Fairy Fencer F: Refrain Chord Reviews

Fairy Fencer F: Refrain Chord is an interesting one to me, so I am a big fang (pun intended) of the previous game/s but this is very different compared to them, for starters it's basically still the last game? But an alternate reality/take from the improved version of the first game (Dark advent) which is a big show of how they like alternate takes/routes to the games story, secondly it's a grid based tactical game in a bunch of various maps and finally it has a bunch of new cast and characters along with the new endings, it's fun, it takes some time to get to the meat of what strategy it can have and it's not absolutely amazing but it's still a fun time regardless and it's nice to see all the crew and their crazy antics again dood X3 Okay big review time! So the premise of the story hasn't changed all that much, get the furies revive the Goddess all that good stuff with the same ol characters as well as new this time around and something frankly crazy going on especially going by the start of the game which even by the end of the game you'll look back on and think there's something more to this but what dood? The gameplay as stated above is grid based, you get to use 6 characters each map, one is semi locked in and without them it's pretty much hard mode thanks to a new mechanic, that being song! This effects an area and gives players buffs, during the fights you can expand or buff the actual effect of the song as it goes on, you have physical skills, magic spells, all that usual gamey stuff for combat and more dood! So the more to start is you have fairies, much like the old game you can equip as sub fairies, equipping them lets you use their skills and passive effects ranging from spells your character wouldn't typically cast element wise, to buffs to those elements, more movement, more health ect ect but more than that there are skills that can be learned that anyone can equip, this really varies up combat and strategies, in fact allowing you really if you're finding a stage particularly hard, to do specific builds and maybe even really over power yourself in some regards, I know that I made one character an absolute monster by the end if not a smidge fragile dood. You also have the usual equipment but one in particular not only boosts the characters damage types but has effects based on where you are on the map in regards to other character positions, this further makes the strategy element more fun allowing you to boost critical chance rates, damages and defences and the like and you could really abuse the amount with a combination of one type, I used varied myself dood. Unless there's one or two locked to the other ending route, (because there's two lol) there are 6 songs which is real nice, there's also another aspect to the songs that I adore based on the opponents side but I won't spoil that surprise, you can turn the songs off too if you want to listen to the stage music instead though, I will say the game could benefit from being able to change what song plays with which effect though as one I particularly used pretty much every time sadly, even if it sounded great dood! The game has a side quests and a search function at some point which is an interesting mechanic in terms of what you can get and synthesis too which allows you to make some interesting stuff, the dialogue is great too and many laughs and great moments were had dood! But sadly I will say it does have it's flaws, for starters there's no dub, yeah yeah I know Japanese VA superior blah blah blah, I like both, the voice acting on this was great but I miss the English VA's a whole bunch, they are who I am used to so some peeps may find this game jarring at first, secondly enemies all aggro at once and if they know they are stronger than you? They will happily rush you, if not? Some will stay back to make you trudge all the way to them while reinforcements on free stages keep coming which is such a jerk move dood. XD Buff and debuff spells are a little bit too weak, sure they stack but the amount of MP and time it takes to make that worth it, even with multiple people casting it is just not worth it frankly compared to going on the offensive, granted some spells like accuracy boosting ones can really make a huge difference so they aren't all bad, then you have trap spells, great premise and idea but it suffers from the thing most games with an "Invisible" mechanic have and that's the AI knows it's there, you put a trap down between two people at the absolute edge of their attack range and it will always go to the other character, in fact the only way to get an enemy in a trap is to make sure you are the only unit in it's range and place it where it can hit you, meanwhile theirs despite being able to see where they are placed are invisible and easy to forget when they place so many, suffice to say it wasn't fun taking so much damage (which it's always a damage one) when they can just avoid it casually dood. Despite those flaws I mentioned, when you get all your skills both personal and ones you want to equip from levelled fairies, the game can turn into a fun strategy game where you can really wreck the opponent or even have some genuinely clutch fights that are fun, it could definitely have used some tweaking but it remains a fun game, I wouldn't pay top price for it but it does deserve a decent amount of money for what it is overall dood. Thank you as always for reading and hope you enjoy the game if you do buy it good readers dood ^-^7