Did
you ever have a friend who insisted that every fairy tale was about something
deep, dark and depraved? Sure, he may have smelled bad and always wore the same
clothes, but his belief that Alice in Wonderland was about drugs and that Snow
White was a kinky love story made for some entertaining conversation. Enter
Fairytale Fights, a cheerful looking yet oddly demented side-scrolling beat-em-up
that sends several timeless literary icons out for blood, leaving nothing but a
trail of lollipop-coated body parts and countless mangled corpses lining the
yellow brick road behind them.
Fairytale Fights is set in a magical
kingdom overloaded by mythical creations and colorful characters. Things become
slightly less pleasant whenever two of these fellows cross paths, as the
civilized bliss of a fantastic world quickly devolves into a slaughterfest of
literary proportions. As either Snow White, Jack (of “And The Beanstalk” fame),
Little Red Riding Hood or the Naked Emperor (who is, in fact, very
naked), you must attempt to take back what’s left of your fairytale land by
liquefying thousands of armed, dangerous miscreants that are trying to slice and
dice you. Along the way, you’ll be reminded of whimsical childhood fables as you
carve Hansel and Gretel, the Pied Piper, a giant, a witch, an enormous beaver,
and even poor Pinocchio into itty bitty pieces, with each level taking place in
world inspired by these eternal tales.
All
of the hacking and slashing of Fairytale Fights is controlled via the right
analog stick, which also allows you to charge your moves and pull off a few
exploderiffic combos. Weapons occupy every floor, wall and table in these far
away lands, giving you instant access to everything from axes, swords, and
protractors to baseball bats, rakes, and shotguns. You can also build up a
special attack, which unleashes hyperactive fury on the unsuspecting baddies,
and can team up with up to three on-or-offline players to journey through the
22-chapter campaign cooperatively.
So
yeah, Fairytale Fights feels like an enjoyable jaunt at first, but playing it
for more than five minutes will make you realize that the game’s depth is as
thin as a piece of paper. The combat is simplistic to a fault, requiring that
you mash on the analog stick until your character is the only thing left
onscreen that isn’t dead. There are no upgrades or purchasable attacks, and the
differences between characters are barely noticeable. The 100+ available weapons
may seem like a lot at first, but when you realize that there’s no real
impactful difference between a pencil and a ratchet, they all begin to blend
together.
Making all of this worse is the fact that the combat is pretty much all you’ll
ever do. Each level is a mindless grind that sends endless waves of enemy clones
in your direction, with the only variation coming from boss fights and
platforming segments. Unfortunately, the platforming is very poorly executed, as
the fidgety controls never allow you to feel comfortable about your footing and
the traps that lay in your path seem too big to be bounded over. The boss fights
can be fairly grandiose in scale at times, but they still mostly involve you
running up to a character and bashing away without any need for cognitive
thought. It’s also worth mentioning that your character has infinite lives,
giving you little reason to block, time jumps, or take care when fighting
anything.
All
of this is (somehow) made even worse by the game’s bewilderingly distant
side-scrolling camera, as it feels as if you’re stuck watching these characters
through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. It’s clear that the developers
were trying to channel the LittleBigPlanet feel by pilfering its perspective,
but since this game is combat-focused, the pulled-back viewpoint makes each
battle look like a disorienting explosion of blood and weaponry. Making matters
worse, the game occasionally throws a close-up of your character’s finishing
move on-screen. When playing with other people, the frequency of these close-up
windows means that the screen is constantly being obscured by someone’s dirty
deeds, guaranteeing that your multiplayer sessions will eventually become a
discussion about how bored everyone involved is getting.
The
saddest part about the failures of this Fairytale is that developers really
nailed the graphics, bringing these classic characters to life in a unique,
charming way. The levels are all terrifically defined from a visual standpoint,
with traditional storybook locations like a town, forest, and castle tower all
being corrupted by maniacal saw traps and weapon-wielding animals. Also worth
noting is the blood, which realistically spurts and stains everything in a
perverse (yet delightful) fashion. Less successful are the characters–who look
charming enough but have no real personality or identity to speak of–and the
main menu–which is a confusing interactive mess that makes it difficult to do
anything game-related.
It’s
a shame that the gameplay just couldn’t keep up with the candy-coated visuals,
as Fairytale Fights would have been a fun romp through the delirious mind of a
twisted storyteller. Unfortunately, the nonstop repetition, poor controls, and
distant camera will keep those who buy it from living happily ever after. Well,
at least until they go buy something else.
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Gameplay:
4.0
The combat of
Fairytale Fights is too simplistic for its own good, as the monotony kicks in by
the time that you reach the first boss.
Graphics: 6.0
Saccharine
visuals that look like they were plucked from the illustrations of a storybook
and the most whimsically vibrant gore ever programmed to a disk go largely
unnoticed because the camera is so far away.
Sound: 6.0
Cheerful tunes
and the sounds of metal slicing through bone work pretty well. Sadly, the
characters don’t talk, and you’re never really given a reason to like them.
Difficulty: Easy
Dying means
little in Fairytale Fights, a good thing since you do it so often. The
platforming is awkward and the battles repetitive, as mashing the right analog
stick will get you through pretty much anything.
Concept: 6.0
The Shrek-like
twisted fairy tale setup could have lead to some enjoyable bloodletting, but the
simplicity of it all ruins it.
Multiplayer: 4.0
The entire
campaign can be played cooperatively with up to four players, as can the game’s
Deathmatch arena mode, but there aren’t many people playing and this doesn’t
deepen the combat at all.
Overall: 4.5
Fairytale Fights
could have been the next Castle Crashers, but its lack of depth and
overabundance of repetition shows that some tales are better left untold.
