There's a comforting familiarity to Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition that lends the whole game a veneer of nostalgia. That's not just in terms of its debt to classic JRPGs – which, naturally, it has in spades – but also in its character writing, which conjures up memories of old-school webcomics, fanfiction and English-translated manga. Each to their own whether or not you take that as a negative point, but the fusion of earnest JRPG aesthetics with enthusiastic characterisation gave us pleasant flashbacks to the era of webrings and Tokyopop.
From the get-go, we were drawn into Ara Fell's world. It's a beautiful-looking thing, with a striking landscape of floating islands in bright blue skies. The locations are busy with wildlife and well-populated with NPCs. Even the underground environments glitter with mineral deposits and are enlivened by rushing water and beautiful vistas viewed through the cracks in the cavern walls. Of course, it's nothing that you haven't seen before, but we came to understand that really isn't the point. Ara Fell deals in clichés and familiar scenarios, yes, but it uses them gracefully to create an experience that's downright pleasant; a soothing balm in these extraordinarily troubled times.
It would be churlish to ignore the negative side of this kind of familiarity – repetition certainly rears its ugly head, with the combat a particular offender. It's very standard turn-based JRPG battling and never really amps up any kind of tension or sense of threat. Even on harder difficulties where a party wipe is a legitimate risk, you won't feel any particular excitement. That said, the combat is certainly friendly, seeming to take a cue from Zeboyd's (Cosmic Star Heroine, et al) titles with your health and mana recharging after each battle. Even on easier modes, though, even basic enemies from the beginning of the game can take up to three turns to defeat, which makes the combat drag even more. There's an option to play for the story only, which allows you to skip all the combat. We'd be tempted to recommend this, but if the aim of Ara Fell was to tell a story without intrusive pugilism, why include such lengthy battle sequences at all?
The storytelling, thankfully, works well. The characters are interesting examples of the archetypes they embody (protagonist Lita is your scrappy tomboy archer, Adrian your stoic tank swordsman, and so on) and their relationships are convincing in a way that a lot of games don't bother to portray. Lena's brittle impatience is a lot of fun and you really get a sense of immersion from the way she interacts with the world that's so familiar to her. There's plenty of lore and extraneous information to gather, but very little in the way of droning exposition. Exploration and investigating are rewarded with amusing interactions or interesting tidbits. A lot of care and attention has gone into the world and it shows very clearly that the developers truly cared about these characters.
The pixel art is terrific, adding another good reason to search every nook and cranny of the large and surprisingly open map. Every new area looks great and the character sprites are well-drawn and defined. There's also plenty of unnecessary, flavour-enhancing detail, such as the way Lita clambers in and out of water. It's only little things, but most RPGs we've played don't bother with these flourishes, so they stand out. Also rather outstanding is the music; it's stirring to the point of being downright emotional at times. Maybe we've all gone insane from self-isolation, but some of the tunes here put a lump in our throats. It's a terrific combination of atmospheric, rousing symphonies and joyously hummable melodies that's just a treat to listen to throughout.
Quests are taken on in a manner more reminiscent of western RPGs, small missions being picked up from NPCs who'll task Lita to acquire objects or play small minigames with them; these are of limited interest from a gameplay perspective, mostly taking the form of relatively generic fetch-quests, but they provide another incentive to interact with the populace, accruing new items and crafting materials as your prizes for helping out your townsfolk. Yes, indeed, there is a crafting system. But don't groan – it's pretty much harmless and materials are found in the field, keeping grinding to a minimum.
Conclusion
Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition is a difficult game to wholeheartedly recommend. JRPG veterans will likely fall into one of two camps – scornful of the game's simplistic mechanics, or appreciative of its polished take on very familiar genre tropes. For newcomers to this sort of game, it's a similar problem; the lack of complexity will either make the game pleasingly accessible or simply bore them. It's therefore best to consider whether or not you feel a JRPG can sustain itself on strong worldbuilding and characters, or if you feel that gameplay is king and without a meaty combat system there's just not enough to get your teeth into. For us, while Ara Fell is profoundly lovely in every aspect besides its gameplay; it is still a game, and it wouldn't have taken much more combat polish to turn this into an unequivocal recommendation. If you don't care about the combat, then it's easier to recommend.
Comments 27
Looks a bit too generic for me. I like a good JRPG but I'm pretty picky about them, need to have something interesting going on to draw me in.
Great review, any indication how long this game is? I can forgive repetitive combat but not once it steps over the 20-30hour mark.
Well it does certainly look pretty and downright spot on. I’m kind of tempted but the combat does not sound like it’s going to make playing it easy.
I may give this a shot though because I need something like this right now.
A 6 is good enough in a JRPG for me to consider a game. Sometimes I just want some simple comfort food.
Wow. Didn't know a thing about this one.
Great review, it convinced me to put my hands on this ! (I'm in the camp of those who like a good rpg for its characters, its visuals, its soundtrack and its story. I can totally do with a lame combat system if the rest is here.)
Thanks, NL Team !
Hmm good to know their is another rpg to try for 15 bucks
It certainly looks nice, but I think I've outgrown this kind of game.
If they were trying for a Octapath genre not sure how it compares but it looks like a OctaPath look alike to me. Now if they could make it also Physical I would buy to just collect it.
The graphics look a bit similar to those of Pier Solar which show those nice 16-Bit pixelated style sprites which to me is awesome. I'll take this over those flash style mobile looking RPGs that Kemco kept throwing at us.
@SwitchForce I'm pretty sure this game was around before we even knew Octopath Traveler was a thing.
This game should've gotten a 7. The OST is quite good for such game. Even better than some 1st party RPG without even proper music and just putting sounds and birds on background. This game should be also played at Expert difficulty. Because you will fight monsters that tougher to beat and you have to grind some items so you can CRAFT items and you can have better equipment by upgrading via CRAFT. I doubted this game, but it's quite good. This score doesn't really do justice here for the game. Try yourself out and you'll love it. And I hate games made from RPG maker, but this exception. Funny when I like a game this website always gives a low score and games are overrated gets almost like a 8 or 9.. well each his own
There's a wealth of JRPG options on the system at this point. I might have tried this very early on, when there were almost no good RPG games on the system, but there's so much to play now, and this would go down toward the bottom of the list.
@retro_player_77 Pier Solar was not a good game for me. It looked decent for a download exclusive but it’s boring to play.
This game caught my attention cause it hits just the right 16bit RPGs nostalgic notes for me. Sorry to hear combat drags a bit-- being under time constraints these days, I guess I'm not beyond the battle skip option when used sparingly, I suppose. In any case, I'll be waiting for a good sale or get it if it appears on GameFly, whichever occurs first for me. It'll stay on the backlog next to Shadows of Adam for now.
@SwitchForce The game originally launched in June of 2016, so it isn't taking inspiration.
I like the looks of this a lot, but I'm halfway through Dragon Quest XI, which is a candidate for top ten best JRPGs ever, and eagerly awaiting Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive, which was one of the greatest games on the Wii. There's just no time for a "pretty good" RPG right now.
@Bass_X0 I agree but as bad as Pier Solar is in the story and gameplay catergories the 16-Bit style visuals still are pretty nice. Not as great as many of the legendary 2D Super NES and Sega Saturn era RPGs were but it does had its charm.
@DockEllisD thanks. A good website to be aware of, especially as I am much more time poor these days so it's good to know what to expect.
There are so many great JRPGs to choose from, I find it hard to believe we need to settle for something like this.
That is, perhaps, not a true fault of this game. It's like going to an all you can eat buffet of all your favorite foods, but a person can only eat so much, even if they love everything on offer.
@DockEllisD Thanks for the info, man. So let's say it's something between 11-14 hours to my jrpg playing style, which sounds pretty good to me. I rarely try to go all completionist in this genre. If it's an action rpg, maybe
The 3 pros in the review summary are enough to me:
-Beautiful pixel-art
-Fun, memorable and well-written characters
-Rewards curiosity and exploration with strong lore
Boring combat will not put me off entirely if characters are well written, story is good and graphics are great
I am quite interested in this as it has great pixel art and actually looks like a game that would have came out late in the Snes lifetime or early PSone. The only thing that disappoints me about many of these modern takes on JRPGs is they don't really have a huge amount to do outside of the main game, side quests or post game, and that hurts them a bit paying full price. Cosmic Star Heroine being a prime example of that as with near enough every Kemco JRPG. Saying that I will pick the game up in the future but not at full price as it lack of depth means I'll probably only play through the story once.
Sometimes some mindless comfort food is okay. I'm playing through Breath of fire right now, and that's exactly what that is.
What a shame, i had high hopes for this one.
@Alucard83 Thanks for commenting; I don't think there's an enormous difference between a 6 and a 7, but I felt while Ara Fell was above average (hence 6!) the constant dull combat knocked it down for me. I thought I made it clear in the text that there was plenty of good stuff in the game, though. While using the combat skip would negate some of the issues, it would do so by simply removing a core part of the game, and I feel the score has to reflect that. Naturally, in the end, it's always each to their own, though!
Got to say it is a shame that people are taking this review as gospel and not buying Ara Fell because of it.
It is one of the best looking games I have played in years. I'm not huge on pixel art but this was stunning.
OST is outstanding, especially coming from a small team.
All the characters have very real personalities, something I almost always find missing in games.
The characters are pretty much all likeable. The story is brilliant. Yes, it isn't busting out a new standard for story telling but it is told perfectly all the same.
The combat. Are you serious? Dull combat? It was great fun.
Let's put this game in perspective.
Most turn based RPGs - Spam attack for about 3 hours. Sit through a damned stupid battle entry and exit animation everytime. Constant, forced, boring battles. This game if you get fed up, you can just cheat and clear the battle. I played this whole game practically insta killing field enemies, then just fighting boss characters. It was so good to be able to mostly dodge battles and then if I accidentally bumped I could just clear it in seconds and just do the big bosses. I have a busy life. I don't have time for hours of grinding.
Here are some examples for comparisson and why I give this game a straight 10/10.
Most RPG's annoying Wordsmiths turning 5 word sentances in to 25 words of dictionary swallowing, utter drivel, thinking it makes them sound clever.
Octopath - really boring dialogue and story.
Dragon Quest 11 - horrendous voice acting ugly characters and world.
Final Fantasy 9 - Worst characters in gaming history. Annoying rat, terrible Orko copy and irritating tin man and muddy, horrible graphics.
Final Fantasy 12 - naff Star Wars rip off.
Pokemon - appalling animations, graphics and general lazyness on all aspects of production.
Ni No Kuni - Fetch, fetch fetch, forced battle with shockingly long animation over and over.
BotW - Most over rated game of all time. Pathetic walking sim where the lead character's stamina is so poor he can barely manage walking.
Most RPG's totally unlikeable, unbelievable, immature, Hollywood like actors, dialogue and stories.
Ara fell - dodgy walking mechanic when you can accidentally over step. That is it. That is the only negative I can find.
Ara Fell is a wonderful game and so much fun and simply because those tiny little pixel sprites feel like real people, the world feels like a real and beautiful world, the story is told beautifully without smart arsed writing. I felt absorbed in amd connected to every bit of the game. Any other time I couldn't be any less interested in that type of story but I loved following this one.
I haven't finished it yet and I have rushed through many battles, so far I've clocked up 19 hours and it has been worth every penny I spent on it. I now class it as one of my favourite games ever.
I usually don't like menu turn based much as they just have so many issues making them boring, like the ones I mentioned above. I tend to prefer action, puzzle, strategy and adventure games (mostly RPG's) such as Ys, Valkyria Chronicles, Tales of, Zelda (proper ones, not BotW), Fire Emblem, so for me to even find a menu turn based RPG exciting is a miracle.
Now because of this game I have just ordered two other turn based games in hope I'll enjoy them as much as this. I haven't got high hopes.
Just now getting to really play this after Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and I’m digging it. Retro-inspired JRPG with a cool and sassy protagonist is something I can get behind. I like how you can level up your stats to your liking and also the option to reset them at any time. I would give this an 8/10.
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