Fearless Fantasy Review

When a kindly bounty hunter gets a call from a damsel in distress, his simple job takes an interesting turn when the damsel in question turns out to be escaping from an arranged marriage to an evil lord who wants his bride-to-be back at any cost. And so sets up the premise of Fearless Fantasy, an original take on RPG gameplay from innovative developers TinyBuild.

Fearless Fantasy is no run-of-the-mill RPG, though, as one might expect from the team who brought you original gems such as superhero chase 'em up Speed Runners and the downright bonkers No Time To Explain. With a story that's instantly engaging with a personal sense of humour from the creators, coupled with neat artwork and animations through which it is told, what takes centre stage here is the battle system itself.

Whether attacking or defending, battles are fought using a unique interface which tests your dexterity through mouse control. Simple attacks require you to glide the cursor through a couple of arrows, rewarding speed and accuracy with stronger, 'epic' attacks, whereas special attacks or spellcasting involves speedy swipes through multi-directional arrows, timed swipes through three separate arrows as they converge into one, or snaking the pointer through wavy lines. They all take time to master, and give the player a real sense of accomplishment when they land a successful hit, a notion rarely gleaned from a turn-based role player.

Once your turn is over, there's no real time to sit back and relax, as the enemies instantly unleash their attempts at knocking you into the afterlife, and without warning you are required to line up and swipe through their attacks. I've never experienced such instant gratification and infuriation through a turn-based system that has so directly involved the player, and it is a fantastic accomplishment for TinyBuild to inject new life into a system that rarely sees much variation.

It's not without its flaws, as there are a fair few times where your cursor clearly swipes through the arrows but fails to register, completely screwing up your strategy or getting you unjustly pummeled. As this is the linchpin to the game's very being, simple errors like this really are a detriment to an otherwise excellent piece of gameplay. Also, don't bother trying to play Fearless Fantasy on a laptop touchpad – you will find your finger constantly leaving the touchpad and gliding off elsewhere, and the speed at which you are required to complete or line-up your attacks or defences are too much for it to handle. This game is for a mouse, and mouse only.

As with the battle system, the game's story is a breath of fresh air, not so much in the tale it tells itself, but more in the way it is told. Voice acting, while it won't win any Golden Joystick awards, is upbeat and you can hear real character and emotions behind the animations. You can sit back and enjoy protagonist Leon's sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek view on the world and his own personal situation, and find feisty would-be bride Alice sickly sweet. Hand drawn, quasi-sepia pictures weave together to animate a sweet, charming cast who help paint a beautiful world despite its lack of colour or detail. Cutscenes are short, but purposefully so. Fearless Fantasy manages to condense a full RPG's worth of story into a short series of bitesize chunks that pin each level together in a nicely concise way. It's an ideal game for those who love RPGs but don't have 50+ hours to invest in such a game. It's a bare-bones RPG, and each level doesn't take too long to plough through, but once all is said and done you feel you've traipsed through a mini Final Fantasy or Grandia.

The artwork for the monsters you fight is another attractive feature, if a little too bizarre for the world in which they belong. Enemies are superbly drawn, rendered and animated, but look nuts. One moment you're fighting a sinister-looking tree, the next you'll be taking on giant bees, saucepans or multi-limbed beasts with heads on each appendage. Think evil Disney characters circa 1950 having the bastard children of Tim Burton.

With such a (relatively) short RPG, the shortfall comes in the menu system, but by no means is it an oversight on behalf of the developers per se. You get the usual levelling up, stat buffs, extra skills, item, weapon and accessory upgrades that can be bought with either points acquired during each levelling stage, or money. Each stat that increases or skill gained bears a gradual increase to your battling, but it is by no means intricate. The biggest decision you need to make is whether to spend whatever points or money on something either now or later, as you can pretty much have everything you want if you're willing to replay the same waves of monsters before progressing through the campaign.

Fearless Fantasy is a decent little game. It presents a dichotomy between standard and bitesize role-playing; it is short but epic, artistry is beautiful yet purposefully bland; gameplay mechanisms are unique yet familiar. Most of what's on offer gels very well together, despite a few nagging drawbacks with the integral part of the battle system mechanic. A compact adventure with a focus on turn-based skill, a notion as unique as the whole game itself. A deserved hit, Fearless Fantasy offers a lot in its little package – a must-have for those with a penchant for RPGs after a bit of rough-and-tumble rather than a long term commitment.