Fairy Fencer F: Refrain Chord (2022)

The story is very bare bones, but it's interesting seeing how they move the pieces around to keep more characters alive and on your team than in the previous entry. The hidden-identity-villain who was very obviously one particular character has all but been confirmed to be that character. Battles are what they are, not too thrilling but not necessarily boring, either.

Where this shines the most so far is the cast. Even though it's all pretty same-sy and juvenile, I really do enjoy the characters and their interactions, and I can't help but feel attached. The voice acting (in Japanese only this go round) is excellent.

There are SO MANY side quests that amount to nothing more than some dialogue and yet another too-long fight I've barely advanced the story at all. These battles could be way shorter but they pad them with so many enemies with way too much HP.

One cool thing is both good and bad guys have what is essentially a bard on their teams. The enemy bard and the good bard have six different songs each. Each of these songs is an actual, recorded song, and a neat thing happens where if both are singing at the same time, the songs merge into a literal mashup. All the songs can mix with each other. So really, they recorded 6x6 songs. A fun little surprise, although perhaps the only thing unique in this title since I'm finding about 95% is recycled assets from the first title.

This is a curious one. It seems to take place in the setting of the first game, but Sherman is with you and Ethel and Pippin haven't joined you yet. Which is sad because I miss my boy Pippin!

You're still working to fulfill your mission and spoil Dorfa's, but they've inserted some new characters, good and bad, and added some twists. Interesting parallel world, but I'd have loved to see a true sequel.

The first title had very little to do, but you could at least explore dungeons. This has even less. This plays out very much like Vandal Hearts, just VN-style menuing around town and shop, with TBS battles in between story. Unlike Vandal Hearts, you can grind in extra battles if you want.

And that's it so far. I'm about three hours in.