Wayback in 2009, I started watching this new anime series called Fairy Tail, the books were doing well enough for a series and I thought it looked cool. Now here we are 15 years later and still enjoying the adventures of Natsu, Lucy, Grey and the rest of the Fairy Tail guild. Koei Tecmo invited me to go hands on with a build of the game and I came away impressed with just how much the team have improved from the first game to now.

What is the biggest change?

There are really 3 major changes to this game over the first, which we reviewed back in the dark times. The change that I was most keen to check out was the world, which was somewhat interesting in the first game, here though its gone open world. This isn’t just hyperbole, you can now run from the front of the guild all the way to Hargeon Town, just be aware of all the beasts and enemies in the way. The only way you will know that you have moved into a new region is that the map itself has updated in the menu, beyond that it is seamless.

Beyond the open world, combat has been overhauled, losing the grid based system of the original game. Battles still require a little thought, but they are more like traditional RPGs instead. When you enter into a fight, you can choose which enemy to target and then do basic attacks, before unleashing a more powerful option. Those options will have indicators for their damage range, like AOE or multi-target and depending on where you are aiming, you can hit many at once. There is much more to combat, but I will dive into that further down.

The last major change to the game is now its fully voiced, which is something that was lacking the first time around. Now characters will have conversations, with an actual voice and when you are not in a cutscene, the translation from their Japanese speech appears on the screen, something that did not happen before. I can’t begin to tell you just how much more alive the game feels, when everyone on screen actually has a voice

You mentioned combat changes, what is new?

What isn’t new is a better question, the game has really gone and changed everything. Of course, the major change is that the game has dropped the grid system that the first game used, meaning battles feel a little more action orientated. From what was described ahead of my time with the game, I had thought the battles would be more free roaming, letting you run around, but you are pretty much locked in place. This could change later in the game, but in the time I had with the game, your place was set and you only moved to attack or if you got hit. So how does one attack, well there are two methods, you can mash the regular attack button or unleash special attacks, the latter of which all have a cost. In the middle of the attack names is a circle, once it is full you can attack, the moment you do it starts to empty and you have to wait again.

In order to unleash the more powerful attacks, you need energy and you get it by doing basic attacks, but as each special can have different costs associated with them, you need to balance basic against those specials. As you land attacks, of both kinds, a Fairy Attack meter fills, once it does you can chain attacks between yourself and another member of your party, dealing out even more damage. Finally, if your attack breaks the enemies guard, you can trigger an epic Fairy Attack and really let them have it. There are even more meters, some for summons of allies, some of unleashing powerful forms of characters, think Wendy and her Sky Dragon form. If all that was not enough for you, enemies also have weaknesses to elements, meaning if someone is weak to Lightening, then having Laxus out would be helpful over Mirajane.

Ok, so combat has a lot going on, but what about the world itself?

From what I had access to, I can’t say anything about the full world, but there is a good mix of combat encounters and things to locate in the world. As you explore, you will also discover people who are in need of aid from you, as they lost things as they escaped the invading arm of the Alvarez Empire. Most of the quests I was given when I spoke with folks was just to for medical supplies, which I usually had on hand, but others required me to go find things or fight things.

Scattered across the world are campfires, which act as safe zones for you, letting you rest up and there is usually a merchant near them as well. When you sit down at one, you can experience little stories that contain selected characters, these are not needed, or at least they were not in my time, in order to progress the game but they do serve as a nice break from the constant fighting. The campfires are also where you can send the duplicated Plue back, which get your rewards for your effort.

Right, so there is a good amount of things in the world and a lot of combat, what didn’t you like?

So in the release I had access to, I fought a number of bosses and one of them was said to be weak against one element I had in my party, so I swapped them out and just keep hitting them with an attack that used that element. The problem is that I got the system backwards, they were not weak to those attacks, those attacks were weak when used against them, so my super powerful attacks were barely doing anything. The game didn’t mention a thing to me, it just let me spend almost 10 minutes mashing attack and repeating the same attacks over and over again, so yeah that was not fun.

The other thing that concerns me right now is that the world might not have enough to do, outside of fighting and it could become an issue. The world is large, just looking at the map will showcase that, but apart from some overlook viewpoints, most of it is just filled with creatures or soldiers to fight. I am not saying that I need a Mario Kart or Party thrown in the mix, but I do hope there is more to do in other parts of the world. One final thing that bothers me, the game for some reason doesn’t let me turn off the button prompts in cutscenes, I get the glossary so folks can know who is who, but them always being on is weird.

With all that, where does your excitement fall?

Honestly, I am pretty excited for the games full release. There is a lot going on here that dramatically improves the game from the first one and that alone would be enough. Having the all the characters actually speak all their lines is something that makes the game feel alive and with the auto-play enabled, just feels like you are watching the anime.

The game will release on December 13th for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. The PC release will happen on December 12th. If you want to know more about the game, we had the chance to ask Kataoka-san, the games Producer about it.