Faery: Legends of Avalon Hot

We don't see many RPGs on XBLA and we certainly don't see many turn based RPGs that aren't from Japan with some form of Anime style to them. Faery: Legends of Avalon is a charming and surprisingly long adventure from Spiders and Focus Home Interactive.

Story:

The plot is pretty straightforward, you are a Fairy who has been crystalized in a state of stasis for a long time. Before your freezing, which at the beginning of the game is explained to have been your own choice, Man and Fairies lived amongst one another and both enjoyed the benefits of magic. Some time during your stasis, a rift had developed between Man and Fairies where Man stopped believing in magic and grew apart from the Fairy world, relegating them to the stuff of myths and legend. King Oberon of Avalon, which serves as the Fairy capital, noticed that the magic in his far reaching Fairy kingdom has become corrupted and weakened and the Fairy population has dwindled as a result. He has awoken you from your stasis and asked for your help, you have no memory of your life before stasis as it is all a blur for the moment. The world of Avalon has gateways to the other Fairy worlds in the form of mirrors which you step through. Oberon opens up three of these worlds for you to investigate and this is where your adventure begins. It's a pretty standard plot, but without spoiling anything I will just say that it gets very interesting towards the end. It is said this will be a series of games and I predict 2 more games since 3 mirrors were opened up, but 6 remained closed off. So, there will probably be 3 mirrors for each game. If you have any familiarity with Fairy folklore (most of us have read a Fairy tale or two), you will notice many cleverly worked in elements of existing Fairy tales from mythical beasts and places to legendary objects and well known names.

Presentation:

Immediately upon starting the game up, you are met with a title screen displaying sketches which look like they were drawn on an old piece of parchment, as if you just stumbled onto a long lost tome on the people of the Fey world. The music is what you would expect from a story involving Fairies with a distinct Celtic flavor to it with a somewhat spooky and mysterious theme. Before starting the game you are brought to a rather in depth character customization screen where you can use pre-sets or shape the face and facial features of your Fairy using sliding bars. Eye size, eye direction, ear size, ear direction, nose length, cheek depth, cheek bone height, placement of lower lip, several hair styles, eye color, eye and mouth makeup, skin color ranging from pretty much any color you could ask for by tinkering with various sliding bars, hair color, eyebrow prominence and of course gender and name can all be customized by you. I am probably leaving something out as I write this, but you can have some fun creating your own protagonist before the game even begins.

When the game begins, I immediately noticed the cel shaded, water painting like look to my character and the world around him. The game does not push the hardware to any limits by any means, but it is a relatively pretty game to look at with it's own sense of style appropriate for the subject matter. It is not cartoonish looking the way a Disney feature is, Fairy tales never were strictly for kids as they often deal with dark, adult subject matter so don't expect this game to be for little girls only. Think of the old Fairy tales you may have read back in the day, or Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night's Dream (who is even referenced in this game, along with many figures and legends of Fairy lore). All of the "worlds" you get to explore in this game are quite beautiful and creative, though they are on the small side and feel rather confined at the same time. There is always plenty of opportunity to go vertical in each world which does help open things up a bit. One world in particular is rather dark as it takes place on a ghost ship, the fabled Flying Dutchman which you may recognize (not a spoiler, the worlds you will visit are revealed right at the beginning of the game), and entering below deck is very hard to see as it is so dark with little light. Adjusting the brightness will not help, these are literally black spots the game does not light up, you need to fly near the lanterns and try to peak into the darkness but since the process is so tedious, I doubt this is a game design decision, but a graphical flaw.

The art is beautiful and the graphics are rock solid for the most part, particularly for an Arcade game of this size and scope. There are little graphical glitches here and there such as flickering and clipping issues, the occasional screen tear and slight pop in, but it's nothing to distract you from the otherwise majestic world. There are also grammatical mistakes and typos in the dialogue which are more numerous than they should be, and sometimes further explanations or information for quests seem to be missing but you can just check your quest notes to get what you need. There is nothing game breaking that I came across, just some more spit and polish in certain areas was needed.

Gameplay:

Aside from looks, control of your character is simple and entertaining. On the 360 controller, the right trigger is to increase altitude, the left is to descend and the left stick is used to control your pitch (y axis) through standard or inverted controls. Pressing the left analog stick inward serves as an acceleration where your Fairy will shoot forward at heightened speed for as long as you hold the stick in. The right stick serves to control your direction, or x axis, and once you get the hang of flying around, it is a very entertaining experience. Flying around the beginning/tutorial world of Avalon was a joy and sight to behold. I would blaze to the top of mountains, hover there and take in the scenery, then swan dive towards the ground only to pull up at the last minute and skim the surface no more than an inch above. Flinging myself around the island is done with such finesse and elegance and you thankfully don't have to worry about crashing or taking damage as the game will just stop you in your tracks, but do so in a way that looks completely natural. The way your Fairy looks while gliding around seems perfectly natural thanks to the subtle but appropriate animations. Maneuvering your Fairy is effortless and fun, they captured it perfectly.

After burning much time just buzzing around, I decided to play the actual game. As this is an RPG, expect to do a lot of conversing with NPC characters. The first thing I noticed is a Mass Effect like dialogue system with "good" options highlighted in blue and "aggressive" options highlighted in red. To be honest, I really don't know what the different effects this karma system has on the game, I pretty much played through as a noble character, though aside from getting certain people to not like you, or turning down side quests, there doesn't seem to be much consequence in what you say other than the superficial. This was a disappointment to me, the moral paths you choose are also rather simple with their black and white approach. The game also lacks major decisions that leave you scratching your head, agonizing what to do (remember choosing between Ash or Kaiden in Mass Effect?) though there is one moment like this which really ups the drama but I can't tell you anything more in risk of spoiling it for you. You are often granted with various ways to complete a quest, but this usually involves choosing between the aggressive killtastic method, or completing a series of fetch quests to avoid the combat. Avoiding combat may be advisable in some instances if you are feeling weak or low on supplies, but fetch quests are hardly ever fun. Thankfully flying around with your Fairy is quite fun so this helps alleviate the tedious nature of these types of quests.

While playing, you travel in a group of 3, picking up potential new followers along your journey. I was dismayed that there was no banter between the members of your party as there are in many modern RPGs these days. No squabbling or just casual chat between my party mates and they hardly ever interjected their opinion or their own choice words as I talked to or argued with another NPC. Dragon Age really livened the experience up by including more lively and unpredictable personalities to those in your party, they were always involved in everything you did and made their presence known while Faery just comes across as dated in this department which is too bad because the people who do join your party are quite colorful and appealing, I would have liked to hear more from them. A truly good party system is where I choose to bring certain characters along not because of how useful they are in combat but just to see how they react to certain situations, like Morrigan's incessant whining whenever I showed a hint of altruism in Dragon Age or HK47's hilariously sadistic approval whenever I chose death over mercy in Knights of the Old Republic. Faery has wonderfully designed and written characters in this game that remain silent at your side, even though they could add so much to the experience had they been more involved.

Combat is accessible and uses a simple, classic turn based system, but that's not to say it won't require you to think about what you are doing. You are given action points and each maneuver or spell you possess requires a different amount of action points. Should you burn that extra action point or two on an area effect spell to target all of the enemies or just concentrate a focused attack multiple times on one or two of the enemies at a time to take him/them down quicker? Some spells or attacks are meant to be used first, to weaken your opponent for a follow up attack and as always with these types games, choosing when to heal or use a potion, requires more thought than just healing whoever is hurt. I found myself letting some party members fall in battle, gambling that the ones still standing could still be victorious and I wouldn't have to waste a health or reanimation potion on them. Movement on the battlefield is limited to a defensive position (falling back) and an offensive position (up front, stronger attacks). Overall, I found the combat to be quite fun, though a little on the easy side and I played the game on hard.

I mentioned "wasting" a potion, this is because what you find or are given is what you get. There are no shops or merchants in this game to barter with and I can't help but shake the feeling this was something that was taken out just before release. You are, oddly enough, offered to purchase items by certain merchant NPCs but alas, your only dialogue option is "no thanks". As the game progresses you stack up a bunch of items that should be sold or traded, all RPGs should have a merchant to trade with and this is a glaring omission from the game. Another staple of RPGs is the ability to customize and equip those in your party, you can't do that in Faery. You can customize the heck out of yourself, starting from the very beginning as described, but your party mates level up on their own and presumably equip themselves too. Their appearance never changes as the game progresses either and hopefully this is something they address in the next installment as any self respecting RPG should allow you to equip and level up those who are fighting alongside you.

You can't customize those in your party, but when it comes to leveling up yourself, Faery offers up a unique approach. Your appearance changes as you gain new skills and abilities, your body goes through a "metamorphosis" to varying degrees. Different tattoos offer different upgrades, different types of wings grant different types of power such as fire for dragonfly wings or weather effects for butterfly wings; you can add different types of tails, horns, antennas, patterns and tracks for a wide assortment of ablities. After each level up, you can choose to upgrade what you already have, which usually results in further physical changes such as a more elaborate tattoo to the one you already have, or spend that skill point on yet another skill. It was a lot of fun watching my Fairy change right before my eyes as I leveled up and I have to say, he looked more masculine with tattoos, makeup, wings and a tail than any modern action star in Hollywood today - try calling him a "fairy" to his face, that will be the end of you!

The structure of the game is set in a way that you have to save each world, accessed through a magical mirror from your home kingdom of Avalon, from certain doom. Pretty standard stuff and as mentioned earlier, each world is on the small side, but gorgeous. The problem here is that the order in which I can visit these worlds is picked for me. I can always go back to the worlds after having saved them to complete any side quests that might have been missed, but why not just let the player choose whether he wants to go to the tree world or the boat world first? It would make the game feel more open that way and it's something to think about for the next game. Another thing the game seems to be missing, and I never thought I would say this, but leveling up occurs just a little too quickly that at times I actually wished for some open areas to just run off to and grind for experience points. As the game is structured, every quest and enemy you conquer gives you just the right amount of experience to level up in time for the next one. I should point out that if you don't make the effort to complete many of the secondary quests then you will have a tough time beating that world, but just a little free roaming exploration and grinding would have been nice in my opinion. It's such a lovely world, I wouldn't mind venturing out and seeing more of it.

Conclusion:

Overall I enjoyed Faery: Legends of Avalon quite a bit and look forward to a second installment in the series. The game is presented well but with rough edges, the gameplay is straightforward, linear and on the simplistic side but provides for an entertaining experience overall and the story starts off slow but does finish strong. It was worth my 1200 points.

Faery: Legends of Avalon is a classic RPG with a lot of dialog and turn based combat. The game starts with a fairly deep character creator that lets you create your faery with the face, hair, and style you like. Since the game uses a third person camera it is nice that you can create your character however you want. Personally I made mine look like a drow (dark) elf with wings. Once your character is all set you start your game and after a short tutorial you jump right into the main quest of the game…Save the world of magic.

The story in Faery is a little slow paced at first, but it keeps things moving pretty well once you get your companions to accompany you on your quest. I completed the full game with all the side quests and achievements completed in 8 hours and 32 minutes according to my saved game. If you take the time to do everything you can as you progress through game’s world it is not difficult to complete everything. I enjoyed the story and the little humorous things hidden in the game. A lot of the non-playable characters have names from classic fairy tales and many times your character will make comments about that. The story itself fit the classic gameplay style.

The story and game play match well with the graphical style which reminds me of the classic fables. Because the story was somewhat linear it was like I was playing inside a book. There is some flexibility in how you want to handle side quests but the main story gives you very few options on how to progress. Sometimes there will be two ways you can get the next objective completed but there is not skipping of changing the main story line.

The combat in Faery is very classic turn based with each character getting a set amount of action points to use each turn on their attacks, defense, positioning or potions. Your character has an extensive list of upgrade options available as you level up. Your choices determine not just what attacks and abilities are available in combat but also the details of how your character looks. In addition to the upgrades you find and earn a wide range of equipment types throughout the game that you can use to make your character even stronger or to help offset your areas of weakness.

There were a couple little things I would have preferred be changed about the game play. First, there is no voice acting but the characters move their mouths. It seems odd to see their mouths moving but no sound coming out. Since I have to read the dialog anywhere it seems like there is no need for that. Second, I wish the combat was just a little deeper. The combat is actually nicely done but after I use an attack that has an effect there was nothing that affected it. For example, if I use a fireball and catch an enemy on fire but then my companion uses a water based wave attack the fire does not get put out. Instead it adds the water based damage on top. Some enemies are immune or resistant to specific attack types so if they had taken the combat one step further and had the attack types also affect each other it would take the combat to a whole deeper strategic level.

Having spent the last couple days playing Faery: Legends of Avalon I am glad I did. It is a fun game and I enjoyed my time in it. The length was just about right and while not perfect it is well worth playing for fans of classic RPGs.