Good evening everyone. I'm writing this late at night for no particular reason aside from that I was late writing it yesterday. Anyways here is my preview of Fairy Fencer F
Fairy Fencer F
Compile Heart, everyone's favorite game industry parodying lolicon pandering company, is developing a new game called Fairy Fencer F. I'm sure you all remember the games that they are famous for....you know Hyperdimension Neptunia......Sure, not the best series to establish your reputation with, but it seems that this time around Compile Heart is planning on making something a bit more serious...and don't try and tell me that their Agarest War series WAS serious! Fairy Fencer F seems to have some potential judging by the screen shots.
Here is the premise of the story from the website.
戦いは拮抗していたが、両者ともに自身の力と妖聖を憑依させた特殊な武器を大量に撃ち合い、
その力によってお互いを封印し、どこかここではない世界へと消え去った。
それから時は流れ、現代。
女神と邪神が遺した武器は『フューリー』と、それを扱う戦士は『フェンサー』と呼ばれていた。
フューリーはその強大な力ゆえ、集めると願いがかなうと噂されていたため、フェンサーはフューリーの奪い合いを常としていた。
ひょんなことからフェンサーになったばかりの青年ファングは襲われていた少女、ティアラを助ける。
彼女もまた、フェンサーであった。
この出会いにより、ファングは邪神と女神をめぐる戦いに巻き込まれていくことになる―
Rough Translation:The Battle / War was close with both sides (fighters) each exchanging blows from their own abilities and (Special) weapons imbued with Fairy (Faery) Powers. With that power each was sealed away, banished to place not of this world (actually a world that is not here).
Then with the flow of time (Time passed), This Century
The Goddess and the Evil God (possibly the ones who were mentioned to be fighting) left behind a weapon called "Fury", with the warrior who uses (deals with) such a weapon being called a "Fencer". Because of the enormous power of the "Fury" (weapons) there is a rumor that if one was to gather (these weapons) their wishes would be granted, so these "Fencers" have begun the endless scramble for these weapons.
In a strange turn of events (Strange event) the young man Fang, a newbie Fencer, saves a young girl, Tiara, from an attack.
The girl too is a Fencer.
Due to this meeting, Fang becomes involved with the constant battle between the Evil God and the Goddess.
While the story doesn't sound too extraordinary, according to the website, the main character Fang has a foul mouth, and will "determine his own fate", which is decisively a bold way to describe him and set him apart. Because of this he seems a bit less on the witless bishonen type and more of the strong headed fighter type. This type of protagonist, in my opinion, is usually great for the story, as a tougher character typically has less psychological baggage to get over before the plot can advance.
Fang
Tiara on the other hand does seem to be made to fulfill typical fetishes. She wears Gothic Lolita clothing, and is said to be "so serious at times that is borderline masochistic" (I'm paraphrasing). She fights for the sake of reviving the goddess, and when Fang speaks ill of her (Tiara? and her lover of the goddess, guessing from context) her disposition changes. She is said to be rather scary when angry.
Tiara
This Gothic Loli is going to kick some....whatever the hell that is,'s arse. Really what is that? I hypohyenagriff !?
Another battle shot of Tiara. The other girl in the picture hasn't been introduced yet on their site.
As always with "certain" JRPGs the cute "moe" style girls get more attention than the guys. Which more often than not paints the wrong picture and misrepresents the game and it's story. By all accounts the main character is said to be Fang, yet they mostly have screen shots of Tiara.
Here is a picture of Tiara and Alyn ( another character I didn't cover out of pure laziness) in an alluring and rather well done action promo-shot.
Lastly there is this strange amalgamation of swords which I can only assume is the "Fury" weapons that the so called "Fencers" are to gather in order to be granted their wishes.
All in all, the premise is a road that we have all been down before. But for another niche' JRPG for the PS3 it seems to have promise. As always, near the end of a consoles life is when companies really seem to get the hang of creating games for said console. This just means for JRPGs, the PS3 isn't dead yet. In actuality its JRPG library may have just started.
My conclusion
The bottom of the site brags about the awesome people that this development team consists of. While having the Neptunia Team listed is a negative point in my eyes, the fact that they have Yoshitaka Amano listed as the concept artist is really something that grabs by attention. We will have to wait and see if there will be any actual footage of gameplay released soon. That will be the true test.
News Source (http://www.compileheart.com/fairyfencer_f/#/top)
---Otaku Guru Zaciroth