Resonance of Fate
"Resonance of Fate" was first hinted at prior to April 2009, then announced as an untitled "mystery" RPG at the beginning of the month. According to Shimano, its codename "Project Cobra" had been bandied about prior to the reveal, but no-one had suspected anything about its true nature. Its official Japanese title, along with details such as tri-Ace's partnership with Sega, were unveiled on April 8, 2009. "Resonance of Fate" marked the first collaboration between tri-Ace and Sega—most of tri-Ace's previous games had been published by Square Enix. The reason for the choice was two-fold: tri-Ace wanted a different publisher due to the radical nature of their new game, and Sega wanted a title to break into the RPG market. As "Resonance of Fate" seemed unique enough to stand out in the market, Sega agreed to take up publishing duties. According to staff, the Japanese title was originally going to be either "Resonance of Fate" or "Resonance of Time", but Sega asked it to be changed to "End of Eternity". This fell in line with a trend among many Japanese games of referencing endings in their titles. It was officially announced for a Western release in May 2009. The game debuted in Japan on January 28, 2010 with a March release in North America and PAL regions. The European version came with text localization in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian.
Resonance of Fate
The game was developed using an in-house multi-platform proprietary engine called ASKA (tri-Ace Superlative Knowledge-based Architecture), developed by a team led by Gotanda. The engine was in development since 2005 and was used for three different games in tandem: "Resonance of Fate", "Infinite Undiscovery" and "". While the staff were satisfied with its performance, it had to be customized for this game's specific needs. The engine employs multiple advanced graphics and lighting techniques, including high-dynamic-range rendering, and multiple layered shader tools to manage graphical layers and shadow effects. Motion blur effects were implemented using techniques similar to those of the second-generation CryEngine. Creating realistic blurring during camera movement was complicated by graphical inconsistencies generated by ASKA's structure. A separate graphics buffer system was designed to address the issue. Environments and characters employ a relatively low number of polygons in order to free up resources to render the main cast, whose character models use at least four times as many polygons as models in the PlayStation 2 era. The main characters' faces use 40 bones for facial movement and their hair use 250. This enables more detailed facial expressions compared to the "doll"-like facial movements of earlier video game characters. Character hair uses additional shaders and layered textures to give it a lifelike appearance and behavior. The physics simulation was similar to that used for "", but improved and expanded to suit the new hardware's capacity. There were minor differences between the graphical effects and performances of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 titles. Shadow and blurring effects were more sophisticated on 360. The estimated frame rate of 30fps was identical across both versions. The team managed to fit all the game's content onto a single disc for both versions while keeping load times short. This was due to the staff not wanting players to know when they had reached the halfway point, prolonging the sense of adventure.