FAIRY TAIL was certainly a successful work not only in Japan, but also in the rest of the world, where both the anime and the manga are particularly appreciated. This was demonstrated by the incredible reception of the announcement made a few months ago for the arrival of a JRPG dedicated to the fatigue of Hiro Mashima. The title will be published by Koei Tecmo and developed by Gust, who has really developed many of JRPG, starting with his most famous series, namely Atelier.
Since we are talking about a franchise born in 2006 and which still lives thanks to sequels and spin-offs, it is certainly not the first video game dedicated to the saga but, after a lot of parentheses for laptops and mobile, it is the first iteration on some of the main consoles on the market, namely PC, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.
In these cases the risk of having a classic and banal Musou is always around the corner, given that we are talking about the Koei Tecmo label, and this is probably also the reason why the attention towards this title is particularly high, considering that nature JRPG lends itself well to the context of Fairy Tail made of dragons, spells and many characters with unique peculiarities.
The plot designed for this game will be almost totally original and supervised by Mashima himself, who at the moment said he was satisfied with the result. The events that we will follow will be posthumous to the 7-year timeskip that all fans know, following the deeds of Natsu and the whole Fairy Tail guild as they train for the famous tournament of the Great Games of Magic. This is a simple and effective idea, because it is perhaps the ideal point of the story to build an unprecedented adventure and that foresees a "new growth" of the characters, given the context.
The demo we tried, lasting about 20 minutes, allowed us to take our first steps in the Fiore area, where Natsu & co. are looking for an ideal area to train for the tournament. This area wants it to be a beach, a great place to bring to life the classic and renowned Fairy Tail fan service, since it wouldn't be so without the sight of a Lucy or Elsa at least in a bathing suit.
On the way to the beach you will face monsters, which can be attacked in advance to earn a priority turn.
Well yes, if you didn't already know, Fairy Tail will be a turn-based jrpg, through which you can decide the actions of each of the three members of the party. In the demo we only had Natsu, Lucy and Elsa available, but at the moment many other characters have already been confirmed like Gray or Wendy or even others from other guilds outside of Fairy Tail like Sting and Rogue.
The commands available at each turn will be 4: the classic Attack, Spells, Defense and Objects, where by magic we mean all the peculiar abilities that each character can use. For example, in the case of Natsu, he will have all his fire-type attacks (including breaths) available, while Lucy will be able to summon the spirits of the Zodiac and Elsa will be able to use the powers of her armor.
Each ability can have different nature and effects, the effectiveness of which obviously depends on the characteristics of the enemy, which in turn can have resistances or weaknesses to certain types of attacks. In addition, there is also a question of scope, since unlike the party members we will use in battle, the enemies will be scattered in a 3 × 3 grid and therefore it will be important to use the right attacks to hit as many opponents as possible in a one shot.
By eliminating enemies we will get orbs that will make the characters recover MP, points necessary to perform any technique that is not the simple basic attack.
As you continue to attack or take damage, you will notice an increase in the lower right corner bar with the symbol of Fairy Tail which, once filled, will allow you to perform a special attack combo in sequence involving all party members. The greater the effectiveness of these attacks, the greater the experience point bonus that will be obtained at the end of the fight. Experience points that, of course, will allow you to level up the characters who will upgrade and acquire new skills.
We noticed that in addition to the level you also go up in Rank, but it was not possible for us to understand what it is.
On the gameplay side, therefore, nothing new for those who eat bread and JRPG and this perhaps could prove to be a double-edged sword, but without putting your hand to advanced stages of the game, it is too early to make a decision in this regard.
The exploration of the Fiore area was rather linear and in line with Gust's games, so don't expect level designs particularly inspired by dungeons and even less by cities. There are the classic crossroads to get treasures from the chests or collect hidden objects, the usefulness of which is not yet known. Let's assume some sort of crafting in order to upgrade and manage the Guild. In fact, we know that a management component will be present, but we have not had the opportunity to test it.
Also the technical level leaves something to be desired or, at least, it reflects the standards of Gust productions. Although you can attack or jump, there is no interactivity with the game environment and areas tend to repeat themselves from zone to zone. There isn't even a world map as you might have expected, as the world of Magnolia can be explored via a location selection menu.
Net of these limitations, the feeling is quite positive: if you are a lover of the Fairy Tail series it is easy for the game to catch you and keep you glued to the screen, also because there are still a lot of contents and features that there has been no way to discover and reveal. JRPG nature goes well with the world of Fairy Tail and helps a lot in immersion and in adding value to the work. Speaking of which, even the music didn't seem so bad to us and they do their job.
There is time to improve, the game will arrive in an unannounced month of 2020. If to support all this there will also be an interesting plot and full-bodied content, it is possible that this Fairy Tail by Koei Tecmo and Gust can start to a new series of JRPG-themed Tie In that we sincerely would like to clear customs, finally giving a healthy alternative to the numerous (too many) Musou we have seen in the past.
► FAIRY TAIL is an RPG type game developed by Gust Co. Ltd. and published by Koei Tecmo for Nintendo Switch, PC and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 30/07/2020
FAIRY TAIL is a nice game that we recommend: we decided to evaluate it with a 69%, if you are interested in learning more you can read the FAIRY TAIL Review
