Licensed games often don’t deliver. That’s been a constant truth for decades across numerous platforms, regardless of the budget or contribution by their respective creators. Matching the pacing and tone of a franchise in video game form is often difficult as the player will often dictate the speed of which the story unfolds, especially when that experience isn’t totally linear. Fairy Tail is an explosive and often humorous anime ripe for being translated to a video game, but this latest iteration just doesn’t capture the energy of its source material and the game suffers greatly for it.
Despite being the first true Fairy Tail game to release in North America that isn’t an online flash RPG, this game really demands you have a history with either the anime or the manga. The game comprises 4 arcs; Tenrou Island (episodes 96-122), The Grand Magic Games (151-203), Tartaros (234-265), and the Avatar arc (276-284). Now, that said, Tenrou Island is comprised of just the end of that arc as Fairy Tail: Zeref Awakens, a Japanese release on the PSP back in 2012, already covered it, but is here to at least introduce new players to Zeref. That said, while the game dives into each of the three remaining arcs for around 35-40 hours, they skip over some substantial moments, often recapping very important scenes or battles with a static screenshot from the anime showing us what happened, as opposed to us living out these moments. While it’s likely a cost-cutting measure so they don’t have to model certain characters for a single appearance, it can certainly zap the energy out of the room when you’re waiting for a certain character to appear and all you get is a picture you’ve seen before.
The game also shortcuts a lot of different characters, such as the human form of Carla, and many of Lucy’s Zodiac Keys, often just showing us character artwork or a still from the anime. That said, a few are modeled and allows Lucy’s use of magic to be better for it. Seeing Aquarius being summoned and Lucy getting washed away in the flood gave me quite the chuckle. Also, since we cannot interact with her assortment of summons, the humor from those interactions on the show just isn’t here, apart from the example I just mentioned. The Tartaros arc, as another example of truncated content, has some of its ‘Books of Zeref’ defeated in a narrated recap of the battle, causing the build-up to defeat these villains to be wildly anti-climactic. This shortcutting is everywhere and in some cases, denies the game to feel like the show it’s based on, causing the experience to be just painfully generic.
For those who don’t know what Fairy Tail is, newcomers can use the built-in encyclopedia to get a handle on certain characters and past story arcs, but frankly, unless you have at least watched the first 60ish episodes, at least to where they introduce Wendy, you’ll lack the knowledge of the relationships and hardships many characters have fought through, such as Erza’s relationship with Jellal. Long time fans will likely be disappointed due to how some aspects of the anime and manga are just ignored or skipped through so quickly, and I’ve mentioned already, sometimes recapping some very crucial moments instead of us being able to experience them first hand. Now, that said, and what I’ll be diving into shortly, is this game isn’t necessarily a bad experience, it just suffers from not capturing the tone and feeling of its source material, and sometimes just assuming you’ve watched all 320+ episodes of the anime and each of its movies. While this review may sound like I am very down on the game, that is only half the story.
Despite being a new fan of the anime myself, I’ve grown rather attached to many of the cast, and sadly, that attachment just isn’t as prominent here as not only does the game lack its English voice cast but despite author Hiro Mashima’s involvement, several characters just don’t act as they do in the anime, often displaying generic emotive animations that are shared across the cast, limiting each character’s unique personality. While English vs Japanese dub is always a constant debate, those who have grown up with these characters through the hundreds of episodes speaking English will certainly miss out on that attachment to them here and how very different some personalities act. Honestly, if I had to choose one thing to be the most disappointed about, it is the lack of hearing these characters talk in English that is probably my biggest criticism of the whole experience. Not being able to hear Natsu belting out “I’m all fired up!” is certainly a bummer for sure.
As I’ve mentioned, Fairy Tail feels primed and ready for that of a video game, your character’s are constantly getting stronger, taking on tasks from the request board, and helping out other guildmates with their own personal stories, which are often quite fun and are some of the only times the game resembles the show. As you complete quests, you’ll gain experience, money, and resources to then in turn build up the guildhall, granting you perks and bonuses that help you gain experience for benched characters, or boost the team-up capabilities of your squad. There are always requests to complete, upgrades to focus on, or items to track down, ensuring you never once run out of content. The tasks are usually quick and easy to complete and the overall gameplay loop of what this game offers; task, kill, collect, repeat is fairly enjoyable, mainly due to seeing the characters run around and take part in battles, not to mention the largely enjoyable stories that are presented alongside these small excursions.
As you take part in side quests, or just walk around each level, you can tackle community tasks, small side quests that are usually just fetch quests and depending on how many items you’re picking up as you explore or the number of battles you’re taking part in, you’ll usually have the required items on hand to turn in the quest right then and there. There are also bonding stories for several of the cast, giving you a quick scene between two characters as you use those scenes to enhance combat compatibility between those characters, making them stronger together as a unit. Sadly, not every duo have scenes together, and instead just skips to the rewards screen of what you’ve unlocked with that pairing. I’ll admit, it was a bit odd the first time, making me wonder if I had actually skipped the cutscene by mistake. This is likely due to those characters not really conversing in the anime or manga, but need those rewards so that teams are not lopsided in combat.
While you’ll start out with the ability to only have three characters in your party, you’ll eventually earn the capability of hosting 5 characters at once. Some missions or requests will block out access to certain characters or require the use of specific ones. There are a host of characters that are only available as a guest, limiting not just their use in the game, but the customizable options as well. There are character packs to purchase in the eShop but they are horrifically overpriced at $25 CAD a piece, not to mention the $4.40 CAD for single costumes as well. The Season Pass, which contains all the extra characters and some additional items is the same price as the actual game, which is just painful to see and just not worth it in the slightest, even if you are a massive fan of the series.
Combat is both quick and intuitive but lacks the punch of the presentation of the anime. Fairy Tail often has explosive and massive battles, causing untold destruction across large landscapes. Sadly, that energy isn’t here, but the combat system isn’t entirely bad in any significant way. Characters have access to a few options, such as a standard attack or through the use of magic. Standard attacks seem largely pointless as they don’t really do any significant damage. Magic attacks are based greatly on what you’ve seen in the anime and are each unique in that they attack via a grid-pattern. The battlefield is a 3x3 grid, and each attack will fill a certain segment of that grid. Some characters may favor horizontal or vertical attacks via the grid, to some that take up large chunks or weird zig-zag patterns. Since some attacks allow you to push or pull enemies around on the grid, this allows combat to be strategic in ways I wasn’t expecting. It’s not the most robust or game-changing combat system, but it certainly makes battles more interesting than just spamming the same magical attack all the time. Once you have used enough attacks to fill your Fairy Gauge, you can unleash a massive team-based chain attack, which can also be used to clear environments of debris, should you dish out enough “over” damage. These obstacles will often unlock faster routes to take or grant access to special chests or secret items.
The rest of the combat is fairly by the numbers. Your attacks regain MP which in turn keeps the magic going. You’ll build up your Fairy gauge to perform big team attacks, as well as keeping an eye on enemies for weaknesses to certain elemental attacks. You can invoke status ailments as well, but given how brief certain encounters are, it's not exactly something that you’ll be too focused on. Characters will eventually gain an awakened state, using their various power dynamics from the anime, such as the powers of certain Dragon Slayers, to boost their overall attacks and get an HP refresh while it’s active. Unison Raids are big flashy two character-based attacks that are vastly entertaining to watch, I just wish the game allowed a better system for skipping some of the more drawn out attacks than turning them off entirely and making combat feel bland and uninspired. Characters can also jump in and assist during attacks, consuming the same meter that you’ll be using to access your awakened abilities, so sometimes it’s best to not have characters team-up and play the long game.
From a visual standpoint, Fairy Tail is not going to be a case study in anything impressive. Characters have a bland doll look to them, often staring out into space during some moments, such as when the hood of a certain character is removed and they look like they are just dead inside. There are some pre-rendered cutscenes that look awesome, and there are some solid facial animations here that mimic the show perfectly, but so much of that emotion is often lost across the majority of the game. The town’s and outdoor environments are often riddled with bland and blurry textures that really stand out in a bad way. The framerate is mostly constant, but I did have a few stutters that were very apparent, but this type of performance dip was rare. There are some fun and engaging moments that visually do work, but again, so much of this game is inconsistent from it being great to good to sometimes just decent.
Naruto showed us what an authentic and satisfying anime adaption can be like in video game form with Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4, a game I still consider to be one of the best anime to game adaptions so far. It captured the anime perfectly and made the action and combat feel exactly how it needed to be. It’s a shame that Fairy Tail, which is just as much of an explosive and high energy series as Naruto, didn’t get this type of game, allowing us to feel like we are genuinely playing the anime in video game form. What is here isn’t bad by any means, but it rarely dives into why Fairy Tail has been so popular over the years. Despite the truncated content and lack of the English voicing acting, there is a decent enough game here but with how much it requests of new fans and leaves out for existing ones, it’s hard to recommend, and that sucks considering how much I adore this series.
Fairy Tail was purchased by the reviewer and played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and handheld play.
All screenshots were taken on a Nintendo Switch.