Fairytale Fights Review
It's not often that games use Fairytales as a medium for their storytelling, but that's exactly what Playlogic has done with their latest title, Fairytale Fights. Instead of looking at the nicer side of children's stories, the game proposes a more frank and brutal interpretation which sees Little Red Riding Hood quite happily wielding a knife instead of her wicker basket. It all sounds rather surreal and that's because it is.
In a shock turn of events, the Fairytale Kingdom's more well known characters have had their fairytale status revoked by the actions of a new hero. He has an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time, and it's made the general public ignore the efforts of their past heroes. Players take control of selected Fairytale characters as they attempt to regain the public's favour and restore their fame.
It's actually a surprisingly good premise, and the game's very adult theme makes it actually quite fun, if only because of its slightly sadistic nature. Snow White loses her fame because the glass casket she's in shatters, causing the surrounding spectators to get shards of glass in their eyes and that's just the start of the game's violence. Although none of the characters ever actually speak, the cutscenes are definitely one of the highlights of the game. They really help to convey how the characters are feeling, while showing off some over the top theatrics at the same time.
The gameplay, unfortunately, isn't one of the game's highlights though. It's essentially a hack 'n slash affair and combat is controlled solely by the right analogue stick. Players face the direction they wish to attack and press the stick in any direction to attack where they are facing. Pressing in different directions will perform slightly different moves, but generally the best tactic is to twiddle it around all over the place for maximum effect. Only being able to attack in one plane without correcting it might not sound like much of a problem, but later on, when surrounded by a group of enemies, it can become extremely frustrating. Once a combo is started, the character moves in that direction, and when surrounded it's actually quite difficult to determine the direction attacks will go in. It's also very possible to just fly off the edge of the level because a combo can't be stopped and this could easily have been averted by putting barriers up. Fortunately these problems don't arise when using guns, as the direction of the right analogue stick denotes where the gun will fire, but guns are rarely featured in the game and actually hitting something is still quite difficult due to the weird depth perception.
The combat is still quite fun, although it does get tedious after a while, especially when unarmed. Using weapons helps to give a bit of diversity, as there are lots of different types, although they all fall into four categories: sharp, blunt, guns and throwing items. Using sharp objects is generally the most effective way to dispatch enemies, as it causes them to be dismembered and every time this happens, the screen shows it blow-up next to the action. It's nice, to start off with, but when the combat gets more frantic it can get in the way of the action, leading to deaths from un-seen assailants. Sometimes there are sections where no weapons are available, or the player has died holding the only weapon causing it to be lost, and they are left to fight with their hands. These sections are probably the most boring as it's so slow - especially against hordes of enemies.
