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Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World Review

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It’s time to look at the sequel to the original Tales of Symphonia game. As I recently beat the first one I knew it was time to jump right into the sequel. It’s definitely a very worthy successor. Is it as good as the first one? Well….it’s a tricky one. I do appreciate that we no longer have to worry about big dungeons and there are a lot more cinematics here. On the other hand, the original game had the better story if you ask me. So overall I would say that the original wins but it’s very close and that’s definitely impressive considering how good the first one.

It’s been a few years since the original game’s events concluded. The heroes succeeded in merging the two worlds together but this didn’t result in the perfect utopia that they expected. Instead of war about to break out between the half elves and humans, now there are big battles between the inhabitants of both worlds. The Church of Martel seems to have become more radical as well. The game starts with Lloyd appearing and murdering everyone in the city of Palmacosta. Emil barely manages to escape and saves a girl named Marta as well. We then skip forward a few years. Emil doesn’t remember these events and has had a pretty tough time of it. Nobody likes him as they believe him to be a bad luck charm. One day he meets up with Marta again who is being chased by a bunch of villains. She asks him if he will serve her as a Knight of Ratatosk and since he has nothing to lose, Emil agrees to this and gains a lot of power.

Marta explains her mission. She has to find all of the Centurion Cores and awaken them. This will restore Lord Ratatosk who will bring peace to this chaotic world. There are a lot of questions here to be honest but Emil doesn’t care. He’s finally found someone who needs him and so he has a purpose at long last. Emil agrees to help but he also wants revenge against Lloyd along the way. Emil doesn’t understand why people seem to love Lloyd so much despite the guy being a mass murderer. Most people don’t even believe Emil. Then you’ve also got the Vanguard which is an army of extremists who are trying to murder everyone and Emil’s mentor of sorts named Richter is a part of their group. The heroes will definitely need to take some sides here.

There’s a lot of story going on here and that’s why it’s always interesting writing reviews for an RPG. It’s a lot different from my standard game reviews where the plot doesn’t have to be mentioned much. Even from what I’ve written below, there’s just so much more to get into. Of course, it’s a story that is constantly evolving as you go through the chapters so you don’t want to get into it too deeply either. Needless to say there is a very large cast of characters here along with a ton of plot twists. You’ll need to play through the game in its entirety to really get the payoff here. I’ll still give a few thoughts here.

One of the big plots here is naturally involving Lloyd and how he went from being the main character of the first film to now seemingly murdering a bunch of people. If you played through the first game then I’m sure you’re thinking that there’s no way Lloyd would actually be evil. It would certainly be a bold move though that’s for sure but it would likely be a very unpopular move that would turn the fanbase against you. Well, the game explains why he’s doing all of this by the line but I just don’t buy into it. The whole thing is a huge stretch if you ask me. The guy’s just out of character, there’s no other way around it. It’s great to see him of course but he just doesn’t act like Lloyd.

It is always nice to see the old cast show up when you’re with a new group though. To date the game that did this the best was the second Golden Sun game. It was handled masterfully. Here you aren’t squarely against the old cast although you do get to fight Lloyd a few times which was neat. The game comes so close to making Lloyd the final boss which was impressive. It’s also just hype to see the characters acknowledge that Lloyd and the others saved the world a while back. It’s rare to go back to a world where the heroes are now famous for saving the world from the brink of disaster. Richter managing to fight off the whole original group was certainly impressive.

The game also retroactively shows us why the villain from the first game had some good points. Uniting the planet did nothing to stop the class battles. It just switched the sides. Now people from both planets are getting into even more fights than the old days. The characters are far from perfect and the world is in desperate need of someone saving it once more. The problem is that without a tangible villain to fight against for the most part, this battle is a lot tougher on the heroes. Then you’ve got the fact that Emil and Marta are working for a powerful spirit named Ratatosk who may or may not be evil.

So it’s a very ambitious story and certainly one that I enjoyed quite a lot. As for the characters, they’re definitely solid. Aside from Lloyd, I’d say that the rest of the old characters are in character. I’m glad that most of them are still trusting Lloyd although I don’t blame the ones who stopped due to how shady he is. If Lloyd doesn’t trust them then why should they trust him right? For the new characters, I’ll start with Emil. I can’t say that I’m a big fan of his. He’s just too timid. The guy backs down to everyone and always tends to panic. When the others get in trouble Emil is forced to call out for Ratatosk mode to save the day each time. Emil’s standard form is just in over his head and to save his character he would have needed to get with the program a lot sooner.

As for his Ratatosk mode, that’s when Emil’s at his best. It’s a similar dynamic to Jekyl and Hyde or Yugi and Yami Yugi. They are effectively different characters. As Ratatosk, Emil is a fun character even if you may not be able to call him a very heroic one. He’s always ready for a fight and isn’t passive this time around. When there’s someone in his way Emil will just blast through them. I wouldn’t have minded if he was in this form all the time. Then you have the heroine Marta. She’s a pretty unique characters. For starters she is constantly flirting with Emil due to admiring him after he saved her as a child. Emil doesn’t remember this and isn’t as brave as Marta expected him to be but that could also be why she was enjoying teasing him the whole time.

Beneath that she has a solid character arc though. Like Emil she has a lot of reasons for being fairly withdrawn and creating an external persona. She wants revenge on some characters but tries to hold this back. At the end of the day she is doing what she can to save the world and does well at this. I would say that she is better than the heroine of the first game. So the these two characters make for a solid duo. Then you’ve got Richter who is one of the major players of the game. He’s definitely a solid villain. No matter what justifications he uses, one of the guy’s first appearances is to try to murder Marta so there’s no way you can stretch him into being a hero. The guy has his goals and the motivations are solid but he definitely goes too far in trying to achieve them. He has the best theme in the game though which makes it extra fun whenever he appears. I also liked his weapon of choice.

The game’s story has a ton of cinematics which is fun because it makes this feel like a movie type event at times. There is always something happening and a benefit of being a sequel is having a lot of nostalgic moments everywhere. Pretty much every town is accurately recreated from the first game including the dungeons. The hub world is gone so now you go directly from place to place. I was definitely pretty cool with that. The graphics are quite solid and the soundtrack is good. While the first game wins with the music overall, I really liked Richter’s theme as well as the various remasters from the first game.

There’s definitely a lot of replay value here. The game itself is over 20 hours long and there are a lot of side quests and bonus cutscenes you can experience during the game as well. Add onto that the various collectibles and this will definitely last you for a while. It’s not quite as long as the first game but still quite long in its own right. There are also some new mechanics compared to the first game like being able to train up monsters. While it’s always sad to see them go back to level 1 when they reincarnate, their stats go quite high. They were super valuable during the final bosses here and they level up faster than the human characters so at least to me it seemed to balance out pretty well.

Overall, Dawn of the New World is a great sequel to the first Tales Of. I definitely recommend picking this up whether you’ve played the first one or not. Either way it’s a great RPG that really succeeds in every area. The fact that most of the dungeons are already completed when you start the game is fine by me. It just means that there’s more time to focus on the story and battles. We get quite a few action scenes in the cinematics like Lloyd taking on Richter or the main duo going up against Alice and her partner. The story gets quite deep at times and doesn’t pull its punches. The ending is pretty tragic in some ways but I was glad that at least some of the characters got a happy ending here. It would have been pretty sad if the game had cut out a bit early. Hopefully they bring these characters back for another adventure some day.

Overall 8/10

Tales of Symphonia Review

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It’s time to look at one of the biggest RPG titles out there and Symphonia definitely lives up to the hype. It really excels in every area from story to gameplay to music. The game is also quite long. It took me 37 hours to conquer this title and typically I finish RPGs quite a bit sooner than that. The longest ones are still the Final Fantasy titles which tend to put me through the wringer but there is no shortage of content here. Additionally I really didn’t do much of the side missions so there’s a lot of untapped content here.

The plot changes quite a lot but I’ll just leave you with the main synopsis. The game takes place on a planet known as Sylvarant where a kid named Lloyd lives. He’s not known as one of the best students but he has heart. His childhood friend Colette has been selected as the Chosen which is a great honor. She will go around the world and unlock all of the steals which shall regenerate the world. Currently the planet has been in decline due to the mana levels running low. Once Colette has completed her duty then this will end. Lloyd decides to go along with her in addition to his best friend Genis, their teacher Raine, and a bodyguard known as Kratos. There are a lot of seals though so they will have to move quickly. Additionally they will have to watch out for the Angels, Desians, Government, Rebels, and a few other factions.

Right away the game introduces you to the fact that this planet is pretty messed up. For starters, there are human farms that exist on all of the countries. Desians use the humans as slaves in these places and the world just accepts this as a necessary evil rather than taking them down. The humans live in fear all across the globe. Then you have the half elves who are considered less than human and discriminated against throughout the planet. They certainly don’t have it easy and with each group having another one to look down on, nothing is changing. Lloyd wants to change all of this but he isn’t sure where to start or how to do it. Whenever he tries to save someone it ends up backfiring which does hurt his confidence quite a bit.

In game reviews I don’t usually write much about the plot in part because there isn’t a whole lot to say. RPGs are different in that respect because they have such a long story that really goes into detail thanks to how lengthy the game is. You’ll go through several parts in the story that will feel like the climax and then the story suddenly transitions. There are quite a lot of twists and turns here as well as a really large character cast. There were 2 villains that vanished for so long that I even forgot they were in the game. It was almost like a surprise that they returned although of course they had to return at some point. It was only a matter of when and not if they would return.

The gameplay is a real time 2D fighter. You use magic or physical attacks as you smash away the opponent’s health bar. You can have a team of 4 fighters running around so when it’s one enemy it’s best to completely overwhelm them. Watch out for knocking an enemy down since they will gain temporary super armor to all of your attacks. There’s a good amount of strategy in the fights but if you want to just whack away you can also focus on gathering extra level ups. I made sure to fight quite a lot so that I was over Level 60 in time for the final boss. I’ve noticed that in most games if you’re over Level 60 you’ll be okay and it worked out for me. I lost to the final boss once but I quickly regrouped and won the next time. As long as you have a good plan you’ll be set. The gameplay is very smooth and very easy to get used to. There are also several points in the game where you are forced to make changes that affect the next few scenes which is cool. That part seemed ahead of its time.

If there is any negative with the game it’s just that at times it can be hard to know where to go. The game can be vague with directions and the map doesn’t help for new areas since it doesn’t show up until you visit it. If you don’t know where to go then your only bet is to check the huge hub world and talk to everyone or look it up. Some of the puzzles could also be a bit much as you’ll have a huge dungeon where getting the puzzle wrong means backtracking several floors. I could have done with less puzzles and more focus on just fighting through. I suppose this was meant to be a breather from the action though.

The graphics are very solid. As is the custom with Tales of titles we do have some anime cutscenes here. There aren’t a whole lot of them or anything like that but when they come it’s definitely a lot of fun. The opening is solid and the graphics in game also hold up really well. We get nice voice acting for a lot of the scenes as well which is always fun. On a technical level, it can be hard to tell which cutscenes are on auto play and which ones aren’t though. There is no visual indicator most of the time so you either have to wait a little longer before pressing A to continue or just risk it and click A after the line is over. I think what they could have done is in any cutscene where there is voice acting, set it to auto play.

Then we have the soundtrack which is definitely very solid. The main battle theme is very catchy which is good since you’ll hear it a lot. The “danger” theme as I call it is also really solid and shows up in a lot of cutscenes. Then you have the various boss themes as well. It’s an excellent all around soundtrack that has a good amount of variety. It’s all pretty catchy and works out quite well if you ask me. This is definitely the level of quality I would expect to see.

It goes without saying that the game has a lot of value to it thanks to how long it is. In terms of replay value I would say there is a lot less since by the game it’s not like you can go back to do most of the side missions. Still, if you take care of them from the start then you’ll be well off. As far as I know there isn’t a post game but with 37+ hours at the ready you’ll have definitely had your chance to see the world in the meantime. The writing is definitely on point and the character cast is pretty solid. I’ll talk about them briefly now.

Lloyd is the main character and he’s a solid lead. He’s pretty head strong and jumps right into action. While he blames himself for getting a village blown up and a lot of lives lost, he did make the right decision. Everyone would have preferred he ignore the human farms so it would be less work for them, but ignoring evil just makes you complicit in it. Lloyd may not be the strongest guy around but he does a really good job in taking down the villains and acting right away. He does his best to come up with ideas that work out for everyone as well. You really can’t fault a character like that.

Then you have the heroine Colette who has to suffer with this great burden of being the Chosen. Often she keeps it to herself and never complains. She’s a very solid character who is willing to make any sacrifice if it’ll mean helping the world. She’s a very nice heroine and also a good fighter. Colette is definitely not a character you will forget about anytime soon. Then you have Lloyd’s best friend Genis who is less remarkable than the first two. I feel like he can go a bit too far with constantly insulting Lloyd if we’re being honest. His elemental attacks are solid though and he’s a good support character. He’s just not as strong as the rest of the cast.

Then you have Raine who is the wise member of the group. She definitely gets really into her studies. She is always around although I’d say her role is a little smaller than the first 3 characters. You’ve also got Presea who joins the main cast later on. She is emotionally distant compared to the rest but that ties into her origin here. She’s a fun character and fits in pretty well with the group. She definitely isn’t afraid to speak her mind. Then we have Regal who is a pretty solid fighter. I disagree with his decision to keep his hands chained the whole game but at least he has a reason for it. He can also fight really well which is handy for your ally to have here. You need other capable fighters.

Then we have Sheena who was a ninja antagonist at first but eventually she came around. She’s one of the more entertaining characters. At first her quest for revenge was treated rather lightly as she kept failing over and over again but as a hero she is very dependable. Without her summoning abilities the heroes really would have been in trouble quite a lot. She’s also pretty quick to call Zelos out on his antics. From the supporting characters I would say that she was the best one. The other characters in the party couldn’t quite match up.

Finally we have Zelos who is also a Chosen fighter so he’s pretty tough. He doesn’t take things very seriously compared to the other characters though and loves to goof around. He’s an entertaining character even if I wouldn’t say that he’s one of my favorites. The guy always makes his presence known though and that’s important for a side character. Then we have the mysterious Kratos who is a great character. I would go as far as to say that he is the best character in the game. He has a lot of questionable moments in the title to be sure but he’s definitely solid. The guy gets a ton of hype throughout the game and is certainly one of the strongest fighter. Without this bodyguard around the characters would have been doomed many times over.

Then we’ve got a whole slew of villains such as the Grand Cardinals and other factions. They’re all pretty solid. The only villain who I’d give a thumbs down to was the doctor with glasses. You’ll know him when you see him. The rest were pretty solid and all look pretty good when they’re getting in on the action. King Yggdrasil is the highest ranking villain and he’s definitely solid. For a villain you always want to make sure that their motive at least makes sense and I can get on board with his plan. Naturally it is an evil one as he is a villain but the fact that you can follow the logic of it is what’s important. He’s a very interesting figure and puts up a solid fight. There are many other characters of course but these are the main ones.

Overall, Tales of Symphonia is excellent and it’s one of the main reasons why I am a huge fan of the RPG genre. By the time you’ve completed the game it’s like you’ve just completed a whole experience. You’ve gotten to know the characters for many hours. In a way it’s like playing through an interactive anime. I’d definitely consider RPGs to be one of the best genres for that reason. I would still put fighting games as the absolute best of course, but RPGs would be second. I won’t go too much farther into it since eventually I plan to have an editorial ranking the genres at some point but of course it’s tricky because there are so many sub genres and such. Regardless, whether you typically like RPGs or not, I would definitely recommend picking this one up. Symphonia is the perfect Tales of game to start you off on the franchise.

Overall 8/10

Tales of Symphonia Stats and Records

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Stats time!

Play Time 37h 13m
Total Gald 541,425
Saves 176
Encounters 866
Escapes 303
Max Combo 37 Hits
Max Damage 8544
Max Grade 1310

Character Levels

Lloyd Level 62
Zelos Level 61
Genis Level 59
Raine Level 59
Sheena Level 60
Colette Level 60
Presea Level 60
Regal Level 60

Neopets: The Darkest Faerie Review

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It’s time to look at an RPG that actually had a pretty solid start. Unfortunately it quickly began to falter near the end and this took away from the beginning. The game lost sight of itself as an action platformer and tried to transition into being more of a Legend of Zelda dungeon type game. You can’t really switch like that without having a lot of gameplay mechanics at the ready. This game just didn’t seem ready for this. You don’t even get the hookshot until the final hours of the game and only have to use it a handful of times so why even bother right? I’d definitely still be down with a sequel as long as this game can learn from its mistakes.

The game starts by introducing us to Tor, a kid who’s always wanted to be a soldier. One day he is told to go into the castle and deliver a letter. Along the way he decides to apply to be a knight and actually manages to get the squire license. Unfortunately his sister goes missing, but after saving her his parents allow him to be a full knight. Tor isn’t able to enjoy this for long though as the Darkest Faerie revives herself and destroys the kingdom. Tor must now find a way to restore balance to the universe and defeat her, but her abilities are incredibly powerful. We’re then introduced to our second main character: Roberta.

Neopets handles this rather well as you play as Tor for so long that it’s pretty easy to forget there is a second main character. She doesn’t appear until Act 2. She’s a diplomat who wishes she was a mage instead. Unfortunately that’s just not how things work around here. Her visit is cut short when the Darkest Faerie shows up and conquers the kingdom, enslaving the residents within. Roberta is forced to beat a hasty retreat and ends up bumping into Tor. The two of them are protected from the mind control by their charmed necklaces. They’ll need to enlist the help of the legendary warriors but they’ve been dead for years so reviving them will be the first step.

Part of the issue for the game is that it’s a little too ambitious. As I said, Act 1 is quite long but it’s not very balanced. Acts 2 and 4 are quite short and then 3 is long again. I’m thinking they wanted to make this a grand epic, the size of the world is certainly big enough for that. Unfortunately there is no map system in place to help guide you along the way which is unfortunate. You’ll spend a lot of time stumbling around until you memorize where everything is. It’s not exactly ideal for traveling. Also, there should have been a quick movement system. Walking everywhere takes a very long time and what’s worse is the fact that there are endless enemies blasting away at you and it’s hard to repel their abilities. You can try but there is no point after a while because they revive almost instantly so it’s just a waste of your health. At the same time if you keep running then the damage will keep on adding up as well.

It makes walking around a bit of a chore as things go on. Then there are the puzzles which are not very good either. They really force you to run around and figure things out with little context. A lot of times you will end up hopelessly lost. It’s part of why I like linear games, you never have to worry about guessing. Of course a well made RPG knows how to make sure the instructions are clear so this is still more of a problem with this game. I’d also mention that it can be quite dark but I think that’s more of an issue with our TV so I won’t really count it.

Neopets just gets a bit aimless after a while. It’s a shame because the actual core story is pretty good. This is definitely the most serious Neopets game I’ve played. One character is murdered by getting stabbed and the body count here is reasonable. Everyone is slowly getting taken out or mind controlled so nobody is really safe. It makes for a very ominous backdrop and you have to give the game credit for that. I also thought the graphics were pretty solid as well. The character models were on point and the different levels were all unique. I’d give the soundtrack less points though because there weren’t really any notable music themes here either. You’ll forget all about them pretty quickly.

There isn’t any replay value here either. Once you complete the game you aren’t able to go back and do much of anything. There is some mild travel available as well but most places are effectively gone and without a post game boss to fight why would you even bother getting more equipment and such? It just won’t help for much of anything as it is. I suppose it is a good way to give yourself a little more to do in the game but that’s about it really. This game is also at a pretty decent length so I wouldn’t say it really need a lot of replay value either way. It’ll definitely take you over 10 hours which is always my bar of when I say a game is reasonably long. When you factor in that you’ll probably get lost a few times then that will definitely add to the time as well.

Overall, Neopets: The Darkest Faerie had a great start but couldn’t sustain it. At the beginning this was an action platformer at its core with a solid plot as you tried to save the kingdom. After this the game slowly became more of a quest title where you had to do a lot of dungeons and this ended up feeling like a ton of filler. We really didn’t need that and the game would have been better off without it. The moral of the story is that you shouldn’t always make your game longer just so you can say it has a lot of content. Keeping this game streamlined and to the point would have been a really good idea. In that case the review would have been singing a much different tune.

Overall 6/10

Fairy Tail Stats and Records

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Stats time!

Play Time 29h

Guild Rank 8th
Guild Rank Goals Complete 4/5
Characters Unlocked 13

Character Levels

Natsu 62
Lucy 63
Gray 63
Erza 62
Mirajane 62
Gajeel 60
Juvia 60
Wendy 62
Laxus 63
Sherria 62
Kagura 62
Ichiya 62
Jellal 63

Facilities
Pool Level Max
Laboratory Level Max
Stage Level 4
Kitchen Level Max
Table Set Level Max
Bar Counter Level 4
Library Room Level Max
Item Shop Level Max
Request Board Level Max
Material Storeroom Level Max

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

The Immortal Review

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It’s time to take a look at a recent game Nintendo added to the NES catalogue. I definitely was not familiar with this one before starting it but I’m always up for giving each game its fair share. Unfortunately I can’t say that this one is particularly good. It’s a title with so many gotcha traps that you don’t spend much time actually progressing through the game. Everything in the title is meant to take you out of the picture and while that is pretty fun for how creative it is, it does’t really let you play the game.

You wake up in a dark room with a note from your master explaining that he was bumped off and you have to stop some sorcerer or something. The mystery is that the letter was addressed to someone else, not you. Still, these are the answers you were looking for so you leave the room and head into the rest of the castle which is filled to the brim with traps. Everything in this castle is made for the sole purpose of blowing you to smithereens. Seriously, you can die with every step. Sometimes by walking you’ll trigger a sword that shoots up from the ground and stabs you to death. Other times there’s a trap door or even a random monster in the ground trying to eat you. You’ll be lucky to make it more than a few steps before death sometimes.

Then you’ve got flying energy balls that follow you to the end of your days. I couldn’t find any way to get rid of them and they are much faster than you are. Trying to stay out of their way is virtually impossible so you’ll keep dying. Then you have spears being thrown at you and also shurikens that home in on your general direction. Finally we can’t forget the minions wandering around who will challenge you to a fight. The gameplay style here is very unique. Most of the game is an overhead platformer as you run from room to room trying your best to stay one step ahead of the rest. In combat it turns into more of a guessing game. Both of you have swords and the idea is to take the other one out of the picture. You can stab straight or to the side. Additionally you can dodge to the side as well. Watch out because the opponent can do the same thing. The whole match gets very tactical or you can strike first and wing it. If you keep slashing sideways at full speed then you will always deal more damage than the enemy can. Keep it up and you’ll win the battle although it’ll cost you considerable damage.

There are also a lot of puzzles in the game which is naturally not really my thing as you know. You are given various items as enemies drop them and some have special uses. For example, you can light up a candle which opens up the passageway to the next floor. Enter carefully as if you fall into the hole instead of through the ladder then you instantly die. Also, don’t read the scrolls you pick up since they blow you up which takes out another life. There are also jello monsters running around which absorb you resulting in another instant death. The game really throws everything at you here with no time to catch your breath. In a way it is quite admirable I suppose as the game keeps on showing you that this is all quite serious business.

Fortunately these deaths don’t all take you back to the beginning. The game seems to save after every major floor. I only made it to floor 2 so I don’t know if it stays that way for the whole game. You seem to have 3 lives so if you die once you respawn in the same room. Lose all of your lives and then you respawn back at the beginning of the floor instead which is quite the difference. I’m glad that the game doesn’t set you all the way but it’s a small comfort. You’re just not given enough time to actually play the game and that’s a problem if you ask me. It kind of defeats the whole purpose of trying to explore this dungeon.

The graphics are pretty old and haven’t aged as well as some of the other games. There’s not a whole lot of detail here. While the game doesn’t look all that good, I think it deserves some credit for building such an elaborate level. That is something which is quite a bit less common than you would expect. Usually the NES games wouldn’t have a whole lot of areas to explore just due to the nature of the system. It would have to focus everything into the gameplay while also staying within the disc’s size limit. Once you’re able to get past that then you can worry about everything else.

Overall, The Immortal is definitely not a game that has a timeless feel about it. It’s not a particularly fun game and its only gimmick of constant death is not one that lends itself well to playing over and over again. You’ll have a hard time just beating this game through once to be honest with how many obstacles it puts in your way. Good luck is all I’d say to that because the game is absolutely going to make you work for it. I’m hoping Nintendo continues to add more NES and SNES games though. They’ve really helped me play a lot of titles that I absolutely wouldn’t have checked out otherwise.

Overall 3/10