Fairy Tail was released on the 30th July 2020. It was developed by Gust and produced by KOEI TECHMO. Fairy Tail writer and illustrator Hiro Mashima worked closely with the developers to produce an RPG faithful to the Fairy Tail Universe. He was consulted on various aspects of the game, and they have been given his seal of approval before Gust moved forward with this game.
There have been previous Fairy Tail games that were released on the PSP between 2010 and 2012.
Fairy Tail is a turn based role-playing game released on the PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC. It is compatible with the Nintendo Switch Lite.
Gameplay
Various difficulty modes are available in this game and difficulty does not affect Jewels and other obtainable items. The difficulty can also be changed at any point in the setting’s menu. You will mainly take the role of Natsu Dragneel and Lucy Heartfilia, however you can switch your on screen character to anyone in your party.
The game begins with the X791 arc. There is a short battle between our protagonists and antagonist before you return to Magnolia. It turns out you and your fellow guild members have been gone seven years! Your guild is a shadow of its former self and you are now ranked at the bottom of all the guilds. Your first objective is to increase your renown and bring some money back into your guild. This is achieved by completing guild requests and community service requests.
The story seems to pick back up once you reach level 15. You will travel to a neighbouring town to compete in the ‘grand magic games’. The beginning speaks of a maze and I had hopes of running around an actual maze and entering battles, however it was condensed down to two battles and some talking.
Along the way there is some excellent content. Lucy’s house makes an appearance. Here you can change character outfits (once alternatives have been obtained), read up on the world of Fairy Tail and even hand over candies to Nikora for rewards.
During the turn-based battles you can defend, use physical attacks and magic attacks. Once you reach a certain point in the game you can use awakening mode and initiate a magic chain. This includes special commands and a finisher move which ends the chain with a final powerful attack.
While you work on requests using the Request Board you will gain renown which will increase your guild ranking. Once you have achieved a certain amount of renown you will receive a commendation from the council. This will boost the amount of requests you can take on, and increases your magic chain combo bonus.
During requests and story-related missions various characters will join your team. Guests cannot be controlled, but they will fight alongside you in battles.
Stat boosts are achieved by equipping Lacrima. You can obtain these by completing requests and synthesizing them at the Laboratory in your guild headquarters.
There are also character requests to complete. These will raise the limit on that character rank and eventually become your friends. You can also duel with these characters for extra rewards.
Graphics
I played this on the PS4 and I believe the Nintendo Switch will be able to deliver a very similar performance for this type of game.
I did not encounter any frame rate issues or graphical glitches. The textures lacked depth on occasions, but at the same time as an anime-style game I got what I expected. Colours were bright and lines were bold. Some background imagery was beautiful and very well detailed.
Audio
Japanese audio was the only option available to me, accompanied by English subtitles. Unfortunately battles had minimal subtitles, so I could not always tell what was being shouted during physical and magic attacks.
The soundtrack was pleasant to have on in the background. Music was cheerful around the towns and added to the serene feeling as I ran around delivering parcels and picking up ingredients. Equally, during battles the music took on a more serious tune to match the moments in the game.
Longevity
Although the requests are repetitive and in places lack depth, there are plenty to keep you going with this game. The character requests and story missions were more entertaining than request board missions. There is also a reasonable amount to upgrade in your guild, the laboratory, shop and characters. These all have different functions from increasing your magic chain, to the amount of items you can purchase and how many lacrima you can equip to your team members. This has ensured a good amount of playtime following completion of the story.
Conclusion
Fairy Tail has a rich world and a deep storyline, unfortunately this games begins a few arcs into the story. I did feel like I was missing out on much of the history of the series, but equally I had no problems picking up from where it began. I felt the battle system was lacking in the beginning, but once you’re a few chapters in it did improve as I unlocked awakening and could increase my magic chain attacks. It also had some excellent animation during attacks that varied with each character.
The very beginning of the game had me intrigued as to what the antagonist was up to, however the first three chapters had me running around the town levelling up in battles and delivering lost parcels. I was disappointed I couldn’t interact with people and the background more, and the only thing I could do was jump and pick up items.
That being said if you are a Fairy Tail fan you may want to pick this up. This is going to have a niche market but I believe will be popular with fans of Fairy Tail. For those not familiar with the manga or anime I will say one thing it did achieve was encourage me to read or watch the series. From the game I could tell there were some excellent characters and a deep storyline to dive into. There were also some excellent humorous moments along the way.
The Fairy Tail universe has been recreated well. There is a lot of intricate detail including important buildings and landmarks that are seen in the Fairy Tail manga and anime. The developers have worked hard to stay faithful to the story and world. There are some original characters and storylines developed exclusively for the game, content I’m sure will be welcome by fans.
Info Box
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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