Fairune Collection

I do like this game but I'm not gonna lie, I kinda forgot how much this game angers me sometimes. Plot is that a girl travels the land, rescues fairies, and goes about saving the world somehow. Very minimalistic but straightforward throughout the main game, the sequel, and the prototype. Combat is just ramming into enemies and occasionally healing till you level up so you can repeat the process with other enemies while exploring further. If anything, the combat was added on to make the gameplay and the world less barren and wouldn't change much if it was removed. Exploration is all about giving the feeling of discovering something new and solving puzzles to open up new things. There are a variety of places to search and discover but I'm pretty sure this is the main issue this game becomes noticeable. While it does offer a good sense of exploration, said exploration gets annoying to figure out. as the game pretty much makes you figure it out on your own between where to go next, where is everything located, and hidden pathways that you probably wouldn't notice without consulting a guide, especially since these are required to progress through the game. You can't even place markers on the map and while I get that this game is a puzzle adventure, I feel like this game is all puzzle and just trying to figure out the order of where to go and what to do. It also doesn't help that dying, despite having zero penalty, has you walking back all the way from the starting point of the game to where you once were. Speaking of which, there is more backtracking in these games than you think, which makes the slow walking speed more noticeable. Music is okay for 8-bit style and the pixel art is not to bad. Its not a bad game collection all things considered as it offers a good exploration with puzzles with an old-school feeling to it, but the repetitive mechanics and vague puzzles can rub some people the wrong way sometimes.

Fairune is one of my favorite games of all time. It lives in the space between seeing where you need to go, and figuring out how the heck you're going to get there. That is my favorite place to be in a game. The entire game consists of you walking around the map and selecting items from your inventory. "Combat" is just you bumping into monsters. I love this. It allows monsters to be an obstacle without taking me out of that "How the heck am I supposed to get over there?" headspace. Navigation is the puzzle and the gameplay here. Yes the game is short. Fairune Origin is even shorter, but is just as lovely. I have yet to play Fairune 2 but I am looking forward to the new adventure.

It's good! Sort of a Hydlide-like without the frustration. In this way, it feels like a modern reimagining of a Hydlide era pre-FF/pre-DQ JRPG with some Zelda-like adventure and minimal hand-holding. Only complete the first game in the series as of now, but may return to this review after.