History VideoGame / Fate

Story aside, the basic mechanics of the game has remained the same throughout the series. The PlayerCharacter arrives in town to undertake a quest to defeat a [[BigBad dangerous monster]] down at the bottom of the nearby dungeon ... aaaaand [[ExcusePlot that's it]], [[RetiredBadass retire]] and [[AncestralWeapon pass down a heirloom]] to a [[NewGamePlus descendant]] or [[WideOpenSandbox go dungeon-plunging]]. Point-and-click hack-and-slash gameplay, SocketedEquipment created by the RandomNumberGod, so on and so forth. It wasn't really anything new, but it ''did'' refine the formula by adding some new features.

* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: Once you rid Ektaban of T'Kala's influence, Kurosh the Beggar King regains his throne ... and crowns you as a way of thanks.

* InexplicableTreasureChests: They definitely look very shiny, and the locked ones in ''The Cursed King'' look brand-new. Of course, there is also the occasional [[ChestMonster Mimic]]…

* SealedEvilInACan: T'Kala, the BigBad of ''The Cursed King'', was once a necromancer who was executed by the King of Ektaban. His soul was sealed in a treasure chest buried in a small cave outside the city ... [[NiceJobBreakingItHero until the player opened it]]. Cursed Swords also qualify, since they lie inert in some treasure chests until the player opens them.

* DualWielding: An option avaible to everyone with every weapon that you can wield one-handed, which means everything but bows/crossbows, staves and polearms. In ''The Traitor Soul'', Shadow Elves start with 5 point in this skill, along with skill in both Swords and Spears. Many monsters also employ this fighting style with the most disparaging combinations.
* DummiedOut: Examination of the races.dat file in ''The Cursed King'' shows that a sixth playable race, the Undead, was commented out. This race is fully coded, however, and can be made selectable during normal character creation by de-commenting the correct lines in races.dat using a text editor such as Notepad. [[spoiler:Among other things, the Undead share the same passive 5% Magic bonus as Humans, have points in the Spear and Charm Magic skills, and are also resistant to piercing, slashing and ice damage while being vulnerable to crushing damage. Undead also start off with a spear as their equipped weapon and a Summon Spiders Spell in their inventory.]]

With each new game in the series comes new features and equipment. ''Undiscovered Realms'' raised the player's level {{Cap}} to 199, gave the player the ability to import their characters from the first game and introduced two new towns, each with their own dungeons, with the defeat of Kaos and retrieval of the Book of Fate only possible once these two dungeons are purged of their evil influences. ''The Traitor Soul'' introduced a CharacterClassSystem by giving the player the option to start off new games as an individual from another species, added an additional dungeon, brought back the town of Grove and its dungeon, removed the player's level cap and brought in RealTimeWeaponChange. ''The Cursed King'' features a FreeRotatingCamera and introduces an {{NPC}} party system and online features, allowing players to trade items and connect to each other through Website/{{Facebook}}. All four games are available on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} and UsefulNotes/GOGDotCom, with a bundle purchase available on the latter.

With each new game in the series comes new features and equipment. ''Undiscovered Realms'' raised the player's level {{Cap}} to 199, gave the player the ability to import their characters from the first game and introduced two new towns, each with their own dungeons, with the defeat of Kaos and retrieval of the Book of Fate only possible once these two dungeons are purged of their evil influences. ''The Traitor Soul'' introduced a CharacterClassSystem by giving the player the option to start off new games as an individual from another species, added an additional dungeon, brought back the town of Grove and its dungeon, removed the player's level cap and brought in RealTimeWeaponChange. ''The Cursed King'' features a FreeRotatingCamera and introduces an {{NPC}} party system and online features, allowing players to trade items and connect to each other through Website/{{Facebook}}. All four games are available on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} though surprisingly there is no bundle option to purchase all four at a cheaper price.

* ZergRush: Some boss monsters have a group of underlings under their command and will usually throw all of them against you first. The games also frequently place groups of different monsters nearby in a small, open area so that, more often than not, ''all'' of them will rush you the moment you walk in.

* ArabianNightsDays: The setting of the fourth game.

* In ''[=FATE=]: The Traitor Soul'', released in 2009, the adventurer, now called the Champion of Grove, retrieves the Book of Fate and returns it to where it originally belongs. Not too long after this, the Champion meets a Traveller who claims that within the Temple of Fate lies a Chamber of Trials to prove one's worth. The Champion decides to follow the Traveller back to the Temple of Fate and venture into the Chamber of Trials. ''Traitor Soul'' effectively serves as an UpdatedRerelease of the first two games, adding the Chamber of Trials and new equipment on top of the content of the first two games.

* PowerEqualsRarity: Played with somewhat. Artifact equipment, indicated by a gold background fill in inventory screens, is fun to collect and much more powerful than entry-level equipment, but because ''any'' equipment can be upgraded by various enchanters, they can also be outclassed by more generic equipment, especially near the end of the overarching quest.

With each new game in the series comes new features and equipment. ''Undiscovered Realms'' raised the player's level {{Cap}} to 199, gave the player the ability to import their characters from the first game and introduced two new towns, each with their own dungeons, with the defeat of Kaos and retrieval of the Book of Fate only possible once these two dungeons are purged of their evil influences. ''The Traitor Soul'' introduced a CharacterClassSystem by giving the player the option to start off new games as an individual from another species, added an additional dungeon, brought back the town of Grove and its dungeon, removed the player's level cap and brought in RealTimeWeaponChange. ''The Cursed King'' features a FreeRotatingCamera and introduces an {{NPC}} party system and online features, allowing players to trade items and connect to each other through Website/{{Facebook}}. All four games are available on Website/{{Steam}} though surprisingly there is no bundle option to purchase all four.

With each new game in the series comes new features and equipment. ''Undiscovered Realms'' raised the player's level {{Cap}} to 199, gave the player the ability to import their characters from the first game and introduced two new towns, each with their own dungeons, with the defeat of Kaos and retrieval of the Book of Fate only possible once these two dungeons are purged of their evil influences. ''The Traitor Soul'' introduced a CharacterClassSystem by giving the player the option to start off new games as an individual from another species, added an additional dungeon, brought back the town of Grove and its dungeon, removed the player's level cap and brought in RealTimeWeaponChange. ''The Cursed King'' features a FreeRotatingCamera and introduces an {{NPC}} party system and online features, allowing players to trade items and connect to each other through Website/{{Facebook}}.

* AbsurdlyHighLevelCap: Played with. The game's so-called "final boss" usually resides in the 50th floor or so, but according to the game's source code, the dungeon could go on to ''two billion' levels, although trying to go that deep (using cheats) would likely crash your game, even then it's not a good idea to go past the hundreds since your actual character is capped at level 99, and the monsters would be far stronger than you beyond that point.

No relation whatsoever to the ''[[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Fate]]'' series, a character from ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'', the TabletopGame based on TabletopGame/{{FUDGE}}, TabletopGame/{{FATAL}}, or ''VideoGame/ExitFate''.

First off, your character gets a pet. Its main function is to multiply the size of your GridInventory, but it also serves as a convenient StoneWall ([[GameplayAllyImmortality it cannot die]], though it will flee battle for a while if it bottoms out on HitPoints) and can be sent back to town with its load of VendorTrash, which it will ([[FridgeLogic somehow]]) sell to local merchants before reporting back with the spoils. This pet could also be fed various types of fish to transmogrify it into [[PetMonstrosity various types of enemy monsters]] for varying amounts of time. Fishes are obtained by fishing in water bodies positioned below clouds of fireflies, though the activity itself mostly consists of staring at the screen until an exclamation mark pops up, and then clicking a button with the mouse button on time. Yields include [[CaptainObvious fish]], new gear, or sometimes nothing at all. All equipment is randomly generated, except for a few, rarely-appearing "Artifact" weapons with pre-determined stats. These can become outclassed by the weapons given enhancements through the RandomNumberGod, but they still sell for a ton. That's important in a game where vendors buy stuff for one-eighth of their selling price.

* PurelyAestheticGender: Aside from the different hairstyle and starting outfit, there are absolutely no gameplay difference between the male and female. In fact, the equpiments, which covers the character's hair and clothes, would make their appearance virtually indistinguishable from each other.

* SerratedBladeOfPain: At low leves, you can find the Goblin Scimitar (whose cutting edge is barbed like a saw) and the Orcish Scythe (same thing, on a stick). At high levels, Harpoons, Battle Lances and Greatswords sport irregular, jagged edges.

* MonsterTown: Typhon and Druantia from games 2 and 3 are mostly inhabitated by monsters, friendly monsters this time. Most of them are from the first game.

* OddlyShapedSword: ''The Cursed King'' has the Talwar Sword, wich is a massive, serrated cutlass in a S shape with an odd gap right on the tip, as well as the far too spiky Kopesh and the Thorn Mace (A twice-curved morningstar weapon).

** The very first game had a free DLC which a added a handful of TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons creatures to it, such as the Owlbears, Beholders (called Watchers), Ettins (two-headed giants), and Gnolls. However, the DLC eventually received an update that changed all of these beings by giving them new names and minor differences to their model. Owlbears became Shrikes, Beholders became Abominations, and while Ettins and Gnolls remained unchanged, they were renamed as Hill Ogres and Jackal Fiends respectively.

Finally, the game has an interesting handle on the ending. While you're given a specific goal of getting down to a certain dungeon level and defeating a specific boss monster, you still have a choice after you accomplish this. You can retire your adventurer and then [[NewGamePlus start a new quest using his or her descendent]] and picking one piece of equipment to [[AncestralWeapon pass on to them]], or [[WideOpenSandbox continue journeying down the dungeon]]. The games are capable of randomly generating up to [[UsefulNotes/PowersOfTwoMinusOne 2,147,483,647]] levels per dungeon.

* ArabianNightsDay: The setting of the fourth game.

* DemBones: Skeletons appear often in the early dungeon levels; deeper dungeon levels feature Skeletal Knights.

* ABoyAndHisX: Better summarised as "a [gender][species] and their [creature]", especially with later games allowing you to pick the species of your character and pet.

* {{Cthulhumanoid}}: Nautiloids from the second game are blue/green humanoids with squid-like faces and webbed hands who can attack with spells or weapons.

* FullBoarAction: From the third game, Half-Orcs' pet of choice seems to be a wild piglet. The first game also had boarmen and Wereboars as enemies.

* OurDemonsAreDifferent: Demons in the first games are lean, pink-skinned HornedHumanoid creatures with wings and vaguely Egyptian-looking garments and immune to Fire damage. ''The Cursed King'' has the Imps as a new playable race of small, red-skinned humanoids with horns.
* OurOrcsAreDifferent: Shockingly enough, Fate's Orcs are not low-level Mooks (that would be Goblins) but are massive, blueish brutes who hit quite hard and encountered midway through the Dungeon, resembling fatter counterparts of Ogres. Half-Orcs are humanoid in size and form and can be used as playable characters from the third game onward, working well as melee-oriented fighters. From the second game onward, Orcs of smaller sizes are encountered in Typhon's dungeon as low-middle level encounters.

* BeeAfraid: ''Undiscovered Realms'' and its sequels introduce a race of large, humanoid bees as enemies, both being the Bee Legionnaire and the Queen Bee. If their stinger wasn't bad enough, they can also wield swords to attack you sometimes.

** The very first game had a free DLC which a added a handful of DnD creatures to it, such as the Owlbears, Beholders (called Watchers), Ettins (two-headed giants), and Gnolls. However, the DLC eventually received an update that changed all of these beings by giving them new names and minor differences to their model. Owlbears became Shrikes, Beholders became Abominations, and while Ettins and Gnolls remained unchanged, they were renamed as Hill Ogres and Jackal Fiends respectively.

* UnidentifiedItems: The game has scrolls and books for identification; books can be used more times than scrolls.

* InexplicableTreasureChests: They definitely look very shiny, and the locked ones in ''The Cursed King'' look brand-new. Of course, there is also the occasional [[ChestMonster Mimic]]...