Fate: Gates of Dawn: Summary and Rating

   

Fate: Gates of Dawn

Germany

reLINE Software (developer and publisher)

Released in 1991 for the Amiga and Atari ST

Date Started: 21 April 2016
Date Ended: 3 February 2017

Total Hours: 272

Difficulty: Moderate (3/5)

Final Rating: 42

Ranking at Time of Posting: 200/239 (84%)

Ranking at Game #455: 392/455 (86%)

Fate was conceived as a successor to Alternate Reality, which had promised much--a city, a wilderness, an arena, a palace--but delivered little. In that, Fate succeeded. Not only did it retain most of the logistical considerations of Alternate Reality--hunger, thirst, fatigue, nutrition, encumbrance, disease, and so forth--as well as the complex NPC interactions, it allowed multiple characters in the party, created a full game world, and added a main quest.

The problem is that the game didn't know when to quit. I recommend that modern players, if they want to play Fate, end when they solve the Cavetrain quest. Up to that point, it's a great game. Different NPCs create a very different experience in combat and exploration, as in the beginning each one only has one or two spellbooks. You get to explore a large city, a large wilderness around it, a smaller sister city, and a large, complex, 7-level dungeon with a variety of navigational puzzles. Leveling is relatively swift and rewarding, and the economy still holds some value. Hints are plentiful, and the main quest is adequate. Seriously, play it this way. Don't read the backstory. Some mage has cut the city of Larvin, enclosed by mountains, from the outside world. Winwood is the son of a tavernkeeper whose family was murdered by marauders looking for supplies, since no goods are coming in from the outside world. Your only quest is to restore the function of the train. You'd have a 60-hour RPG with decent mechanics, and you'd walk away happy.

Instead, the game continues for another 200 hours, with senseless plot developments, character development that becomes less and less important (my characters ended the game with dozens of improvement slots), and combat that becomes either mindlessly easy (outdoors) or absurdly deadly (indoors). Equipment upgrades slow and then stop, the economy spins out of control, and the player spends dozens of hours just getting from one place to another. What would have been high GIMLET scores for Fate: Quest of the Cavetrain start to bleed away as the game gets more sprawling and pointless.

Yes, I got seduced by the map. It's happened before, often at work. With major projects on my "to do" list, I'll get sucked in by some boring, menial, seemingly-incompletable task and I'll have to tear myself away from it. "Chet, that report was due last week!," I'll hear, and respond, "Sorry! I'm busy coding some variable I'll probably never use across 200,000 records!" The process of filling in those little boxes became an opiate. I'm glad I stopped myself before insisting that I finish. I will admit that the map is pretty cool. The developer could have set an excellent RPG there, full of lore and side quests. He just didn't.

The plot of Fate starts out intriguing. Winwood is transported from the real world and current year to an alternate Earth in the year 1932 in which magic is real and other races exist. The agent behind his transport seems to be an evil wizard named Thardan. Thardan uses one of his followers to disable the Cavetrain and block Larvin's access to the rest of the world, ostensibly to keep Winwood from escaping the starting area.

It's not a bad beginning, but from there the game doesn't develop the plot at all. Thardan's motives are never revealed. Unlike the much later Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader, Fate doesn't try to put real-world analogues into its alternate Earth. (And I'm not suggesting that Lionheart is a particularly good game; it's just the only other one I know set in an alternate history.) Neither the maps nor the names of the cities suggest an alternate Earth. The only real "plot twist"--having Winwood whisked to the dungeons beneath Cassida via the wand on Naristos's body--isn't explicitly part of Thardan's plot. If it is, it was a stupid idea, as it was the only way that Winwood came into contact with Bergerac and Morganna.

Morganna, the deus ex machina, comes out of nowhere with a compelling back, but no compelling backstory. Thardan comes to a swift and ignominious end without even the traditional villain's exposition. He remains a passive villain the entire game.
    

Fate officially jumps the shark.

   
The hint system, which starts out strong in Larvin, requiring only that the player find the right class of NPC, completely disappears by the end, where the player has to make several nonsensical leaps of logic.

The name of the game remains a complete mystery throughout. What are the "gates of dawn," exactly? What "fate" is at stake here?

I don't even know what to expect from a GIMLET at this point.

1. Game World. The backstory of the alternate Earth is clumsily explained and never referenced in-game. As noted above, Winwood's part in the world starts out intriguing and ends stupid. On the other hand, the developer did a good job with the design and mechanics of the game world. The cities feel like huge places, populated with hundreds of NPCs. The map is exquisitely detailed, if light on the thematic content. The day/night cycle and changes in the weather pattern have meaning and consequences in the game. A mixed bag overall, but I suppose a step up from the typical RPG of the era. Score: 5.

2. Character Creation and Development. There's no creation, but the game gets some credit for the variety of ways that you can develop your party by selecting different NPCs. The strengths, weaknesses, and abilities of the various classes create a fundamentally different game for each player, particularly in the opening stages.

The races are entirely unreferenced and unused. The guild-based development system, supplemented with boosts from the altar in the Alarian Vaults, is only "okay." I saved my development slots the entire time I was in Larvin because commenters told me it was more efficient to use the better guilds outside the city. Once I did so, I really didn't notice that much improvement in my characters' performance, even though in some cases their attributes (like strength, dexterity, and skill) went from the 20s to the 90s. Acquiring spells is the more important mechanism of development, but even this stops being important after each character has 3 or 4 books.

I also give the game credit for the multiple-party system, which I really didn't exploit the way I could have. For instance, instead of circling my single party around the world to look for hints, I could have kept several parties in convenient locations. Since all party members get experience from all kills, it wouldn't have diluted my leveling very much; in fact, it would allow you to develop a party explicitly for grinding and to keep them in a convenient grinding location (near an inn and tavern in Katloch would have worked well), switching to them periodically to add a couple of levels while everyone else explores.

I don't know whether to regard the various logistical challenges--hunger, thirst, nutrition, fatigue, sins, conditions--as part of character development or not. Either way, the game made them too easy. Trivial amounts of money and time take care of them, and by mid-game you can deal with them all with various spells. Score: 5.
     

Fate features a large number of attributes and statistics to develop.

     
3. NPC Interaction. NPCs make up a major part of the game. You need them to join your party, give hints, train your characters, and further a variety of steps on the main quest. A complex system of gaining their favor with various chat options is undermined by a system that allows you to simply bribe most of them. Like most things, it's stronger in the beginning game than the ending.

I do like that once characters join the party, they have some wants and preferences of their own. They occasionally pipe up with hints or random comments. They may refuse to give their money in bribes, to hide in combat, to yell, or to go off on their own in taverns. I look forward to later games that develop these unique personalities deeper and allow more role-playing encounters with the NPCs. Score: 6.
    

A party member refuses to follow orders.

    
4. Encounters and Foes. There is a huge variety of monsters in the game, and it follows the old Bard's Tale tradition of using the same graphics for many different monsters, some of which are trivially easy and some of which are bafflingly hard. The inclusion of monsters that never die from any hit point loss, no matter how many rounds, was inexcusable, as was making an initiative system in which some groups of enemies always go ahead of the party. Overall, the various strengths and weaknesses of the foes never really impressed me or led me to create different tactical templates for dealing with them, beyond simply bashing weak monsters and using my few NUKE options against tough ones.

I do admire the various pre-combat options, which allow some limited role-playing and additional encounter tactics. Again, though, these are terribly unbalanced. "Prayer" shouldn't work as often as it does, nor should it be necessary as often as it is.

Then we have the various non-combat encounters with objects and buttons and such, all of which use the same set of menus. Since the correct selection is often nonsensical, you learn to just try every option, often with every party member, before the solution is revealed. The various button and lever puzzles never rise to the level of even the weakest Dungeon Master knock-off. Score: 4.
    

These types of special encounters were nice, but rarely offered much in the way of role-playing.

     
5. Magic and Combat. "Overblown" is probably the best word to describe the combat and magic systems. I like systems that have lots of options, but only when those options come together to create real tactical decisions. I never found any use for "Grope," "Steal," "Warcry," or "Mock," even when they worked. Many of the spells, as I covered extensively, are essentially useless, or duplicates of each other. Straight attacks become overpowered when you get "greater melee weapons" that damage all creatures in one attack.

And yet, we have to give credit for the sheer number of options, even if they don't all work. As with everything, the first third of the game does best here, as you gingerly approach each new party and try a variety of actions to create "tactical templates" to use against different foes. When each character only has a couple of spellbooks, you find yourself experimenting more than when all characters have half of them. Some of the spells are highly-original and fun. Score: 5.
    

Towards the end of the game, combat difficulty got pretty nutty.

    

6. Equipment. This category is perhaps Fate's strongest. I always like games in which you regularly get equipment upgrades, and this only happens when the game offers numerous equipment slots or numerous characters. Fate does both. Each character gets two weapons, two pieces of body armor, a helmet, gloves, and boots, plus a variety of potions and special items. Multiply that among 7 characters in a single party and potentially 28 characters in all parties, and you find that the game never stops giving regular rewards except in the final act.

Fate also has solid mechanics here. Examining each item tells you most of what you need to know about it, including who can equip it and how it affects your statistics. Encumbrance becomes a real concern as the best armor tends to be quite heavy. My strategy was generally to equip the best item and deal with the encumbrance effects by discarding other things, but it's possible I could have done better by equipping lighter armor and keeping a greater variety of weapons in inventory, for instance.

Fate gets the highest score here that I can offer without complex item interaction (a la NetHack), detailed item descriptions (a la Might & Magic VI-VIII), or item crafting. Score: 7.

    

Rarely do games give you this kind of detail to help with equipment choices.

     

7. Economy. I like games that give you plenty to buy. Early in the game, Fate sets a tone like Alternate Reality in which you need gold just to survive. You might find yourself murdering a peasant for enough cash for your next meal, or a night in the inn. If you find a nice weapon, it's a real dilemma whether to keep it or sell it for enough rations and water to keep you going for the week. Above those basic needs are a variety of shops selling weapons and armor, healers, chapels selling indulgences, and of course new spells and character upgrades. Offering "alms" to NPCs also burns through the cash very quickly.

But having a lot of things to spend money on is only fun if money itself is scarce. From the moment you wander outside, kill your first dwarf, and get 1,500 "piaster" for the deed, you generally have as much money as you need the moment you need it. There was never a point in the game that I worried about going broke, and because of that, I never bothered to sell a single piece of equipment--I just dropped it when I was done with it. You saw how I bought about 6 redundant ships (perhaps the most expensive item in the game) and shrugged off the loss of over $7 million towards the end.

     

Towards the end of the game, when you have millions of piaster, the most expensive potions--such as this one that restores all spell points--only cost a couple of thousand.

    

The imbalance in the economy is perhaps best illustrated by the uselessness of the banking system. The developer spent a lot of time positioning banks with various investment opportunities throughout key cities, but you'd have to be daft to bother with them. Just go kill some more dwarfs. Score: 3.

8. Quests. The game only gets credit for having a main quest, and a rather stupid one at that. There are no alternate paths or outcomes, no opportunities for role-playing, and worst of all, no side quests throughout the enormous game territory. Oh, I suppose you could argue that it has some "side-areas" that improve character development, but anything it would gain here would be lost in light of the idiocy of the main questline. Score: 2.

9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface. The graphics and sound are perhaps the best that they could have been for the era. The developers put a lot of effort into well-composed monster and NPC portraits, outdoor settings, and little mises-en-scène in the taverns, shops, and train. They certainly pass the "good enough" point that I require for this category. The sound effects go beyond that; not only are the clashes and zaps of weapons and spells done well, the game is one of only a few to offer evocative background sounds, so well-composed that I sometimes confused them for the real thing.
     

A diverse group awaits the Cavetrain.

     
The interface is the only place that I had real trouble. The game is meant to be used with a mouse--which makes me hate it already--but even worse, you have to click on very small menu options and frequently double-click by accident. Although you can use the keyboard in a limited sense, you have to mentally number the menu options to select the right key; an explicit numbering would have partially redeemed it. Too many options that you might want to use in concert are on different menus. All told, a bit of a nightmare. Score: 6.

10. Gameplay. Fate offers extensive map non-linearity but not plot non-linearity, and I prefer to see both together to really enjoy myself. (The 7-part Moonwand quest, which you can do in any order, was the exception and probably the high point of the post-Larvin part of the game.) I definitely would not call it "replayable." You'd have to be insane. In difficulty, it starts with a nice moderate level but goes off the rails after the Cavetrain quest, alternating between very easy and very hard. For "pacing," we of course award a big, scrawled "F" for being way, way too long. Score: 2.

This gives us a subtotal of 45, which puts it fairly high on my existing list. I'm not sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, the game does so well mechanically that you absolutely have to recommend it. For 1991, it is a wonder to behold, and when I first started it, exploring Larvin and its environment, every hour I discovered some new nuance that led me to admire the developer even more. On the other hand, the inability of the developer to know when to quit seems like it ought to count more than a few points in the final GIMLET category. And it's especially bad for offering an ending that isn't worth reaching, and for hints and directions evaporating towards the game's end. In the end, comparing it to the other games on the list, I feel better knocking off 3 points and kicking it down to the level of Knights of Legend, which had similar problems, at a final score of 42.

But let's talk for a moment about the game-within-the-game: Fate: Quest of the Cavetrain. Not only does it not lose those 3 additional points, it gains 3 more in the "gameplay" category for not being too long, 1 more in the "quests" category for not being stupid yet, 2 more in the "economy" category for not having gone out of control, and 1 more in "character creation and development" for development being more significant, and 1 more in both "combat" and "encounters" for not yet becoming bland and rote. Fate: Quest of the Cavetrain is a solid 54-point game, 9th-highest on my blog so far, better than everything except titles that offer extensive side-quests and more detailed role-playing options, and an obvious candidate for 1991's "Game of the Year." Don't cheat yourself out of this excellent game. Just don't worry about where the Cavetrain leads.

I say all of these things coming from an era in which 200- or 300-hour games are hardly uncommon. Steam tells me that when I last played Oblivion on my PC, it took me 213 hours. Skyrim took 278. (Neither totals count the multiple times I played both games on my console.) But of course these titles are packed with content, including so many side quests and faction quest threads that it's hard to keep track of them all. Even if you don't take a single quest, simply exploring each dungeon or structure and learning its individual story provides more rewards than the totality of Fate's plot.

On top of this, I have a sneaking suspicion that Fate was actually supposed to take even longer. I base this on the horribly unbalanced initiatives of the monsters towards the end of the game. Certainly, the developer didn't intend for the player to "pray" away every fight, right? Certainly, he didn't intend every encounter with the wandering demons to completely wipe out the party. Given that Morganna joins the party at Level 105, I wonder if the party wasn't supposed to be of a comparable level (my characters topped at around 60) before braving the Cassidan dungeons in the first place. That would have required an insane amount of grinding, but the game is already pretty insane.
   

Before any of my characters even had a chance to act.

    

I was therefore curious how reviews of the time treated a game of such unprecedented length. I scanned reviews offering both the best rating (89/100, from Amiga Joker in March 1991) and the worst rating (26/60, from Aktueller Software Markt in November 1991). Of the two, the Amiga Joker reviewer seems to have gotten the furthest--screenshots show scenes that could only be in Mernoc or Katloch, plus hit-point totals that suggest Level 50+ characters, which is pretty impressive. While recognizing that the game will involve "months of play," he doesn't seem to attach much quality to that, though he does warn of the game's overall difficulty. He particularly seems to enjoy the graphics and sound, and like me, he praises the background effects. (I only translated parts of the review, so if any German-speaking readers would like to read the entire thing and offer more details, I'd be grateful.)

The ASM reviewer, on the other hand, manages to make most of his negative points not about the gameplay or length but about the very graphics that everyone else seems to like. Only Amiga magazines would take a game with graphics as well-composed as this and find some way to bitch about them--in ASM's case, the complaint is that they're not animated. This is the 1991 version of modern reviews that, faced with a game like Fallout 4 where you can count individual blades of grass, conclude that the graphics "suck" because the blades don't cast individual shadows. ASM also seems to have issues with the scope of the game, at least in terms of numbers of party members, spells, and dungeons.

 

I'm hard-pressed to find any contemporary reviews of the English version. I understand reLINE was going out of business (although later recovered) just as the English version was published. It's possible that it barely made it to English players' Amigas, let alone American ones. This is unfortunate, because--no offense to my European readers--American players had the most experience in 1991 with actual RPGs, and it would have been fun to see their reactions to both the length (Scorpia surely wouldn't have been able to finish the game before turning in her review, which would have galled her) and the clear foundation in Alternate Reality mixed with The Bard's Tale. Most European reviews focused on its relationship with Legend of Faerghail (1990), reLINE's previous RPG, which also showed a heavy Bard's Tale influence and also featured graphics by Matthias Kästner.
  

 
Fate's auteur was Olaf Patzenhauer, who apparently began working on the game around 1986, after some experience with Alternate Reality, The Bard's Tale, and some of the Ultima titles. I otherwise haven't been able to find very much about the man, such as age, education, or previous employment. He died in late 2011 or early 2012, some sites say from a heart attack but I was unable to find a specific obituary. Fate and a 1992 strategy game called Dynatech seem to be Patzenhauer's only non-adult games, and as we've seen, even Fate had plenty of adult material. His post-Fate credits include Penthouse Hot Numbers Deluxe (1993) and Biing!: Sex, Intrigue, and Scalpels (1995), described by MobyGames as "an erotic hospital-management simulation," which raises a number of questions I do not want answered.

From what I can gather from message boards, mostly in German, sometime in the early 2000s, Patzenhauer wrote a Fate 2 but never published it. Instead, he sent a personalized copies to friends and fans with the stipulation that they not share them. Accounts suggest that the game was never finished and had no main quest. (If any German-speaking reader would like to browse the forums here, you might find more information about the game than I did.) I've seen some sites that say the source code was destroyed upon Patzenhauer's death, as per his will, and others that say he lost the game in a computer crash before he died. (On one message thread in 2006, Patzenhauer talks about a computer crash but later says he recovered his data.) What everyone does seem to agree on is that the game featured plenty of manga-influenced graphics and nudity, if not outright hentai gameplay. (By his own account, Patzenhauer developed a deep interest in all things Japanese in the post-Fate years.) The image below, minus the black bars, came up in an RPG Codex thread in 2008, for instance. (As for the black bars, the images in my "won" posting are as explicit as a I dare get without worrying that Google will require me to turn on the "adults only" flag.) There are some rumors of a fan sequel in-progress called Fate 3.

     

Purported screenshot from the privately-distributed Fate 2.

    

It's going to be weird not having the occasional Fate session on my "to do" list, and I have a feeling that my memories of the game are going to be wrapped up in my memories of a weird year in which Irene and I moved 4 times. I played Fate in the cramped study of a temporary apartment in Boston, and on the porch of a beach house we rented for a few months on the North Shore. I had it going on the kitchen table of a one-bedroom in Portland as the summer breeze came through the window, and in the comfy office of the condo we eventually bought near Bar Harbor, as the snows fell on the harbor outside. Perhaps the instability of my living situation explains why I took refuge in the stability of mapping square after square of the huge game world. And perhaps it also explains why I was so personally offended at its shaggy-dog ending. Despite a relatively high score, I'm glad to be done with it and moving on.