A long time ago, an evil deity of darkness and a Goddess of light fought an epic battle, but both sides lost.  Weakened with swords skewered between the two, both darkness and light fell into a deep sleep and nobody won the battle.  Eons later, in the human world, the swords and weapons from that great war that missed the targets fell to the earth.  These weapons are called Furies, and only a select few can wield them.  These people are called Fencers.  Each weapon is infused with a fairy that can help Fencers use magic and special attacks.  But these fairies aren’t just little girls with wings.  Some of these fairies can be critters, big burly men, and even robot mechs!  These Fencers and their fairies seek out other Fury weapons, and even fight amongst themselves for them.  The story in this RPG starts out with Fang, a lazy young man who just pulled out a Fury sword containing a young girl fairy whose goal is to revive the light Goddess and save the world.  They’ll meet all sorts of other crazy characters along the way with their own goals and objectives. Will they be able to save the world?

Fairy Fencer F is very similar to other RPGs like Hyperdimension Neptunia or Mugen Souls.  In fact, it was made by the same folks.  Rather than tromp around towns and a vast overworld, everything in this part of the game is done through menus.  In towns you can choose to visit shops to buy items or talk to people.  Exclamation points over menu selections will let you know what to do to progress the story along, so goals are seldom unclear.  You’ll also select places to go on a world map, too.  Once you select a dungeon, you’ll travel through mazes in 3-D space, collecting treasures and encountering enemies.

Once you bump into a monster, a turn-based RPG battle will ensue.  When it is your turn, you can move around the playfield in real time and once you are close enough to an enemy, you can attack or use magic. When you take hits and attack enemies, a tension meter will fill.  When it is full, you can “Fairize” with your fairy, which usually gives you better looking armor and stronger attacks.  But if you use a healing item or run away from battle, your tension meter will drop down again.

While you do gain experience and level up from defeating enemies, there are many other ways to improve your stats more effectively.  You’ll earn weapon points that you can use to upgrade your power, defense, and combo moves.  After defeating certain bosses, you’ll earn special weapons with fairies that you can equip to yourself and level them up for even more power.  And once you get a fairy, you can pull out swords stuck in the Goddess that’ll give your fairies more stat boosts.  But watch out because you’ll usually have to fight some tough enemies when you do that.  You can also pull swords from the dark deity, too, but who’d want to do that?  You’ll also need new fairies to help you find new places on the world map, too.

The game does a good job of explaining the basics to you, but the learning curve is still pretty steep.  Enemies hit hard, experience and gold earned is low, and healing items aren’t as frequent or potent.  Plus the camera angles in the 3-D sections are awful.  But if you are up to the challenge and enjoy other NIS America’s Compile Heart RPGs (or just like anime styled games in general), this is one of the better ones from that company.

Kid Factor:

Fairy Fencer F is rated T for Teen with ESRB descriptors of Blood, Mild Language, Partial Nudity, Suggestive Themes, and Violence.  I didn’t really notice any blood in the game, but you do fight enemies with sword slashes and magic attacks, and they disappear when defeated.  The characters curse from time to time in the text and with spoken voice.  Some of the female characters wear revealing outfits and make innuendos in the text, but it’s all done in a campy anime style.  But because of the reading skill required and high challenge level, it’s best for teens and older gamers anyway.

Tags: Game Reviews