A lot of games look good, with all of those high-end newfangled graphics and shaders and what-not. And don't get me wrong, I love a texture or a shader as much as the next PC gamer. But it's rare that a game stuns me with something simple. At Fate's End, even during its demo, has achieved just that.

Developed by Spiritfarer creators Thunder Lotus, At Fate's End is a sort of hybrid between a visual novel and an action adventure game. There's a clear delineation between combat and exploration—in the former, you're having conversations and exploring, in the latter, the game plays a little more like Silksong.

At Fate's End follows protagonist Shan Hemlock who, for reasons unknown, has been named the Princess of Swords. It's her duty, along with her god sword Aesus, to gather all the blades of her (likely messed-up family), through force or diplomacy. Here's my first impressions:

At Fate's End is adoringly animated—it's rare that I'll play a 2D game like this where there's almost no effort spared. The fact that I had to stop for a moment to stare at just how pretty Shan's 'I've stopped running' animation was—carrying her momentum with a cinematic gust of her hair—is a sign of things to come.

It's not just how it moves, though, it's how it looks. At Fate's End has this hand-drawn storybook styling that pairs with its eye-meltingly pretty tarot cards and stylised menus so deliciously that I want to find a way to scrunch it up and eat it.

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