Fate Seeker II Review
Lost in Translation
The world has become a very creative place. As creativity grows so does globalization to make these works available to anyone. RPGs continuously find new ways to push the boundaries of storytelling. However, translation gaffes still come through that cause immeasurable harm to games that may otherwise find solid footing. This is especially true of JSL Entertainment’s isometric detective action RPG Fate Seeker II, as everything is so dialogue-heavy that the wonky translation causes frustration at every turn.
Set in Ancient China, Fate Seeker II follows the story of young prodigy Zhuge Yu. Zhuge Yu is the son of Fate Seeker‘s protagonist Zhuge Wei, who was a court official that died exposing the corrupt minister Cobra Qin. Yu grew to respect his father’s choices and followed in his footsteps as a detective. After proving his worth to the Prefect Baotan who governs a large area of the country, Yu is sent to use his detective skills to prevent the deaths of the wrongfully accused or exposing corruption in local courts. This is all done to find leads against a group called Defiant that is sacrificing innocents to create a society free from corruption. The basic steps remain the same for every case: Yu finds a crime scene, does a preliminary investigation to find supporting evidence and then crafts a working theory with a female companion. The theory is then presented to the authority where the player helps catch them in lies. The stories are varied making the lack of connecting dialogue that much sadder to experience. There are too many instances of things that don’t quite work making even the simplest tasks a gargantuan leap in reading comprehension.
That is indeed a lot of words strung together.
Zhuge Yu is presented as an incredibly intelligent, borderline narcissistic character, whose only faithful friend is his pet eagle, Skylar. He laughs when someone presents a flawed argument because he knows their story better than they do. His smugness is born out of gathering evidence, finding items, and putting the pieces together. These clues are then used to “think” things together in a connect-the-dots method. Evidence gathering is done by talking to individuals or using a button and igniting, thrusting, destroying, or showing something to the object or person for various results. Luckily, there’s little that can be outright missed out on by burning evidence as Yu will stop players before going too far. Every option is needed to explore crime scenes as sometimes the next clue will be found in the most obtuse ways. For example, one unconscious enemy needs to be shoved for a clue, while the other right beside them will result in Yu chastising the player for shoving a helpless person.
Zhuge Yu is an unknown commodity in his world. This means that every quest in a new area begins with people skeptical of his abilities. As he starts to solve problems he wins the respect of all men and every woman falls in love with him. The pattern is tiresome but the mysteries still play out in different enough ways. It is hard to call them interesting because of that ever present translation making evidence gathering a chore. Not to mention these villages are huge and often have dozens of rumours and side quests that can be completed alongside the main reason for being there.
If Zhuge Yu does something incorrect it is presented as a player problem since Yu knew the right answer and is just testing the suspects and companions on their knowledge. This makes Yu more annoying than endearing, as he is showered with love and respect, has zero flaws, and claps back at the player for not keeping up with his genius. The only goofs to make him human are needing a mask to hide his facial expressions when deep in thought and an aversion to chairs since a friend yanked one out from under him as a child.
Combat can sure be pretty sometimes.
Players always feel a step behind due to the terrible translation. Contractions are just missing and more than once words are chosen by their least used definition. It’s like everything was run through Google Translate and followed with a thesaurus to swap word arrangements around. The keywords that the game tries to highlight as hints sometimes don’t match anything that has been found, leading to a demented task of dictionary scanning to have things make sense. Normally a dialogue-heavy title has ebbs and flows to it that make things grow organically, here the player has big epiphanies sprung on them like common knowledge all while struggling to present the characters and story in an organized fashion. Luckily, clues in main quests are limited to a particular area and there’s a mini map that updates when everything is found and Zhuge Yu is ready to think about putting the evidence together. Unfortunately, these areas are massive and some aspects have to be interacted with multiple times in various ways to get the information needed to move forward.
Everything that can be interacted with is a part of some story, rumour, or quest. Some of these are simple and can be completed with items collected throughout the journey while others have inanely specific aspects for it to be completed. Rewards don’t necessarily match with the difficulty of a quest either. This dangling of the carrot makes the smack of the rod extra annoying when painstakingly going over every word, item, and piece of evidence leads to something incorrect or a healing item. Completing only those that the player comes across organically just helps preserve sanity as some of them just aren’t worth the effort.
There is potential for a complex well organized title beneath all the translation difficulties. Characters from various plots weave together and get moments to grow. A few of the mysteries have moments where the premise is sound. The female companions are presented in a manner different from one another so they have some personality beyond “Zhuge Yu is the best”. Everything ties together to a well-done climax that is honestly baffling after all the bumps along the way. This great conclusion offers a sad glimpse of what the title could have been if not marred by translation gaffes.
That’s an interesting line of logic there Jett.
When court cases are ready for presentation Zhuge Yu will state they are ready to confront the accused. Fate Seeker II then turns into a courthouse parody; complete with Yu reading facial expressions, tones, and specific words to know someone is lying. Players then have to go through five different statements and provide the proper piece of evidence against the untruthful statement. On easy, trying repeatedly causes no lasting in-game damage, but higher difficulties affect the experience points players can receive from quests and combat as it drops from one-hundred percent down to zero, making things drastic if players can’t parse the poor translation. Sometimes things are straightforward, other times it’s akin to opening a door with a roundhouse kick, sure it gets the job done but it’s not the easiest choice. It is during these scenes that Yu laughs the most, telling people that he knows they are lying and letting them catch themselves by presenting this evidence. These scenes are presented as extremely serious but the bad dialogue and Yu’s sarcastic laughter make it more groan-worthy instead.
While collecting evidence Zhuge Yu has to occasionally show off his martial arts prowess. Combat in Fate Seeker II is enjoyable with four different martial arts combinations, tied to a long sword, great sword, fists, and spears that can be cycled through with a press of a button. Each move, known as a bagua, is flashy and the quick pace of combat never feels dull, as different martial art styles can be combined for additional fun. Every non-basic attack has a cooldown, with all but the finishing maneuver having small enough countdowns that it’s not difficult to just keep cycling through abilities to keep combos going. Stronger enemies will do a flashy combo of their own that can leave them susceptible to being stunned. Stunning enemies can remove cooldowns on some stronger skills and allows them to be spammed for tons of damage. Combat feels like it happens infrequently, leaving its simple yet flashy style a highlight in a game bogged down by poor communication. There are no respawning enemies so fighting only happens at certain investigative points along the journey.
Zhuge Yu the ever elegant wordsmith.
Stronger equipment is found during events or as a reward for sidequest completion. The unbalanced reward nature makes things problematic as some complex quests are rewarded with healing items while breaking a bookshelf yields a rare weapon. Methods and additional skill sets are found this way as well, so players do feel obligated to explore. Methods are accessory books that players can equip that give boosts in combat and upgrading them doubles as stat gains. Upgrading equipment comes in the form of materials found along the journey or by feeding Skylar, who after a time can be called back with additional supplies after being fed fish.
Fate Seeker II is a fine looking action RPG. There are a few scenery shots of mountain ranges or palace halls that capture a variety of colours in a pleasing manner. But, for the most part, Zhuge Yu is exploring caves and small farmland villages that portray the same yellow and black colour tones. The majority of characters have reused designs with the exception of the striking Yu and the outfits for the female companions. This is due to the harem-like option of choosing a favourite personality type or look as they are all in love with Yu. The musical accompaniment is full of inoffensive background tracks that add little. Main quests are voiced in Chinese and add cadence to the speech that is an unexpected treat.
There’s a good premise locked behind bad execution in Fate Seeker II. There’s plenty to explore and everything is connected to something. The detective work is meticulous and the awful translation makes reading for any amount of time a headache. Combat is sprinkled in as a highlight, but when most of the game is dialogue heavy, it is not enough. The poor presentation magnifies every weakness so avoid this headache at all costs.
Disclosure: This review is based on a free copy of the game provided by the publisher.
Combat is enjoyable when available
The premise is sound
Poor translation makes collecting evidence torturous
Irritating protagonist
Story and presentation also rely heavily on bad dialogue
I hope the fangirls of the magnificent and intelligent Zhuge Yu don’t read this review. Otherwise, someone will be in big trouble.
Anyway, it would be great if the developer could overhaul the localization to offer a better product.