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Fairy Fencer F Review

Graphics:
6.2
Gameplay:
7.5
Sound:
7.3
Control:
9.0
Replay Value:
8.0
Overall Rating:
7.8
Online Gameplay:
Not Rated
Publisher:
NIS America
Developer:
Idea Factory, Compile Heart
Number Of Players:
1
Genre:
RPG
Release Date:
September 16, 2014


I never thought I'd be so excited to say “It's time to Fairize!” Never thought I'd say that at all.

I've got to start this review off with a couple of disclaimers so you all can get the full picture. First is the fact that of the three prongs that make up how this game moves forward a big one of them is visual novel sequences. Therefore I'm going to be critiquing the viability and structure of a kooky story as much as the quality of the game.

The second caveat is that as a reviewer when I'm looking at a sub-sub-genre game (as these entries from Compile Heart and co are) then it's more important to take into account how the established fan base will receive it than whether or not it stands up to full genre games. In other words Fair Fencer F is apples and oranges to any Tales game or the like.

Thanks for indulging me with that, now onto the review proper.

Things begin inauspiciously. The main character Fang is in jail for stealing some bread (all he does is talk about food) and his fairy friend Eryn (whose presence is explained through a flashback) is there to break him out. He says he'd rather stay because he gets free food and can sleep all he wants. So much for a brave hero at the center of this narrative, but after you get past this gratingly painful beginning to the visual novel sequences I promise things pick up.

Eryn and the first new character you encounter Tiara take pains to explain the plot. A long time ago a great Goddess and a Vile God fought a massive battle. In the end they unleashed a torrent of swords upon one another, managing to pin each to the ground. There they slept for eons. Not all the swords hit their mark and are now all over the world, perhaps even a hundred of them. They each have a fairy inside. The mission of a Fencer is to find them all and awaken the Goddess. Fang has become a fencer because he casually pulled a sword from a stone, freeing Eryn, with the hopes of … *sigh*, getting something to eat, since someone told him whoever pulls the sword out gets a wish granted.

Tiara is the first Fencer you encounter and she provides access to the realm where you can interact with the Goddess and Vile God. She also seems to have her own secrets, ulterior motives, and an unusual fetish. Yes this game follows in the footsteps of its predecessors with innuendo but it isn't quite as in your face and flamboyant as we saw in the Hyperdimension Neptunia games. As more characters and Fencers pile into the story the framework for their personalities which wasn't so interesting now begins to work as a structure from which a lot of callback humor and interpersonal dispute hilarity makes the story work increasingly appealingly. Even the folks you're supposed to dislike are more in the realm of love to hate as opposed to super annoying, which can plague the sub-sub-genre.

Pacing in the visual novel is not a strong suit in recent years, but FFF seems to get it right. I don't recall any spots where I got stuck navigating an extremely lengthy skit before I could get back to what I wanted to do. One way this is achieved is by making many of the skits a part of the optional gameplay elements instead of mandatory. As a final word on the story, you'll learn to like these characters and love their antics rather than fall for them right away.

I mentioned above that there's a three pronged approach to these kinda of games and FFF is no different. There's the visual novel, there's the dungeon combat, and there's the customization (see: fun, geeky., menu navigation and point allocation).

Towns and cut scenes are part of the visual novel. You navigate by point and click menu and talk to people and enter shops from pictures. These areas are 2D backdrops and gamers who are looking for big 3D worlds will need to keep going. Each area will be marked if it has an event or conversation ready in it. You can also pick up requests at the bar because you will need some money for potions and equipment as it's kind of scarce, plus you'll have to pay an uppity little girl for information. Other important pieces of story will occur unbidden as you progress. Customizing the look of your characters with new gear is addicting if you're like me and can't help but give them all a personal touch.

The term “dungeons” is used loosely. Any area where you can fight is a dungeon, including easygoing countryside with little carrot enemies. They have obvious boundaries, obvious item pickups, and enemies roaming about. If you swipe your sword at the right time you can get a “symbol” attack that gives you a preemptive strike, fail the timing and you are ambushed. It's actually harder than it sounds. The battles will seem incredibly similar to fans of Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2 and HN Victory except that they are faster, more involved, and much more fun. The battles are turn-based. When someone in your party gets a turn they have a circle of influence that they can run freely within and decide what to do. Initially you have a single physical attack, one special move, and one magic spell to try out. These are courtesy of your fairy Eryn. Later on you can get more goodies and the ability to create wicked combos, which comes into play with the menu fun later. Abilities are in the menu that comes up with your turn and they cost SP to use, some heavy hitters even cost HP a la the Persona series.

The development team has described the battle system as an evolved form of the Neptunia one and in this I declare they have succeeded. Transformations in those games were nearly pointless, they made you look good but cost all the points you needed for special moves and barely raised your powers. In Fairy Fencer F you will have a gauge of general frustration that raises when you are hit or land attacks. When it reaches a certain point you can “Fairize!” If you like anime, it's just plain ultra cool and also very familiar transformation sequences. When you do this there is a cut scene that adds your new armor and initiates an exciting music track. Since this game is made by masters of satire, it makes fun of itself for all of this. Most importantly, Fairizing is very helpful but doesn't last forever. Use it wisely on major foes or use it just to have some fun in general encounters.

The battles have a drawback that should have been dealt with, whenever it is someone's turn, including an enemy, the camera focuses on them. So you can have the camera jarringly bouncing through enemy turns. It's annoying.

A final word on the battles before dealing with how the true RPG customization comes in, your physical attack is not just a boring swipe. It is something you can advance into combos. These combos can be extended into longer ones as you progress, and you can customize which ones are mapped to which buttons. So doing something awesome is just a matter of preprogramming into the face buttons. Remember though, the game is still turn based, this does not turn it into an action RPG. It's a bold decision not to make that leap and it works very well while making the older Neptunia system more fun.

On the field there are save points, exit points, and story progression points. It's always a good to save before walking into those orange progression points. I caught a serious flaw here, sometimes you are just walking into a visual novel sequence and sometimes you are walking into a boss fight that you can't run from.

The character customization is deceptively simple. You earn weapon points, WP, and divvy them out to whichever areas you want to expand. What makes this system so easily brilliant is that there are dozens of parameters that can be increased. Something unique is the ability to learn moves that are best pared with certain kinds of weapons: swords, glaves, scythes, etc. You can increase all the common things like strength and defense, you can increase your combo count, learn new combo attacks, learn new special moves, learn field abilities, learn new spells, create resistances, cause status based attacks, etc. The list goes on and on but WP are not super plentiful. Where you put them will define your character heavily. Trying to make a balanced character is difficult because of the number of parameters. This forces you to build a team of specialists. It also makes you want to take on side quests to earn WP. In recent times developers have squashed the ability to create overpowered teams, not so here. If you are willing to grind you will reap the benefits of doing it. If you don't want to grind you can get through the game with a reasonable amount of fighting.

In addition to WP there are also swords with fairies in them that you can collect. By using the sword to release a hold on the Goddess or the Vile God you can earn new abilities unreachable with WP. Who would help the Vile God though? Right? Ehhhh. It's something that hangs over your lust for powers. When you then use the fairy that helped you, you'll gain that ability. This is irreversible.

On the map you have to open up new areas by stabbing a sword and its fairy into the ground. If you leave it there you will have special conditions active inside the dungeon, if you pull it out then you can use the fairy's normal abilities inside the dungeon.

Graphically Fairy Fencer F is has some improvements over previous games by this team, namely more and better realized 3D models, but it just isn't pretty in general. Nothing is smooth and the nasty frame rate issue is back. This makes timing your symbol attacks difficult. I had thought that it was almost licked with Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory but Fairy Fencer F takes a step back and needed a little more polish on the frame rate front. Unfortunately there are also some very obvious missing animations, making things happen via shortcuts during the otherwise really cool special moves and transformations. It's a reality, but it quickly vanishes from the player's care because of the fun one has executing all these creative plans that mimic anime battles.

Story cut scenes using the 3D models are rare. Most are done in visual novel style but having some more things happen with the character models would have mixed things up even if they aren't beautiful. One spot where things come off without a hitch are the victory poses, which I couldn't get enough of.

The visual novel background art is nothing special but also more than adequate. It has a medium level of detail. The characters are well drawn and full of extra details. They breathe, move to represent position, react to situations, and speak during most cut scenes. That all keeps things interesting while the story jogs along.

The sound has some great things going for it. We've got a little Final Fantasy talent on board and it's clear in the very broad range of music Fairy Fencer F offers. Music follows and sets the mood of every location, transformation, and conversation. From moody and contemplative serious fantasy to goofy encounters to exciting metal jams FFF just keeps it coming. The only drawback is I caught some medium balancing issues while the tracks overlap each other. Sound effects are nice and crisp but there clearly needed to be more; some are just missing where they should be present.

Now the question every JRPGer wants answered, how's the language? Well, sorry folks. You don't want to play this in English. While some actors are really quite good like Eryn, others are simply not believable. There seems to be some casting issues, the main character Fang is pretty bad and you don't want to put yourself through his obnoxiousness. This analysis is coming from someone who often plays Hyperdimension in English. I don't blindly believe the original Japanese is always better, but for this game it is leaps and bounds ahead. Well cast, excellently performed, and wonderfully timed, the Japanese language option is the way to go.

The game has some solid staying power worth extra playthroughs for the hardcore. Your decisions will affect the ending you get and how your friends treat you. There are endless ways to customize your team and specialize which weapons they use. Plus there's that nagging question: what will happen if I use my fairies to pull swords out of the Vile God and set him free?

Fairy Fencer F is a big step forward for Compile Heart but not quite the realization of what these kinds of games are capable of in terms of quality. Most fans simply won't care about the quality issues, I didn't, but they are integral to a purchase decision so I've laid them bare for you. Compile Heart has taken an amazing journey on PS3 from the almost unplayable first Hyperdimension game to this well paced, fun-filled jaunt. Folks who are interested in the structure or know the brand couldn't possible be disappointed. Folks looking for what amounts to a mainstream JRPG would be shocked that anyone plays this kind of game.

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Vivi_Gamer
Vivi_Gamer
9 years ago

I wish Compile Heart would stop making console games, with the rise of iOS games it seems the perfect way to present incompetence to the masses and make a fortune.

I say incompetence lightly, because I did look up some gameplay footage and like usual what is infuriating about these games is that they feature the Visual Novel plague, even though the game has all the components to make a decent production value. There are maps to explore with enemies running around (Even if it does look worse than many PS2 games) and it has a battle system build in a 3D arena (Even though looking at some of the battle footage the menus are overbearing and most o the time the characters wouldn't even have an attack animation.)

So I look at the game I can see that there is a chance for a decent game but design decisions set it back. The visual Novel design just looks cheap. Not only that the game suffers from a very generic googly eyed anime presentation (which looks dire and unremarkable) but what really bothers me is using this as a method of story telling. It simply doesn't work. Just having static character portraits stuffed on the screen talking none stop looks so bland – Can you imagine if you went to the cinema and saw a film do that? Heck, are there any animes out there that actually do this, I'm genuinely curious because I just cannot see it work. It lacks atmosphere, I think of all the great sequences I have loved in JRPG's I have adored and juts cannot imagine them thriving in a Visual Novel design.

Even out of the dialogue sequences (Which seems to be the majority of this game) Visiting towns and point and clicking to navigate environments is so outdated, makes my think of that old game 'Myst'. I see it that Compile Heart are clinging onto the Visual Novel design choice to release mediocre games and reel in anime fans. I mean I complained about Xillia the other day, but Compile Heart are on a whole new level. I which the JRPG genre wouldn't be associated with games like this as when done right the genre is the best medium to experience a story delivering a quest/adventure, it's been a tough generation for JRPG's and I don't want the genre to be known for titles like this and put of as a niche market. I see these games as a threat because the more games like this we get and the less JRPG's with proper production value we get the more the genre will fade.


Last edited by Vivi_Gamer on 9/15/2014 3:38:51 AM

Beamboom
Beamboom
9 years ago

You should apply for reviewing games on this site, Vivi. Seriously. I think your text here was well written and really interesting to read. Well argued, to the point and focused on your main arguments, and a bit different in style than Ben and David.

Plus I feel you are more where I am coming from gaming-wise, and that's a nice bonus. Seriously, contact Ben. 🙂


Last edited by Beamboom on 9/15/2014 4:58:41 AM

Vivi_Gamer
Vivi_Gamer
9 years ago

That's very kind of you Beamboom. Mind you, I don't believe I have the literacy skills to take on such a task (I admit fully that my grammar is appalling). But when it comes to JRPG's I do have so much passion. I have a system called the 'JRPG Hurdles' a set of barriers for a JRPG game to better. If it fails then I will be put off the game, but if it succeeds it gets nothing but affection. Here is a list of them:
1. Art Direction – I don't like the googly eyed look in this game but not all anime based games look bad. Dragon Age and Ni No Kuni look amazing.
2. The Visual Novel Design – I have said enough on that today but I find it breaks the immersion and looks cheap.
3. Battle system – This a feature I can be very fussy on, I generally cant get a long with tactical RPGs. Turn based and action based combat systems work well with me. Xenoblade: Chronicles recently just excelling in a mixture of both even.

But all them features are just what I look for from the beginning. I have seen JRPGs which jump all them hurdles and then fail later into the game – Like Star Ocean 3 on PS2, introducing a system later into the game where enemies start attacking your MP which equals your demise, it ruined the game entirely.

But what I really look for in a JRPG is an engaging story, with loveable characters you care for as you guide them on their adventure and travels around the world. I have seen adventures shown in film and read in books but I truly believe the JRPG genre when used to it's peak ability is the best medium to follow such an adventure on.

Beamboom
Beamboom
9 years ago

You make a poor case against yourself as a reviewer, you seem to both be more than literate enough and with a healthy perspective on the genre from being a jrpg-fan. I repeat myself: You really, really should try to join the staff here, on voluntarily basis. I'd say your voice would be a nice addition to the site.

SayWord
SayWord
9 years ago

I know for a fact I wouldn't read Vivi's reviews. The personal bias and expectations he/she has is ridiculous.

I even want to say **** you as Vivi literally gave the finger to the whole fanbase and developers. Who even says games are plaguing a system? What does Vivi want some sort of dictatorship for game releases? Every gaming device should be open to all sort of games.

Every negative Vivi spat forward is the reason why people enjoy their games. I love graphic novels, I like games that do not take themselves seriously. A reviewer should try and understand why others might enjoy a game, Vivi cant even understand why these games have a fanbase. It's all about me me me me when it comes to what he/she likes or wants in a game.

Compile Heart makes games THEY want to make not what specific individuals want. Look what happens when developers try to make games for masses instead of individual niches. Look at Square, Capcom, Konami etc.

Close minded people like Vivi are reasons why I dont even visit this site much anymore

Vivi_Gamer
Vivi_Gamer
9 years ago

Yes, I am critical and bias, I am not ashamed to admit that when it comes to seeing games like this. However, I don't think my expectations on the games production value are unjust. I mean is it that much to ask for a JRPG to have an open world to explore? With sequences that present the story in good fashion and with the wonders of animation that the console/gaming engines are capable of? Look at all the slack Final Fantasy XIII got for being 'linear'. I actually enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII but I am willing to admit it's faults. Just as I am with any other JRPG I come across. Whenever I look at a game like this with the Visual Novel design, I cannot help but see a game that has just been completely compromised through development. Much like how other JRPG's have you create a character but in doing so leave the character mute while all the other characters talk around him – Which is the reason I will not be buying the sequel to my favourite game of this generation Xenoblade: Chronicles, because of poor decisions in development.

But it is not just 'JRPGs' with the Visual Novel 'design' I am critical of, it's the same with the invasion we have seen in the last few year of the indie market. The reason I still have not bought a Playstation 4 is because it has been catering to the indie market more than offering games with full production value. It's been an unbearably slow year in 2014 to the point where I am lacking faith in the gaming industry in general. I have tired some of the most established indie games too, Limbo and Journey both were completely unfulfilling experiences. My problem isn't necessarily the content itself (Even though admittedly, I do find it tasteless.) My problem is that I don't want to see the industry I admire crash. I don't want to see JRPG's compromised by cheap design choices just as I don't to see triple A titles become extinct.


Last edited by Vivi_Gamer on 9/15/2014 10:34:47 AM

Beamboom
Beamboom
9 years ago

SayWord, you really seriously visit this site less because of a few users you don't agree with?

Vivi, I'd suggest you try writing a few reviews and submit them as user reviews on this site, and let's see how that goes.

Ben Dutka PSXE
Ben Dutka PSXE
9 years ago

"Close minded people like Vivi are reasons why I dont even visit this site much anymore"

Sounds to me like your post is the very definition of "close-minded."

Beamboom
Beamboom
9 years ago

Exactly.

WorldEndsWithMe
WorldEndsWithMe
9 years ago

I like visual novel sequences, Persona wouldn't be the same without them 🙂

Vivi_Gamer
Vivi_Gamer
9 years ago

Persona is one series which I think does it right, the game throws so much style at you I think it gets away with it easier. My bigger problem with Persona is the silent protagonist. It's funny how in the Persona 4 anime adaptation they decided to give him a personality, which apparently worked well. I am hoping they have taken note on this for Persona 5. I'd be thrilled if the main character had a personality and wasn't just a mute as the characters in Persona 3 were really engaging – Though admittedly I do need to go back to that at some point as I have yet to beat it.

SaiyanSenpai
SaiyanSenpai
9 years ago

Guys seriously! Can't there be room for both types of JRPGs in this world? I like both a lot!


Last edited by SaiyanSenpai on 9/15/2014 12:43:30 PM

Beamboom
Beamboom
9 years ago

Indeed there can, just like there are room for various opinions. 🙂

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