I have been a major fan of Hand of Fate since I first heard about it. I am eagerly awaiting the board game version Ordeals coming out soon & am awaiting a time in my schedule to sit down with 2. I'm glad someone else out there knows about the series and is giving it some bigger attention. Thanks.
@Hannes Steffenhagen: I think Jo means "generic" in the sense of "it fits within the confines of the JRPG genre." Hand of Fate, on the other hand, does not neatly fit into a single game genre.
@Ribusprissin: Depending on which release you're going off of she was Nara or Meena. In the Dragon Warrior 4 release she was Nara but Internationally and in the Dragon Quest re-release, it got changed back to Meena/Minea.
Eh... Xenoblade isn't really generic at all. Not sure about XB2 because they obviously changed a lot of things, but there aren't many games that are like XB1. Also, Hand of Fate is probably about as well known in the west as the XB games are.
Been playing a lot of Hand of Fate 2 myself. I think I'm about halfway through it? Anyway, loving it as much as the first one, and I'll probably hate it once I get near the end.
@Andy Janson: VGcharts estimates around 900,000 physical copies of Xenoblade Chronicles X sold http://www.vgchartz.com/game/71409/xenoblade-chronicles-x/ with similar numbers for the original on Wii http://www.vgchartz.com/game/42966/xenoblade-chronicles/ + 600,000 on 3DS
@Shimari5: I'm not really sure honestly, but I think it's fun. Between that and the "Slap my hand", "POW! Haha!", "Spy here" "Now with <X>" and "Today's moral:", it's delightful to see what all fun posts appear in the Photo Notes. :)
@Jo
Just as an fyi, Hand of Fate sold over 400,000 copies and got downloaded more than 1.5 million times through some Xbox free thing. That stomps any of the recent Xenoblade games. Just because it didn't retain people or do super great on steam in particular doesn't mean it didn't do well.
Ooh, there's Hand of Fate 2 now? I bought the first game with your advice, Jo, and have never regretted it. But 23 hours of playing were still not enough for me to complete story and get at least half deep into achievements. Tell us what's new in the sequel?