About the game:
I hadn't played this game before, but after seeing the Longplay I have to say that this game doesn't have anything to envy from Lucasarts graphic adventures, which I think are the best graphical adventures on the 80s.
There are so many things I like a lot in this Hand of Fate ... To begin with, the intro sequences, which were much in the line of other Westwood titles. Second, the very original potion-combining gameplay, is the perfect example on how to create a different adventure basing the gameplay logic in something different than a verb/object combination.
Of course, I just love the graphics and environments, and the insane plot and places that are to be visited. I also like a lot the character changing clothes on every episode - it's a quite a reward, in some unexpected way. The music is also grrrrrrrreat, and in fact that's quite the reason for me to go to Youtube and play this Longplay just to set the music and voices as a background tune while I code.
I have, but, two points to criticize on the game. First of them, is that you can die. I just remember not liking the good old Sierra games because of this, as my own "stupidity" prevents me from saving each two minutes. Fortunatelly, it seems that it is not so easy to die in Hand of Fate.
And, the second criticizable point, there are those narrative-rythm breakers at the end of the game; I'm talking about these time consuming puzzles, the one on the rainbow machine, and the inverted towers of hanoy. Both them are quite interesting from a design point of view, but seems it just takes too long to finish them, and they don't influence the plot that much (specially the second one).
But, in the end, it's a really, really, really great game with stunning graphics and music, finest sense of humor, really adventuristic, with a lot of action and amazing things happening every so often. Two thumbs up and a big smile :-) .
We are still waiting on a suitable Amiga AGA emulator with robust recording features before tackling such games.