 |
 |
|||||
 |
 |
|
|||
|
Farland Story FX |
|||||
|
Added 10.22.00 | Review by Kaze Kiri FX (Jake) |
|||||
|
If you're a fan of turn-based strategy, and you thought Der Langrisser FX was the only title for you on the PC-FX platform, it may surprise you to know that there is another worthwhile strategy game for the FX. The game I am speaking of is, of course, Farland Story FX. This game is a beautifully drawn turn-based strategy adventure. I think it's very visually appealing and well presented, with an overall smoothe feel to it. You'll get to see your characters march steadily across very nice looking scenario maps, and explore some creepy forests and dungeons. That's all great and everything, but the battles are unbelievable. You get to see SD versions of your characters beat the crap out of the enemies. The battle animation goes above and beyond what you would expect to see in a video game. The game's colorful cast of characters and their wacky assortment of attacks are really brought to life in vivid detail. The battle system is probably most similar to that of the Fire Emblem series, but you've really never seen anything like it before. The animation and sound effects make it a thrill to see your enemies defeated every time, and the characters' facial expressions for when they get hit are both cute and hilarious.
But don't let the zany-looking battles fool you, this is still a serious strategy game that will entertain the seasoned strategy fanatic as well as the uninitiated. The gameplay is pretty standard and very simplified, but there are still a lot of cool and inventive features that you'll encounter in the game. For instance, the spell that grants another character an extra turn is always good for stirring up some trouble. If you own an FX mouse, then you're really in for a treat. I love the mouse support in this game. The game is much faster and easier to play with a mouse than with a regular FX pad. Occasionally you can slip and accidentally attack the wrong enemy or heal the wrong character when using the mouse, but overall it works great. Just be a little careful when toggling around. Also, I think the game is more or less playable without any knowledge of Japanese. As in most turn-based strategy games, you can easily figure out the commands through experimentation. And since this game has very few main commands and is very straight-forward and simple, you should have no problems controlling the main actions of the game after a few minutes. The only problems I can foresee are equipping weapons, which may be just a little bit hard if you don't know what you're doing, and also parts where you are told to do something special through dialogue. For instance, there is one part where you need to hit a hidden switch on an island in the far corner of the map in order to open a castle gate. Things like that aren't very intuitive unless you know what the characters are saying. As I said before though, you can get by without knowing Japanese through most of the
The music is also pretty good. Pretty impressive actually. Better than you would expect. You may get a bit tired, though, of some tracks in the game that are repeated frequently. This game was made by TGL, a Japanese PC game developer that seems to have developed some cult popularity with their anime-style titles. There are many other games in the Farland Story and Farland Saga series, some of which can be found on other consoles. I'm pretty sure Farland Story FX is a remake of one of the existing PC titles, but I'm not sure which one. It would be almost impossible to talk about this game without making a comparison to Der Langrisser FX. I would like to do so now, briefly.
Der Langrisser FX is a great game, as are most of the games in the Langrisser series. The Langrisser games have a lot of depth and intricacies in the gameplay which make them very entertaining and addictive. Farland Story, on the other hand, is a bit more simple and slow. I think Farland's gameplay could be lacking a bit in depth, which may make it a bit boring to fans of Langrisser. Farland is also a lot less challenging. I had very little trouble getting through most of the game, save for a few parts. Farland also lacks the multiple paths and endings that Langrisser has, giving Farland much lower replay value. I played through it once, and have no desire to start over again. It was great, but I got my fill. There really isn't much I could do to make a second play through the game much different from the first. Still, Farland does have a lot of advantages over Langrisser. Langrisser, as fun as it may be, seems very sloppily put together when compared to Farland. Langrisser is buggy and jerky, and the sound effects are annoying. Farland on the other hand seems comparitively very smoothe and clean with great sound effects and few bugs. (The game did freeze on me once during a dialogue part.) I also think that less initiated players may find Farland, with it's much less scary-looking menus and simpler systems, to be much more inviting. While the hardcore strategy fan may find Farland Story FX to be a bit less thrilling than Langrisser and such, I think there are enough other great things in Farland Story FX to keep them happy. And if you've never played a turn-based strategy game, or even think you hate the whole genre, this could be the game that changes your mind. So in conclusion, I recommend this game to everyone. - Kaze Kiri FX (Jake) |
|||||
 |
|||||
|
|
|||||
