November 25 2009
Fairytale Fights.. $39.99 (360/PS3)
Released in October in time for Halloween, Fairytale Fights sought to bring an even darker look to famous fairytales which, through the years, have become fairly saccharine and accessible to kids. The tales didn't always convey all happy-Disney like stories, much like the Nursery Rhymes. I mean, did Jack fall down and break his crown? Well, not literally, but they had more meanings to them. Warner Brothers cartoons took that idea of "good for kids, and good for adults" and ran with it. Fairytale Fights, however, takes the route of "good for adults", as it takes the mild-mannered characters we know, and turn them into sociopathic homicidal crazy characters.
The object of the game is to bring Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Beanstalk Jack, and the Naked Emperor back into the spotlight, after being overshadowed by the Brave Little Tailor, who is "currently the hottest star in Taleville!" The old characters, you see, are the same-old, same-old batch of characters who have nothing new going on, and who have no new stories to be written about them.
The first level of the game is a tutorial level, and you'll learn about fighting, weapons, jumping, and collecting. One thing you'll notice is that it's pretty quiet, almost too quiet. The characters don't have voice to them, but there is lots of text and weird muttering language from the characters. It's a little disappointing, as these characters scream for a voice. There's a Naked Emperor walking around with a fig leaf on his privates, and wearing a crown- a character like that needs a voice. The weapon noises and slicing sounds sound great, but the sounds are limited, they could have used more variety in the sound department.
Like many platform games out there, Fairytale Fights requires a lot of collecting. The objects you collect are gems and treasures, which you will use to upgrade a statue being built to your greatness in Taleville- each upgrade to the statue gets increasingly expensive, and each level you progress through the game makes it increasingly difficult to hold on to the treasure you have collected through the level. It's a good thing that every time you visit the "Hub World" of Taleville, you deposit your treasures that you were able to finish the level with. If you go on to the next level, you won't lose what treasure you already have. Thank God, because there are some levels, like the stairwell leading up to the Candy Witch Boss Fight, which will try your patience. As you run away from liquid that is filling up the staircase, you have to run and jump on platforms to the top of the broken and falling apart stairwell. What makes this difficult is the inability to judge your jumps on some pieces, which will cause you to die often. I believe on this level I fell and died about 2 dozen times. With unlimited lives, this isn't a problem, but with limited treasure and losing lots of it each time you die, it will piss you off.
I'll say that every part of the game that is not a Boss Fight is enjoyable. The Boss Fights can be controller-smashing difficult. One of the battles I had with the Giant seemed impossible to accomplish without dying multiple times, and it feels like the camera may be the culprit of why I died so much, aside from the fact I might not be that good a player! The camera sometimes is a little too panned out for you to appreciate the graphics and the fighting going on, and will also get in the way of your judgment when it comes to jumping from platform to platform.
That's you in the center (above); where are you? (below)
Graphically, the game looks great. I'm not schooled on the Unreal Engine, but the game's cartoon style works perfectly with the subject matter. Both the player's characters and the enemies (NPCs), along with the background environment give the game an evil-cute atmosphere. While in Taleville, you can visit the Taxidermist and see all of the mounted heads of the creatures you have killed, which is sickeningly cool! You're own trophy wall for all of your kills! The most impressive design in the game is the Candy levels (above), they look great but are downright creepy, just watch the mounted cat heads as you walk past. They're not like the Resident Evil "dogs through windows", but they are disturbing.
Blood, it's what's with dinner.
Aside from the good old Ultra-Violence, the resulting blood spew is impressive! As you can see in the shot above, there is literally gallons of it in each character, and it liberally pours out all over everything- especially when you cut something in half. They call this "Real-Time Dynamic Slicing ‘codenamed salami-violence". There's even a brain floating around up there, which doesn't look gross it actually, well, it actually looks pretty tasty, like a gummy candy or something. Volumetric Liquid in the game allows blood and/or other spills to pool together when there is a mess, add on top of that the ability of your characters to slip and slide through the blood, there's a method to the madness of it all!
There are tons of weapons in the game, and they include the following categories: Blunt Weapons (candy cane, spatula, comb, pencil); Sharp Weapons (toad, scimitar, broken lollipop, many types of swords, a gnome); Bows (arrows, crossbows, slingshot); Guns (candy guns, a goose gun); Potions (grenades); Wands (acid wand, freeze wand). The blunt and sharp weapons are what I used the most because my aim is fairly bad with the bows, guns, and grenades. All told, the weapons range from the Cute & Useless, Harmful to Everybody, and to the Funny & Deadly and Silly & Murderous- and there are literally tons of them, not counting your bare hands or environmental cutting, squishing, exploding, and slamming hazards.
Hazardous
Controlling the weapons is assigned to the right mushroom stick, but it's not the usual right stick control of shooting towards the direction you're facing- different directions perform different moves (for instance, holding no weapon and pushing down would be head butt, with a weapon it would be a downward slash), and movement is set to the left stick. You can hold two weapons at once, which can be switched with the left bumper button, and weapons can be picked up with the right bumper button, or thrown with the right trigger.
If you want to add some fun to the game, Multiplayer is included. You can bring over 3 friends and play locally, or you can meet up with 3 friends online and go through a cooperative campaign or do a little Deathmatch action. One good feature is the Co-Op campaign's "drop in/ drop out", so you don't have to wait for somebody to join, or get booted when somebody leaves.
Overall, Fairytale Fights is an enjoyable game with some frustrating elements. The camera can prevent you from timing jumps, the characters have no voice to flesh out the character, and playing it can sometimes feel a little redundant. However, introducing a new IP in this day and age is difficult, and hopefully this points to a bigger and better Fairytale Fights 2. This game at its current price of $39.99 is a good price, and there is fun to be had in the game whether you're playing single or multiplayer. Playlogic has said that their will be additional playable characters and possible other DLC for the game. But be warned: there is a chance that this game will piss you off.
*Playlogic has provided us a reviewable copy of this game*
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