Every now and then, it’s nice to have a good cheeseburger. Just a good one. Not one of those fancy burgers that come with everything but the kitchen sink, or those made out of some specially treated beef, but just the bog-standard and no-frills patty that you can get at just about any fast food joint. Part of the appeal is that you know exactly what you’re getting out of the experience; it’s cheap, easy, tastes reasonably good, and doesn’t cost a ton. Fairy Tail – the newest video game adaptation of the popular anime series – is the video game equivalent of that cheap cheeseburger. It’s unambitious and fails to make much of an impression, but it never presumed to do so. It does almost nothing to set itself apart from its genre peers, but you also know what you’re getting if you choose to pick it up. Fairy Tail was clearly never meant to be a game that shoots for the stars, and while it doesn’t make any egregious mistakes in the experience it offers, there’s very little here to spur excitement or high praise.
The story picks up in the final act of the Tenrou arc, which sees the guild experiencing a seven-year time skip that leads to their beloved reputation being completely dismantled. Buried in debt and mostly forgotten by the community, Fairy Tail needs to re-establish itself as the best guild around while also forging a new path forward for themselves. On one hand, it’s a good idea to start off the game’s story here as the whole idea of the guild needing to ‘rebuild’ gives a reasonable explanation for why all these developed characters have to start from the bottom again. On the other hand, newcomers without any background with the anime or manga will be completely lost as to what’s going on.
Aside from blink-and-you-miss-it name cards that appear next to each character in the beginning, you’re given almost no introduction for the events that are unfolding. You don’t know who any of the characters are, how they know each other, what the rules for this world are, or any other myriad information that would be useful for connecting with the story. An in-game encyclopedia you can later access does give a reasonable summary of much of these details, but an extensive lore dump is hardly an elegant means of filling you in on the story and even this doesn’t cover all the details. To say the least, Gust made this game with pre-existing fans of the franchise in mind; if you don’t fall into that category, prepare to have a confusing time.
So, newcomers are pretty much just ignored by the narrative but what of the longtime series fans? Unfortunately, they aren’t properly catered to, either, as the arcs covered here are condensed and distilled down to their most basic elements. The broad strokes are covered well and you can get the basic gist of the story, but it moves at a rather jarring and breakneck pace that seldom leaves room for organic narrative progression and character development. Yet, even given these shortcomings, it’s difficult to be too disappointed in the story on offer here. Despite the notable mistakes made, it remains mostly coherent and has all the typical goofy anime trappings that you’d expect. So long as you don’t come into Fairy Tail expecting an exceptionally well-written and engaging storyline, you’ll probably be satisfied with the passable effort that’s made here.
Gameplay follows the structure of a quest-based JRPG, with the majority of your experience consisting of the missions and bounties that you pick up from the board in the Fairy Tail guild hall. These are posted there by the residents of the community and mostly consist of basic fetch quests and tasks that offer up small rewards in money, experience, and items. Completing these will also raise the guild’s rank, which has the knock-on effect of slowly granting you access to higher-level quests and more upgrades for the facilities around the guildhall. For example, Lisanna runs a shop in which you can buy various items to help you out in battle, and upgrading the shop allows you to buy a wider variety of stronger goods.
Character progression remains mostly static, but there are some light means of giving the player greater control over how each character develops. For example, there’s an almost Persona-like social system between the characters you can have on your team, and running missions together will allow characters to build their relationships. Not only does this lead to new story cutscenes, but it also grants each character new passive buffs to bolster their battle prowess all the more. On top of this, you can also equip different Lacrima crystals to each character, each of which will grant various stat bonuses to further differentiate how that character is used in battle. It’s a little disappointing that there aren’t any skill trees or more advanced mechanics to give you greater control over character growth, but what’s here is satisfying enough to keep you engaged for a while.
Combat is turn-based and follows all the expected conventions. Each character has a litany of spells at their disposal with various elemental effects—such as how Natsu is a master of fire attacks—and enemies will take more or less damage depending on their elemental weaknesses and resistances. Having a well-balanced team with plenty of elemental coverage is a must, then, but an interesting twist with combat here is how great emphasis is placed on managing your enemy’s side of the battlefield. Enemies are positioned on a 3x3 grid, and each of your team member’s spells have a different ‘shape’ for their area of effect. So, when picking each character’s move, you often have to take into account how many enemies you can potentially hit with it. Some moves might even force enemies to move to specific tiles, so you can have one character work to corral them all in the right positions so another character can knock them all down in one shot.
Things are complicated even further by various supplementary buffs, such as how every party member’s attacks will collectively fill a gauge that can unleash a multi-member chain attack once filled, or how each character has a temporarily triggered “Awakened” mode where they change form and receive various powerful stat buffs and new spells. Elements such as these, combined with the focus on positioning your enemies right, can make for some nicely multi-layered fights, although this neutered a bit by the rather breezy difficulty of Fairy Tail.
Even if you ignore most of the side quests and sprint through just the required content for progressing the story, it’s fair to say that not many obstacles you encounter will stand up for very long before the unstoppable power of your team. If you do engage with the side content, that already yawning gap in power will only widen all the more. This is a plus for those who just want the power trip or aren’t too experienced with RPG’s, but it also has the effect of hamstringing the potential that the fundamentally well-made combat system has to offer. Sure it somewhat matters that you balance your team and be mindful of where your attacks are landing, but we seldom felt like the game was properly applying the kind of soft pressure necessary to encourage the player to engage with the full extent of the combat system.
In terms of presentation, Fairy Tail employs a wonderfully detailed art style that, unfortunately, is undermined by issues with poor performance. Character models are fittingly high definition and nicely animated, and though the environment design itself is a little uninspired, it’s little details like the accurate shadows cast by your characters that highlight Gust’s attention to detail. That’s to say nothing of the bombastic and over the top magic attacks your characters can use in battle, which often light the screen up with a tremendous display of multicoloured fireworks. That being said, the focus on excellent models and flashy details comes at the cost of the general experience itself. Whether you’re playing in docked or handheld mode, Fairy Tail runs pretty much constantly in the 15-20FPS range, with some dips going even lower when there’s a particularly theatrical attack used. Suffice to say, it looks far less than smooth no matter how you slice it, which gives Fairy Tail an overall sloppy feel.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, Fairy Tail is not a great RPG. Shortcomings in storytelling, pacing, difficulty, and performance all add up to make for a less than stellar experience which consistently seems to waste its potential. The well-made combat system and the adherence to the tone and content of the source material give occasional glimpses of the much greater RPG that Fairy Tail could be, but alas, it’s never really given the chance to spread its wings. We wouldn’t recommend you pick this one up, especially given the wealth of excellent RPGs available on the eShop right now, but we say that with the caveat that fans of the franchise will get a lot more out of this game than newcomers. If you happen to be a fan, Fairy Tail might be worth the punt if it’s on sale someday, but otherwise, we’d encourage you to look into other games.
Comments 62
Another anime game you guys hate? Shocking...
Are you out of touch?
No, it's the anime who are wrong.
My son is a huge Fairy Tail fan. Safe to say it's his favorite anime.
I showed him footage of the game and he said 'meh, not interested'. He digs some turn based RPGs, so I don't think that was it. Something about it looked bland to him. As for me, I dunno, I like RPGs and I like FT's character designs, so I might give it a go when it's on sale, or just rent it when I can.
I followed the anime series so have this on my wishlist. Shame it hasn't reviewed well here.
I was hoping it was at least like the SAO & Kill la Kill game that reviewed at 7/10 on this site.
I think it is averaging about 70% overall on the Switch and PS4 across the reviewers so far though.
They would NOT recommend we pick this up, but still give it a 6? I only read the Conclusion and Pros/Cons, but the score doesn't seem to fit with their non-recommendation.
As I like casual games too easy isn't a con to me.
And yet, in deadly premonition, an abysmal framrate was an asset 😆🤣
The cons are pretty much what I don't want to see in a review for a JRPG. Story is very important for a JRPG and any lack in that department must be made up by with compelling and challenging gameplay. An easy JRPG with no worthwhile story is just a complete waste of time, like with Pokemon Sword and Shield. That being said I've never even watched Fairy Tail so this wasn't exactly on my radar in the first place.
CONS: Price is €70 (€10 more than the usual higher price of Nintendo Switch games apart from a few like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild).
@Cosats and add in usual con koi dlc on top of the expensive price tag. how much was the bioshock collection lol
No English dub as well right?
@MindfulGamer What the hell are you talking about? A 6/10 game is not something you should recommend to people. Especially when it's a €70 game...
for an anime game , not too bad
I wish they instead ported the Portable Guild Trilogy. Great games despite the awful graphics.
@Rika_Yoshitake either that or that most anime games are very low quality
prolly the second
Looks like this Fairy Tail didn't live happily ever after 😁
Got on ps4 and it's a fun game especially if you already know the world and characters. Can't say I've noticed any performance issues though
@MindfulGamer If they gave it any lower, certain people in this comment section would moan about it. I don’t know what they expect, licensed anime games have been crap since time began, I could name on one hand the actual decent ones.
Under normal circumstances I would say "oh look anime review on NL getting a low score"
Sadly I played this... and ouch is it bad.
I have the PC version, so the known performance issues Switch (and PS4) have did not apply, but the game looks crap and is crap, and even if you are a TRUE Fairy Tail FAN... spare yourself a torture and waste of money, because this is beyond bad, and not even good bad but bad bad.
Only for people who are fans of the series, waste money on terrible games, have too much time and are fine with bad performance (or have a PC)
I'd be more interested if it used something other than turn-based battles. That kind of gameplay never appealed to me.
It's funny, this is an anime tie-in that sucks and is for fans only... I've never seen a minute of Sword Art Online, but LOVE fatal bullet. Then again... FB doesn't have the performance issues... and provides some real challenges, that welcomes various play styles.
This game has too many flaws to have a 6. And there are plenty of other games of the same type that does much better than this one...
I recommend to buy it when it gets a major discount, and they fix the big issues this game has
@Rika_Yoshitake well it's a licensed game, never have expectations for those
As a big anime fan, I could never get into fairy tail. Too much fanservice
Shakes head at the people complaining about the voices being in Japanese !!
"we’d encourage you to look into other games"
I have Dragon Quest XI S, Brave Dungeon + Dark Witch's Story: COMBAT, Bug Fables, and Atelier Lulua for my RPG needs, so I'm good.
...but in all seriousness, wow. I'm quite staggered at this game's problems, especially considering that this was developed in the hands of Gust, who also gave us some great Atelier games (I rarely saw any performance issues for Atelier Lydie & Suelle, and I say this as someone who have lived through the launch state of Super Bomberman R in the same department).
"- Too Easy"
Eh, this is purely subjective to any game. Kirby Star Allies, Super Mario Odyssey (main story), and even Animal Crossing: New Horizons were too easy, yet they were some of the best Switch games I ever played. On the flipside there's Fire Emblem Warriors, Adventure Pals, and Yoshi's Crafted World, all of which I felt could've have something else to forgive their low difficulties.
@BenAV Narratively, the game supposes knowledge of the franchise. If you've read the manga or watched the anime, I think it would heavily impact your enjoyment of the story. For better or worse, it's tailored to existing fans.
@Cosats In the US, it's standard MSRP of $60, like all new games. There aren't tiered prices of more expensive games.
Why this mediocre game cost €70? Does it come with a Lucy 10 inch doll something?
It runs like crap on Switch. I mean that is with little AA, poor textures and water that is just a blue blob.
Seemed decent to me for what I played. But I have zero need to play a broken game.. This went back to GameFly in a flash. Would have been upset if actually payed $60 for this.
@dimi no Idea, in my country it's €69.99 on eshop but all physical copies are sold for €49.99 (prices are same on PS4 BTW)
@aznable but most Sword Art games are fun or solid (played them all, best one in my opinion is Hollow Realization)
Im a fan of the show & I was looking forward to the game. Review is about what I expected, based on past anime adaptations. Probably grab this when it eventually goes on sale on the eShop.
Too much water...
@Deltath Great to know that the US price is 60 dollars. It is usually €60 in Europe. I don't know what made them think that releasing this game even mοre expensive in Europe (€70) would be a wise decision.
turn base f*ck this.
@Rayquaza2510 Understood... NL still rated FB at a 5 or something. Coming to the series totally blind, FB holds up for me. I think I like it because it reminds me so much of PSO on dreamcast. Strange... PSO had far fewer guns...
@Agramonte
I can say this- it most definitely looks great on Switch. As you can see here on my own system. About as good as one could expect for a handheld entry of a console game. Ya there’s a bit of jaggies but nowhere near the level of some other games. In fact it’s hardly even noticeable in handheld.
The visuals are beyond reproach. If this doesn’t look good enough then handheld gaming probably just isn’t your jam.
The real issue, is the frame rate, and yes, it’s choppy. Not unplayable but, borderline unplayable. Well, I shouldn’t say that. It’s playable. It’s just not enjoyable because goodness, I can’t even turn the camera without it stuttering. And that’s standing still.
Overall I expect better from Gust, especially after the excellent Atelier Ryza Switch release. They should have sacrificed some of the visual quality, bumped down the resolution to 600p in handheld- I’d say 540p starts becoming noticeable, but 600p seems to look pretty similar to 720p, perhaps because that’s the threshold where the image becomes crisp enough to not notice. I’ve done a lot of experimentation running Persona 4 Golden and Paper Mario Thousand Year Door on my Win 2 handheld. 600p is a great sweet spot where you retain the crisp look of 720p while saving a nice bit on performance.
@Cosats Honestly, it should be €50, since that's equal to $60. I don't understand why they even have a €70 price point for anything. That's too bad.
Well, I am a fan of the series, so the storytelling issues aren't a problem for me. If they explained every story beat, then the game would get dragged down by lengthy cutscenes full of dialogue. (Or they'd have to cut out the Tartaros Arc, arguably the best arc in the entire series.) Since I already know what happens, the enjoyment comes from being able to actually play out the big moments, while my mind easily fills in the minor gaps in the story.
On another note, a licensed game like this shouldn't allow large control over character growth. The game would either have to significantly break canon by inventing techniques on alternate growth paths, or you'd be unable to use all of the character's most notable techniques on a single playthrough. For example, I don't want Natsu to be given something like Iron-Flame Dragon Mode that didn't exist in canon, nor do I want to be forced to choose between potentially learning Lightning-Flame Dragon Mode or Dragon Force but not both. Besides, there are 15 playable wizards with all different styles of magic, so such variety in individual character growth isn't even needed in the first place.
By the way, you guys do know that the game has multiple difficulty levels, right? If it was too easy, then play on a harder setting.
Overall, this sounds like a very good game, and it's gotten mostly good reviews elsewhere. The performance issues are the only major issue I see here, so add to future Wishlist...
@dBackLash 6/10 here means it's a little above average and a light recommendation to fans of the genre. So yes, the score does imply that JRPG fans, especially "Fairy Tail" fans, may enjoy the game, but that's strangely at odds with what is written in the conclusion.
Shame, I already bought it. I’m a fan tho, and I’m sure I’ll get enough out of it.
I liked the anime but that's exactly why I would never even thouch a horrible mock off like this. It would just tarnish my memories of the series. This is just stereotypical money grap license game who no one except the most blind fans would like. If they wanted to make a universally good Fairy Tail game, I think they should have followed the example of some of the best license games like Batman Arkham series and made it original content.
@aznable You should give Sword Art anime a try. One of the very few anime I could watch start to finish and it had pretty much no cringe whatsoever. The Fatal Bullet arc was really cool. I usually try to like an anime but get irritated quickly by many things, but SAO was an exception for me.
That's slightly disappointing. To be fair, I wasn't going to pick it up either way but I hoped that it would be a good game
Disappointing translates to not bad. 🤔
Still interested in this, but will wait for a decent discount.
@Daniel36 Wow, that's surprising to hear, since SAO is one of those series with a huge broken base. I've enjoyed it (although I've yet to find time to watch "Alizitication" or however you spell it), and even I'll admit that the early side-story episodes (after the first level boss and before Asuna becomes a prominent character) drag the series down quite a bit, and the Alfheim Online Arc is pretty cringy in places.
Imagine a world with consistently great anime video games...
Oh well, at least a lot of the Naruto, DBZ and One Piece games have been great. After finishing the anime a great Fairy Tail game would've been nice. I wish studios would work harder on these types of games. Don't the publishers want those huge sales? The more you put in, the more you get out.
And yeah, perhaps Nintendo Life isn't super into anime games, you'd think they'd have at least one anime fan to review games like this, lol, but if the cons are accurate I'll still avoid this game and wait for an anime game that's not just average.
@BulbasaurusRex yeah Alfheim was kinda lame. I'll give you that. But I loved the first two seasons personally.
But I am not your average anime fan I suppose. I look for other things in my fantasy and anime... which is why I like so few of them.
@JaxonH That is the battle screen. It is what looks best by far, because character models looks like where they spent most of their time on.
It takes two sec in town to notice all the cuts. And my point was not if it looked "good enough" for a handheld game - but that even with all the low settings looking stuff, it still does not run well. Not sure if resolution would even fix it, this is not pushing the Switch to the limits. Something is just broken.
Still interested but disappointed that two of my most wanted game franchises decided on shaky foundations. Fairy tail as jrpg isnt a bad idea but come on fairy tail needs to be a co op action for max appeal.
A warriors style or hunter lite game would have been more appealing for me. That said the social systems and other gameplay tweaks this game adds to the game proves not every licensed game has to be made by koei tecmo and capcom.
Still I've been very disappointed this is turn based and we finally get a new zoids game but unfortunately its seems more like a fighting game than action strategy game. Pirate warriors 4 isn't perfect and doesn't run perfectly on switch but it is so fun
@Agramonte
I dont understand seeing games like Sniper Elite v3, Assassins Creed 4 Black Flag, Metro Redux, Zelda BotW, Saint's Row 4, etc looking way more graphically intense, with solid framerates, yet these JRPGs struggle like it's running on a 3DS.
@JaxonH Or Crisis. I do not know. I can understand if Ryza or Dragon Quest have a few slow downs on Switch - but this? Windows are just flat gradients. NPCs are just standing still, they not even walking around town like in the Naruto trilogy - I do not remember that bogging down like this.
I know nothing about the anime/manga picked it up as a rpg experience and enjoyed it. Played mostly on handheld looks good considering the limitations it’s under.
Didn't this game cam out on PS4 also? I heard that one got censored, was the Switch version left intact?
I have it on PS4, so I can't speak to how it performs on Switch, but I think it's a solid game overall. It's a nice throwback JRPG that doesn't try to innovate or break the mold but does the tried and true formula pretty well. The difficulty issue is mitigated if you play on hard and don't grind like a maniac. The storytelling is fine once it gets past the clunky intro, which is bound to confuse series newcomers. The rest of the problems stem from the low budget Gust games always receive, but I don't think any of them ruin the game. Lack of enemy variety is probably the biggest offender IMO, but I wasn't bothered too much by it. Now, the inevitable onslaught of overpriced DLC that Koei Tecmo is going to put out? That's going to suck.
@Valtiel wait koei tecmo made this, triple picard facepalm,(referring to something I said in my original post not knowing KT made or published game)and its still not warriors game, quadruple Worf facepalm.
i've bought it, having been a fan of the anime and i love it. If u watch the anime i'm sure you will as well.
I lost interest once I saw the 50 dollar season pass that includes nothing basically.
Shame I love Fairy Tail. I'll wait for it to be 5 dollars in a month or two.
I disagree. In 2020 we got a fairy tail game for the switch and that's pretty great in itself. Natsu is energetic and carefree as ever finding cany in barrels and offering to send happy fish in the mail, and happy and carla are super small which is adorable. Honestly with as grim as 2020 has been with all the deaths,violence and financial hardships I was more than happy to pay top dollar for a fairy tail game. The fruit and vegetable graphics are hilarious. I still cant figure out if the stemmed things are apples or small melons. Anyway the characters are very true to their origins and although we didn't get an english dub version which I would have loved I did jump out of my seat to see juvia. It's a start. Sure there is a lot more they could have done with it,but I'm happy just to play it. For what it is it still has a lot of good points. And as for being too easy pokemon and dbz games are too easy but fans still get enjoyment out of them.
I'm a bit fan of JRPGs, and I believe this game deserves more a 7/10. Apart from that, this would serve as a perfect introduction to the series for me. Hopefully I get it one day.
But the graphics...? Sometimes I wonder if Koei Tecmo makes these downgrades to its games intentional to distinguish it from its PS4 versions, and not make these ones useless as they lack portability. The only exceptions I see to this are Atelier Ryza and Warriors Orochi 4.
Easy because you should have tried Hard and you'll see that you will die like crazy, I am pretty sure that on hard everbody dies the first time they face Jellal, and that is still early in the game. Performace on Switch Light is PERFECT, zero issues. It makes me wonder on which Switch you played. Story, it's very interesting even for a nonfan to the anime and really I have played 200+ RPGs and this is one of the best games touching the start/intro of the game, many RPGs start with the protagonist on a bed awaking or in a house etc. The gameplay is superb, your review does not do justice to the game. It should be around 8.5.
@PlusUltra if you like button smashing than you need to look elsewhere, although this game has button smashing in battles for the chains etc. It is a very good game and some people like I really love turnbased RPGs. Alas Sqenix messed up the FF series, these are not traditional TBs anymore, good ol'times.
Tap here to load 62 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...