Fairy Tail 2 Impression

Fairy Tail 2 absolutely comes with the full trappings of a shōnen manga.

Although primarily known for its work on the Atelier series, developer Gust hasn’t been adverse to branching out every now and then. Its recent escapades have seen the studio working on adaptations of popular mangaka Hiro Mashima’s Fairy Tail, a first game launching in 2020, while Fairy Tail 2 is to arrive this December to provide the conclusion to the tale. RPGamer was given the opportunity to check out an early build of the game and see how its changes stack up.

Fairy Tail 2 adapts the original Fairy Tail manga series’s final major Alvarez arc, where the Alvarez Empire chooses to invade the Kingdom of Fiore that is the home of the Fairy Tail Guild. The game starts with this plot point from the outset casually revealing the true identity of Emperor Spriggan and the threat posed, though the premise is a pretty straightforward one that even newcomers will gain a very quick handle on things. While the story happily rushes into events, the game readily comes with a primer so that players can read up on previous events as well as an immediate terminology lookup available on any highlight names or words, meaning that newcomers aren’t going to be lost.

Fairy Tail 2 wastes no time in letting players know where they are in the story.

Based on the prologue and opening chapter, Fairy Tail 2 is not a particularly complex story but absolutely comes with the full trappings of a shōnen manga. Fire-forged friendships and larger-than-life characters are already well established and everywhere to be found, and the game is refreshingly more than happy to just run with it. The game also promises an original “The Key to the Unknown” storyline supervised by Hiro Mashima that takes place after the events of the original manga. The presentation feels right at home, with vibrant locations and colourful characters that fit their manga and anime versions, flashy animations, and engaging Celtic-inspired music.

The basic gameplay structure sees players exploring a selection of large-scale, relatively open areas. These areas are filled with enemies, items, and resources as players head to story and quest checkpoints. Campfires are available at intermittent points, where the party can rest up and where players can also view any short character vignettes they have unlocked in the intervening time, usually by levelling up those characters to a requisite point. There are also some optional side quests that can be found while exploring, though the early part of the game didn’t feature too many of these.

Players explore large-scale areas around the Kingdom of Fiore.

Combat moves away from the first game’s turn-based battles into a real-time system. Players control one of the three active members with an ATB-gauge showing when they can unleash a short regular attack combo, potentially following that up with a series of special moves. Each character can have up to six skill moves assigned, with make use of SP obtained by using regular attacks. SP is the only limitation on how many skills can be fired off in quick succession; using the same skill multiple times in a chain increases its SP cost but also its power. Players can defend at any point, but the action gauge is paused while defending, and can also freely swap the controlled character or bring in one of the reserve members.

Outside of HP, enemies have their own Break Gauge, which allows players to perform a powerful Link Attack with one of their allies. Certain enemies will start on their own powerful attacks, indicated by the appearance of a Risk Gauge, which players can break to stop the attack. As a battle go on, players can raise their Fairy Rank, which provides multiple benefits such as increasing the party’s maximum SP and powering up Link Attacks. Meanwhile, enemies can also have elemental strengths and weaknesses, which encourages players to swap around members to adapt to who they are facing. There are also a number of buffs, debuffs, and status ailments for players to make use of or deal with.

While not full-on action, combat keeps up at a quick pace.

Combat moves along at a pretty swift pace, and the system does a good job of making it feel action-packed while keeping it fairly strategic when the need arises. The early stages provide little trouble for players on its Balanced difficulty setting — the second of four — though players can switch difficulty at any time. Characters earn experience, dubbed Ether, regardless of whether they participated in combat, which raises their Magic Origin levels. Each level, the character obtains a point to unlock a node of one of three straightforward skill trees. Players can choose to assign these themselves or allow the game to automatically evolve each character as it sees fit. Each character can also equip three Lacrima, which provide additional boosts. Though none of the systems appear particularly complex or deep, there’s enough to them to give players some agency over the party.

From my time with it so far, Fairy Tail 2 doesn’t set out to anything outside of the box, but everything is put together well. The game is clearly there to serve as a celebration of the Fairy Tail series, and looks like it should be successful in this regard. It does a good job quickly demonstrating what it’s all about; there should be plenty for fans of the series to enjoy, and while it won’t be for everyone, it’s easy to see some newcomers using as a springboard for getting into the series’ other media as well as Hiro Mashima’s works elsewhere.

Disclosure: This article is based on a build of the game provided by the publisher.