Have you always wanted to be a faery or elf? Alright, the answer to that question is most likely "no," but perhaps you've wished for the ability to fly? If your answer is still "no" then you probably think fairytales are for babies and Faery: Legends of Avalon is not the game for you. The more fantasy-oriented folks on the other hand, will find that Faery is an enjoyable role-playing game.
Created by French developers Focus Home Interactive, Faery begins with an ominous tale: the fae worlds are fading and magic is being drained from the land, which surely means death for all who inhabit those realms. You play as a faery or elf, recently awoken from a crystal stasis pod by the King, tasked with uncovering the reason behind all the turmoil in the neighboring sections of Avalon.
Flittering about four vastly different environments -- Avalon (the main hub world), the Flying Dutchman (ghost pirate ship), City of Mirage (city on the back of a beetle... seriously) and Yggdrasil (tree world) -- you'll investigate and solve the cities' respective problems. The story is told through conversations, but there's no voice acting in this game, so you'll have to read a lot of text.
Engaging in discussions with folks should look familiar if you've played Mass Effect. A very similar wheel of dialogue options pops up, and you can choose to be polite or more confrontational. Instead of becoming a "good" or "bad" character though, your decisions are limited to your relationship with that particular person. So, if you tick someone off, they won't help you anymore. This approach is refreshing and means you can have some fun exploring the dialogue without fear of becoming tagged as an evildoer.
Created by French developers Focus Home Interactive, Faery begins with an ominous tale: the fae worlds are fading and magic is being drained from the land, which surely means death for all who inhabit those realms. You play as a faery or elf, recently awoken from a crystal stasis pod by the King, tasked with uncovering the reason behind all the turmoil in the neighboring sections of Avalon.
Flittering about four vastly different environments -- Avalon (the main hub world), the Flying Dutchman (ghost pirate ship), City of Mirage (city on the back of a beetle... seriously) and Yggdrasil (tree world) -- you'll investigate and solve the cities' respective problems. The story is told through conversations, but there's no voice acting in this game, so you'll have to read a lot of text.
Engaging in discussions with folks should look familiar if you've played Mass Effect. A very similar wheel of dialogue options pops up, and you can choose to be polite or more confrontational. Instead of becoming a "good" or "bad" character though, your decisions are limited to your relationship with that particular person. So, if you tick someone off, they won't help you anymore. This approach is refreshing and means you can have some fun exploring the dialogue without fear of becoming tagged as an evildoer.
Oh no! It's a giant, evil dryad!
Flying feels natural, and as you explore the different areas, you'll see they each have an immense sense of scale. The City of Mirage is by far the most impressive, with two cities acting as the bread in a giant scarab sandwich. Compared to your tiny protagonist even a dung beetle is massive. But even with constant reminder that you're small, the worlds still feel limited as there aren't many places to go and interact with.
You'll explore most areas from a bird's eye view, so it can be difficult to spot important things. Focus tried to address that by highlighting characters with a spotlight and interactive objects with glowing red and orange orbs, but it can still be frustrating to find quest items.
Customization is a key element in this title and it's actually pretty impressive. As you level up your character you'll gain the ability to add to his or her physical appearance, which will in turn alter his or her abilities and powers. If you want a passive ability to dodge enemies on the battlefield you might consider giving your faery or elf a cat tail, or if you want to produce electric-based magic attacks, you'll add butterfly wings. You can also upgrade these powers, so increasing your dodge skill will make the kitty tail grow longer. The only problem with the system is that there's no way to undo your skill points and switch them out for something else, so if you accidentally give your character ram horns like I did, you're stuck with them.
Fighting is turn-based and the attacks you can use are dictated by action points. As you level up you'll gain more action points to use per turn so you can unleash stronger spells and physical attacks. The more powerful spells require a recharge time, so you can't spam them. One weird thing is that if you select an enemy to attack and he or she dies before you can unleash it, the spell won't default to the next enemy; instead you'll just skip the rest of your turn.
There are a lot of fights to pick, small dungeons to crawl and plenty of boss battles to engage in, and for the most part they're pretty entertaining. You'll also pick two different companions to join you on your adventure out of six characters you'll meet along your journey. Ranging from a baby dragon to a peace-loving troll, gaining the love of certain companions can result in a romance, though there's never so much as a kiss exchanged.
As an episodic adventure, the story does feel short and the ending is abrupt. That said there is what seems to be a major decision to make at the end that could affect how the second game plays out, which would be a nice touch.
