Fairy Bloom Freesia (WBW)

The parade of little girls begins.

Those familiar with Japan, and especially Japanese video games, know that they have a weird obsession with little girls over there.  I have, in my collection, at least five Japanese-made games where you play as a prepubescent girl off the top of my head.  Not by choice, mind you.  There are just that many.  It doesn't immediately ruin the game, but if you can't look past it, this bundle is not for you.

why

Fairy Bloom Freesia is one of said games.  You play as Freesia, an Anime Little Girl whose job is to defend the great tree from hooded weirdos.  It's a simple, unoriginal story, but what better to attach to a simple, unoriginal game?  Now, I'm not saying Fairy Bloom Freesia is bad.  It's not worth money, certainly.  But if you're gonna get it in a bundle, should you play it?  Let's find out.

The crux of the game is this: when you start the game, Freesia will appear in a small arena with a couple of floating platforms.  Enemies will fall from the sky.  Your goal is to beat them to death.  Then more enemies will fall.  Then you beat those to death, and so forth about ten times.  Then the level ends!  Then the second level is the same thing.  In fact, the entire game is the same thing.  There's enemy variation and some different backdrops, but once you've beaten the first level you're already very familiar with the game as a whole.

The fisticuffs never end.

To make things a little less boring, there's a combo system and a skill system.  And also a level system.  There are a lot of systems in play here.  The combo system is pretty much like any action fighting game.  You mash the attack button and Freesia will do some attacks in sequence.  You can hold directional buttons, do it in the air, or mix it up with some specials as the situation calls for it.  It makes things a little more interesting than having the game be Zelda 2: Arena, but not all that much.

Sometimes the fisticuffs are extreeeeeeme.

The skill system is the best part of the game.  As you kill enemies you get mana.  This mana isn't like mana in other games.  Here it's SP, Skill Points, AP, whatever you want to call it.  You spend mana on skills is what I'm saying.  Between levels you get the chance to save and to allocate and purchase skills.  Using your precious mana you can increase your arsenal of moves.  There are a lot of moves here, which is pretty impressive for such a budget-looking game.  Like so many other games, you'll be using skills by using a combination of the special button and a direction.  Think Smash Bros or Dungeon Fighter Online.

CATARACT AX

And finally, the level system.  Unlike the other two, this one is entirely automatic and just something that kind of happens as you play.  Killing enemies gives exp.  Exp gives you levels.  When you level up you'll get better stats (attack power, defense, etc,).  That's it.  You can also increase your stats by spending mana on passive abilities.  You can have two at any time, and...there you go.  The stat system, everybody.

I'll say this.  If the levels were actually levels and not just very small arenas, this game would be significantly better.  I loved Dungeon Fighter Online, and this had the potential to be everything DFO was and more.  Instead we got a tech demo from the late 90s.  But hey, you got it for more or less free in a bundle.  And if you didn't, that's just...really too bad.