Fairy Fencer F (Steam Edition) Review

Enhanced games seemingly seems like a fresh idea for many publishers out there. So far we have seen a few fan favorites from the PS3 see some love and get ported over to the old keyboard and mouse camp. A few names to mention at least from Compile Heart being Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1+2. This game along with those share a intact style of game play that if fans of those games will be in for a treat. Fairy Fencer F feels almost the same, beside the plot involving fairies, lazy protagonists, and a little more tame fan service. You play the role of a lazy dude named Fang. A loud-mouthed egotistical character that does show signs of compassion at points. Along side him as his partner, or catalyst in this case(she is his sword, effectively) named Eryn. Their goal after reluctantly pulling a sword out of the ground(called Fury) is to rescue over 100 Pok.. I mean over 100 Fairies that you are supposedly to level along with your characters and their Furies. All of this insane micro-management is rumbled about with the games progression.

The story itself starts off as a hybrid of mid-evil times meets modern lifestyles that  me and you know of. So at first the story is just fine. Then slowly it begins to unwind, then feel less constructed. A little bit of a mess if you will. For this review I will be very vague with plot and or story as I am a believer of if the game has a story, ether good or just flat out bad. I will save it for you to witness if you happen to tackle it. That and I am fearful of the wrath of many Weebus and their Scythe weapons that they made out of paper, plaster, and toilet paper rolls. Those things hurt!

Almost instantly after hearing 15 minutes of the English dialog I had to swap the voice overs to Japanese. Call it a knee-jerk reaction, however it had to be done. Fang I did not truly have a problem with his voice at all.  One of the “delicate” elements of this game is its high pitched pseudo dames. Featuring voice overs that were a bit over the top for me to handle. So much so I had to make sure I could not understand them anymore. Sure It adds to the humor of the whiny, or squeakiness of some of the characters for others. For me, I am getting too old for noises. I could not consider it a write off for most who truly enjoy this style of setting or character/s. I can sit down and watch a cutesy Anime or most modern Anime with a smile across my face at crude jokes, or even stupid-funny jokes. Most of the time whenever I watched the jokes unfold, I legitimately cracked up at the shock factor of them, or the forwardness of some of the characters.

The gameplay or combat is that of the Hyperdimension Neptunia style. Which personally was my most enjoyment of the games. It didn’t feel too complicated, and easy to understand prior. So this felt like a fitted glove. For new players who perhaps never experienced this type of game, it will give you a guide to the basics. The tutorials are pretty cutesy. Having Eryn wearing a professor hat as text flies across some splash images of tiny demonstration images teaching you the whats and hows. Parties in this game have a max of three characters you control, with various commands at your disposal. You first move the character in a limited range, tactical like, until you get closer to your target. Or if you want to get away from a AoE (Area of effect attack). You are given a range or cone of how your skills can execute so if you see it will hit nothing, you can adjust yourself and hopefully bash in some Pokemon looking enemy butt. Enemies in this game range from practical to interestingly weird. Leveling in the game is one that of a frustrating experience. Trying to balance levels out with characters is practically annoying in doses. If one character gets a head just a tiny bit the rest are point to stagger behind. It is a bit crappy, but nothing you can really do. With leveling Fairies are also apart of this giving you buffs and perks to having the little critters around. Such as wind resistance mostly, and or fire resist. The list goes on.

The game is very grass roots to traditional JRPG’s. You have special attacks, fireballs, the whole sh-bang.  Then you have another element which enables you to transform with your fury(sigh, the weapon). You are not the only thing that transforms however, your weapons also can do this feature. Which is the coolest bit to the game. I was pretty happy to find out you could skip most of the long winded attack scenes. As those go on for ever. First few times, pretty cool. eighth time. Lets put it to bed boys. It does succeed in core game play. I was very invested into the grind to get my characters stronger along with the fairies.

Basically you are getting a up-scaled PS3 game, which most PS3 titles looked pretty darn good in their own right. The boast this one has is its port to PC. Screaming out a nice 60 frames per second and its 1080P scale. I tried also tested out scales by swapping my computer to a television with native 1080P stock. All in Game mode of course. It looks fantastic. Then after for the sake of sanity I moved back to my monitor and played with it in border-less windowed mode. Which most folks do now anyway to notice too much of the great visuals in full screen mode.

The story itself has some decent moments through out the experience, however it does not however stay consistent. You will have off the cuff moments, such as a village being ransacked by parasites within the zone. These of course were acting unusually hostile due to a Fury being in the area. That being the only element that does not have a follow up in reasoning, just a seemingly thrown in element or theme among the others in the game. The depth for it is lacking so you just feel a sense of just being there. Sure you do happen to get some good parts of story like with Apollones. Then like that is killed off without any more development. Yes I know he is a optional and playable character but “bleh” to that work. Banging around eight hours in I began to focus more or less into the battles then the real story. The characters were not as bad, just sort of a bummer nothing too deep gets brought up about the enemies you face, other then just being there as a counter clash of interests or to simply collect a Fury.