Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force

Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force was originally released on Playstation 4  in Europe on July, 2016 and on Windows via Steam on February 2017. This is a remastering of the original game Fairy Fencer F released on Playstation 3 on September 19, 2014.

The remastering boasts improved graphics, larger fights, additional storyline and new ending for the cast of characters. The additional storyline includes two alternative endings and the route to those endings become clearer a few hours into the game.

You play as Fang, the main protagonist of the game who comes across a sword which he is lead to believe will grant him any wish. He is very quickly proved wrong. As he pulls the sword from the ground he is met by Eryn, a fairy who resides within the blade and informs him that he is a Fencer and pushes him into an adventure to collect furies needed to revive the Goddess and bring peace to the land.

The game presents you with a map and you pick and choose which location you head to, however there is a spin on this simple mechanic. As you’re adventuring around trying to collect furies, you are required to stab them into the ground to allow you entry into any new dungeon. As you collect furies on your adventure, they all come with their own rank and abilities. This mechanic allows your to break up some of the monotony of the dungeons layouts. You can increase each dungeon’s difficulty or make them easier or ensure that you will get bonus exp/gold/mp.

WP, or weapon points, is a currency you gain after winning battles. You can use these points to unlock new skills and abilities for your characters to use in battle.

Zelwinds City is your main port of call, here you will be able to buy equipment, consumables, continue the games story or talk to NPCs – normally these side characters don’t really have a lot of substance to them and break the fourth wall.

Combat is what you would expect from a COMPILE HEART game. Your characters are allowed to roam across the battlefield and position themselves before they attack. Your team do more damage if you can position yourself behind the enemy, but you run the risk of grouping your team up and being hit by area-of-effect abilities.

Your characters have, what is essentially a limit break bar. As this builds up your character can perform a special action called Fairize. When you use this command your character fuzes with their Fairy. Your characters stats increase, making them A LOT stronger throughout that battle, you gain a few new abilities and the music transitions into J-ROCK. It’s pretty awesome. The transformed character also dons a mech suit – It’s very anime.

Final Thoughts

I have enjoyed my time with Fairy Fencer F and this is down to the fact I never played the original game. There are a plethora of comparisons on the steam community right now and the game really is enhanced over the original.

If you have played any title developed by IDEA FACTORY and COMPILE HEART then you are already prepared for the grind and repetition. If that is something that you enjoy, or enjoy the grind to make your characters overpowered then you’re going to love any of these games.

While in some of my previous reviews I have slated the ancient way of displaying narrative in videogames, the art of using silhouettes with voiceovers. I don’t know what it is, but within this title I’ve enjoyed it. The characters are breathing, there’s motion and everything is so colourful. There are cutscenes here and there but the quality of the video is lower than everything else in the game and this could be due to the game previously being developed for PS3.

I found that through my playthrough, I was having some difficulty with controlling my characters outside of battle as movement felt really stiff and I would imagine that the original release of the game played very much the same way… With that being said, when you’re in combat everything feels really fast, responsive and fluid.

In the early hours of the game, I really wasn’t enjoying the combat. It felt really slow and very basic. When I was able to start unlocking abilities and upgrading my characters I found that I was able to extend my turn, increasing the attacks I do and actually creating combos. I’m sure that there is a meta, what skills are best to be used but I found myself really enjoying the combat and the sheer amount of customization I had over my characters and the actions they performed in battle.

Overall, I have enjoyed my time with Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force and I am glad I didn’t buy the original version of the game. I would say that this is one of the weaker JRPGS in the developers catalog but if you’re itching for some JRPG gameplay then I would definitely recommend you pick this game up.

 

Verdict

7/10