Fairy Tail 2 PS5 Review. As a franchise, Fairy Tail hasn’t received the fair chance that some people think it deserves, especially in the medium of video games.Originally a manga series created by Hiro Mashima, Fairy Tail has seen numerous adaptation in other forms of media, but games have been few and far between. So, as a big fan of the series, I always get pretty hyped when a new game is announced and remain hopeful that it will do the franchise justice
Fairy Tail 2 PS5 Review
The End Of The Story Is A Bad Place To Start
Though Fairy Tail 2 tries to provide a fun and engaging experience, it’s held back by repetitive and easy combat and visuals that somehow look worse than the first game, released four years ago.
Fairy Tail 2 fast-forwards to the franchise’s final season of the anime, putting the kingdom and the guilds of Fiore to war against the Alvarez Empire and their leader, the Black Wizard Zerif. This is the end of the Fairy Tail story, so people jumping in will be as lost as a puppy in the desert. The game does have a complete glossary and encyclopedia of events throughout the franchise that you can read, but it’s impossible to summarize entire events in just a few paragraphs.
One thing the game does well is highlight character names, locations, and events in dialogue that you can then select to get information on. It’s a great addition and helps get newcomers and fans who may want a refresher on specific events.
In the anime, the entire arc is a long, drawn-out battle between armies; there isn’t any downtime. The game tries to keep this pace going, but it’s quickly snuffed out with the travel time from one location to another. The world is big and has a lot of explorable land.
A Big World To Explore With Plenty Of Memorable Locations
Fairy Tail 2 isn’t an open world but has a lot of open areas to explore. Like in developer Gust’s other franchises, like the earlier Atelier franchise and the first Fairy Tail game, you still follow a linear path.
There are materials you can farm campsites to unlock, which act as fast travel points. Meanwhile, hunting unique monsters and shutting down monster portals provide many materials and items to trade for Lacrama.
The game has plenty of side quests, but they aren’t worth doing. The rewards are lackluster, and the majority of them are fetch quests. Find a said item, and deliver the set item. Most of these side quests can be completed immediately after acquiring them, as the item needed is already in your inventory.
Upgrade Your Party As You See Fit
Lacrama crystals act like equipment in the game; each character can equip three Lacramas with varying stats, and they feature different grades.
The higher the grade, the more buffs you gain to your stats. These stats range from your typical attack and defense increases but also increase your elemental damage. Natsu can equip Fire Lacrama to increase his fire damage. These Lacramas can further be upgraded with Lacrama fragments. If the Lacrama is high level, it can equip an extra Lacram, increasing other stats such as higher healing percentages.
Your party doesn’t level up in the traditional sense from combat. They gain experience by leveling up their Magic Origin. Once you level it up, you gain a skill point between three skill trees—an Offensive, Defensive, and HP or support tree.
These trees have passive unlocks, like increasing your attack and stagger rate. They also unlock new abilities and even power-ups for those abilities, allowing them to become more powerful. You can set these upgrades to unlock automatically or do it manually to remember the strengths of all your party members.
Fun Combat That Gets On The Easy Side
Fairy Tail 2’s combat is something unique. Enemies appear on the field and can be run into to initiate a battle. Combat is turn-based, but you control one character at a time while the other two fight automatically. Thankfully, you can switch between your other two members with the tap of a button, but you can also switch out your party members whenever you want from your roster.
Each character has a normal attack that builds up SP. You can pull off magic attacks mapped to the face buttons with enough SP. You get six magic attacks you can swap out for others as you unlock them. The more powerful the Magic attack, the more skill points it consumes. Some skills even increase your maximum skill points, allowing you to build them up and unleash vast combos of magic attacks.
Enemies have various weaknesses that you can check during combat. As you strike at those weaknesses, the enemy not only takes extra damage, but you can also increase the damage to their stagger gauge. Some attacks even target the enemy’s stagger gauge.
Unison Raid Combo Attacks Are Spectical To Look At
When an enemy is staggered, you can pull off a Unison Raid attack with a party member. These are combo attacks that two party members pull off for colossal damage. These are pretty cool at first, although most of them are repeated animations.
Some anime and manga characters have a lot of affinity with each other and have unique attacks with different animations. Still, others are simple energy wave attacks repeated across many party members.
As you fight, you also increase your Fairy Rank. Fairy Rank allows you to summon in-support characters to do various things in combat. You can summon Happy, Carla, and Panther Lilly to show up to heal the party and add a random debuff on the enemy.
Though I love to have these support summons, it means that some characters won’t join your party. Characters like Elfman, for example, are left to summon through your Fairy Rank skill. Support characters will also join your party during specific battles. You don’t have any control over them, and they act when particular conditions in combat are met. Take enough damage, and Sherria will show up to heal you.
A Tad Too Easy Of A Game
As much as I enjoyed the game’s combat and freedom, I did find it a tad easy. Even on higher difficulty, I found myself going through battles quite quickly.
Though you gain a large cast of characters, chances are you won’t use them all unless you love them. Some party members just aren’t as helpful or powerful. Even those weak to an element may do less damage than someone physically stronger. When you get stranger than the enemies in an area, you no longer have to fight them in turn-based combat. You can attack them on the field and defeat them.
These enemies will run from you when they see you, so it’s up to you to chase them down. You still get monster item drops and Magic Origin EXP from them; you don’t have to go through the slower combat to do it.
A Passable, Though Not Stunning, Visual Game
Visually, Fairy Tail 2 isn’t anything to be in awe of. In fact, the game’s predecessor actually looked better. The character models come across as a bit of a rushed job, as it seems male and female characters all have the same body base, just made taller and shorter.
The world isn’t exactly pretty to look at, either. However, the game’s CG-animated cutscenes are excellent, with beautiful manga-quality comic images accompanying them. Audio, on the other hand, is pretty solid. Every character and scene is voiced, though the game isn’t dubbed into English, and the music tries its best to replicate the strong soundtrack of the anime.
Fairy Tail 2 tries and, for the most part, successfully provides a fun title for the franchise, but it’s not perfect. As much as I love Fairy Tail, most people will find the story confusing and the combat a bit too easy, making them question the point of all the upgrades and equipment you can acquire.
Fairy Tail 2 is out for PS5, PS4, and Nintendo Switch on December 13, 2024, and is out now for PC.
Review code kindly provided by PR