I am a lover of RPGs some are good, some are bad and some are decent but present a fair amount of issues. Don’t get me wrong, I truly love the deeply laid stories found in role-playing games but that is only half the pleasure of one. Ara Fell lives up to its title. Where someone falls down a hole. Now moving right along let’s get into the dynamics of this game. They give you an option of a story mode only which you can one-shot all the enemies you encounter in the game’s story. Something like this is, need I think.
A lot of the stories for role-playing games are what interests people in playing them.
However, as a traditionalist, I decided not to use this route and kept playing. Next up Ara Fell gave me the option to disable tutorials which I disabled but it was all a lie, a lie I tell you, lies!!!
I then spent the prologue getting mandatory tutorials so I could move on and it drove me absolutely insane, as did the issue with cut-scenes. Some cut-scenes were skip-able and others were mandatory and it never explained to you which ones are which.
Some wait for you to hit next so you can continue on with the story while others just kept fast forwarding through the text not even giving you a chance to really read what is going on there so for a person like me with dyslexia it was near impossible to figure out what is going on.
The game plays as an attempt to be funny during some scenes and, I feel it tries to get me to like the characters a bit more than I should have. Nothing really stood out to me except the beautiful design of Ara Fell. It made me feel reminiscent of classic Final Fantasy titles in terms of style.
Now for the music, when the game actually gave me music to listen to I thought it was kinda nice. Although albeit a bit buggy at times which killed most of the audio, I would generally hear from it. But the main issue I have with the game is how it tries very hard to make it self-stand out from all its RPG predecessors in terms of mechanics with a very in-depth crafting system and ATB battle system with unique skills and combat flow.
I know it may sound like an unfair comparison but Square-Enix wrote the book on what an RPG battle system should be for classic-themed RPGs. A [Active Time Battle] system can indeed work but if not clogged down with various other abilities, effects, and everything else.
The more basic battle system is the best battle system, if it’s made overly complicated, people will have a hard time enjoying it. Same with a crafting system in-depth in a simple RPG. It’s not needed, keeping it simple is one of the best things about classic RPGs. In a 3D environment, you should expect to see more complex things but in a 2D environment, it’s best to stay away from these things.
However, despite my quarrels with the mechanics of the game, the game remains very close to its true roots in terms of RPGs. After a while, the characters start to warm up to me, and the tone of the game with its light-hearted atmosphere remains enjoyable. In the end, it’s worth checking out, if you want something different from the rest.
An autistic gamer with opinions on games who also enjoys making dumb videos on the internet!