When it comes to anime series that introduced me to the medium back in middle school, Hiro Mashima’s Fairy Tail definitely stood out as one of them. However, I’ve always just stuck with the anime until recently, when I found out that the series has been translated into a game format.
These games were developed by none other than Gust, the developers behind popular titles such as Atelier Ryza and the like. The first Fairy Tail game received raving reviews, but can this sequel manage to stand itself as a proud successor?
Warning: The following review contains spoilers from the Fairy Tail series. Reader discretion is advised.
Fairy Tail 2’s Chronology
First of all, it’s important to know where this game stands in relation to the manga or the anime. The prologue is the beginning of the Alvarez Arc, which is the seventeenth and final arc of the manga and the anime, spanning from chapters 438 to 545 in the manga, or episodes 285 to 328 in the anime. This might seem weird, but considering the game technically takes place between the thirteenth and sixteenth arcs, that is par for the course.
However, this means that as soon as you begin even the prologue, there’s no avoiding the onslaught of spoilers. That’s not to say that there wasn’t an attempt to make the game more accessible to fans, far from it. One of Fairy Tail 2‘s key features involves constantly highlighting character names with a colored font, which you can then press down on the D-pad to consult an entry about who or what the characters are talking about.
It’s a neat approach at first glance, but it is rather unrefined, to say the least. For starters, you can only check terminology if the word you want to check is currently shown on the screen, and checking an entry will cause the game to pause the cutscene or dialogue completely. And even if you’ve read an entry before, it will still highlight the term.
This feature ties in with the World Encyclopedia, which provides an extremely abridged summary of Fairy Tail‘s story arcs. Needless to say, this particular summary does the job, but it leaves out a lot of the details, and that’s to be expected. Trying to condense what is essentially fifty chapters of the manga or thirty or so episodes of the animes in a single paragraph is an impossible task, even if some entries are divided into two parts.
The story definitely has its emotional moments, but in general, it felt extremely linear at times. A whole third of the game involves a repeat of defeating a member of the Spriggan 12, then returning to the Fairy Tail guildhall. In later chapters, you even have them go by even shorter than that, with Lucy sometimes narrating what happened “behind the scenes”, in a way, which doesn’t make it particularly engaging to go through.
Lacking Quality Assurance
I can’t believe I have to say this, but Fairy Tail 2’s dialogue also has some typos and some weird punctuation issues at times that are prominent. Back when I played a demo of the game at the Brazil Game Show convention and watched the trailers, I did notice these issues, but I assumed that, since the game was still in development, they would be addressed in the full version. Unfortunately, it seems that did not happen, and the typos have stayed.
In addition, Fairy Tail 2 unfortunately only has the Japanese audio as an option, with no way to switch to an English dub. Granted, the first game also lacked that option, and for me, who prefers the Japanese dub anyway, that isn’t so much of a problem. However, I can definitely see this being a deal-breaker for some fans, especially those who may have a certain fondness towards the English voice acting of the anime, for example.
The lack of an English voice dub also causes some interference with the Auto-Play feature, where sometimes, parts of the text will be advanced extremely quickly, due to how Japanese is able to condense a three-word sentence into a single kanji or two. I’m a fast reader myself, but even then, I had to turn it off because of that.
Fairy Tail 2’s Action Real-Time Combat
Battles in Fairy Tail 2 have been completely redesigned from the previous game and are now done in real-time with up to three members, where you have full control of one character’s attacks with the face buttons after the circle in the middle of the screen fills up, while the others attack automatically.
Instead of a traditional MP system, skills use SP, which is accumulated through regular attacks. These will also raise your Fairy Rank, which increases the attack power of every one of your skills, but it also increases their SP cost to match. The game also employs a sort of elemental system, where enemies take increased damage against certain elements.
Only three members can be in a party at a time, but you can always press L2 to quickly swap between different members. As you progress through the main story, other characters from the series will join as Supporting Characters, where they will attack when certain conditions are met, which can be anything from when your HP falls below a certain point or when you break through their defenses.
Overall, it’s a pretty simple battle system to grasp, but now, let’s talk about a personal gripe. Some of these skills have very long-winded animations, and the character will sometimes also scream the skill name. Now, since you’ll probably be using a lot of the same skills, get ready to have them repeat that same phrase over and over again. This can become a bother, especially for bosses with a lot of health.
This becomes a problem, especially in the later portions of the game. These monsters and bosses aren’t hard in the sense that they wipe the floor with you. Rather, they feel like HP sponges that take a lot of time and many skills. And the real kicker is how the game denies your achievements with a cutscene saying you didn’t really win and then proceeds to start a brand-new phase with the HP all filled up, which just makes you feel that you’ve just wasted a lot of time.
Arbitrary Limitations That Make the Game Linear
There were many odd things that stood out to me in Fairy Tail 2, which worsened my experience. And as I kept progressing, they just started piling up to the point I couldn’t simply ignore it. First, when exploring the overworld, the minimap is really awful to read, because it does not properly show different altitudes in terrain, If you’re the type to explore the overworld, you’ll often come across an arbitrary limitation that prevents you from going there.
After Chapter 4, the characters conveniently learn that they can just jump over cliffs, and when Chapter 5 comes around, you learn you can just hold Square to destroy all of the debris that has been blocking your way all along. This was certainly their way of perhaps limiting player movement to certain areas until the game world bursts open in the final portion of the game, which feels extremely forced.
For the purposes of this review, I’ve been playing the PlayStation 5 version. Despite this, there are many parts that just feel like the game just isn’t properly taking full advantage of the console’s hardware. Characters’ 3D models move in a very stiff manner, and I’ve also run into some framerate skips, especially during certain parts of combat. There’s also many instances where it takes a while for the game to begin playing certain story cutscenes.
A Bundle of Missed Opportunities
If there’s one phrase I could use to describe the story of Fairy Tail 2, it would be just how incomplete it feels. The Alvarez Arc is supposed to be the climax, the last hurrah of the story, so to speak, and yet, the game just doesn’t even do some of the most iconic battles justice, in my opinion.
One battle in particular that bothered me so much was one where Fairy Tail was defeated by Larcade from the Spriggan 12, and then Sting, the Sabertooth guildmaster, defeats him. I would’ve fully expected to have a fully playable character moment with Sting, because that battle was indeed his time to shine during that part, but nope. Even the final boss battle, which I’m not going to spoil, is just mindless button mashing for a couple minutes, then cutscene, and then you move on to the next phase.
And then, you have the Fairy Tail Diaries. They use the same icon as the main scenario quests, and you can watch them from the campfires scattered across the map. They’re basically just five-minute long cutscenes that don’t seem to contain a significant contribution to the plot. It almost feels like they wanted to do something more, but just…didn’t? And it’s a crying shame that such an amazing arc was translated so poorly into the format of a game.
Fairy Tail 2’s Simplistic RPG Systems
In Fairy Tail 2, there is no equipment such as weapons or armor or even currency for you to spend in the traditional sense. To recover your party’s health, your options are to either rest at one of the campfires scattered across the realm or exchange items with the merchants that hang out near them. There are also some scavenger hunt-like systems, such as Plue’s Pawprints and the mysterious memos.
Now, the most important aspect of Fairy Tail 2 has to be the Lacrima system. The best way to describe them would be something akin to the Quartzes from the Trails series, as each Lacrima gives you a specific stat boost to a certain element or stat, which is usually determined by the way it is named. Each Lacrima also has a rank, ranging from 1 to 4. They do make characters slightly stronger, but not by a whole lot.
Each character also has a skill tree of sorts called the Magic Origins tree, which is divided into three segments, and each time you level up, you can obtain an Origin Point to unlock new nodes into this tree, which makes them learn new skills, or strengthen already existing ones. However, there are points where you’ll run into not being able to progress further in the tree, requiring Ether Crystals, which are scattered across the overworld.
An Original Story Beyond the Alvarez Arc
According to a Famitsu survey by the developers, Fairy Tail 2 will take you roughly 30 hours to complete the main story, and if you’re planning to do all of the extra content, that’s an additional 20 hours for a total of 50. My personal playthrough took me around 16 hours to finish the main story, and that’s counting the time I spent going around the overworld hunting chests and the Ether Crystals. In addition to the Alvarez Arc, Fairy Tail 2 also features an original story called Key to the Unknown.
To answer the question if that alone makes it worth obtaining the game, the short answer is: not really. Sure, these cutscenes are technically taking place after the eleven chapters of the Alvarez Arc, but they feel like comedic fluff. The first bonus chapter is literally the characters frolicking in the beach, and then it turns into this trek around the world to find…accessories? It feels as if you took a normal filler episode from the anime and just made it take place after the final battle. I was half-expecting some sort of epic epilogue, which is extremely disappointing.
The Digital Deluxe Edition also comes with an extra mode called Atelier Lucy, which is a collaboration between the Atelier series and Fairy Tail. Using alchemy, you can enhance the effects of the Lacrima crystals you currently have. It’s a really cute addition, but like Key to the Unknown, you must beat the main story in order to access that kind of content. And the stat bonuses are so insignificant that it’s just not worth the extra $20.
Fairy Tail 2 Is Not Recommended for First-Timers
Fairy Tail 2 positions itself as a way for fans to experience the climax that is Alvarez arc, and enjoy some fresh new content featuring the characters…or at least, that seemed to be the idea. Unfortunately, it is a game that is extremely hard for me to recommend for the average JRPG enjoyer, especially with its many flaws.
Don’t get me wrong, Gust has definitely tried their absolute best to make this title as accessible as possible. I tried my best to approach this from the perspective of a fan, as someone who binged the anime a lot back in the day, but I keep going back to just thinking about what the game could’ve been. It isn’t a bad game, but it’s definitely a game that disappointed me on both counts: as a JRPG fan and a Fairy Tail fan.
Disclaimer: Koei Tecmo provided Final Weapon with a PlayStation 5 copy of Fairy Tail 2 for review purposes.
