Fearless Fantasy Review

There’s a security option on most Android phones that allows you to set a swipe pattern you must complete every time you want to unlock your phone. It’s not a fun thing to do. It’s an extra step you take in the name of keeping your information secure—a necessary evil. The combat engine in Fearless Fantasy feels a lot like using a phone on which you have to repeat the swipe pattern every time you want to make a new call, send a new text, everything. In short, it’s kind of annoying.

This turn-based RPG sets itself apart from other games in its genre with this very combat system. For each action taken during combat, you have to complete a dexterity-based “gesture” in order to complete it. This usually means swiping or tapping a certain pattern at exactly the right moments. If you mess up too badly, your attack or spell will miss completely. If you hit your marks perfectly, you get a critical hit. Any performance in between determines how much damage you do.

Some may like how this combat engine removes the element of chance inherent in most RPG’s. Others, like myself, may find it simply another useless level of repetition. Completing the same sets of patterns over and over again becomes maddening. It’s a lot like if someone made a game entirely out of quick-time events.

The central element in RPG’s, traditionally speaking, is strategy. You chose how best to configure your party and each individual members’ skills, then react to the changing tides of combat. Adding this skill-based element just seems to get in the way of where the real action is.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much of a break from the frustrating combat engine, as Fearless Fantasy is pretty much all combat. Each battle is done in waves of four. If you lose, maybe because you got so bored with tapping a green circle on your phone for the umpteenth time that you started frantically swiping to try and get things to move along more quickly, then you have to start back at the beginning of the wave.

The art style of the game is interesting if a little disjointed. The monsters are vibrantly sketched with detailed and cartoonish faces, but the fairly standard look of the heroes you control makes them look as if they came from another game.

And that’s pretty much all there is to it. Fearless Fantasy focuses most of its energy on the combat system. It’s good to see developers trying out innovations for the Android platform, attempting to draw out the device’s unique features to distinguish it from other platforms, but sometimes these innovations simply fall short. Just because the touch screen is there doesn’t mean you have to use it.