You’d be hard-pressed to find something to play on your Game Boy Advance lately, assuming you’ve already went through majority of the must-haves. Amongst the obvious games that should be in every person’s collection, have you ever considered checking out those titles that don’t seem to really grab you from the shelf? You know, the boxes that have unknown companies on them, adorned with art that just doesn’t make sense? At first glance, Mazes of Fate seems to fit the markings of your typical shovelware title, but look past the box and you’ll find a nice and meaty, albeit dated, RPG in your hands.
The game opens up with a story of gods and humans, where the gods aren’t too happy that the humans have ignored them thanks to the discovery of magic, and plan on replacing them with a new submissive species of goatmen. Enter King Harlac, who has just swore an oath with the gods to forgive man for their wronging and plans on sealing the pact on the Stone of Redemption. However, on the day of the ritual, the Stone is stolen by the Resistance and the gods essentially tell Harlac that he’s screwed unless he can complete the ritual.
From here, you are given three characters to choose from, each with their own backstories that are longer versions of "an adventurer that yearns to fight evil." Each of these characters fit a certain archetype, such as the Warrior, Mage or Rogue. You can create your own character, however, and set up their skillset to your liking, but you’ll still have to choose one of the default three avatars to represent your character. Taking the role of the faceless character, you aren’t really an integral part of the story, but rather simply thrust into the current conflict and taken along for the ride. Throughout the game, you’ll be given various quests to complete, some of which help proceed with the story while other earn you nice treasure or valuable information. The bulk of these are simple fetch quests, with the rest being "get from point A to point B," so there isn’t a lot of variety. This isn’t much of a problem considering the game’s main focus is dungeon crawling.
As you explore the many dungeons of Mazes of Fate, the first thing you’ll notice is that you are now in a first-person perspective, which may throw some people off -- it’s been quite a while since there’s been a RPG that played like this. While exploring these dungeons you’ll discover a myriad of switches and items to aid in solving puzzles the game will throw your way. Most of the puzzles aren’t exactly stumpers, but some of the clues the game provides may throw you off and make you more confused than you should be. A mini-map in the corner helps you navigate the twisting hallways, but should you get really lost, an Automap featuring the entire level helps you get a better idea of where you are or where something is.
You’ll encounter a nice variety of enemy types in these dungeons; giving you plenty of practice to handle the game’s mixed system of turn-based and real-time. As your progression orb fills up, one of your member’s turn starts up, and with the press of the A button, a menu appears giving you the option to attack, use magic, or use an item on either the enemy or your party. While navigating the menu, the enemy won’t stop its assault, so you have to be on your toes, but you can also be active and run away to another part of the map should you need to. Enemies move rather slowly, so you can use this time to rest and gain your health back up, but the enemy can interrupt this and throw you back into battle. Get used to hearing a "whiff" sound, as both you and the enemy will be missing consistently, a possible first in any RPG to date.
When a character levels up, you are given three skill points to distribute among that person’s stats. These can be used to mold a character to however you see fit; make them proficient in magic, beef up their strength, increase their speed, or a mixture of everything. You can also make your character more proficient in a certain weapon type, or increase some extra attributes such as lock picking or search, which allows your character to locate hidden switches and fake walls around you. It’s a system we’ve already seen before, but it’s a tried and true method of what seems to be endless character customization.
There’s a unique visual look to Mazes of Fate, with its varied environments ranging from forests, catacombs, canyons, to even simple basements. It captures the feeling from the likes of old RPGs you may have played back during the early days of PC gaming, or even consoles such as the Amiga. This also shows how dated everything looks, with enemy sprites moving across the screen at a slow, sketchy pace, switching between the same two frames over and over.
Given the same treatment as the visuals, Mazes of Fate features a nice variety of tunes that play as you explore the various locales, from playful sounds in town, to the sound of mystery as you wander the many empty halls. In the dungeons, the sound effects stand out the most, echoing your footsteps with a slight tap, hearing the creak of a switch that opens a door, or hearing a poor soul scream from afar. These all sound nice and offer that cohesive package, but they still sound from back in the day compared to audio you would hear on more recent titles.
Mazes of Fate is probably the most confusing game to critique that I’ve come across, because as you play you see things that would come across as a flaw or something to nitpick over, but it can also be something to favor and not mind at all. The game simply oozes retro, especially for those old time gamers from back in the day of Eye of the Beholder. On the outside, the game is simple and lacking in difficulty, but before you know it you find yourself engrossed and completing the twenty or so hour quest in no time, depending on the number of side quests you decide to tackle. Having been in development for roughly three years, Mazes of Fate pulls all the stops to offer a fully fleshed title that’s easily worth a visit, and is highly recommended.
