This game sadly kind of flew under a lot of people's radar. Even back when I was running the game, there was really no speedrun community for this game, which is why I never ended up optimizing it after I got the WR (there's the potential to save a LOT of time. I'm pretty confident a sub-1:40:00 is possible, even without god-tier RNG).

As for tips, it's been a while, but here are some things I found.

1. Explorer's Gift is incredible for saving time since it seriously cuts down on the RNG element. That's the main thing that let me get an edge over the previous record holder.
2. Avoid all unnecessary tokens and shops for the most part.
3. Figure out the proper rhythm for skipping through card encounters. I was using number keys + spam clicks to get through dialogue screens/choices as fast as possible, but sometimes you'll notice that I screwed up the timing and ended up clicking the continue button when I wanted the number key to register, resulting in me picking the wrong choice.
4. Obviously, combat is to be avoided if at all possible, but also avoid optional gain card pickups since those all waste time.
5. Git gud at the card gambit.
6. Be careful on the King of Scales. The platform for the fight is tiny and I've lost so much time in my runs by dying there.
7. In combat, do your best to rack up a nice combo as it increases your damage. Also, in general, you'll want to try to evade enemy attacks rather than counter them, especially ranged attacks. This is because counters don't do very much damage and reflected projectiles do next to nothing. It's simply not worth the time spent in the animation when you can instead roll away and do another regular attack.

I'd like to request that a run I posted be looked over. None of the mods are active (the last time any of them logged on was 6 months ago, and one hasn't been on for 2 years). I've been waiting for nearly 2 months now and nobody's even touched it.

Link to the game: https://www.speedrun.com/Hand_of_Fate/full_game#any

Link to my run: https://www.speedrun.com/run/zxv814gy