Parent's Guide: The Guided Fate Paradox - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

The Guided Fate Paradox is a somewhat oddball dungeon crawler, which sees you wandering through a number of randomly-generated dungeons, fighting monsters and picking up loot as you strive to grant your subjects' prayers. You see, thanks to his somewhat incredible luck in a lottery, high-schooler Renya has won the chance to become a God - which means, along with being granted immortality, he suddenly finds himself tasked with keeping his worshippers happy, from helping out a broken-hearted mermaid, to finding courage for a wimpy zombie, and dealing with a frustrated Cinderella, amongst others.

The Guided Fate Paradox is a game that plays by a very strict set of rules. Levels are divided up into a grid, and every time you move, not only will your energy meter drop, but the enemies that patrol the dungeon level will move too - stay still and they come to a halt as well, giving you the chance to plan your moves. It can be a bit tricky to get your head around if you've never played a similar game before, but one that shouldn't pose too many problems.

With an incredible collection of items you can pick up and equip as you make your way around the levels, from tank tracks, to boxing gloves, to a carrot on a stick and everything in between, it's safe to say The Guided Fate Paradox is one of the strangest games around - but it may not be the best choice for less experienced. The game itself may not be overly complex, but it can be quite difficult - games in the genre, known as "rogue-likes" are famous for being unforgiving, and dying frequently is pretty much required when you're first starting out, as your character will slowly grow stronger over time, until they're eventually able to survive. Depending on the player, this level of built in repetition could prove either frustrating, especially as you lose all your equipment when you die, as well as half your money, or fulfilling. And while many of the scenes in the game are fully-voiced, certain parts are not, so a strong reading ability is definitely a necessity.

Probably best left to older children or teens, The Guided Fate Paradox has moderate levels of a lot of the questionable stuff. In terms of violence, although players punch, slash and blast various enemies, which disappear in a purple flash of light when defeated, there's no blood, guts or gore shown at all. Bad language is fairly infrequent, with odd utterances of words like 'b*tch', 'p*ss' or 'damn', but nothing too severe. What is perhaps more of an issue though is that The Guided Fate Paradox tends to have a fair amount of adult humour that youngsters may not understand - or may lead to some uncomfortable questions. Being an awkward adolescent boy "on the climax of puberty", Renya's hormones sometimes get the better of him, whilst the sultry angel Cheriel ("those t*ts are old testament huge!") tends to talk in innuendos.

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Playstation 3