Fairy Fencer F: Refrain Chord

Disclaimer: This review is written more than two years after completing the game. Also disclaimer: I still cherish the experience. In this alternative re-telling of Fairy Fencer F ADF, Fang gets to go look for more furies, that are magical swords. The catch? One of them accidentally gets broken, which leads the plot wildly off-track. That's the whole summary. Now let's start with the bad parts. The player is absolutely expected to fully clear Fairy Fencer F before even starting this game. It pretty much makes the game a sequel, that is not actually a sequel. The game has no english dub, which is a first. And it's an entirely different genre compared from the first title - the first one was a Neptunia-style dungeon explorer (which, to it's credit, had a sizeable degree of difficulty). This one is a grid-based turn-based strategy game, and it's pretty long too. And it's horribly expensive with no discount. And it has a bunch of new, questionable characters. Now, just one of those may be off-putting, but with all of those you can almost hear thrown tomatoes landing in our direction. So what does this game have to offer us to sit through all that? The gameplay, if you can enjoy slow…

Fairy Fencer F: Refrain Chord, developed by IDEA FACTORY, COMPILE HEART, and STING and published by Idea Factory International, takes a noticeably different direction from its predecessors by transforming the series into a tactical role-playing experience. Instead of building upon the turn-based structure of earlier entries, this installment shifts toward grid-based combat, emphasizing positioning, coordination, and planning. It’s a deliberate attempt to broaden the identity of the franchise while still retaining its core personality—colorful characters, anime-inspired storytelling, and a balance of humor and drama. The result is a game that feels both familiar and experimental, sometimes successfully blending its ideas, and other times revealing the friction between its old identity and its new structure. The narrative revisits Fang and his companions, placing them once again in a conflict shaped by divine forces and the power of Furies. While it does not strictly demand prior knowledge, the story clearly assumes some familiarity with the series, as it reintroduces characters and dynamics without extensive recontextualization. A major addition comes in the form of the Muses, char…

This is one of those times when I wish there was a third option between a positive and negative review. Fairy Fencer F: Refrain Chord is a game made only for fans of the series. If you're a fan of the series, you'll be able to overlook the boring combat system. Battles drag on for a long time due to the lengthy animations of the enemies and their considerable number. The story is still entertaining and makes you laugh like the classic FFF. I was a little disappointed when I found out that Refrain Chord is another timeline and not a true sequel to ADF. At least I hope they use Refrain Chord as the basis for the next Fairy Fencer, in the hope that CompileHeart decides to continue with this project. I recommend only buying this game on sale.

Solid 7.5/10 I am not normally a fan of the Fairy Fencer games, but there really aren't any good AAA titles being released. AAA titles are either $70 remakes that don't work, or they are price-gouging garbage, so I tried this one. This game is AA in my opinion, but its story got me. It is funny, cute, and kept me interested; at least so far. It was only $50, so I took a chance. And I was pleasantly surprised. This is the first Fairy Fencer game that I have ever really liked. The combat system is interesting, challenging, fun and the graphics are good too. Pros and Cons: Pros: 1. No crashing. No bugs so far. 2. Great graphics 3. Interested story 4. Challenging game play 5. Unique battle design 6. No price-gouging DLC 7. You can replay levels so it is not "so linear" as it could be. Cons: 1. No customization of characters. (ie... create your own characters like Disagaea etc..) 2. Is not free roam and kind of linear. All in all it is worth 50 bones and I would recommend checking this one out if you have had a bad experience with Fairy Fencer before. Best addition to the series yet imho.

It’s a turn based tactical strategy game based in the Fairy Fencer universe with a different, but familiar story and cast of characters. How is it? Good, for the most part. There are some downsides. For example, loading times are longer than they should be given the nature of the game. Maps are small and the graphics are stylish, not demanding. You can’t even tab away and let it load in the background. You can speed up animations, but not skip them, which means your more powerful attacks take up way too much time during your playthrough. Additionally, some of the achievements are rather grindy. Speaking of which, you don’t get enough FP to level more than one subfairy throughout the game without a lot of grinding. This means you basically have to stick with whatever you get first, or spend several hour grinding the new fairy up enough to be worth the upgrade. The crafting system is pointless, as I still have no idea where I need to grind to get certain materials. None of these are gamebreaking, but they all hurt the game enough that I would wait for a sale, even if you are a fan of the franchise and the genre.

Holy hell, SRPG was absolutely the wrong direction for this series. Iffy and Compa's games are never particularly good at the VN segments, the exploration segments, or the combat segments, but all of those pieces are usually decent enough to enjoy when you can float back and forth between them quickly and regularly. That's what I liked about Advent Dark Force. But in this, not only are there no areas/dungeons to explore anymore, but each battle consists of crawling across the battlefield 3 squares at a time. Here's the problem with that: If I spend too much time in combat, I start to notice that I'm mindlessly fighting the same enemies on the same maps with the same attacks without much animations over and over. If I spend too much time in VN segments, I start to notice that these are just the same portraits on the same backgrounds without even a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ CG to mix things up. After 6 years, this is somehow worse than Advent Dark Force in almost every way. I guess congrats for getting my money anyway.