Fairy tail di Hiro Mashima it is certainly one of the most interesting shonen manga on the market, precisely for this reason its videogame counterpart had aroused so much interest, since its style perfectly suited to the characteristics of the various Japanese-style role-playing games. We waited for it, we wanted it and in the end here we are, taking stock of what, in the end, turned out to be yet another wasted opportunity to make the transposition of a manga on console shine. Be clear, the game is not bad in its entirety, fans will certainly find bread for their teeth, but what the title lacks is a soul of its own, given that it strengthens classic play solutions, not very inspired and developed in a not exactly in-depth way. The end result is a fairly chaotic work, which manages to guide the player to its conclusion, but does so through trite moments, without offering something new during the progression, both in terms of gameplay and in terms of game design. . The product certainly did not aim to be a must of its kind of reference, but it certainly comes out very subdued compared to other competitors.
The final result is likely to be appreciated only by fans of the manga (to which it is clearly dedicated), or to the more hardcore lovers of role-playing games. The title also has some interesting ideas inside, but remains stuck on game design canons stopped about 10 years ago, without the slightest interest in packaging for shonen fans a product capable not only of being evocative in the collective imagination, but also satisfying.
It starts in the middle
Although Fairy Tail found its end in 2017, in this game you will start about halfway. Basically this could already be a problem, since it is unlikely that those who have not read the manga will be able to fully enjoy the plot, due to natural narrative gaps. The famous clash on the Island of Tenro will basically represent the game tutorial, however, to the detriment of the spectacularity that those sequences have given during the manga. Once everything is done, there will be a time gap of the beauty of seven years, from which the adventure will officially begin. Due to events that we do not want to spoil you, the famous Fairy Tail guild has fallen from grace, and that's your job to bring it back to the glories of the past, mission after mission.
We do not want to add anything else to the narrative premises, given that the game itself is quite generous in providing plot and details. Let's repeat one important thing though: the choice to make the beginning of the game coincide with the real change of pace of the manga is absurd, since it is a move in favor only of the most assiduous fans of the work, forcing anyone who wants to approach for the first. aimed at the series to be attacked by spoilers of all kinds, even particularly important ones. It is not a choice that we share, given that for Fairy Tail it is the first approach to real consoles. To undermine it all, of course, the lack of any kind of Spanish text also takes care of it, which adds another barrier to those who want to discover this beautiful shonen.
Fire in the hands
Before delving into the various game dynamics, it is right to talk about the gameplay, so as to first have a general overview of the work. The team's choice was to master the shonen component in a turn-based combat system, which should thus give free rein to the powers of the various protagonists, unlocking combined moves, special attacks and more. This leads to a range of healing, offensive or buff spells, forcing the user to change approach depending on the enemies and their positioning in the field. To give more spice to the clashes, a tactical component has also been included, which transforms the battlefield into a chessboard: this naturally forces the player to make choices, which gradually prove to be fatal as regards the progress of the fight.
The game interface guarantees the user a maximum understanding of what is happening on the screen, also marking the effectiveness and weakness of a specific attack on a particular enemy. During the fights a special command will be filled, which once at its peak can be discharged with a powerful team attack: this blow can drastically change the outcome of battles, freeing the player from really tangled situations. As you progress in the game and complete specific missions, you will increase the degree of affinity with your companions, thus opening up other advantageous situations during the clashes.
Confessions
Net of what has been said so far, there are situations that the development team has not been able to master at best. First of all, although Fairy Tail gives the user the ability to control different characters in some clips, the excessive linearity and monotony of the missions completely kills the sense of progression. giving the impression of having already seen everything after a few hours struggling with the adventure. Quest of hunting, gathering and research, all culminating in an inevitable series of confrontations, too redundant in the long run to keep the player glued. The fun dies down, and the development of the guild is of little use, which gives an excellent starting point but which should have been exploited to the fullest. In fact, if the equipment of the characters is limited to objects to be assigned, giving only a mere statistical increase and nothing more, the guild is the real nucleus to increase if you want to continue in the story.
Here too, however, the game sobs, offering interesting ideas as already mentioned but which have not been developed to their full potential: from the beginning you can invest money on your guild, increasing everything with shops and rooms that will guarantee you access to better and better items and missions. To level a certain aspect of the guild, however, you will not only have to have the pecuniary, but also complete the related mission. Although the choice of guiding the player by hand to each quest with the appropriate marker is optimal ("optimal" because the language barrier could be a wall for many), everything ends up being solely and exclusively an execution of very specific orders and commands, without the possibility of really going off the rails and discovering something relatively interesting. In fact, if the main quest is justified by a certain linearity, the secondary missions are really of little impact on the whole experience, resulting in a mere filler and nothing more.
The guild itself then has a scoring system, the player can assign these points to the various characters, increasing their fighting skills, through bonuses of various kinds such as the ability to unlock a slot for equipment. Although at first this is a good way to increase the strength of the protagonists, in the long run you will necessarily have to choose who to improve at the expense of others.
Latest conclusions
The game world of Fairy Tail is made up of macro areas, a bit 'to the Dragon Quest XI but with the necessary distances, all differentiated and capable of paying homage to the imagery created within the manga. However, even in this case, we found little balance in the various areas: if some evocative areas were treated with more careful care, others perhaps considered secondary were left a lot to chance, resulting bare and not very memorable. Even on a technical level there is certainly no cry for a miracle, everything is in line with what has been seen in other productions of this genre (we refer to tie-ins) but it is very little to amaze even the most accommodating fans. Certainly the work did not aim at this, but between turn-based clashes, poorly characterized enemies, uninspired landscapes, everything is static and not at all effective, since it is practically limited to a "background" to be crossed between an area and the other one.
In conclusion, what Fairy Tail has done is certainly not a great job, since it is not enough to take a successful brand and propose it again in a playful sauce. We have seen plenty of tie-up shonen in recent years, done in different ways and styles. This work tries to have its say, but despite the good expectations on the title that I also personally had, on balance what you are going to buy will be a role-playing game not particularly up to the level from a playful point of view. If you are a fan of this kind of products you will end the experience anyway satisfied, but I do not deny that completing it in some cases could be particularly hard. The quests are monotonous, the progression is not satisfying, the story is what it is, if you know it you will not be surprised, if instead this is your first approach to the work of Hiro Mashima you will be strangers to some concepts or explanations. Too bad, and we say it with our hearts in our hands, reiterating that at least at the beginning the conditions for an excellent game were all there. Despite this, however, it must be said that the software house has shown some particularly nice ideas, which in the future should be taken up and deepened.
Net of the problems of the game, however, we believe that the experience in its entirety is still able to satisfy fans of the genre, for fans of the manga instead it will be more a pleasant ride in the memories. However we hope that what we have seen is only a starting point, a way to perfect and frame the productions of this style, since we believe that the path taken, in part, could prove to be the right one. Also, very importantly, some problems we encountered on a technical level will be fixed with an update when the title is released.
