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| RUN! GOOO! GET TO DA PORTAL! |
| Quick Info | |
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| Reviewed by: | Mark Goninon |
| Developer: | Spitfire Interactive |
| Publisher: | Spicy Koala |
| Release Date: | 22 Jul 2026 |
| Time played: | 3.2 hours (INCOMPLETE) |
So a couple of cool things happened recently: I managed to not only score a free game but also got a bit out of my comfort zone and tried out a new genre. As a special thanks for being a Kickstarter backer for deckbuilder/roguelite/Action RPG Hand of Fate, Defiant Development's new studio, known as Spitfire Interactive, gifted a copy of their latest game Hand of Fate: Hordes which was released as an Early Access title in late July.
Hand of Fate: Hordes is apparently an example of a "bullet heaven" game. This genre has been all the rage over the past few years thanks to the likes of 2022's Vampire Survivors. It's similar to your usual SHMUPs or "bullet hell" games but instead of you avoiding a barrage of bullets, you're the one that is automatically firing upon waves of enemies instead. It seems that Spitfire Interactive wanted to try their hand at emulating the success of Vampire Survivors and have created their own deckbuilder/roguelite/bullet heaven game set in the Hand of Fate universe (they even managed to get Anthony Skordi in again as the Dealer, such a great voice talent).
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| You'll come across a lot of cards you can use to upgrade your character's effectiveness |
Picking... Up... Cards. It's in the Game
From the Main Menu you can choose from whichever "adventures" are unlocked. At the beginning, you won't have much choice on which adventure to play but as you complete objectives tied with each adventure (such as completing it or maybe collecting 125 food by the end of it) you will be rewarded with token shards to unlock more adventures.
After picking an adventure, you get to pick a class. There's only one class available at the beginning of the game called the Trickster who seems to be your typical mage class in RPGs, i.e. weak but able to fire magic missiles at their enemies. When a class has been selected, you then need to pick which cards to bring into the adventure: this concept of using cards to represent encounters within your adventure was employed in a similar manner in Hand of Fate. At the beginning your deck doesn't have many cards (and therefore, encounters) to choose from, but as you progress through the game, you'll unlock more encounter cards and these encounters can vary from ones that freeze all the enemies on a level to rewarding your character with loot.
After you've prepared for your adventure, the Dealer picks cards at random that will determine which mobs you'll fight against. Usually there's three levels you have to complete to finish an adventure and only by defeating a level's boss can you progress to the next one. The game is essentially a bullet heaven version of Hand of Fate, replacing the original game's Action RPG elements and also planting the encounter cards within the action portion of the game, instead of just using the cards as a map of encounters to traverse. As you move around the level you need to kill a certain number of enemies to trigger the boss battle, but as you do so, you'll gain experience and level up. Levelling up will reward you with cards for this run of different rarity, from Common all the way to Epic: these cards can upgrade your stats such as your critical hit chance, damage, or skill cooldown (to name a few).
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| Warriors focus on melee attacks but they are beefier so they can take a beating |
Many Genres Under One Roof
The game seems to blend many genres. It feels like a hack 'n' slash RPG or dungeon crawler like Diablo but also feels a bit like tower defence except you're the tower moving around the map and automatically firing on enemies in a rhythmic fashion. In fact, you could almost argue it's similar to a rhythm game in that regard since there is a pattern to your attacks. As mentioned before, the starting class, the Trickster, is able to fire at range but the Warrior class can only perform melee attacks. In a game where you're trying to prevent the mobs hurting you, it seems like a major disadvantage limiting yourself to melee attacks but the Warrior is beefier meaning they can take more hits than the Trickster before it's Game Over. Each class also gets a secondary skill which seems to be a parry or dodge skill: the Trickster is able to generate a temporary shield to absorb damage while the Warrior can leap out of harm's way similar to the Barbarian class in the Diablo series.
Killing mobs isn't the only thing you'll get to do in the game as you will also have many side quests and encounters that can help or hinder you. For example, there are many chests scattered across a level containing gold, shards (used for permanent upgrades) and food, and you'll usually receive the equivalent of a "fetch quest" on the level where you have to collect a certain number of items (such as fairies or chests) situated around the map. Encounters are related to the cards you draw prior to the level and after activating shrines associated with these encounters, will present you with conversation trees giving you a choice of which challenge to pursue next. Challenges usually involve more games of chance, such as picking success cards after four have been shuffled or rolling three dice in an attempt to meet a threshold. As mentioned, killing a certain number of enemies will trigger the boss battle for the level, and defeating the boss will result in it dropping loot. After picking up the loot you have 30 seconds to exit the level via a portal and when that's done, you'll get the choice of continuing to the next level immediately, visiting a store to purchase upgrades with gold or making camp and using your food to restore your health.
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| You *could* stick around a bit longer, but you could also die as a result |
Typical Roguelite dilemmas
As Hand of Fate: Hordes is a roguelite, you'll encounter the typical conundrums associated with the genre, like the usual "do I stick around and make my character more powerful or do I push forward as quickly as possible to ensure I don't get overwhelmed by too many mobs?" It's usually a good idea to keep moving at all times, but if you want to level up a bit (and you will) this requires you to wait for a few seconds near chests and shrines in order to trigger them. These are the moments that leave you very vulnerable to mobs and the further you get into a level, the more dangerous it becomes as mobs converge on you quickly from every direction.
Even though the game looks like a hack ‘n' slash RPG like Diablo as you venture through dark, dank dungeons with an isometric viewpoint, it unfortunately doesn't have that same addictive hook of collecting shiny loot that you can adorn on your character. In this game, you collect cards but once your adventure is complete, everything (save for boosts you can unlock with shards) is reset and you have to start all over again.
Because that is the nature of roguelites, and yes, some people like it, but I find it repetitive and grindy at times as you venture through dungeons that all look very similar to each other again and again, fighting familiar mobs again and again, in the hope you get to unlock new cards (which you may or may not see again in a future playthrough).
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7
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A curious blend of roguelite, deckbuilder, dungeon crawler and bullet heaven that more or less works. An enjoyable distraction if you're into roguelikes and bullet heaven games but might get a bit boring after a while for everyone else. Note that the game is still in Early Access so there is more content yet to come. |
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