Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition Reviews

Fun jrpg

Did I enjoy this game? I certainly did, but I wouldn't expect most people to play it the way I did. That said, it also seemed sort of flawed/incomplete to me - but a lot of this was definitely subjective, so other people would have different opinions on this. The good: the battle mechanics were the best part of the game for me. There are multiple ways to build your characters, and personally I played this as a "number go up: the game" power fantasy, where everyone had 100% crit rate, more than 50% evasion rate, etc. I'm sure that was not the intended way (rather, one character is meant to be the tank, another a healer, etc) - but the game didn't [i]prevent[/i] me from playing it that way, so mad props for that. The not so good: well, there are several things - nothing major or game-breaking, just stuff that stood out to me and added up after a while. The rest of this review is all a rant about minor things. The skill upgrades and class changes always require you to choose between 2 options [b]without[/b] having enough information - and the choice is permanent. This may not be immediately obvious, because the confirmation prompt is just "are you sure?" - which is exactly the same as what you get when assigning stat points, except that choice [b]is[/b] reversible! Hell, one class change happens upon entering an area and is then immediately followed by a boss battle, so you better be happy with the choice you made (with absolutely incomplete information) - or have some earlier saves handy. The plot is... ok. I did think that [b]three[/b] "oh, character A is actually a member of race X!!" reveals were so heavily telegraphed that at least one of them was bound to be a subversion, but nope, they just really were that obvious (and then one of these was actually done twice). More to the feeling of the game being incomplete - there are many houses, but many of them have nothing to interact with. Many bookshelves, but there are like 5 books in that whole world, I'm not even kidding - and you'll find them all in the starting town. Then it's extra funny when there are TWO places with libraries, and... yeah, they just have those same 5 books too. One quest had exactly ONE thing to do to complete it - defeat a character for a bounty. But for some reason, there's a dialog branch that goes like this: "oh, would you like to join me? Then you'll need a fitting outfit, come talk to me again when you have it". Naturally, this just creates confusion because [i]there is no such outfit or anything like it in the game, and you're just supposed to ignore that conversation and attack the character instead[/i]! And the only way to find that out was from a spoiler-marked answer from developers directly, here on Steam - apparently they did have thoughts to have more content/options later, but that never materialized... which is totally understandable, but again, developers leaving stubs and dead ends like that just made the game feel incomplete.

Man I really enjoyed this game. Would have played it sooner but unfortunately this game flew under my radar for a long time. Really enjoyed the story, the beautiful pixel art and the music which despite being a little repetitive throughout the game was still very nice and added a layer of wonder to this world and it's people. I'd love to see this game get a sequel one day, imo it absolutely deserves one. Great game, highly recommend. Especially to people who enjoy classic 16-32bit era J/RPG's to which this game pays much homage to.

I really wish there was a Mixed option for judging games, because I don't hate this game. Granted, I have no clue how I got Ara Fell in my Steam Library, much less the Enhanced Edition. Like other people have said in their reviews, Ara Fell is a classic JRPG with some modern changes to it. You play as Lita as she and her three companions try to save their floating land from dying. Let's start with what this game does that's fantastic. The amount of freedom you're allowed is wonderful: from having enemy encounters as enemies on the field that you can choose to avoid, the ability to swim and hop across ledges to new areas, and the extra options available once you master your artifacts. I felt encouraged to explore the world and gather the resources to upgrade my equipment before I had to even think about heading to the plot. During the end of Chapter 2, you get access to quests that can upgrade your team to one of two prestige classes. Both options are equally valid, and I could imagine different gameplay styles as a result. In addition, the ability to choose which skills to upgrade allows for you to focus on your favorite abilities. In addition, each teammate has an ultimate you can build up to in order to devastate your enemies. It's just a shame that, besides that, the combat is fairly boring. From my playthrough up to the finale of Chapter 2, most combat consisted of scanning enemies, taunting, then using AoE or strong attacks to kill opponents. Otherwise, it had the enemies moving before anyone else could and killing me in one hit. In addition, there's no real consequences after battle, as you automatically restore any missing HP and MP, and dying only gives you slight debuffs to stats. The story is painfully generic, and honestly the reason why I stopped playing. The four characters, Lita, Adrian, Seri, and Doren are passable in terms of being people united to save the world. The quests to unlock the prestige classes do unearth some extra background info for characters like Adrian and Seri, but there never was enough to feel anything for them. If someone's parents vanished, for instance, and that was connected to someone's class quest, you would think that it would be something brought up at least once before the quest in question, right? And even beyond the characters, the main story itself was predictable up to the end of Chapter 2. Is there a person who looks suspicious? Probably gonna betray you. Is the trusted advisor of the now sick king evil? Probably. The ride is a drag that was almost entirely kept together by ignoring the plot and entering the death hornet cave for some sick loot. Finally, the price tag is $5 too high, in my opinion. I know that is a touchy topic, especially when it comes to indie games like this, but I see it as comparison. is the gameplay as fun as Hollow Knight? Am I excited to keep playing like with West of Loathing? If this was a $10 game I would probably be more willing to recommend it to everyone, especially with what I did enjoy. I wanted to like this game, especially with all of the positive reviews it has, on top of several of my friends having it on their wishlist. But I can't, in good faith, recommend this game at full price, as I can't really bring myself to play any more of it. Maybe I'll come back to it a couple years from now, just like when I did when I first bought it. If you really want this game, wait for a sale.