FAIRY TAIL 2 brings fans back into the epic action of the climax of the original series, The Alvarez Empire Arc. Players will experience the events of the final chapter, reinvented as an RPG, and discover what happens after the final battle in the game’s new original story titled The Key of the Unknown. The title KOEI TECMO was the focus of our hands-on trial during gamescom 2024, where we could study its fundamental aspects while waiting to get our hands on the game, coming to PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Windows PC via Steam this winter.
FAIRY TAIL 2: welcome to the guild
Let’s start by talking about the playable characters: players will be able to control not only Natsu and Lucy but also other members of the FAIRY TAIL guild, to face their greatest enemy, Zeref, the Spriggan Emperor of the Alvarez Empire, protected by the Spriggan 12 and the Black Dragon, Acnologia.
We then have a new combat system, revamped from the past, with real-time battles: the battle system has been redesigned to offer more intense action, implementing real-time combat. The iconic attacks from the original work have been made more dynamic to maintain the fluidity and frenetic pace of the Alvarez Empire Arc. In particular, we were impressed by the following abilities:
- Break Gauge: each enemy will have a Break Gauge in addition to the health bar. “Breaking” these bars will be crucial to dominating combat.
- Action Gauge: regular attacks will fill an Action Gauge, which can be used to unleash more powerful attacks.
- Fairy Rank and combined attacks: players can increase the Fairy Rank level using SP to activate abilities. When the Fairy Rank is full, a powerful combined attack can be executed with one of the active characters. Breaking all of an enemy’s bars will allow for a Unison Raid, a combined attack that varies based on the characters in the team.
- Extreme Magic: the Fairy Rank Gauge allows access to powerful attacks called Extreme Magic, which require the support of secondary characters with different abilities. The more powerful the ability, the higher the Fairy Rank must be, and the longer the cooldown time will be.
A renewed JRPG experience
The concept of the RPG experience has also been renewed, starting with the progression system: the levelling system has been enhanced to offer more flexibility to fans. Each character has their Origin Tree, divided into three branches: Spirit, Skill, and Strength. Furthermore, present are Origin Points: by fighting, players automatically increase the Origin rank of characters and earn Origin Points, which can be used to improve their favourite characters’ Origin Trees. This allows unlocking new abilities, more powerful attacks, and customizing each character’s skills to fit their play style. Among other notable elements, there are character stories: in fact, after unlocking a certain number of abilities in the Origin Tree, players will automatically unlock the stories of the game’s original characters, which can be consulted through the Fairy Tail diaries available at campfires.
Noteworthy is also the presence of a seamless game map. Players can (almost) freely explore the Kingdom of Fiore, travelling through vast and diverse maps. During exploration, players can discover hidden treasures, activate side quests to help the kingdom’s inhabitants, light campfires to rest, and much more. In addition to being able to change the active members of the team at any time from the main menu, players can also change the main character during exploration. In short, we’re talking about a title that presents numerous novelties compared to its predecessor.
The title developed by Gust (a development team not new to creating anime/video game tie-ins) presents itself not only as a direct sequel to the game released in 2020 but as its extensive evolution, both in technical terms and, above all, in gameplay, which has been exponentially expanded and able to deliver an intense gaming experience that aligns well with the original series. However, our hands-on trial does not give us an idea of how “great” FAIRY TAIL 2 might be, but what we tested hands-on leaves us with a breath of optimism. It could turn out to be a genuinely interesting tie-in to play, especially for fans of the series!