Threads of Fate

About Threads of Fate

Threads of Fate (1999), Dewprism in Japan, is Square's light-hearted PlayStation action RPG with two playable heroes, a monster-transforming amnesiac and a banished princess who wants to conquer the world, made by former Xenogears staff.

Threads of Fate in Depth

At the start, players choose between Rue and Mint, and both campaigns play out around the hub town of Carona and the dungeons that open up during the story, all in 3D. Characters jump through minor platforming sections and use two action buttons for real-time attack combinations, under a mostly fixed overhead camera. Instead of experience levels, health rises with damage taken and magic points with the number of spells cast. Rue can collect up to five coins from defeated monsters and transform into them to use their abilities, while Mint fights with dual rings as melee and thrown weapons and combines elemental spells. Each has their own puzzles, with obstacles changed to suit them, and a New Game+ carries abilities over to unlock secret areas.

Rue sees his friend and caretaker Claire killed by an armoured man and wants to revive her; Mint, the selfish princess of the East Heaven Kingdom, is banished by her sister Maya and vows to take back her throne and conquer the world. Both seek the Relic left by the magical Aeon people, said to grant any wish, and cross paths repeatedly. The man who killed Claire, the Doll Master, wants it too, and it emerges that he and Rue are both Dolls, artificial beings made to resurrect the Aeon Valen, whose spirit is preserved in the relic, the Dewprism.

Making Threads of Fate

Director Koji Sugimoto, a programmer on Chrono Trigger and Xenogears, wanted something light, funny and accessible to follow Xenogears' mature themes, and to use his PlayStation experience to make a fully 3D game without pre-rendered cut-scenes. Square, which was encouraging smaller projects, approved his prototype, and a team of about twenty former Xenogears staff worked on it from March 1998 for a year and a half, with producer Hiromichi Tanaka, world design by Makoto Shimamoto, character designs by Tsutomu Terada and Tadahiro Usuda, and music by Junya Nakano, who said it shaped his style for Final Fantasy X.

It was released in Japan on 14 October 1999 and in North America on 18 July 2000 by Square Electronic Arts. It sold over 111,000 copies in Japan by the end of 1999, which Sugimoto considered poor, blaming competition. Critics generally praised its gameplay, graphics, story and localisation, though some found it shallow or too short and criticised the camera. Sugimoto said it became a favourite of Square staff including Yoshinori Kitase and Yasumi Matsuno, but a 2004 sequel pitch was rejected.