Fairy Tail 2 Review – Let’s Protect Our Guild Together

One of the struggles with anime/manga games is delivering a satisfying experience. With some series exceeding even 1,000 chapters, that’s a lot of characters, situations, and story to cover. Games handle this a variety of ways, be it focusing on the key elements, opting for something set in the world, or simply attempt to tell the narrative. Fairy Tail went with the latter, but it fell short of the entire narrative. With the sequel taking place after the events of the first game, is it the experience fans have been waiting for, or were we better off with just one entry?

Fairy Tail 2 takes place immediately after the events of Fairy Tail. As a result, it’s incredibly difficult for a newcomer to step into this adventure. Gust tries to mitigate some of this with a robust encyclopedia, which is incredibly easy to access and contains generally helpful information, along with easing players into the next adventure. It’s honestly better than I expected it to be, though I’d still recommend playing the first game, or at least reading the first 400~ chapters of Fairy Tail before playing.

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With that out of the way, Fairy Tail 2 covers the final arc, Alvarez. Here the guild needs to defeat the Spriggan 12, deal with Zeref, and stop the evil dragon, Acnologia. It’s a lot to accomplish, so it’s nice to see Fairy Tail 2 give it the time it deserves. However, at the end of the day this is still the Alvarez arc.

Even if the arc itself is divisive, there are plenty of side stories, and other things to experience. It also helps that it’s a battle centric arc, meaning gameplay gets to do some heavy lifting.

Combat is deceptively simple. Players can use a basic attack, or opt for a variety of skills. Using a skill consumes SP, a resource generated by performing basic attacks. This give and take makes combat feel dynamic, something that is furthered by a variety of team attacks.

When certain conditions are met, like breaking an enemy, an option will appear for a team attack. These powerful attacks tend to be quite flashy, and help keep things fresh. It’s also nice that I can select either of the two active guild members to partner with me.

While combat features turn-based elements, there are also dynamic choices like the ability to block. An indicator will appear before enemies attack, allowing alert players the opportunity to mitigate some damage. Certain attacks can also be disrupted, along with having a variety of strengths and weaknesses to exploit.

This encourages players to actually think about team composition, and swapping between guild members to better handle a given situation. So if an enemy is weak to ice, I can swap to Gray and spam ice attacks. There are also a wide variety of upgrades that can be used to enhance skills, boost combat potential, or simply aid the team in staying alive.

Outside of combat is a wide world to explore. Unfortunately, it’s largely linear, though there are plenty of optional paths to explore. Fairy Tail 2 also makes it pretty simple by marking key information on the map. There might be a treasure chest, point of interest, optional quest, or just resources that can be used to aid my allies.

Despite having some of the mystery revealed, exploring is a lot of fun. Enemies appear on the overworld, can be attacked for an advantage, and actually react to the situation. For example, if the enemy can’t put up a fight it will choose to run away from me. I also love how quickly it shifts from overworld, to combat, and then back to overworld.

Another fun thing are camp fires. Finding these will allow players to experience several optional cutscenes. These are mostly fun side stories that show the guild interacting with one another. As characters level they will unlock new interactions, or continue their previous narrative.

Fairy Tail 2 Review Verdict

Editor’s Note: Fairy Tail 2 was reviewed on PlayStation 5, and a copy was provided to us for review purposes.