Back in September, I was pleasantly surprised by the unexpected announcement that Resonance of Fate, a mostly overlooked but reportedly excellent JRPG from 2010, would be getting an HD remaster for PS4 and PC. It piqued my interest enough to prompt me to set a reminder for the 18th October release date in my calendar.

Well, now the release date has rolled around, and the game looks as tantalising as ever. Rock Paper Shotgun gave Resonance of Fate HD a breathless preview earlier today, describing it as “Valkyria Chronicles as directed by John Woo”. Check out the trailer below to see what they mean.

But this remaster couldn’t have launched at a worse time. We’re only a week away from the launch of Red Dead Redemption 2, which is probably the biggest game of this console generation. Most other publishers have wisely vacated the release dates directly around this behemoth of a game but, for whatever reason, tri-Ace seems to have ignored their lead. And for a title with very similar gameplay to the Valkyria Chronicles series, Resonance of Fate HD is also in the unfortunate position of launching just few weeks after the excellent Valkyria Chronicles 4.

In short, I doubt many people are going to buy this, which is a real shame. I for one am still playing through VC4 (and loving it), and I’m really not in the market for buying a 60+ hour JRPG right before the release of RDR2, which itself has a story that lasts around 60 hours.

Why couldn’t tri-Ace have released Resonance of Fate HD in the summer? I’d have happily played through this meaty JRPG back then, when new games were thin on the ground. But as it stands, Resonance of Fate is set to sink under the tsunami of pre-Christmas releases during the busiest time of year for games.

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