Dear Readers,
The sequel to one of my favourite RPGs of this generation has a demo that's just out! Thought I'd give it a go :)
It's one of those demos that's got 30 uses. It can also save data that can be transferred to the full version of the game so that's nice.
The CIRCLE logo appears on the top screen and SKIPMORE appears on the bottom screen on booting the game up.
The title screen has our heroine from the last game looking at a mystical looking castle in the distance, her hair blowing in the wind. Very cool :)
The game doesn't use the 3D effect, but it still has the massive font, which is something I just love :)
I am the heroine, who emerges from a cave in my non-heroine dress and a flower in my hair. A book told me to look for the three fairies who have gone missing.
One of the first new things I notice is I can cut grass like in Zelda, but in Fairune fashion I can just walk over patches of grass to cut it. Sometimes there's money.
The overworld music is a nice adventuresome tune like in the first game too.
Enemies don't attack me while I'm in my cute dress, just like the start of the first game too!
I activated a Mana plant with a Mana stone I found in the cave, and a way opened up. I wandered over there and saw the legendary sword that would presumably turn me into the heroine like in the first game, but I decided to wander around more.
I walked down into some sand and sunk down underground! Then I activated another plant and stepped in some rippling sand. I went down like I did above but then, my grave stone sprung up from it! Yikes! That was pretty funny to see!
Just like in the first game, there's a limbo-like place I appear in when I die and it has that white noise visual effect going on. There's also a slight spirally path I take to get back out to the living world.
I emerge in an area with a button that opens the way to the axe. It's very close to the start too.
I then go straight for the sword and become the heroine. The book gives some light tutorial. The walk-into-an-enemy combat from the first game is here and I still love it :) the recommended-enemy-to-defeat-depending-on-level indicator is carried over too, so that's also pretty sweet.
I level up from the blue Slimes quickly enough.
I shifted a rock and opened up a way to get a Faraway Memory, whatever that is. When I look at it, it's just a blank slate. The cave is all blue and glowy and has a nice mystical theme.
I go back in the underground sand cave. It has a more serious adventurey theme than the overworld but still pretty cool.
I tried killing a scorpion and did but... I got killed straight away too! Yikes! Best to stick with the Sand Gels for now!
When I appeared in the limbo place, a second gravestone appeared. The last game didn't have that... Is there a limit as to how many times I can die in this game?!
After defeating more Sand Gels for a level up, the next recommended enemy was the Trent. I saw some outside earlier, so I got out of the cave and away from those scorpions very quickly!
I defeated some Trents that were guarding an Axe, which I used to chop some dead trees for some logs and to make another path.
HP drains fast at a low level and there's a constant alarm sound which is unfortunate, so I gotta keep an eye on the HP level as I adventure.
After a while I found a hidden staircase behind a fairy statue and it led to one of those weird blue desktop computer caves like I saw from the last game too. I got an EXP boost here, which should come in very handy :)
I died again by falling down the rippling sand pool again. I ought to use the d-pad for situations like that...
When you die as a flower haired maiden, your gravestone appears with a flower on it! Nice bit of detail there :)
I found another sliding rock cave that had some kind of a golem in it. Its purpose is to fill in one of those rippling pools. I copped it almost immediately and lead it to fill in the way to the Earth Stone. Nice and intuitive :)
Next level up was Fungus, then the Sand Scorpion. Yay I can stand up to them without getting killed now :)
I went back to the sandy undergound. A hidden path led the way to a Sokoban-like puzzle and solving it rewarded me with a Storage Device.
I explored the overworld more and levelled up. The next recommended enemy was the Wasp. I needed more logs to build a bridge.
Clearing some long grass revealed a button, that made a pillar lower, which opened up a tasty shortcut back to the beginning.
I chopped another log and levelled up from Wasp to Dramos. I'll just name the levels after the corresponding recommended enemy from here on out.
Dramos are bulbous pink things with one eye and tiny little demon wings. There are a couple of nice statues of them by the waterfall with a nice rainbow too.
I got to explore a lot more of the sandy underground by stepping on a big sand patch full of Sand Scorpions. Found a spiral walking puzzle that opened a door to another Earth Stone.
More exploring on the surface uncovered another Earth Stone and a single suspicious sand patch dropped down to a platform with the Earth Ring. The book told me that I was now able to walk on the sand without falling! Yay!
But then, the book said that was the end of the demo! Argh! I didn't bother saving. I'll start it from the beginning another time.
It's still got that lovely simple and fast gameplay from the first Fairune and I love it :) Now I just need to wait for a chance to replenish eShop funds. I doubt it'll be before the current 20% discount runs out... I'll have to make do with the demo for a bit longer.
I wanna find more stuff in the demo! In the very room where I got the demo-ending Earth Ring, I saw a weird uncommon enemy. The last game had them too.
I wonder what money is used for? I'm trying to remember if the last game had it. I don't think it had a shop.
And yeah, Fairune is better than most RPGs and some Zeldas. It's just so fast and simple, making it suitable for a beginner and a fresh relieving breeze to a hardened veteran. There's nothing boring about it, although you can still get stuck on what to do next.
No comments:
Post a Comment