Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force Review

Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force 

Genre: Adventure, JRPG, Turn-Based Combat
Developer: IDEA FACTORY, COMPILE HEART
Publisher: Idea Factory International
Release Date: 14 Feb, 2017

A remastered version of Fairy Fencer F, according to the blurb – although I have absolutely no idea how much difference this remaster has made because I never played the original. Graphically it’s not setting the world alight even now so… well that’s not really important.

What is important is me being able to use the word lewd in the following question: 

Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force seems like a fun, albeit grindy, JRPG but it isn’t too lewd is it? To which I would reply, 'No, it’s fine but hey – good for you taking the opportunity to use the word lewd, it doesn’t come up all that often.'

You play as Fang, which for an abrasive young man is about as inventive as calling the beautiful princess, “Cutie McPretty." Anyway, Fang and a bunch of other people need to collect swords – and in a little bit like an infinitely more stabby version of pokemon, they’ve gotta catch ‘em all. 

You're all sword collecting because in another dimension a good Goddess and an Evil God are suspended (and full of swords), frozen at the end of a climactic battle. Collect the swords in the 'real' world and you can use them to remove the swords in the God of your choice and bring love, peace and harmony or death, skulls and paper cuts to the everyone back home. 

Or you can do both - for funsies.

What this all really means however is that you go to a number of zones filled with monsters and turn-based battle the shit out of them until you fight a boss. In between times you get cutscenes and visual-novel style dialogues that start off utterly stupid but eventually start to tell a more interesting story.

So far then, so par for the course. 

With a lot of these games, it’s the bells and whistles around the gameplay loop that make or break it for you. How much do you enjoy the ‘special power’ animations? How much do you enjoy the music? Do the characters charm you or irritate you beyond measure? When all’s said and done, this is another entry in the decidedly lengthy list of JRPG titles that offer a predictable, decent if uninspired experience.

There is some boob jiggle for those of you who are looking for some lewdness, but little beyond that. You don’t have to worry about building relationships and romance although this does form parts of the multiple endings for the game. You can certainly get at least two playthroughs from the game since there is both a light and dark path to follow as well as a mixture.

I had a little mess around with the difficulty levels – and although there are people who are playing on Hard from the get go – I strongly suggest Normal is where the correct gameplay experience is found. The harder skill levels just seem to increase the likelihood of characters getting one-shot out of nowhere which is just very annoying.

So then, if you like jrpgs with humour, grinding for stuff, repeatedly watching the same attack animation and collecting endless pockets full of junk I think that you; like me; will enjoy playing Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force even though you might not have a good explanation as to why.


Hello! You may prefer to watch, rather than read, this review. If so, please click here. You will be taken to my YouTube channel - this video was completed before the change to RPG Revolution.