It’s laborious to inform who, precisely, Fairy Fencer F: Chorus Chord is for. On one hand, it could be straightforward to dismiss it as one thing of a spin-off – an alternate tackle the occasions of the unique and PS4 re-release that launched in 2014 and 2016 respectively. But on the similar time, regardless of circuitously following up on the occasions of the plot threads laid down by Introduction Darkish Power, it wouldn’t be solely right to say that Chorus Chord itself is standalone – it’s not a recreation I’d ever suggest to somebody who wasn’t already accustomed to Zelwinds and its world.
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Not like the earlier entries within the collection, Fairy Fencer F: Chorus Chord abandons any pretense of being a extra conventional RPG to completely embrace its Tactical RPG lineage; in observe, the shift wasn’t almost as a lot of an about-face as I’d anticipated heading in. Since Fairy Fencer F was already midway to being a TRPG, the shift to Sting growing the franchise into a correct grid-based Techniques recreation manages to keep up a lot of the identical emotions of the unique recreation’s fight.
Including a brand new wrinkle to fight is the version of the Fairy Aria system; the dual muses Fleur and Glace are new models that can seem in basically each mission, and so they have the particular potential to sing a tune that can have an effect on an space of the map to empower their allies. If the realm of impact for each songs overlap, the buffs for each events will enormously improve – providing a danger vs reward of deciding whether or not it’s value going for the upper bonus afforded by your individual Muse’s tune, whereas leaving your self open to the identical buffs utilized to the enemy group.
As a Tactical RPG, Chorus Chord is okay. Fencer Factors you obtain alongside expertise can be utilized to improve your unit’s stats, in addition to to unlock particular talents and assaults that may additional bolster their versatility in battle; equipping Sub-Fairies means that you can both offset a few of their weaknesses or play to their strengths. These Sub-Fairies, very like within the earlier video games, are unlocked by way of each the story in addition to rewards for sidequests. These rewards come within the type of “Furies”, the weapons wherein the spirit of every Fairy is discovered.
World-Shaping, which was a function from the earlier video games, returns as a retooled minigame that gamers can use to search for assets the world over map, which can be utilized in a while in synthesizing, or generally geared up instantly as an adjunct in your models for a particular buff. It’s a neat approach of recontextualizing the system, however very like with the Sub-Fairies themselves it lends itself to busy work that may completely annihilate the sport’s pacing.
I alluded to it earlier, however the recreation’s story finds itself in a bizarre house, the place it’s going to pay homage to the occasions of the routes from Introduction Darkish Power, and even makes use of a few of its unique characters – however on the similar time, it’s clear that the occasions of Chorus Chord aren’t explicitly following up on these of the earlier video games. It’s not a reboot, neither is it a retelling – moderately it’s in a moderately precarious scenario the place it’s very ambiguous the place the story would start on the timeline, and but it does anticipate gamers to be accustomed to these characters and the way they’ve interacted among the many solid earlier than.
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That is the place I’ll make a particular observe that the sport’s situation was not written by Toshiki Inoue, so make of that what you’ll. The story itself is okay, and the characters themselves didn’t appear mischaracterized – however the story was dealt with by a special group, so maybe it isn’t shocking that the sport was unable to instantly comply with up on the occasions of the earlier video games. In different phrases, even when Chorus Chord did handle to carry the collection out of hiatus – and I’ve my doubts, particularly owing to the sport’s extremely poor gross sales efficiency in Japan (which could have a factor to do with this localization skipping out on an English dub monitor) – it’s laborious to see the way it would possibly adhere to the unique plan which Inoue would possibly’ve had for the franchise as an entire. Maybe it’s not solely truthful to say as a lot; however for lack of a greater phrase, Concept Manufacturing unit’s monitor document right here has been dicey to place it finest.
The model of the sport I reviewed was the PC launch, which for no matter motive obtained a close to last-minute delay to a month after the console launch. The port itself is okay; fundamental, however it works, and Steam Deck homeowners needs to be comfortable to be taught that it performs with none points at 60FPS with a strong 4 hours of battery life with the TDP restricted to eight watts. Whereas I didn’t take a look at the Nintendo Swap model myself, I’ve heard that the efficiency on Nintendo’s handheld left so much to be desired. If nothing else, if you happen to’re in search of a TRPG to play on Valve’s handheld gaming PC, I can actually suggest it for that alone.
On the finish of the day, I discover myself conflicted with Fairy Fencer F: Chorus Chord’s very existence. It’s not a nasty recreation, it’s truly a strong TRPG – however it’s not the follow-up that I imagine many Fairy Fencer F followers had been hoping for. Taken by itself deserves I’d nonetheless give it a advice for followers actually in search of extra out of the franchise, however it’s laborious to not take into consideration what may have been. Chorus Chord is an effective Fairy Fencer F recreation, however maybe not what the collection wanted proper now.
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