Tag Archives: Natsu

Fairy Tail 2 Review

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Man did it take years to get to this sequel but at long last Fairy Tail has returned! It’s one of those franchises that is perfect for the video game world because the storylines and fights were always dynamic. The series just got plagued by fanservice issues which are far less noticeable in a video game. Like with the last game, this is a pretty elite title. I would give the first game the edge overall as I thought the menus and hub world layout was a bit clearer. Everything there was perfect while here it’s all elite but slightly less user friendly. The gameplay is also a bit different and I would give the original the edge there as well.

This adapts the final arc of the series as the villains launch an all out invasion to destroy Fairy Tail. They have hundreds of thousands of fighters while the heroes just have their family and friends. That said, they are still not going to give up without a fight! They are fighting for a whole lot here and the game really gives time for everyone to shine. You’ll get to play as a whole bunch of characters and fortunately EXP share is always on so you don’t have to worry about them lagging behind the rest.

The only criticism you could probably give the game is that it is extremely easy. To put it one way, I didn’t have to even open up my item bag until the final post game boss. Nothing in the main campaign was worth it, most of them died really quickly. It helps that you have several attacks and super attacks which replenish your health. I’m not talking about a little either, Juvia’s basic healing attack restores close to 80% of your health. The health bars here are pretty massive too so that’s a lot of health that you are saving each time.

You get level ups very quickly and then you’ve also got equipment that can make you stronger. Even if you don’t bother fighting most of the enemies you will be in a decent spot. The fights are so fast and give so much EXP that I would often fight the minion battles anyway though. There are a lot of different collectibles to be found around the world and I decided to grab most of them. From chests to mini creatures to orbs of knowledge, they’re always close to being within your grasp so it’s too tempting to let linger.

The main campaign is pretty long and then the post game adds on a few hours to that. You also have a bunch of optional bosses and individual character stories to go through. I have no doubt that you will be here for at least 30-40 hours by the end of your run. So it definitely makes the value of the purchase worth it. You won’t feel short changed or anything like that. The story is also very captivating so you won’t get bored or anything. Like I said it’s just an excellent game around the board.

The gameplay is a classic turn based style mixed in with real time action. I’d compare it to Final Fantasy XIII. You have turns but if you don’t attack fast, the opponent can just take his turn and attack you anyway. So you really need to have a plan at the ready and can’t just be wondering what to do next. Always be moving forward. Do that and you will be in a really good position here.

The graphics are really solid as you’d expect. The character models and environments all work really well and the fights that we get are a lot of fun. The soundtrack is also pretty good. It could maybe use a few extra tunes but the ones that are there all match up well with the individual scenes so I can’t say that I have any complaints. Because the character all level up with you, you should have fun just playing whoever you want to at any given point in time. Yes there are type advantages in the game but they don’t actually make a bunch of difference. You can use Natsu against a water type and you’ll still be fine. Maybe there’s a hard mode that will make more of a difference but at least in a standard match you won’t experience any issues.

It was only the final boss that really gave me a hard time. I almost thought that I might lose at one point but I was still able to pull through in the end. Using all of the healing attacks was definitely a must though. Keep those in mind because they are absolutely broken but it does keep in with the themes of friendship and family. Healing should be very powerful in such a world.

Overall, Fairy Tail 2 is another elite title. This is a perfect example of how you make a big action RPG with hundreds of collectibles while not letting it feel overwhelming. At no point did I want to give up on opening chests and just focusing on the story because it was not an inconvenience. The devs place everything in a way that makes you want to succeed and that’s a pretty important skill. It’s why designing is such an art because if you make a mistake then it will impact the rest of the game. I highly recommend this to all gamers in general as a result. Good game design is good game design after all. I think anyone can really appreciate what they did here.

Overall 9/10

Laxus Dreyar vs Natsu

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Laxus Dreyar has powerful lightning abilities and is often considered to be one of the most powerful members of Fairy Tail. He is a beast in combat but Natsu has definitely surpassed him at this point. Natsu can even use lightning in his abilities now so that makes for a double threat. Laxus would need a considerable power up to catch Natsu and at this point I don’t see that happening. Natsu wins.

Gildarts Clive vs Natsu

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Gildarts Clive is a powerful fighter and one of the top warriors in all of Fairy Tail! That being said, he is still not going to take down Natsu. Natsu has been getting stronger and stronger throughout the series to the point where he basically can’t be stopped by just about anyone. His fire burns too bright and his speed has long since surpassed Gildarts. The old generation had to step aside in the end. Natsu wins.

Natsu vs Naruto

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Suggested by Destroyer Natsu and Naruto are both extremely powerful fighters but only one can win. While Natsu continues to get stronger at a rapid pace while Naruto hasn’t moved in a while, Naruto did gain his Baryon Mode which should be more than a match for Natsu’s Dragon King form. Naruto has the edge in speed and strength plus he doesn’t use fire abilities so there’s no chance of powering up Natsu by mistake. Naruto wins.

Natsu vs Kanda

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Suggested by Destroyer Kanda is a powerful swordsman but he isn’t quite at a level where he would be able to defeat Natsu. Natsu’s fire abilities allow him to move at crazy speeds where even Kanda would not be able to keep up. Additionally, Natsu can fight at close or long range and he would have the advantage in either arena. Kanda would need a stat boost to keep up. Natsu wins.

Fairy Tail Review

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It’s time to look at a fairly recent RPG that came out. Fairy Tail is a game that I was looking forward to for quite a long while. It’s one of those franchises that has an amazing story, top tier art, excellent fights, etc. It’s pretty close to a perfect game and I dare you to find a smoother one. There are a small handful of things that keep me from giving it the 10 star value of course like frame drops and such but overall you are bound to have a blast with this one.

The game starts you off with the big battle against Hades. It’s an interesting starting point but I’m cool with skipping a lot of the early stuff. This way you get right to the heart of things without any kind of delay. That’s how it should be right? After you defeat Hades then it’s time for the big tournament. Fairy Tail has really not been doing well for the last few years after Natsu and friends were wiped off the planet for a few years. It’s going to take some time to get Fairy Tail back to being the #1 ranked guild on the planet but time is definitely one thing that they have a lot of. It may take some time but nothing’s going to stop these guys.

One of the aspects of the game that really works so well is how smooth the gameplay is. It’s a lot of fun just running around the hub world and completing the side quests. Two reasons for this are the convenience of movement in this game and how easy it is to collect resources. There are a lot of different areas to travel to, but you do have quick move points across all of the different hub worlds which is great. You are also told where the resources are so even though it is RNG on where they will appear in the level, you have a good direction of where to go. The instructions are very clear so you’ll never get lost here. There are also options you can use to streamline the game further by cutting out effects. Usually I do that after a while but this game was so much fun I opted to keep them on.

The gameplay is a classic turn based style. It uses turns based on speed so it’s similar to Megaman X Command Mission in that sense. I always thought incorporating speed was a good idea so it’s not just literally going play by play. It gives you more of a reason to actually use status effect abilities as opposed to just launching away at the enemy the whole time. Typically that’s still what I did though. In the hub world you can run around and interact with just about anything. You can also jump a bit but I’m not sure why to be honest as it doesn’t seem like you can ever jump anywhere. I guess they just wanted you to have the ability which is fun enough.

The story is dynamite of course as you tackle a lot of the big Fairy Tail moments and take down all of the opponents who would dare get in your way. Fairy Tail has always had an incredible story but it was held back by the consistent fanservice in the series. The game largely gets away from that. You do have two obligatory beach/pool scenes though so it’s not perfect. Additionally Lucy’s special ability to amplify your team’s speed is about doing a pose and some of the costumes can be tricky. The good part is most of this stuff is optional though so it doesn’t really get in the way of the game as much as it could have. That’s definitely a good thing because it’d be a shame for all of the positives to be overwhelmed like that.

There’s also quite a lot to do in this game. Going through the main story and the epilogue which is surprisingly long should take you around 21-22 hours. There’s a lot of grinding to be done if you want to get through the story easy enough. I went out of my way to upgrade all facilities and do as many side missions and bonding events as possible. I cleared all of the quests for B rank and lower as well as most of the A ones. Even with all of that, I was barely able to beat the final boss of the epilogue. That guy was Level 70 while my team was still in the 50s so his durability was crazy. I definitely recommend having your team a little higher leveled before trying to take down a guy like that. He’s definitely not going to go down very easily that’s for sure.

Leveling up isn’t that bad in this game though. For starters, even when a character is not in your party they get EXP. That includes characters you haven’t recruited yet. They don’t get 100% of the EXP your starters get, but it starts at 50% and by upgrading your facilities that number goes up to 80%. It’s why I recommend upgrading early because you get a ton of passive effects that all add up during gameplay. There are other areas to explore that I never even tried like the Pool which increases bonding and the Laboratory where you can synthesize new items. I got this game on the Switch so there’s no trophies but I do feel like I came pretty close to 100% clearing the game. It would probably still take another 5-6 hours I imagine to clean up all the side missions and character events but I definitely made a lot of good progress and it was definitely fun.

The graphics here are really nice. I would have liked to have had a few more of the big budget cutscenes show up but the fact that we get full voice acting throughout is very good. I always feel like that helps you get to the next level. The in game graphics are quite solid as well. The soundtrack is a little limited but there are some really solid themes in there. I just wish my favorite theme had shown up a little more often. It only appears briefly for some of the big fight moments. Still, With 48 tunes I suppose I shouldn’t say it’s that limited. It’s certainly a lot more varied than a great number of other games I’ve played.

Overall, Fairy Tail really focuses on being a very enjoyable game to play and that’s why it succeeds. The RPG format is one of the greatest formats in gaming because the longer the game is the more time you have to focus on liking the characters and getting used to everything. It’s really a fun journey and the game gets you hyped for the sequel. I certainly got nostalgic for Fairy Tail after this and have been watching some fun reactions to the manga’s big moments. Whether you’re a Fairy Tail fan or not I think you can get a lot out of this. That’s because it’s just an excellent game that was crafted really well. Context or not, you’ll understand what’s going on the same way you understand when starting out a brand new RPG that offers up a lot of questions. This is definitely a game of the year contender and has a ton of replay value which just strengthens the argument.

Overall 9/10

Fairy Tail Gaiden Review

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It’s time to look at another Fairy Tail spinoff. They’ve definitely been a mixed bag over the years as some manage to rival the main series in how terrible they are while others are surprisingly classy. The Ice Trails manga and Fairy Tail Zero are good examples of solid spinoffs after all. They had good action, a solid plot, and good artwork. Then on the other hand you’ve got a title like Fairy Girls which was so bad that you can tell the author wasn’t even trying. That one still makes me cringe. Well, this one’s not quite as great as the first two and does suffer from some of the usual Fairy Tail moments, but at least there’s some effort here and some reasonable stories.

The first volume is about Sting and Rogue as they go on some adventures. In one case, someone sends a letter asking for help from Sting and Rogue to go take down this powerful rock monster. Unfortunately, the two friends are on the outs after Sting accidentally makes Rogue’s animal friend Froze cry. Sting figures he can handle this on his own, but naturally, it is a trap so that won’t be as easy as he believes. This is an example of a pretty solid story. You’ve got a good challenge that Sting has to work to overcome and while the conflict with him and Rogue is admittedly pretty forced, it’s still a good action story in its own right.

The other Sting story is the weak link and definitely the one that keeps this series from getting an extra star. One of his teammates is kinapped and man does she have bad luck. This isn’t the first time things have gotten dicey for her which led to Natsu’s best series of moments in the franchise. Well, fortunately Sting is here to help and we get to see him beat up the entire guild pretty easily. It’s a fun fight, but the whole situation is really just here to try and squeeze in some fanservice which was definitely not needed. Sting makes for a fun alternate main character to Natsu and while he is a lot more weak willed in general he tends to be the better character.

Next up is Gajeel’s volume and he reminds us why he isn’t always the most trustworthy fellow around. One story has him disappear for a while without telling anyone and he seems to have re-joined the villains. He is now re-taking over the town that Gajeel used to rule over with an iron hand and his friend is here to help. That’s pretty believable but of course there is a twist here. The problem is that even once the twist happens it’s hard to see why Gajeel had to make the choices that he did. The guy is definitely a solo act, but not even telling Levy is a bit tricky. Fortunately, Gray was around to help solve the mystery and I appreciated the cameo. He didn’t really get to fight this time, but you could tell that he was in control right from the start.

Then you have the final volume which is all about Laxus. The annoying part of his volumes is dealing with the Blue Pegasus group since those guys definitely aren’t very epic. They run a host club and the leader is definitely not the most reliable guy, but the moral is that he’s actually tougher than he looks. I’m not sure that I can really buy into that, but at the very least I’ll acknowledge that he isn’t a total weakling. One story has him getting kidnapped so Laxus heads out to save him. Along the way he learns that friendship can take many different forms and that you shouldn’t judge a person right away. It’s a nice moral, but the leader does his best to take away from the epic fights.

One reason why Laxus has the best volume is aside from avoiding fanservice entirely we actually get some fights. Laxus has a good fight against the guild master here. Yes, there is a plot twist about how powerful she really is involving illusions, but at least it looked like an epic fight which is what counts. The other story has Laxus and his team head to a village where there is a powerful mirror that can’t be broken. Their mission is simply to break it, but the owner of the mirror attempts to stop them. This guy’s pretty powerful since he is able to combat Laxus on even ground. There are also some mind games that get played on Laxus’ trio of teammates.

Laxus has always been portrayed as one of the strongest Fairy Tail heroes. While I would definitely say that Gray and Natsu have long since surpassed him, he’s definitely still top 5 in the guild. That gives a lot of hype to this new opponent which is why the ending isn’t too satisfying for that guy’s fans. It’s always a shame when you know that someone is never going to get to fight again. I doubt he’ll ever even appear again though so I suppose that’s the least of my worries.

The art is definitely pretty good. It looks like the main series and there’s a good amount of detail here. Actually, it may even be the main artist, I forget but either way it’s very good. You won’t be disappointed here. It’s easy to read and get engaged. The idea of each volume being about a different character who will get 2-3 stories is pretty nice. There are a lot of other characters who could get that treatment so hopefully the author does more spinoffs like this. One thing I can definitely say about Fairy Tail is the author is very passionate about the series. It’s cool to see how much it has expanded.

Overall, Fairy Tail Gaiden is pretty good for the most part. Really there’s just one story that really felt like a Fairy Tail adventure with the unfortunate fanservice and the others were pretty mild. As far as trilogies go it may not be top tier, but it’s an enjoyable read. The power levels get a little tricky at times, but the characters never lose to someone they shouldn’t. Even if it’s a little closer than you may expect, they clutch it out and that’s the important thing. If you’re going to get into Fairy Tail it’s always better to go with the spinoffs. This one isn’t a bad idea for a starting point since each story basically needs no extra context.

Overall 5/10

Fairy Tail: Happy Adventure

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It’s time to look at a Happy spinoff! On one hand this is good news since that should reduce the fanservice in the series. On the other hand this is Fairy Tail so we’ll see if the series can avoid it. It’s off to a decent start at best, but we’ll see if it can stay on course. I’ll have a review for the series once it is finished.

Overall 6/10

Giorno Giovanna vs Natsu

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Suggested by Random Natsu is an incredibly powerful fighter who regularly disregards power levels. The bonds of his friendship are what fuel his power and that makes him a very big threat. Giorno can’t hope to keep up with Natsu so his best bet is to try and cancel his actions long enough to think of a plan. The thing is that Natsu’s motivation can never lower thanks to his friends and you can delay his power, but not stop it. Natsu won’t give up until he’s knocked Giorno out and that’s exactly what is going to happen. Natsu wins.