Fairy Fencer F

Game Info

Fairy Fencer F brings us the long-form story of a group of youths – the titular Fencers – who are on a mission to acquire special weapons used in an ultimate good/evil battle at the beginning of time.  To stop you from gaining these weapons – called Furies – are other Fencers, a seemingly-benevolent corporation, and thousands upon thousands of monsters.  Alliterations of the letter F abound – the Furies wielded by Fencers are occupied by Fairies as well.

The game places you as Fang (F!), a lazy cad who becomes a Fencer accidentally while trying to score some free food.  The Fairy that Fang encounters gets him up to speed on the good/evil war, but can’t remember much else.  Simple 2D dialogue scenes push the plot along to dungeons in various overworld spots, which need to be tromped through to reach an end battle.  There’s no real exploration to speak of – even the towns and shops are simple, menu-driven affairs.  There are some simple sidequests and very basic crafting, but these are tacked-on trivialities that just add another few menus to press X through.

The characters are pretty interesting though, and although their antics get a little silly, it’s an enjoyable group of protagonists.  There’s aforementioned Fang, lolita stand-in Tiara, busty scientist Harley, and elongated cat-thing Pippin.  A few others round out the cast, but those four are worth price of admission.  Fang and Tiara have that goofy male/female protagonist vibe that most JRPGs visit.  Harley is the required busty lady who often finds excuses to remove her clothes.  And dear old Pippin, the cat monster with a giant sword stuck in his head (never satisfactorily explained), will nearly always forget what he was talking about.

The combat system is what really stands out here.  Although it’s a turn-based system, positioning and targeting play an important role.  Movement is confined to a small battlefield, and getting behind your opponent will generally deal more damage and have a higher critical hit chance.  Although the enemies can seem overwhelming at first, you’ll soon be able to spend points to generally buff up your people (called weapon boost, and use the first group of points to buy Combo 1 and then send me a polite thank you for telling you that).  Further buffing through other captured fairies, techniques and spells, and the general pace of combat lead each battle to be a generally quick instance.  Boss battles take substantially longer and can get a little weary, but activating your super-buff power – called Fairizing (F!!) – makes your character even stronger.  Want even more speed?  There’s an auto-resolve option for the really lopsided fights, in case you need to run through an early dungeon to collect some items to craft.  It’s refreshing to see that the pace of this game, which can otherwise get bogged down by long stretches of dialogue, gets picked up so quickly during the fighting.

The graphics here are pretty standard JRPG stuff.  You’ve got your anime guys and gals with their half-dozen poses, with cutscenes featuring only very limited animation.  In-engine scenes are few and far between, and are generally pretty surprising when they happen.  Often, conversations are between 2D anime people, wide-eyed and facing the player as they chatter at each other.  Otherwise, battles are sharp and well-animated, although some of the enemies could use better definition.  Finding the backside of a crab monster is essential to do serious damage (since, as before, combat is positional), but it can be tough to figure out which end is which.  Then there are combat cutscenes, which anyone who’s ever played a JRPG knows all about.  Turning into your super form or launching a special attack throws the player into a 5-20 second epilepsy trigger, which are unfortunately unskippable.  While everything else is fine from a graphical standpoint – if a little typical for the genre – I really want to skip those battle cut scenes.  There’s only so many times I can see my lolita girl get stabbed by a glaive before I just want to get on with the otherwise quick-paced, enjoyable combat.

The audio design is very well done in FFF.  Compile Heart has done their usual “J-pop and soundscapes” deal here, so people familiar with the company will feel right at home.  For the uninitiated, these songs are generally catchy, rock-guitar heavy, and feature a few lines in wonky English, such as the opener “Resonant World’s” “[Japanese, Japanese, Japanese] HEY HEY PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!”  Music is generally pretty unobtrusive in dungeons, although it can get a bit loud in spots – thankfully, the options sliders give great control over audio levels.  Battle music is appropriately JRPG, with the heavy guitars shredding like it’s 1983 all over again.  And powering up into your Fairize ability cranks it all up significantly, letting everyone within earshot know you’re about to lay down the smack.

As with all of these games, let’s dive right into the touchy subs/dubs subject.  I’m extremely satisfied to report that both sides of the argument get what they want here – though dubs is the default option, you can change it over to the original Japanese voices at any point in the game.  Though this isn’t a true “subtitles” experience – there are no subs for in-battle exclamations, for example – the text-heavy nature of the RPG lends itself to a reasonable compromise.  Plus, if you’re someone who reads faster than the voice actors are speaking, the foreign language lets you skip ahead with out too many jarring aural issues.  Though most people will either leave it as the default, I think it’s a nice, detailed touch to the audio of the game.  Put down your pitchforks, purists, there’s something for everyone.

Fairy Fencer F may seem like another JRPG, slapping us all in the face with anime girls, robot/bug monsters, and lots of flashing battle screens to freak out your cat.  It may seem like a fanservice title, meant to appeal to people who’ve already played all the Hyperdimension Neptunia games, who love the weird, silly dialogue in Disgaea, who enjoy grinding out character levels for playtimes in the hundreds of hours.  And truly, Fairy Fencer F is all these things.  It is also a mirror to the target audience it attracts.  A tired, listless male teen who loves good food and eschews hard work in favor of lounging, who is thrust into the battle of a lifetime by attractive girls who hang on his every word.  It’s dream escapism at its highest level, a deeply subversive Mary Sue device that is masked by a straightforward plot and a peppy combat system.  This audience – you, me, the thousands who made the pre-orders – has been laser-targeted by Compile Heart and NISA.  It offers no deep thought, no “nature of man” stuff.  Just menus, subquests, and jiggle physics.  I would say this is the culmination of a genre, but of course we’ll all be preordering “Fairy Fencer F2 – Hyper Fun! Edition” in about a year, so I suppose we’ll be back down this path again.  And although this path is well-worn, it’s a fun, familiar one that’s worth the meander every once in a while.

The Recommendation

If you’re a fan of the HyperDimension series, or really any of Compile Heart’s other works, chances are you already own this game.  It’s one we’ve seen before – save the world, anime girls, all that stuff.  And although it won’t win any awards for originality, it is a fun, quirky JRPG that is worth the playthrough if you’ve got the time.