Hand of Fate - Final Rating

Written by Michael

Hand of Fate has proven to be a fun game to play for the blog.  I don’t remember if I ever finished it back in the day (lazy 15-year-old me might have used a walkthrough to see the end) but that’s more a reflection on me than the game.  The commenters predicted very high scores for this game, possibly even cracking the top ten list.  Getting to it, in my usual style, the first few categories are going to be very heavily worded.  You wouldn’t expect any less from me, right?

Puzzles and Solvability

Where to start?  Perhaps with the alternate solutions, which was mostly touched upon in the comments of my posts.  Many puzzles can be solved in different ways, and many (but not all) player thoughts were anticipated.  After finishing the game, I searched online and read through different walkthroughs to find some of these alternate solutions, and I suspect there are others that I didn’t find.  

For example, in the first section of the game, Timbermist Woods, you can pick up a couple of bunches of blueberries, which Zanthia hints are needed for the trip ahead.  But in my playthrough, I never used them, and thought they were just a red herring item.  But it seems there was a use for them.  I found out the color password for the fireflies by playing a Simon-style memory game with them, but it seems you can just feed them the blueberries to fast-track the process.

Another noteworthy set of alternate solutions involve getting the cold coins to pay for the ocean voyage.  My method was to get a gold tooth from the rowdy sailor, gamble with it until I had three golden teeth, and then crush them into coins.  I could have approached this at least three other ways, though.  I could have first converted the initial tooth to a coin, and then gambled, and would have won coins from the octopus in return.  Or, as one walkthrough showed me, I could take the first tooth to the crusher, make it into a coin, and then go back to the poetry slam to get another tooth, crush that one, and repeat again a third time.  That would have been a lot of walking, but still, an alternate solution avoiding having to gamble.

That point brings up a question, though: does that make the game too easy?  That tedious method would have allowed me to avoid the gambling puzzle, which I thought was a neat puzzle, even if it wasn’t obvious to all the commenters that you needed to drop the lucky horseshoe on the ground.  I discovered it by a hint from the octopus, but if I hadn't tried to gamble with the horseshoe, were there any other hints?

All he’s helping with is stretching out the game a little.

Also for “possibly too easy” -- you could skip all of the rescues of Marko and just let him proceed of his own accord.  That actually disappointed me a little.  They should have made that mandatory to rescue him each time; perhaps giving him an item to share on his release would have made it mandatory.  Because they game rescued him itself each time, he still would finish in the end, so there wouldn’t be any alternate endings like in The Secret of Monkey Island, where the ending changed depending on various factors, such as if you sank the Sea Monkey with a cannonball or not. 

Those are tears of joy, right?

So, let’s look at the overall picture.  The puzzles in the game are generally logical; and mostly logical and creative.  Giving an onion to the alligator to make him cry?  Makes sense, as does the alternate solution I didn’t try, tickling him with the feather to make him laugh uncontrollably.    The only real head scratcher here is how, each time I change worlds, I manage to lose all of my possessions, except for the alchemist's magnet.  Unless, in addition to the capability to change iron to gold, it also sticks to me (an alchemist) magnetically.  But I doubt that.

Other than the time-wasting wild goose chase around Volcania, the game didn’t feel padded, even when things would happen at conveniently the right times to cause me to have my travel to the center of the world delayed yet again. And that waste of time in Volcania DOES give some useful hints, but it was tedious.  Thankfully, though, nearly all optional, although I didn’t realize it at the time.

Also, there was arguably a “dead end”, but apparently, only if you fail the same puzzle twice. So to me, it doesn’t really count.  This is if you get on the mustard ship without having the magnet, so you have nothing to hide on the ship to divert its course.  It ends up the same as if you have the magnet and don’t use it, and it’s the only real time in the game that I felt that the game didn’t give a good hint before death as to what you needed to do.  For that matter, not even after death.  The game really should have come out and said something like, “It’s a shame you couldn’t change the course of the ship, Zanthia, better luck next time” instead of the usual, generic “Rest in peace” dialog that appears each time you perish.

Famous last words.

As for death, it didn’t occur often and it was almost always fair.  Most of the times Zanthia perished in the game, it was because I purposely did something stupid to see the reaction, like walking over quicksand or trying to jump a chasm.  The only time I had to learn from death was really the final puzzle of the game (pushing the hand), which was very obvious in hindsight.

Alfred gave the first game in the series a 3 in this category, a score I felt was way, way too harsh, but I can understand why.   The maze in that game was memorable, but not universally loved or hated.  It’s been brought up in the comments of many recent posts on the blog here.  The jewel fetch quests were somewhat annoying, but I would argue that was mostly because of the inventory limit, not the puzzles themselves.  This game fixes both of those issues, and adds multiple solutions.  I was ready to score this a 6, but it feels right to remove a point for the tedium of Volcania and the Rainbow Room.  So, a 5 it is. 

Interface and Inventory

As I just touched upon, the interface of the previous game was improved, in one major way.  The inventory limit was doubled from 10 to 20.  Honestly, this usually didn’t have a need for more than ten most of the time, but it felt better without that shadow looming over me constantly.

Also changed in the interface of the previous game, there is no longer a frame around the viewable area of the screen, meaning the artwork can stretch the entire width of the screen.  It may seem minor, but I’ve always been critical of games that reduce the amount of screen used for the game itself.  It was easily one of the biggest flaws in the early LucasArts vs Sierra comparisons, where Lucas games tended to have a third of the screen chopped off for their interface.

Otherwise, the interface mostly remains the same.  It’s a one-click interface, clicking on an item picks it up if it isn’t nailed down, or gives a description if it is so programmed; items in your inventory can sometimes be inspected more carefully by clicking it on yourself, but this doesn’t work for consumables.  Moving the mouse around the screen, the pointer changes to a directional arrow when it is an exit. 

The original game had a magical keypad, so to speak, loaded with spells you’d accumulated.  This time, the console features your spellbook and cauldron, items you find early in the game.  

Both the root beer and the taffy are in this screen.

Back to the inventory, this game did something very important that other games usually don’t.  It allows for sensible item substitutions!  For example, I could use either the taffy or the root beer as a sweet ingredient for a recipe, just like I could use either the mud or the taffy to get an imprint of a rabbit’s foot.  Most games, we complain that we can’t succeed unless we have the one specific item the designer was thinking of.  This game often had alternate acceptable items, and, as in the case of the taffy, could be used to solve zero, one, or two puzzles.  We haven’t really seen this before, and we won’t see it much in the future, either.

The original game earned a healthy score of 7 in this category, and even though our past scoring has been all over the map, I feel no shame in upping the score to 8 for the improvements.  

Story and Setting

The story is, as before, a new twist on the classics.  It seems that someone or something has caused the powers that protect and run the land of Kyrandia to falter, and as a result, the land is disappearing around us.  Rock by rock, tree by tree.  The land’s most prolific magic users gather in a huddle, and draw straws to decide who will go off to save the day.  Plot twist: one of the people at that meeting is really the enemy who set the wheels in motion, or not, as the case may be.

Hand of Fate’s story is set, as in the previous game, in the fantasy world of Kyrandia, a land of magic.  While the first game largely was closely connected areas, the sequel has you traveling far distances, far, wide, high, and low.  You start off in the land of the original game, Kyrandia, but a section you hadn’t seen before.  You then end up flying with the mailman to a nearby island.  From there, it’s a boat ride to another island, until you plummet down to the center of the world, a place that’s fashioned like Hades, but with cute, cuddly dinosaurs to ride.  Next stop is up into the clouds.  You truly go all over.

I’m rather disappointed that we never learned the full motive for why the hand does what it does, unless there’s something I glossed over in the game, but it doesn’t take away from my enjoyment along the way. (Well, the motive *IS* mentioned in the game somewhere, but hidden in an optional puzzle -- stopping the foot in the meadow.)

The game itself isn’t very long, if you skip the optional puzzles and experiences, and the areas to explore got smaller and smaller along the way.  Timbermist Woods was 17 screens, Morningmist and Volcania 15 and 16, followed by areas that were just a few screens each.  The last few sections were easier and more condensed; the last section, the wheels themselves, felt like a letdown.

This is one of the most agonizing categories for me to score, because I tend to use past games we’ve covered as a guide.  This feels like an improvement over the predecessor, but is it a solid point higher?  I wouldn’t have thought so, but since this is a much, much more enjoyable game than Space Quest 5 **, I feel no shame in matching that score, which was one above Kyrandia: a score of 7.  

** this is because I’m not a Trekkie.  I’ve always chosen Wars over Trek.

Sound and Graphics

I didn’t notice the smell.

The first game in the series was beautiful, and they didn’t slack on the artwork this time around either.  

That said, it didn’t have the same impact as the first time around.  In the first post, I pointed out the stunning art of Brynn’s temple, and commenter “infidel” pointed out even further details about that scene.  So many screens in that game were breathtaking for the time (1992).  The art in this game isn’t noticeably better, and there are very few screens that have that same “pop” to them.

Frank does later embrace the use of drums in his music.

The music starts off strong, with an incredible standout track I linked to in the first post from Frank Klepacki, who would only get better and better as his career progressed.  But the rest of the tracks are just good, not great.  I stopped noticing them after a while.

Alfred wanted to give the first game a 9.5, settling for a 9.  But that was for 1992 standards.  This game doesn’t improve on it, at all, even with another year under its belt.  I can’t justify higher than an 8 this time.

Environment and Atmosphere

What this scene really felt like.

The game succeeds here, that’s for sure.  Each of the unique locations feels as it should; I had to stop myself from putting on a jacket when I was at the top of the ski hill.  With the exception of the beaches of Volcania, none of the locations overstayed their welcome, and the characters within felt like they were in the proper place at the proper time.  A score of 7, just like the first game.

Dialog and Acting

Some of the dialog clues were direct and to the point.

Just as with the original, the dialog was well written, often with sly humor, given in winks and nods.  It matched the characters quite well.  The only low spot was the dialog clues.  All too often, they were either too obvious (especially later in the game), or not obvious enough.  They didn’t always hit the sweet spot.

None of the voice actors were tongue-tied in their performances.

The voice acting was solid; no game has 100% perfect casting, but the voices you hear the most were done well.  Zanthia gave off the young, intelligent, yet sassy vibe, even though she started the game off a bit whiny, and Marko’s voice dripped with smugness and was at times condescending.

This was a solid effort, deserving of at least a 6.

With the help of a giant hand (and foot) to count, let’s do some math.  5 + 8 + 7 + 8 + 7 + 6 = 41 / .6 = 68.333

I’m not messing with that number, it feels right.  This game is better than the first in the series, and (again, because I don’t care for Star Trek) I have no problem with it scoring one point higher than the Mark Crowe solo effort.  It does make the top ten a little crowded though, with a three-way tie for 6th place.

Newcomer AntonisM guessed it exactly right, and opens up a new TAG bank account with some CAPs.  Most of the guesses were centered around that score, with a few dramatically higher, so it seems we all think somewhat alike here.  This game was fun to play, and made me smile.  I know that the consensus is that this is the best of the series by far, but I’m still looking forward to playing the third and final game sometime during the next gaming year.

CAP Distribution

150 CAPs to Michael

• Mystical Blogger Award - 100 CAPs - for blogging about Hand of Fate for our enjoyment

• Peg Leg Blogger Award - 50 CAPs - for blogging about Death in the Caribbean for our enjoyment

70 CAPs to MorpheusKitami

• Classic Blogger Award - 50 CAPs - for blogging about The Dark Half for our enjoyment and his usual torture

• Pirate’s Gold Award - 20 CAPs - for correctly guessing the final rating for Death in the Caribbean

40 CAPs to Alex Romanov

• Watcher’s Guild Award - 40 CAPs - for being a constant companion during the blogging about Hand of Fate, although nowhere near as annoying (or progress hindering) as Marko or his hand

32 CAPs to LeftHanded Matt

• Disappointing Thriller Award - 20 CAPs - for correctly guessing the final rating for The Dark Half

• Overlooked Details Award - 10 CAPs - for pointing out great features and easter eggs that were missed by the blogger of Hand of Fate

• Passing Notes in Class Award - 2 CAPs - for proper reading of sheet music

20 CAPs to AntonisM

• Psychic Prediction Award - 20 CAPs - for correctly guessing the final rating for Hand of Fate

20 CAPs to Laukku

• iteY eht fo egaugnal nekops eht tuoba hturt eht gnihtraenu rof - sPAC 01 - drawA rorriM weiV raeR

• Jimmy Cliff Award - 5 CAPs - for in-depth links to help compare the images for Apple emulation

• Forgotten Quests Award - 5 CAPs - for pointing out a game omitted from the 1994 playlist in error

7 CAPs to Will Moczarski

• Dancin’ to the Oldies Award - 5 CAPs - for detailed knowledge of the works of Mozart

• Turtle Wax Award - 2 CAPs - for an astute joke about the quality of Death in the Caribbean

2 CAPs to gamer indreams

• Pat Morita Award - 2 CAPs - For assisting our young grasshoppers with jokes about waxing

2 CAPs to arcanetrivia

• Mr. Clean Award - 2 CAPs - for batting clean-up in a chain of bad jokes about waxing