Full disclosure: I hadn’t read or watched anything Fairy Tail until recently. After watching a few episodes of the anime … I still wasn’t a fan. Like many anime series, however, the IP seemingly would lend itself well to a video game. Then again, anime-to-video game adaptations have a mixed record of success, with Fairy Tail already having a disappointing foray into RPGs. Still, a pixelated roguelike boasting a bunch of characters with lots of different abilities seemed worth taking a chance on if it’s on offer. Enter Fairy Tail: Dungeons.
In short, Fairy Tail centers around a wizard guild called … Fairy Tail and said wizards going on quests (see, it’s basically an RPG). Fairy Tail: Dungeons starts with Natsu, one of the series’s main protagonists, and his cat-like pal Exceed Happy discovering that a dungeon has opened up underneath the guild hall. Another cat-like creature, Labi (this one wearing a cloak), says his partner has gone missing, and Natsu, being the adventuring type, takes up the quest. Unfortunately, the dungeon erases Natsu’s memories of his abilities. He’s essentially starting from scratch, though Labi says there might be ways to help Natsu unlock his mind and re-access those powerful skills.
Fairy Tail: Dungeons is a roguelike, leaning much more toward roguelite. You do standard roguelike things, like exploring branching paths, fighting enemies, and getting whisked back to the beginning when you inevitably die, once again stripped of your power. If there’s one thing Fairy Tail: Dungeons brings to the table, it’s taking traditional roguelike structures and Shonen-ifying them. Instead of traversing a series of lines and symbols, you explore a dungeon a floor at a time. The paths in practice aren’t much different from, say, Slay the Spire, but overall, Fairy Tail: Dungeons simply looks much cooler. Appearance isn’t everything, but it can be something, and dressing the environs up in a way that makes them feel more lived in and less mechanical goes a long way toward drawing in a player. You can only explore so many rooms on each floor before your lantern goes out, and when it does, it’s boss fight time.
There’s so much to play around with in Fairy Tail: Dungeons‘ progression system. Being a deckbuilding game means there’s much to consider in acquiring abilities and figuring out how best to put them to use. Runs in Fairy Tail: Dungeons are short, so part of the trick is quickly figuring out the best way to build out your character with the limited amount of stuff you find. In your travels, you pick up more powerful cards, lacrima to buy buffs, and single-use inventory items. There are also ways to remove weaker cards to make your deck more efficient. So, put it all together and beat the boss!
Combat is turn-based and quite Slay the Spire-like, though it has twists like more massive HP numbers to tear off enemies. Each turn, you get a hand of four cards and several action diamonds (typically three, though that can be expanded) representing how many actions you can play. These cards take the form of attacks, defense, and support, like boosts or healing. Early on, it’s easy to pick the best attacks in your hand and go. But the existence of magic chains might make you reconsider. Two cards are linked, and if you play them in succession, they get a boost, usually more damage, though they can have other effects like canceling enemy attacks. You can also redraw some or all of your hand at the low, low cost of a little HP. So, if you get one card in a magic chain, do you hold onto it to see if you can get its partner next turn or do all the damage you can now? There are more magic chains to unlock in the extensive progression system to give your ordinary cards a little more magic. When you’re down to your last few HP and try to hold out for that combo, it’s exhilarating when you get it and pick up the victory. But sometimes you lose, and that’s alright because that means you get to try something new. Combat is simple but incredibly tactical.
Though you start with only Natsu, other characters eventually show up with their own deck and skill grid. Each has a different specialty, and they require vastly different strategies for combat and building them out. Natsu has a balance of defense and straightforward offense, and another character focuses heavily on defense, so you have to learn your way around each. There’s quite a bit of variability in each run with Natsu alone, so that variety grows exponentially when trying out someone with a different style. Eventually, you encounter team battles, where you take multiple characters up against an enemy. These take the strategy to an even higher level, though by the time you reach them, your characters are so high-powered that they’ll breeze through these supposedly monumental challenges. Still, there’s plenty of meat to gorge yourself on in every aspect of Fairy Tail: Dungeons.
As there isn’t much in the way of Fairy Tail: Dungeons‘ story or dialogue to provide a fuller view of the characters, their combat style does some of the heavy lifting in showing off their personality. The characters’ attacks are drawn from details of Fairy Tail’s story, so presumably, those who are bigger fans than me would be more appreciative of that. In addition, while exploring, you can find other characters who so happen to be wandering around the dungeon, too, in essentially short cameos. It’s not too difficult to keep up with the small amount of story if you’re not familiar with Fairy Tail, but enthusiasts might have more fun spotting all the references.
If there’s a downside to Fairy Tail: Dungeons, it’s that the main story is such a short experience. I finished it in under six hours, and I probably could have squeezed it into five if I had played a couple of runs more intelligently. It’s also on the easy side, especially for a roguelike. Still, finishing the main content unlocks new difficulty levels with nastier enemies and bigger and badder cards to dispatch them with. The gameplay is robust enough that you could wring more fun out of it beyond the story.
I usually love pixel art of established IPs, and everything on display in Fairy Tail: Dungeons is absolutely gorgeous. The vibrant attacks add so much color to an otherwise static background. For such a drastic change in art style — rather than sticking with the typical anime look — this is about as good as it gets for visually adapting an anime to a video game. The music is also excellent, with an exciting battle track and a funky, bass-heavy tune for exploring. It’s not a huge risk, but kudos to the producers of Fairy Tail for allowing the developers to create a distinct yet faithful adaptation.
While I mostly stuck with mouse and keyboard, there is an option to play Fairy Tail: Dungeons with a controller. However, the developers got a little too clever with the controls, with each button being used to access a different interface element. It ends up being much more complicated than necessary when simply using the control stick to move a cursor — as expected — would have been so much more intuitive. Mouse and keyboard make for an extremely smooth experience for navigating everything, so I can’t see why anyone would want anything else.
It wouldn’t be wrong to label Fairy Tail: Dungeons as Baby’s First Roguelike, though that might be selling the surprisingly crunchy gameplay experience short. Veterans have plenty to dig into, even if they might ultimately breeze through it. It can also be an entertaining entry point into the niche roguelike genre, which can be an acquired taste. I wish there were more of it, so here’s hoping there will be someday.
