Compile Heart has been one of my favourite game developers of recent years – there’s no denying it and they have released Fairy Fencer F Refrain Chord. Whilst you could never call their games genre-defining or revolutionary, they represent a particular niche within the industry – the mid-tier, or AA.
Whilst I was growing up, studios of this type were commonplace – teams which made games of reasonable quality to a reasonable budget. Whilst the industry has opened up in many ways in terms of diversity, in recent years more titles have fit into either the indie space; with very small teams/budgets and therefore a need to innovate to overcome their limitations – or the AAA space; where they pump so much money in that selling nearly 3.5 million copies can be considered a failure.
Compile however lies in-between, with enough backing, experience and time to pump out a steady stream of “good” games which end up meeting their modest expectations. They’ve been doing this for a while too; with the ever-popular Neptunia, Mary Skelter and Genkai Tokki series’ all performing adequately. Does the latest entry in their Fairy Fencer F series continue their “good” streak, or is this one more of a triple-F experience?
Fairy Fencer F started life as a basic fantasy RPG set in a world full of living weapons – known as Furies. Controlled by Fencers and created by the goddess and the evil god, the original titles followed Fang and his Fury – Eryn – as they sought out other Furies and looked for a way to restore the goddess. Fairy Fencer F Refrain Chord continues Fang’s story – introducing twists, turns and new characters to the ongoing tale – but also switches the gameplay to that of a tactical turn-based RPG.
If you’re unfamiliar with earlier entries in the series, the opening hours won’t really mean much to you. Fang starts off in jail for some reason, is rescued, meets back up with his friends and then they all get their minds scrambled for a few minutes by some other Fury-hunters who work for a nefarious corporation called Dorfa. This is quickly reversed however, and the story starts to actually move forward somewhat with the introduction of Fleur, who can influence the tide of battle using her musical “muse” magic.
Despite this bizarre opening, the plot soon settles into a fun rhythm, guiding you between the various SRPG battles and providing both levity and emotional peaks throughout. It’s not the most original story, but it does the job and introduces plenty of new lore to the existing Fairy Fencer canon. Overall, it’s just very hit-or-miss. I feel like it was clearly written with series veterans in mind and likely to leave newbies bewildered and confused at first.
Arguably, it’s the individual characters who truly shine in this instalment, with some having distinctly interesting and meaningful arcs. I struggled to truly connect with Fang and the apparent “charming laziness” he displays, but others – such as the initial duo of muses and the Dorfa team – constantly entertained and made me wonder about their motivations.
The biggest change from previous titles is the battle system, which plays like an incredibly simplified homage to Disgaea. You move your characters around the grid-based map, can attack using a variety of different techniques and need to defeat your enemies: there’s not a huge amount more to it. Granted, you can also fuse with your Furies for a limited time, use special Avalanche group attacks and affect your allies’ effectiveness using the range passive bonuses offered by muses, but they do little but add set-dressing onto the expected features.
Don’t get me wrong, the systems and mechanics are fun and work well together. I particularly enjoyed the Fairize fusions and the limited transformations of my central cast, and the ramping power of muse abilities through increasing their range and intensity mid-fight did add another tactical consideration. Unfortunately, however, both the combat itself and the mission objectives quickly felt repetitive with very little mechanical progression after the initial introduction of muses.
Things fare better when it comes to character customisation. Whilst you can’t truly reconfigure characters into new class frameworks, you’re able to equip extra furies to them which affect their available skills and stats. I did enjoy fiddling about with them and modifying what each unit could do; even if I ended up sticking with similar combinations for the majority of the game. There’s almost an overabundance of sub-fairies to equip and I inevitably ended up focusing on levelling up a few specific ones.
Between missions, you can do pretty much everything you can in most Compile Heart titles. You can talk to various characters in the hub city, pick up additional missions from the pub and buy, sell and make items, but these interactions again just pushed me back to the combat. The character conversations were well written with less fan service than seen in other similar titles, and I definitely found more to like in reading through them than I usually do. I think the Fencer/Fury relationship has a lot to do with this, as it gives a unique dynamic to conversations not often seen elsewhere.
As you can probably imagine based on the title, Fairy Fencer F Refrain Chord’s plot is rather concerned with music as a theme. Thankfully the score and sound design reflect this and deliver some wonderful backing tracks to bop along to. It’s not a massively varied score – though you could argue that the muse songs contrast heavily with the other background music – but it never grew stale and provided much-needed emphasis to the overall experience.
Fairy Fencer F Refrain Chord graphically it’s everything you’d expect from this dev. Outside of battle you’ll find gorgeously designed character portraits with a lot of variety, plenty of cuteness and the occasional dash of fan service. In battle, you’ll find flashy animations over an otherwise simplistic style, but one which works well. It’s not all fully voiced and animated, but it does the job.
AA games are the ready meals of gaming – they’re not gourmet, but they’re a tasty, reasonably priced meal, and occasionally that’s all you want. Fairy Fencer F Refrain Chord fits this definition to a tee. It isn’t perfect by any means, but it’s reasonably paced, reasonably priced and delivers a bit of anime-flavoured goodness in the form of a TRPG. Whilst there are plenty of issues, there’s no one area which could be considered bad and it feels like a promising step forward for one of Compile’s more niche IPs. Whilst it’s not going to be for everyone, most players looking for a laid-back tactical experience will probably find something here to like.
Fairy Fencer F Refrain Chord Trailer
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