Fairytale Fights

Once upon a time, in a land far away, Playlogic granted my wish and created a bright and cheerful fairytale land – that you run rampage through. Times have changed in the land of the fairy-tales and Snow White, Red Riding Hood, Jack (from the beanstalk) and the Naked Emperor are no longer given the kudos they once were. With the public’s attention turned elsewhere, they had the choice to give up and be nobodies or fight back for their fame. One catch, we all know a few massacres will get you far more noticed than a few good deeds for the church. It’s up to you to help them out the only way they know how – by doing good deeds that involve a good massacre on the way!

There are two ways a game like this could go – either dark and twisted or bright and colourful (which, let’s face it, makes it more twisted). Fairytale Fights has opted for the latter and so you  find yourself traversing a world that looks like LittleBigPlanet drawn in Paint. It is a side view 3D platformer with hack and slash fights along the way and whilst nothing is too complex in this game the fighting is very satisfying with the right analogue stick giving you 360 degree control on who to attack and where (a system Playlogic are calling “Salami violence”). You’ll meet many familiar faces along the way and there’s no shortage of ways to conduct your “fairytalicide” with over 140 weapons, including potions to damage, slow or enamour your opponent. Virtually every enemy you kill has  an RPG aspect to it by dropping jewels (more on that later) and weapons so the game is begging you to give every weapon a go. A handy symbol tells you if the weapon is a potion, blunt, sharp or ranged and with one button controlling weapon pickups and throws it is incredibly easy to throw a weapon and pick up another mid-fight. I learnt very quickly that if you can imagine it as a weapon then it’ll be in this game. My top three faves so far include the wooden chainsaw, branding iron (nice satisfying sizzle noise) and the beaver on a spit.

As you complete your tasks your gems go in the bank and amongst other things can be used to help build a giant statue of yourself in the town square (a calm central area where you can select missions, change character or just look up your stats for pretty much everything). Obviously, people aren’t going to forget you when they see you everyday! Although the town square is the one area you can’t cause havoc in it’s nice that your actions have no effect here. Throughout the quest levels you will come across enemies, wildlife and friendly innocents going about their everyday business. However, don’t let this stop you – if you want to kill off the cuddly rabbits and the housewives then go for it. It’s nice to cause mayhem without any fear of reprimand for once, and there’s even a separate statistic for “innocents killed”.

This game does go into slow-mo at numerous times during the quest and it feels to me like there should be QTE’s (quick time events) however, this is most likely a mixed blessing as I know the majority of gamers find these very Marmite, with some finding them an unnecessary nuisance and others finding them fun.

Due to the style of the game the platforming aspects, whilst not hard, can be very fiddly and I have died far more times throwing myself to my death than by any other means. Although your character has a shadow, (and as all platform fans know, watch the shadow not the character when jumping!) it’s not that dark and with only an option to affect the overall brightness of the game there’s little you can do to change this. The result is that only practice will make you an expert at this game, not past experience, but with instant respawn simply losing you some riches it’s no biggie if you do go for a plunge.

All four characters play the same, which is handy for co-op! You have the choice of going through quests with up to 3 friends (local or online) and also the option of Arena mode, in which you can play with the settings to your heart’s content until you pick the right terms for you. Again Arena mode can be local or online and 2-4 players. The aim? Quite obvious really…massacre your friends using the skills you’ve used in the game. Mindless blood-filled fun – great!

You may find it a bit bizarre that this game is a PEGI 16 but realistically the only way they’ve got away with that is the cartoony look. Don’t be deceived by the idea, this really is a bloody gory mess of a game in which everyone is a target. With trophies such as “slide x amount of feet on blood” and “spill 10,000 gallons of blood” this is not for the faint-hearted, but is, if you like this sort of thing, an easy to pick up barrel of laughs.


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3 responses to “Fairytale Fights”

  1. Dave G avatar
    Dave G

    I confess, I knew nothing about this game but I’m intrigued now…one I’m going to have to check out!

  2. MarkuzR avatar
    MarkuzR

    It’s like someone broke into my head and decided to make my dreams all Viva Pinata!! This may be worth a play or three 😀

  3. Hassan Neun avatar
    Hassan Neun

    Great information 🙂

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