Game Reviews

Leap of Fate review - A twin stick shooter with a roguelike twist

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iOS
| Leap of Fate
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Leap of Fate review - A twin stick shooter with a roguelike twist
|
iOS
| Leap of Fate

Leap of Fate is a mixture of arcane techno narrative, twin stick shooting gameplay, and roguelike trappings. And it, somehow, all sort of works.

It's big and silly and violent, but it's easy enough to take control of on your mobile device. But it's also pretty tough, and you'll need to be at the top of your game if you want to get deeper into it.

This isn't a game for the faint of heart, but it's not designed just for those made of the sternest stuff. It's a game that'll test you, but never to the point of throwing your phone into the face of a passer-by in rage.

Leaping lizards

The game casts you as a magical magic person who's stomping through a series of randomly generated challenges. These challenges mostly involve killing everything that looks like it might suck your eyes out of your sockets.

You've got a couple of controls to do this with. A stick on the left of the screen moves you around, a stick on the right fires out your magical blasts. Two buttons at the top of the screen let you use your special moves, but you only get a set number of these each level.

Levels are dealt out like a tarot deck. There are multiple paths you can take through them, and each card shows you what you can expect when you drop into one of the walled-off sections of the world.

You'll get boosts and other cards as you work your way through as well, and XP to spend on toughening up your various skills. Die and you'll have to go all the way back to the beginning and start again.

The violence is thick and juicy, and it gets frantic on the tougher challenges. The special moves, which slow time and allow you a chance to aim them, keep things reasonably fresh too.

I mean, you're still just circle strafing around everything and trying not to get stuck on the scenery, but everything works the way it should so that's no bad thing.

Have fate?

What we have here is a well polished slice of mobile action. There are a few twists, although they're probably not quite twisty enough to really push the game into the upper echelons of the App Store.

It's good, solid fun. It'll keep you entertained for a decent while. And if its gloomy aesthetic gets its claws into you then you're likely to stick with it for the long haul.

Leap of Fate review - A twin stick shooter with a roguelike twist

Leap of Fate is a fun and flashy mix up of genres that'll keep your fingers busy for a while
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.