ wasn’t great, so this write-up will be limited, and I’ll explain why.
From Krakatoa Studios and Soft Source, this action RPG has been in Early Access for some time and is now out in the wild, having been released in full on Steam. However, based on my experience, there are still so many Early Access elements that are not ready, per se.
You play as Zerva, a mixed-race woman with extraordinary skills who could bring balance to the universe in the year 5823. I couldn’t tell you how that played out in full, as it was marred by technical difficulties and a poor experience on three different devices.
Fractals of Destiny Preview
That first one was my workhorse laptop. It’s an AMD-based Ryzen 9 that can handle anything I throw at it. After constant crashes and numerous driver updates, help was sought, and the solution was to alter some Windows Registry files. Hhmm… yep, not going to do that for one game, I’m afraid.
In the meantime, I downloaded Fractals of Destiny onto the Steam Deck. Surely that wouldn’t work—have you seen the graphics?! It did! There was not a single crash, and quite honestly, it looked very good, though the framerate was like stop-motion and, in truth, unplayable.
Finally, the backup desktop was another decent setup running an Nvidia card. This worked for about an hour, and then all inputs ceased, and Zerva went around in circles. Based on the effort, it was time to call it a day.
However, if you’re one of three people who frequent this site, you’ll know I’m constructive with my criticism and won’t point the finger at technical issues that can be corrected later. Fractals of Destiny as a game doesn’t do it for me.
It Looks Good…
The presentation is superb, and you might not admit it, but watching a CG bum in Lycra was quite satisfying. Oh wait… that’s our audience here, and it’s probably why Zerva doesn’t feel the cold and is wearing thermals. Again, that’s not it though, I can handle the visuals…
It’s the gameplay. On first impressions, I was picking up a whiff of Final Fantasy. Fractals of Destiny isn’t turn-based. Instead, it turns into a button masher. There’s an evade and a dash; however, it isn’t responsive enough and results in a lot of hit damage until charging up a special and unleashing hell. What then entails are a lot of (optional) fetch quests and choppy framerates.
Again, I like to stay positive, so I’m not going to moan about the corny voice acting, the out-of-place audio during the audio, the broken English, or the dated GUI. I’m also not going to say avoid Fractals of Destiny as I didn’t see it through despite my best intentions so it wouldn’t be fair.
Instead, I’ll point you to the Steam store page so you can weigh the reviews and make your own decision.
