Fairytale Fights

Initially I was under the impression that Fairytale Fights to be a downloadable title and was a bit surprised when I learned it was a full price title. Not that a cute co-operative brawler can't be worth full retail price, it's just that most new games in this category have been digital downloads lately and the genre doesn't hold the same perceived value as your average AAA action titles.

Nevertheless I started playing Fairytale Fights with an open mind. I enjoyed the design, graphics and humorous setting where fairytale heroes had been robbed of their fame and had to reclaim it by butchering and bludgeoning everything in their way. So far all is well in Tragic Kingdom. By the way that's not my own lame Disney reference, it's what the world is called in Fairytale Fights. Making It's indicative of the humorous tone of the game that reminds me a bit of Rayman and his Raving Rabbid friends. I like the sound effects and the soothing music, although it gets a bit repetitive. It does however fit perfectly with the setting and characters.

Fairytale Fights is all about fighting, and pouring out the blood of your enemies across the screen. You fight with your right analogue stick, stringing together combos while equipping various weapons that lay around or get dropped by downed enemies. It's simple enough, but it's also easy to loose track of your character amidst all the enemies and your friends (co-op for up to four players). The camera isn't making it easier and the controls are somewhat imprecise when moving around. For most walk and brawl games this would present only a minor problem, but as there are plenty of platform jumping in Fairytale Fights this lack of precision and proper perspective is frustrating. There is no real penalty to dying (you loose coins that don't really buy you anything of value), but dying over and over again because of poor controls and camera is no fun at all.

There are plenty of different weapons in the game, more than a hundred in fact, but within each of the three categories (blunt, sharp, projectile) they play exactly the same. Of course some have different effects and there do various degrees of damage (the bird's nest is pretty weak, and so is the beaver), but overall they feel identical to each other. There are also potions you can throw at your enemies or gulp down. But since enemy behaviour is limited to swarming in (with melee weapons) or staying back (ranged weapons) it's not like the game forces you to employ any kind of tactics.

The game is fairly lengthy (the 22 chapters provide over 8 hours of gameplay from start to finish) considering the genre and as I said there is also four player co-operative play. That should mean it has a fairly decent lasting appeal, but as the game gets repetitive well within the first hour this is not the case. I never thought I could grow tired of bashing up Gingerbread Men in a Candy Castle, but when you walk through room after room with the same enemies, traps, and shortcomings, interrupted only by frequent loading you begin to feel as if the developers have used Halo's Library level as the blueprint for great level design. And you're not going to want to have your friends over to play this either or you will soon find your friends abandoning your game nights. It just feels pointless and shallow even if you will find yourself laughing quite a lot in between curses.

The repetitiveness of the walk and brawl could have been forgiven if there were some epic and memorable boss fights in between, but these are perhaps even worse. While there are sometimes moments of hilarious comedy as you beat a lumberjack with a fish, there is nothing funny with a glitchy giant beaver magically teleports as you are about to dish out a bit of punishment.

It feels like a kick straight to the gut that this novel and entertaining concept didn't get a better treatment. If this would have been a shorter more focused game with tighter controls, better boss fights and released as a digital download, Playlogic could have had a hit on their hands. As it stands now Fairytale Fights is heading straight for the bargain bin, and even at a lower price you would be best advised to stay away from it. I wouldn't call it a tragedy, as the comedy is actually one of the few noteworthy positives I took from the game. Instead it's just a missed opportunity that will have you bored within the hour.