Like the PS1 and PS2 before it, the PS3 has become both a safe haven and dumping ground for the recent surge of JRPGs, and with the PS3 now in its twilight years, more and more are coming out of the woodwork. Developer Compile Heart is one of the biggest contributors, popping out yearly RPGs like Record of Agarest War, multiple entries in the Hyper Dementia Neptunia series, and now Fairy Fencer F, which already has a sequel for the PS4 in the works. If the first iteration is any indication, then Fairy Fencer F will be another solid series of JRPGs for Sony platforms.

While Fairy Fencer F is ultimately highly enjoyable, it doesn’t exactly begin that way. The game’s story starts off as a giant mess of JRPGs cliches, complete with the overly reluctant hero, the voluptuous, scantily clad, and socially oblivious academic, the seemingly good-hearted and pure damsel with a dark secret, the evil corporation thwarting our group's at every turn, and protagonists finding hidden powers just as defeat is imminent. Oh, and it’s fueled by an eternal battle between good and evil - the Goddess and the Vile God. Fairies, known as Furies and taking the form of weapons, have taken it upon themselves to seal away the powers of the Goddess and Vile God. Fang, our reluctant hero, comes upon one such Fairy named Eryn, who has lost her memories and also holds a strong connection with the Goddess herself. Fang, Eryn and the rest of the stereotypical anime team set out to unseal the Goddess’ powers, as well as to restore Eryn’s memories by collecting the remaining Furies. 

After wading through the sea of cliches, the story opens up with originality; characters develop deeper personalities and the game holds some welcomed and unexpected twists. However, the method of storytelling is a poor choice. Instead of actual cutscenes, Fairy Fencer F simply utilizes a visual novel technique, where characters stand next to each other as they speak, with very little movement besides a slight hand gesture (and, of course, heaving breasts). When one of the extremely rare “cinematics” does appear, it’s clear why Compile Heart chose the minimalist approach, as they are poorly animated and generally uninteresting. The game definitely oozes JRPG with every turn, which fans of the genre will love, yet it makes it difficult to bridge the gap to those who only dabble in the genre, especially given the poor visual novel storytelling. 

Fairy Fencer F, for all its liberal borrowing from similar titles, features some of the best combat to grace the genre in years. Though it’s turn-based, characters can move around the battlefield in a limited fashion, enabling you to attack different enemies and manoeuvre yourself so that your abilities and spells will hit groups of baddies. Normal attacks are performed through combos, with up to five attacks available for Fang and four attacks for the rest of the characters. Combos are linked together by pressing one of three buttons to choose an attack, with the buttons customizable with different types of attacks ranging a multitude of weapons specific to each character. More damaging combos are achieved through weapon boosting (Fairy Fencer’s leveling system), and more weapons are granted through story progression. General combat is very satisfying, as the combo system allows for a much higher degree of interactiveness than simply pressing one button over and over.

In addition to elemental weaknesses, enemies are also weak to certain kinds of weapons, making it necessary to include varying types of attacks in order to maximize damage. Once a weakness is exploited enough, it will launch an Avalanche attack, allowing your party to attack the enemy in quick succession without costing their turns. It helps to hasten random encounters and adds a degree of strategy, as simply button-mashing through enemies will take much longer. Once characters have attacked enough times to fill up the Fairize meter, they’ll be able to transform, or Fairize, to increase their damage resistance and output to assist during more challenging battles. While it’s a flashy addition, Fairizing is generally unnecessary, as it makes the already lack of difficulty even worse by making the most "challenging" of boss battles a cake-walk. Like normal attacks, abilities and spells also have a unique spin to them. AoE attacks hold different shapes, such as a circle, rectangle, or pie-shaped, allowing your to manipulate its placement to engulf as many enemies as possible. The battle system makes fighting significantly more enjoyable than traditional turn-based-combat, as it retains the fundamentals of the genre while building upon them with some great innovations and customization options to form a fantastic system. 

Besides gaining levels through experience, characters can be customized through the use of Weapon Points. Each battle will grant a certain amount of WP to be used in a multitude of manners, allowing you to increase a character’s stats, give them new skills, increase their EXP gains, and grant new attacks from different types of weapons. Weapons range from swords, axes, and scythes to glaives, guns and bows, all of which boast multiple types of attacks, like air-launches and follow-up attacks. While characters initially have specific uses, with this weapon boosting system they can be customized to how you want to play them. Want three heavy hitters with no magic? Done. A tank? Healer? Easy. It allows for a number of options in terms of character development, making it a welcomed addition to the JRPG leveling mechanics that are traditionally restrictive to certain character types. 

Throughout the game you’ll collect more Furies that can be equipped for stat bonuses and passive abilities, like an increase in damage for certain weapons or recovering HP or SP after battles. Though not directly used to fight, the Furies hold a Pokemon-esque feel to them, as collecting and utilizing their different passive abilities adds a great deal of fun. Furies are also used to change the parameters of the game’s dungeons by stabbing them in the ground on the overworld, allowing you to alter aspects like how much EXP is gained, the types of enemies that appear, or the item drop rate. However, they also come with negative effects, like abilities costing double the amount of SP or enemies dishing out double damage. Yet, given the general ease of the game, the negative effects are never unmanageable, and since you can stab into the ground as many Furies as you want, there's no real downside to using as many Furies as possible. While they are fun to use, and you'll find them to be of great help when it comes to collecting certain items used for sidequests and synthesizing, they contribute greatly to making the game far too easy, as you’ll be able to rack up EXP and WP extremely quickly once you’ve unlocked the necessary Furies. 

For as great as the combat is, Fairy Fencer F is lacking in other areas. Besides the ease of difficulty and shoddy visual novel narrative, the exploration, sidequest and synthesizing elements aren’t quite up to par either. There is no overworld to explore - only one city that acts as a hub - and dungeons are relatively small, with most consisting of only one or two rooms. Some of the later dungeons are basically the same as earlier areas but have been slightly redesigned, which feels overly uninspired. Sidequests are nothing more than fetch or kill quests, though to finish some of the later quests you’ll need to make use of some of the Furies’ abilities to change the enemies in the dungeons. They help to add some additional playtime to the title, but the rewards are poor and provide no real motivation for completion. Item synthesizing also feels uninspired, with most items being available for purchase before you find the required items to make them anyway.

Keeping to the uninspired feel, the game’s visuals don’t add much to the experience. Besides the clean look of the anime models during the lackluster visual novel cutscenes, the rest of the game exhibits some ugly jagged edges that are especially visible on character models. Attack animations are entertaining to watch, which is in part due to the mediocre look of the rest of the game, but they pale in comparison to other titles in the genre. Dungeons are designed with simplicity, as well as being rather generic in terms of detail. Fairy Fencer F’s music is a similar mix of hits and misses, most of which are fueled by fast and heavy guitar riffs. A couple of tracks were recorded by Nobou Uematsu and his band The Earthbound Papas, and these are clearly the highlights of the score. Voice work is also hit or miss; some of the voices fit their characters' personalities but others, like one oddly-placed Canadian accent, just sound awkward. 

For what it’s worth, JRPGs hold a special place in my heart, and Fairy Fencer F pulled all the right strings to find a place there. However, others may find it hard to look past some of its faults, especially the mediocre storytelling and lack of serious challenge. Yet there’s still plenty to enjoy in terms of combat and customization during Fairy Fencer F's 20-30 hour adventure, and those who like a little JRPG in their gaming lives shouldn’t pass it up.