Mazes of Fate Review

Mazes of Fate was one of the last good games for the Game Boy Advance and happened to be one of the system’s best RPGs. Unfortunately, a good many of you probably never heard of it, as it quickly tripped, rolled down a hill, and fell into obscurity. This puts me in a difficult position as I begin to describe the DS version. Telling you there are four additional starting characters to choose from means nothing when you didn’t even know there were only three in the original. Mazes of Fate fans–wherever you are–will be pleased to know that extra bits have been added here and there, but for the rest of you, we start from the top:

Mazes of Fate is an RPG of the very traditional Western variety. It’s a dungeon crawler, to be exact. You traverse dungeons (or mazes of fate, if you will) in a first-person perspective, looking for keys, fighting monsters, and picking up dropped potions, armor, and gold coins. I love these kind of games, because, while you can certainly fuss over character stats and equipment, it is much more about getting you right into the exploration aspect. And these dungeons definitely fit the bill. Unlike Orcs & Elves, where dungeons were pretty straightforward, Mazes of Fate is just that: a maze. There are dead ends, hidden switches, secret walls, and booby traps, and they frequently span two or three floors. It’s easy to get lost in such big dungeons, but thanks to the DS’s second screen, it’s no longer a chore to constantly refer to the auto-generated map. The top screen is delegated purely for this purpose. I often find myself navigating through mazes by watching the map alone. It’s a great feature, but for some reason, the top screen map is only a zoomed-in section of your immediate surroundings. If you want to see the whole map, to see everywhere you have and haven’t been, you have to press select and pause the game. There’s not nearly as much switching between the two as was prevalent in the GBA version, but it still exists when I was hoping the DS would eliminate it entirely.

While you’re trying to find your way through dungeons, you also have to contend with the monsters that inhabit them. What, you expected something else? Combat isn’t handled like in Final Fantasy, though. You don’t go into a battle and can’t escape until it’s done. Here, you can approach a monster, realize things are turning for the worst, then run and hide until you’ve healed yourself. But monsters are usually a pushover, anyway, if you’ve been allotting your experience points properly. Every time one of your characters levels up, he/she gets three points you can assign to attributes like accuracy with one-handed weapons, recovery wait before being able to attack again, or lock picking skills. With this setup, you can choose who should learn magic and who should focus on being a lock picker and secret finder. You’re allowed to recruit two team members, but this doesn’t happen immediately, and even then, you can leave one character behind in favor of somebody much cooler you meet later on.

This is what really makes Mazes of Fate a great experience. Going through caves and dungeons is not the only thing you do, and that’s a huge relief. While I enjoyed Orcs & Elves immensely, it never let up on the dungeon crawling. In Mazes of Fate, there is a monster-free overworld that takes you out of the first-person perspective. Naturally, the overworld gives you a chance to visit towns, stock up on new items, and sell junk. It’s here that you also run into people who want to join your team, and whether they do or not is entirely up to you. There are many such optional bits in the game. While some intercity fetch quests are required, others are just there to net you extra gold, experience points, or special items. And they all play out like a point-and-click adventure game based around what items you have and what you say. Dialogue with other characters is dynamic, and sometimes you’ll have the chance to say something that will offend somebody to the point where they will never talk to you again. Ever. In fact, there is one instance where you can challenge a random guy in a bar to a fight, then meet him in the cellar and kill him. Little things like that go a long way.

All of this rings true for the GBA game, though, which might suggest this is nothing more than a port. But it’s not just a port. It’s a remake in the sense that Final Fantasy III on the DS is a remake. Mazes of Fate has gone 3D. Sadly, the switch feels very unnecessary. The dungeons themselves benefit from a 3D overhaul since 3D corridors are easier to digest, but it doesn’t stop at that. Gone are the beautiful 2D sprites from the original. Monsters are now ugly polygonal models that look like they were rescued from Quest 64. What pains me the most is that the 3D crossover has affected the gameplay, as well. Mazes of Fate used to be grid-based, but now it’s free-roaming. You can look up and down and walk diagonally. On paper, this sounds like an improvement. In practice, it makes the game feel less like an RPG and more like a cheap first-person shooter. Movement isn’t all that fluid, so circling an enemy and dishing out attacks ends up being a chunky process.

What really exacerbates this, then, are the touch screen controls. No substitutions here, folks, it’s all done with a stylus and D-pad (or X, Y, A, and B buttons for left-handers). The D-pad moves your character, but you have to use the stylus to change your point of view. The sensitivity is quite low, so turning a corner can be a matter of three or four swipes. All that swiping quickly makes exploring dungeons a tiring process. Icons in the menu are fairly small, also, and tapping them requires a precision that just wouldn’t bode well when playing in a car or on a train (which is exactly when you would want an RPG). The touch controls are somewhat finicky, anyway, and you’ll often attack a monster when you were only trying to change your viewing angle. Oh, sorry, did I mention you tap to attack?

One of the problems with the original Mazes of Fate was that combat wasn’t very concrete. It was turn-based in that you selected what monster to attack, pressed the attack command, then waited for your characters’ stamina to fill back up. It wasn’t truly turn-based, though, because there was no definite line between your turn and the monsters’ turn. I liked how Orcs & Elves worked, because it kept things strictly turn-based but moved so fast, you didn’t realize it was turn-based. It’s sad to see that Mazes of Fate didn’t clean up the combat any. You still miss way too much and end up rapidly jamming on the attack button, only now you’re rapidly tapping on the screen, and the flaws in the system become much more obvious because of it.

Granted, once you get going, you’ll still find this to be a lengthy and enjoyable RPG. But that’s a good three hours just coming to terms with the not-so-hot touch controls. On the other hand, this leaves you with an additional twenty hours of gameplay. Mazes of Fate is no slouch on content, being three times longer than Orcs & Elves. Fortunately, it’s easy to take the game in strides. There is a quest log that keeps track of everything you’ve committed to doing, and you can save at any time, even in a dungeon, even when surrounded by monsters.

Final Comments

I loved the original Mazes of Fate. It was such a surprise on the Game Boy Advance, a wonderful throwback to Western dungeon crawlers. Sure, it had its problems, but those were forgivable and would have made for great fixes in a remake. That’s what I thought. Now that the remake is here, I find the only thing to have really changed is a wonky transition to touch-based 3D that feels so, so wrong. It’s like a good friend who underwent drastic plastic surgery. Their heart is still there. You know that, somewhere inside, they are essentially the same person, but it’s too hard to fully accept them back into your life.