Fae Tactics: The Girl Who Destroyed the World
Another indie title available on GamePass. My buddy Ryan actually wanted me to check this, even though he hadn’t played it yet. Hope this helps you make a decision!
Fae Tactics is a turn-based strategy game that has similar elements to other popular games of the same genre but it really does it’s own thing and stands out. It’s no mere clone, but more of a love-letter to those it takes inspiration from.
The game starts out following a cute pink haired character named Peony! Her design is great. Spunky, care-free, good natured and always getting herself neck-deep into trouble. Her companions Chico, an awesome doggo, and Payachin, a tiny bird healer, are your main party for the first few battles. As the story progresses you unlock a whole slew of interesting characters that all play completely different. Among them a boxing chicken and a bow-wielding centaur. You can even find some characters that I assume are optional such as a mechanically powered fairy and a oversized snack loving ice cat. Each character has three different weapons you have to search for an unlock over the course of mandatory or optional content. I found all but two weapons total in my playthrough, so they don’t make things too hard to unlock there.
The main story is split into four separate paths that can each be traversed separately. Some events may require others, but the game almost felt “open-world” in that I had the freedom to do events from each storyline independently and at my discretions. I found some hidden events that I believe the catalyst was using characters in battle to develop some sort of bond with them and the main character. Not too sure but I noticed some events pop up after I would use different characters in battle, and those events were related to opening up new weapons for said characters.
You can bring two characters besides Peony into battle. Outside of the main cast, you can summon “fae” creatures to aid you in battle, up to three. You unlock more of these as you defeat monsters, they leave behind talismans for you to summon a copy of them at a later date. You also have spells you can cast in battle, and those spells can make or break a strategy.
There are also free-battles that you can do at anytime. I only did a few of these, as grinding isn’t really required. The enemies scale with you every battle as the story moves on. There was an entire optional storyline revolving around hunting down these incredibly tough boss monsters that left me fuming, in a good way. They were very challenging and you really had to plan out an effective strategy. However, taking them down opened up really strong items that allowed your characters to get some bonuses that helped give you an edge in battle.
The graphics in this game were very pleasant to look at. However I do have some complaints. I wish that I could have rotated that battle fields so I could see around certain obstacles. It also feels like the native resolution was like 640p and it just stretched to my 65″ 4k TV leaving a little bit of a blurry look to it.
My biggest complaint is the amount of crashing, especially in some of the longer optional boss battles. I’d get one hour into taking this bad boy down and boom, crash. Very frustrating. I’d get crashes in battle, on the world map, in menus. All over. Not sure if those are frequent on the PC version, so it may be a porting issue.
Fae Tactics is a wonderful fresh take on the turn-based strategy RPG genre that poses some serious challenges. The team behind this did an excellent job world building and writing dialogue that kept me hooked and coming back for more!
