Fairy Fencer F Review

Greetings everyone, and welcome back to my esteemed blog.  Sorry for the long delay (yet again), but I have been busy with work and preparing to begin my Japanese courses.    Tis the season of ghouls and ghosts, and it’s also one of my favorite times of the year.  There is much to be said about the wonderful month of October, mainly because of so many titles that are out, such as Smash Bros. for the 3DS, and others, like The Evil Within.  However, I want to take a look at an underdog that is worthy of some recognition, this title of course being Fairy Fencer F for the Playstation 3 console.

Nippon Ichi Software has seen a lot of lows in the past few months with recent releases.  The only title that they are best known for is the incredible Disgaea series.  This time around, they have brought to us another JRPG in the form of Fairy Fencer F by developer Compile Heart.  Is this title worthy of play and praise?  Or, does it fall short of any recognition?  Let’s find out.

Graphics:  This, if anything is Fairy Fencer’s weakest point.  The environments are very bland, with little or no life.  The character designs are bright and colorful, and the monster designs are pretty well done.  The frame rate drops from time to time when traveling through dungeons which isn’t a bad thing, but those who prefer eye-candy may not find it here.  Score: 7/10

Sound:  The musical score is very well-done.  Kenji Kaneko and famed composer Nobuo Uematsu bring a fresh composition of great story and battle driven musical scores.  The battle themes are the “pump you up” kind of themes, which is a great thing.  Click here to hear the battle theme.  Voice overs do not disappoint in this title.  The actors actually seem to make an effort to bring life to these characters, as opposed to voice actors who just throw in a voice to simply get a paycheck.  Score: 8.5/10

Stab a fury into the ground and change the world!

Gameplay:  This is Fairy Fencer F’s biggest draw.  In terms of exploration, the prime village simply consists of selecting a location and going to a still background of that location and speaking with NPC’s (Non-playable characters).  The majority of dialogue that comes from the NPC’s are pretty much insignificant, unless an icon saying “event” or “sub-event” pops up.

Not exactly eye-candy, but it does the job.

The story moves at a fairly decent pace, consisting of a cliche story with your antagonist, Fang and his ragtag group of unique companions journeying to collect these swords called furies that have the capability of resurrecting either the goddess (good) or dark lord (bad). At one point in the story, having to re-visit dungeons became tedious at times, but fortunately the difficulty is amped appropriately to keep things somewhat fresh.  The dungeons are fairly short and it’s a pretty much a straight-forward start to finish path, with little exploration options.

The battle system is very well-done.  The combat is turned based, but unlike your typical characters on one side and enemies on the other, Fairy Fencer takes a different approach.  Think of it as a watered down version of Eternal Sonata.  The object is, when it’s a characters turn, they have a circular field that opens up, this being where you can run to.  Skills and spells have a different range of attack (single, line, group).  When situations get hairy, you can transform (Power Ranger style) into a more powerful version of yourself by binding with your fairy using a skill called Fairize.

 

IT’S MORPHI…I mean..IT’S FAIRIZE TIME!!!

You can also acquire furies either through main quests or side-quest missions that have attributes that can give your equipped character a little stat boost.  Each character is capable of upping their stats, learning new skills/spells through grinding and getting WP (Weapon Points).  You can also use your acquired furies to change enemies in stages, or apply bonuses, not without a stipulation of course.  For example, you can go to a stage and stab a fury into the ground of that area using that fury will increase your gained gold by 50%, but it also drops your defense by 25%.
Score: 9/10

Man your battle stations!

While Fairy Fencer F is not the best game on the market, it provides a fresh battle system, deep mechanics, and a fairly decent plot.  This is a game that you should consider adding to your library.

Final Score:  8/10